Jesus Explains The Parable Of The Sower
JESUS EXPLAINS THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER
LUKE 8:9-15
There was nothing wrong with the seed—the only difference was in how the seed was received.
The parable of the sower sums up the Lord’s experience in Galilee. The use of parabolic teaching now becomes more frequent, not in order to conceal the truth, for 8:10 does not mean this, but to separate those willing to learn and follow truly from the merely curious, or the seekers for personal advantage and reward.
The parables are all earthly little stories, full of the life and daily activity of Palestine. They come vividly to life in the land of their birth with its outcrops of stone.
Some of the seed is trodden to death by passing feet. All unconsciously a material society makes much preaching vain. Secure and affluent, content in the familiar pattern of society, multitudes see no relevance in Christ because they have all they need. The preacher seeks in vain to stir concern for the things of the spirit or the life hereafter.
Some of the seed falls where the moist earth is thin and warm on a bed of rock. In such soil the seed quickly germinates, only to wither at the breath of drought. There are those who feel the stirrings of nobler desire but weakly allow old forms of life to reassert themselves, and allow the tender new growth of sweeter and more lofty aspirations to wither and fail in the arid world’s hostile air.
Some of the seed falls among thorns. There are those like Pilate who cannot escape from the evil crop which they have allowed to grow. The thicket of cultivated sin, old compromise and base partnership is too dense to allow room for better growth.
Some of the seed sprouts, proves fertile and fulfills its divine purpose. It is variously fruitful, some more productive, some less … and so it has ever been. But remember that all analogies fall short. The place of sowing, good or bad, is passive. The human field determines its own destiny. Man is free to choose. Hearing is an urgent business. Let each man attend to it. 8:8 says as much.
Note 8:10: the quote from Isaiah 6:9 occurs six times in the New Testament—Matthew 13:14-15; Mark 4:12; John 12:40; Acts 28:26-27; Romans 11:8; and here. Cf. also the references to the Word of God as “seed.”