The first recorded parable of Jesus is “The Parable of the Sower” (Matthew 13:1-23) but it’s equally the story of the seed and the soils. Earlier that day He’d had a confrontation with the Pharisees and religious lawyers about His claim to be the Son of Man and the great gulf that separated them from God’s Kingdom. They could not bring themselves to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. There had also been a demand by His mother and brothers for a private talk – perhaps to persuade Him to call it day. But Jesus declined them special access saying that the only relationship that ultimately counted with Him was what He had with those who do “the will of my Father in heaven” (12:50).
Jesus had cast out devils; He’d healed the sick and He taught the precepts of the Kingdom but still they didn’t understand. Soon He would be leaving Galilee and setting His face as a flint towards Jerusalem, there to meet increasing opposition and eventually the cross. How was Jesus to get His Message of the Kingdom of God through to the people in the crowds, now full of expectancy, hanging on to His every word? The word “Kingdom” had excited the common people with the expectation that a powerful, dynamic messianic figure would drive out the Roman oppressors and restore the national pride once more. But the extraordinary thing is, He didn’t choose that route. He told them a story instead – a parable.
That’s the context of Jesus addressing the crowd about entry into that Kingdom. And what’s more, it was far from straightforward, more of a riddle. His closest friends were puzzled by it and asked Him why He was speaking in this way. His reply was even more perplexing! It was a quote from Isaiah: ‘The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, “though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand”’ (8;10).
Those with a far great knowledge of the Bible than me explain this enigmatic statement like this: The mass of the people weren’t on His wavelength! They had prejudicially closed their minds and hearts to the Kingdom of God. Jesus had often said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (8:8). But they weren’t willing to heed the words of Jesus so they weren’t even able to hear them correctly. By their own actions they cut themselves off from God’s revelation of His Kingdom. The disciples and a relatively few others were willing to “hear” and accept His teaching and it was to them would be given to understand the revelation, but would be incomprehensible to the unbelieving. What a responsibility we have as people who’ve been privileged to hear and handle the Word of God!
The aim of the parables was to draw out from the masses the few who would grasp what Jesus was driving at. These fascinating stories would be the window of understanding, the filter, to separate those two types – the believers in Jesus and those who rejected Him. God would use the teaching of the parables to enlighten the receptive and to befuddle the unreceptive. Parables revealed truth to those who were hungry, and concealed it from those who were too lazy to look for it, or too blinded by hatred and prejudice to discern it. Tragically, many heard the message but were not saved; many were called but not chosen.
What a lesson this is for us. Spiritual illumination is the privilege of those who are personally committed to Jesus. God’s Word brings light for those who look for it, but for those who don’t, the darkness intensifies. It’s our choice. We must come to the Scriptures with an honest, open heart, genuinely willing to know and do God’s will. To you, Jesus says, “the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given.”
The Parable of the Sower, the Seed and the Soils was probably our Lord’s first parable, and is a foundation parable of the Kingdom of God through the detailed explanation given. Interpretations of most of Jesus’ parables are not recorded, but in this instance we have it spelt out line by line from His lips so we don’t need to speculate. The disciples and Jesus’ circle of followers had asked Him what it meant. They were ready for the manifesto of the Kingdom. It turned out to be a simple lesson in gardening! But behind the imagery of the Sower, the Seed and the Soils there are solemn and serious truths.
I think it’s quite possible that Jesus took the story from life. Imagine the scene: as He stood in the boat moored on the shore of Galilee there in the distance was a farmer sowing seed, some falling along the path bordering the field, some on rocky ground, some on thorny ground and fortunately, some on good soil. The classic definition of a parable is “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.” It tells us in familiar human terms something about God’s reign in human life and His terms for the salvation of His creation. Let’s consider the constituents of the Parable by asking, firstly:
WHO IS THE SOWER?
