Soil

Luke 8

Luke 8:4–8 ESV

And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Before I became a full time minister that now dedicates much time into the study of theology I studied biology and my area of focus in this was soils. Soil is such an interesting thing and it has so many large effects on all ecosystems. You can ask gardeners, biologist, and farmers about the importance of soil and most will be able to tell you just how important it is.

In this parable the soil represents us and our hearts. The seed is the gospel. When the gospel is shared to a hard heart it does not take root. Sometimes it seems to take root but in actuality is was shallow and we don’t take care of it. Other times the people that we are around choke it out before it has opportunity. When we accept Christ though and are changed by the gospel it fell among the good soil.

This parable is a good one to remember when we think about sharing the gospel. We sow and allow God to prepare the soil. Most of the time we will stumble upon all of the soils that are not prepared but it is not our place to judge the soil we are to just sow the seeds of the gospel. Sometimes we will sow the seeds of the gospel into a heart that God has prepared to receive it and there salvation will be found.