Parable
Sower
IN this parable Jesus used a picture that all his hearers would recognize. It is in fact quite likely that he was looking at some sower sowing his seed as he spoke.
The parable speaks of four kinds of ground.
(1) The common ground in Palestine was split into long narrow strips; between the strips there were paths which were rights of way; when the seed fell on these paths, which were beaten as hard as the road, it had no chance of getting in.
(2) There was the rocky ground. This does not mean ground that was full of stones but ground which was only a thin skin of earth over a shelf of limestone rock. In such ground there was no moisture or nourishment, and the growing plant was bound to wither and die.
(3) The ground which was full of thorns was ground which at the moment looked clean enough. It is possible to make any bit of ground look clean simply by turning it over. But the seeds of the weeds and the fibrous roots of the wild grasses had been left in it. The good seed and the weeds grew together, but the weeds grew more strongly; and so the life was choked out of the good seed.
(4) The good ground was ground that was deep and clean and well prepared.
Verses 9 and 10 have always been puzzling. It sounds as if Jesus is saying that he spoke in parables so that people would not be able to understand; but we cannot believe he would deliberately cloak his meaning from his listeners. Various explanations have been suggested.
(1) Matthew 13:13 puts it slightly differently. He says that Jesus spoke in parables because people could not rightly see and understand. Matthew seems to say that it was not to hinder people from seeing and understanding but to help them that Jesus so spoke.
(2) Matthew quotes immediately after this a saying of Isaiah 6:9, 10, which in effect says, ‘I have spoken to them the word of God and the only result is that they have not understood a word of it.’ So then the saying of Jesus may indicate not the object of his teaching in parables but the result of it.
(3) What Jesus really meant is this—people can become so dull and heavy and blunted in mind that when God’s truth comes to them they cannot see it. It is not God’s fault. They have become so mentally lazy, so blinded by prejudice, so unwilling to see anything they do not want to see, that they have become incapable of assimilating God’s truth.
There are two interpretations of this parable.
(1) It is suggested that it means that the fate of the word of God depends on the heart into which it is sown.
(a) The hard path represents the shut mind, the mind which refuses to take it in.
(b) The shallow ground represents those who accept the word but who never think it out and never realize its consequences and who therefore collapse when the strain comes.
(c) The thorny ground stands for those whose lives are so busy that the things of God get crowded out. We must always remember that the things which crowd out the highest need not necessarily be bad. The worst enemy of the best is the second best.
(d) The good ground stands for the good hearer. Good hearers do three things. First, they listen attentively. Second, they keep what they hear in their minds and hearts and think over it until they discover its meaning for themselves. Third, they act upon it. They translate what they have heard into action.
(2) It is suggested that the parable is really a counsel against despair. Think of the situation. Jesus has been banished from the synagogues. The scribes and the Pharisees and the religious leaders are up against him. Inevitably the disciples would be disheartened. It is to them Jesus speaks this parable and in it he is saying, ‘Every farmer knows that some of his seed will be lost; it cannot all grow. But that does not discourage him or make him stop sowing because he knows that, in spite of all, the harvest is sure. I know we have our setbacks and our discouragements; I know we have our enemies and our opponents; but, never despair, in the end the harvest is sure.’
This parable can be both a warning as to how we hear and receive the word of God and an encouragement to banish all despair in the certainty that not all the setbacks can defeat the ultimate harvest of God.