There can be no doubt that it’s Jesus! He’d been teaching the crowds – the unique Sermon on the Mount; He’d healed the sick – pointing to His great work of deliverance from the results of mankind’s fall into the clutches of Satan. He was sowing seed for God as He travelled the country preaching the good news of the Kingdom. He was fulfilling what had been prophesied by Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor … proclaim freedom for the prisoners … recovery of sight … to release the oppressed … “ (Luke 4:18). He was clearing up the misunderstandings of God’s message over the centuries. His Kingdom was coming in with seeds, not swords; with God’s revelation of His mysteries, not human wisdom; with changed lives through redemption, not Satan’s domination.
The Sower symbolises not only the Lord Jesus Christ, but also all who are engaged in preaching the Gospel. In every age God has called men and women to be His messengers. A discerning commentator (Alexander Maclaren) writes: “The Parable is both history and prophecy. It tells Christ’s own experience, and it foretells His servants’.” It includes us too, for as the apostle Paul tells the believers in Corinth: “For we are God’s fellow workers” (1 Cor 3:9). We don’t have to be preachers to share in this great work of making known the truth of God. But the Sower is only useful for what is used, so we ask:
WHAT IS THE SEED?
Jesus Himself gives the key to understanding how the Kingdom of God is to be found: “This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God” (Luke 8:11). The seed is the full-orbed message of God’s Word, the Bible, all of it centred in the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Saviour of the world. It was no accident that the two disciples on the road to Emmaus were shown by the risen Jesus Himself “what was shown in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (Luke 24:25-27).
The written Word at that time comprised only the Old Testament. Jesus pointed them to God’s self-revelation in the Scriptures: "beginning with Moses and all the Prophets." What! The Old Testament! Yes! It’s all there, the types, shadows and symbols of the Old Testament revelation pointed to the coming Messiah. Right back at the Fall of Mankind, God promised that Satan would be crushed. The “salvation story” is seen in the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt after having been saved from the angel of death through the sign of the blood of the Passover lamb. It’s told by Isaiah in the Suffering Servant of Jehovah passages until Jesus came in fulfilment of what had been foretold.
We’re privileged to be living now, having the completed Word of God in contemporary language. We thank God for the parachurch societies that have been raised up to make the Scriptures readily available to as many people as possible – Bible Society, the Gideons, Scripture Union and others. The Word of God is a life-giving seed waiting to be implanted in the very being of those who hear it. It has the power to transform human hearts. ”I am not ashamed of the gospel,” said Paul, “It is the power of God for salvation” (Rom 1:16). The Bible needs to be central in the life of the church and in the agenda of Christian believers. It’s a seed that saves but for that to happen it has to be received and so we must discover where, by asking:
WHAT OF THE SOILS?
It’s obvious that the soil is the human heart. Jesus describes one sowing but four different soils which explains why people respond as they do. Neither the sower nor the seed can change the soil. The same sower and seed produced no crop, some crop, or much crop, depending on the soil. Of course, we must do all we can to be more effective sowers by prayer and preparation; we must present the seed, the Scriptures in translations in language and in terms relevant to those we seek to help, but when all’s said and done, the apostle Paul himself says, the sower and waterer are nothing – it’s only God who gives growth (1 Cor 3:7). It’s the quality of the soil that matters.
Jesus began His explanation of the Parable by describing three categories of “bad-soil” hearers. There’s:
Seed along the Path
Fields in Palestine were small and separated from one another by paths where the soil was beaten flat and hard as concrete under human feet and the summer sun. As the sower walked down the field, some landed on this impenetrable soil and “birds came and ate it up” – in other words “the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown.” These are people who clearly say “NO” to the Gospel. Sadly, they hear the Word but it rolls off them like water off a duck’s back. It’s as if their hearts are coated in spiritual Teflon so nothing sticks. They think they’re being clever, sophisticated, not being taken in by all this Kingdom-of-God superstition! But don’t think it can’t happen to us as professing Christians! The devil is right here. He’s always present when the Word is being exposed to people. He’ll use every trick in the book to discredit and distract our attention from the Word of God.
