There are two ways of treating the seed.  The botanist splits it up, and discourses on its curious characteristics; the simple husbandman eats and sows; sows and eats.  Similarly there are two ways of treating the gospel.  A critic dissects it, raises a mountain of debate about the structure of the whole, and relation of its parts; and when he is done with his argument, he is done; to him the letter is dead; he neither lives on it himself, nor spreads it for the good of his neighbors; he neither eats nor sows.  The disciple of Jesus, hungering for righteousness, takes the seed whole; it is bread for today’s hunger, and seed for tomorrow’s supply. – W. Arnot

excerpt from Spurgeon’s Sermon Illustrations. ed. by David Fuller. pg. 100.