Peanut Butter and Evangelism

Recently the media has issued the follow warning: Shoppers prepare yourselves, the price of peanut butter is going up ... way up!"  And when they say "way up" the media is not in this case guilty of overhype. J.M. Smucker Co. which makes Jiff peanut butter has announced a 30% increase. Other pb makers have also announce planned increases ... some as high as 40%. What does this mean for the average consumer? According to the National Peanut Board based in Atlanta, this cost increase will add about 4 cents to the cost of a pb and jelly sandwich. Now that might not sound like much ... but when you take into account the fact that Americans eat enough pb each year to make approximately 10 billion pb and jelly sandwiches ... that 4 cents adds up ... to a total of $400 million!  Wow!  That's a pile of money that could be spent on other things!

Why the increase? Simply put it's Economics 101. The supply of peanuts is down (due to the drought in the American South) while the demand is up. That equals higher prices!  Now since I LOVE my peanut butter giving it up is not an option. So I plan to spread it on a bit more thin. Perhaps with this strategy I can keep my increase to just a penny a sandwich! All this to say ... this painful-to-my-wallet jack in the price of pb is due to a lousy harvest!

Just the other day as I was reading through the gospel of Matthew, I came across a verse in which Jesus talks about a harvest. But he was not talking about a harvest of peanuts. Here is what he said, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest" (Matthew 13:37-38). The harvest he was referencing was the harvest of souls. Note he calls it "plentiful." So there is a lot of harvesting to be done ... but the problem is that there are not enough workers to do the harvesting! So he urges us to pray that the Lord Himself would send workers out into the harvest. So ... let's pray ... and let's also be part of the answer to this prayer. As we go through our routine, let's do our best to point people to Jesus Christ! 


Thanks for stopping by . . . 
pj