The seed fell along the path, and there’s also:
Seed on the Rock
There was a thin layer of soil on an outcrop of rock, allowing seeds to germinate but the plants could never get good roots. When the sun beat down, they withered and died. Jesus said it portrayed “the man who hears the word … with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time.” It’s possible to make an enthusiastic initial response but it doesn’t last. It’s all emotion. The cost of being a Christian hasn’t been counted. In a time of trouble or persecution it’s evident that the profession of faith has been superficial. These are people who respond uncertainly to the seed of the Word – it’s “YES AND NO” – they want to keep a foot in both camps, but that’s unacceptable to our Lord.
The seed fell along the path and on the rock, and there’s also:
Seed among Thorns
Jesus refers to the soil of the heart where a person “hears the word, but worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.” This person answers to the call of God by saying “YES BUT”. Their life becomes clogged with the bindweed of materialism and worldliness, as the rival interests sap their energies. At whatever stage of life we’re at, there’s any number of distractions, resulting in spiritual immaturity and arrested development. When I hired a car on holiday I was given a diesel engine vehicle and was told by the car hire representative, "Be careful to fill up with diesel, not petrol, because if you put the wrong fuel in, it will foul up the engine and will have to cleaned out at considerable cost to you!" It’s the same with our lives. If we disobey what God intended, ignoring the Maker’s handbook, the Bible, we get the logical result, loss of vital contact with God. Christian, yes - perhaps, but really very, very nominal.
The seed fell along the path, on the rock and among thorns. In each of these three types of soil the Word of God doesn’t operate mechanically or inevitably. However true the Word of God is that you hear, hardness of heart or even being lukewarm towards God is a desperately serious disease to be avoided at all costs. God revealed to the prophet Ezekiel that He could change a heart of stone into a heart of flesh. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you … and I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees” (36:26). Yes, but He needs us to be willing to receive the treatment.
The seed of the Word of God all too often falls on “bad-soil” but Jesus ends the Parable by telling us that it’s God’s will and purpose that there’s:
Good-Soil
Just as soil can’t change by itself from “bad” to “good”, so the soil of our hearts is dependent totally on the sovereign grace of God. It won’t be hard and unresponsive, uninterested in the message, bored by the Word of God. That person’s interest in the Gospel won’t be a passing phase or be preoccupied by worldly fears and desires. The good-soil person, said Jesus, “is the man (or woman) who hears the word and understands it”. The reply to the call of the Word is an unequivocal “YES – I want it and will put it into practice”.
Jesus said that the qualification for good-soil is that it “produces a crop”. “Fruit” says Jesus, is “showing yourself to be my disciples” (John 15:8). It is “all goodness, righteousness and truth … what pleases the Lord” (Eph 5:9,10). It’s the “fruit of the Spirit … love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal 5:22). Perseverance is the hallmark of the truly converted person and will “produce a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” It results in the further production of seed - the Word of God being made available to another generation who need to hear the Gospel.
Jesus, as ever, ends the Parable on a note of challenge, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” The Great Sower Himself is asking us: “What kind of hearer are you?” Is our hearing impaired by the secular noise level of our busy lives? One day, God is going to hold us accountable for our spiritual productivity. Then we’ll all know what mattered and what didn’t, what had abiding value and what was there only for show. Whatever is done alone for Jesus’ sake will stand the test at what the apostle Paul describes as "the Judgement Seat of Christ". Those whose work survives will receive a reward; those whose work is burnt will suffer loss. Paul reassures the believers that they won’t lose their salvation but, as it were, "as one escaping through the flames" (1 Cor 3:14). How sad that would be! Let’s go for gold! Let’s aim to be like Paul who, at the end of his life, could say, "I have kept the faith" (2 Tim 4:7).
