Parable Of The Sower Series

The Parable of "The Sower"

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side. 2 And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. 3 And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow; 4 And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: 5 Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: 6 And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. 7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: 8 But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. 9 Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

18 Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. 19 When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side. 20 But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; 21 Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. 22 He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. 23 But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

There are three parts to this Parable that are apparent to us. There is the Sower, there is the Seed, and there is the Soil. Two of these parts of the Parable Jesus explains to his disciples. The third one he does not. We could guess and speculate as to why He chose to not include that information or we can look at the information He did give us as it must be of importance.

This parable is recorded for us in three of the Gospels Matthew13, Mark 4, and Luke 8. In all three instances Jesus explains the seed and the soil. He does not however for this parable explain who the Sower is. I believe the reason for that is that the emphasis in this parable is on the soil and how it accepts the seed.

So let us look at these two elements of the parable

I) The Seed

Who or what is the seed?

Jesu reveals to his disciples the answer to that question in all three accounts.

13: 19 "When any one heareth the word of the kingdom"

v14 of Mark 4 says" The sower soweth the word."

And Luke chapter 8 v 11 comes right out and says it for us"Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God."

In these three different accounts of the same parable I believe Jesus makes it clear that the seed being sowed is the word of God. The gospel, the good news of salvation by and through Jesus Christ.

One thing we should realize here concerning the seed, please note no matter where the seed fell it was the same seed. The parable does not say on the hard ground he used this certain seed that would grow there. on the stony ground he changed to another kind of seed. Where ther were weeds he used a weed reistant strain of seeds. And on the good soil he, used the good seed for that.

The word of God didn’t change the condition of the soil did.

Next we get to the dirt of the parable lets talk about the soil.

II) The Soil

We have four different kinds of soil or seed bed.

Hard packed "The way side" This was commonly the area near a field where the beaten path was where people and beast traveled past or through a farmers field. It was not tilled or prepared nothing was expected to grow there.

Full of rocks "stoney places" This is not an area where there are rocks and stones mixed into the soil. This is an area where just under the soil is a hard solid rock like shelf. Have you ever started to dig for planting or whatever and got down just below the surface and were unable to dig any further? That is the stoney places spoken of here.