Jesus Tells the Parable of the Sower from a BoatBible World
4:13Mark 4:13
And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?
Jesus spoke this rebuke to His disciples after He had taught the crowd from a boat the parable of the sower, which plainly set forth the work He had come to do. The sower is the key to all His parables, so that if this plain lesson drawn from seed cast into soil is not grasped the greater truths He taught in this way cannot be understood. The seed is the word of God, and though sower and seed are the same, the harvest depends wholly on the condition of the hearer's heart. Some are hardened by neglected duty, some receive eagerly but have no root and fall before trial and sacrifice, and others let love of the world and its cares choke the word so that hearing does not become a fruitful life. Understanding is given to those who are willing to see and hear and obey, while those who shut their eyes and resist remain in darkness by their own choice, yet no heart need remain hard or shallow or choked, for the soil can be broken up by repentance and cleansed by earnest effort in Christ's strength.
Setting and Purpose as Key
Jesus spoke this question in the course of His public teaching of the parable of the sower, given from a boat on the Sea of Galilee to the multitude gathered on the shore. The parable of the sower is the key and necessary starting point for understanding all His other parables, so that if this plain parable is not grasped the greater truths taught in parables will not be understood. Jesus expected the disciples to understand it and to use its meaning as the key to the rest, linking this parable of the seed and the different kinds of hearers to all that would follow.
He taught through familiar scenes from nature and earthly seed-sowing, making lessons plain through objects so that the mind is led from natural seed cast into soil to gospel truth and remembers it. Lessons for children are to be made plain in the same way, leading their minds from nature to God and sowing seeds of truth. His illustrations were meant to awaken thought and prompt inquiry, and hearers who wanted fuller understanding could ask Him and receive an explanation, as the disciples did.
Understanding depends on willingness to see and hear, for the Pharisees deliberately shut their eyes and ears and left their hearts unreachable, while the disciples received His teaching. He reproved the disciples for failing to understand the sower, which plainly illustrated the very teaching He had come to give, so that if they could not grasp this clear lesson they would not be able to understand greater truths He would teach in parables. Those who follow closely, obey, open their minds to instruction, and are ready to believe will receive deeper knowledge of God's kingdom, while those who reject truth and neglect their opportunities to understand remain in darkness by their own choice.
The sower parable in this setting also addressed doubts about why many people, including the learned and wealthy, did not accept Jesus as Messiah.
What the Sower Reveals
The parable gives a brief, clear picture of the different kinds of people taught and the tendencies of the human heart, explaining why the ministry had limited immediate results. The seed is the word of God, and although the sower and seed are the same, the different results depend on the condition of the hearer's heart. Some hearers are hardened by neglected moral duty and corrupt influences, some receive truth eagerly but lack deep roots so that trials, sacrifice, or correction make them fall away, and others accept truth while love of the world, dishonest gain, anxiety, and worldly cares choke it. These responses show that hearing and professing truth do not necessarily produce a changed, fruitful life.
Through earthly seed-sowing the parable explains the sowing of gospel truth and God's work for His people, leading the mind from natural seed cast into soil to truth that brings people back to loyalty to God. People are left free to accept or reject Christ without compulsion, and are called to join their own efforts with divine power to overcome sin. Hearers need not remain hard, shallow, or thorn-choked, for by resisting the Spirit they become inattentive to God's word and responsible for the conditions that keep it from taking root and growing. Yet the heart as soil must and can be prepared, with repentance breaking up the soil and earnest, diligent effort in Christ's strength uprooting evil tendencies that would choke the good seed.
The beaten path pictures hearts hardened to truth, yet Christlike personal care and ministry can soften hard hearts so the seed takes root. Teaching believers to live by Christ's life and character, deny self, trust Him, serve others, and win souls helps keep the word from being choked and uproots worldly influences. The seed's planting and growth also illustrate Christ's death and the truth of the resurrection, with natural and spiritual processes corresponding as the plant grows.
Sowing Seed in Practice
Truth sown in the mind is as seed that may lie dormant for a time until grace awakens it to life, and then it bears fruit for God's glory. Its effect may not be seen at once, but it can later spring up and bear fruit and help save many, with the instruction passed on to future generations. Lessons for children are to be made plain through objects, leading their minds from nature to God as seeds of truth are sown, and the full good produced by such teaching may not be seen until the great day of God. Hearing the truth can leave an impression that takes root in the heart and leads to conversion, even when a person hears only one discourse and later encounters the truth elsewhere.
In early life good seed must be sown in the good soil of the mind and heart so that it bears fruit unto eternal life. The soil of children's hearts must be carefully prepared, and the Sower's good seed needs prepared soil in the heart to grow, for the parable of the sower is the key to understanding all parables. Parents should not send little ones away to school too early nor trust the molding of the infant mind to other hands, but should themselves be the best teachers until children are eight or ten years old. Their schoolroom should be the open air amid flowers and birds and their textbook the treasures of nature, with parents opening God's great book of nature before them as fast as their minds can comprehend it, so the lessons will not soon be forgotten. Great pains to cultivate children's minds and form correct habits prepares the heart for the Sower, and if half the time and labor now wasted in following the fashions of the world were given to this cultivation a marked change would appear in families.
The parable governs gospel preaching: the seed sown is the theory of the truth with its evidences, and it springs up and bears fruit to the glory of God when Christ as Saviour of the world with His redeeming love and cross is presented together with that theory. Discourses that are wholly argumentative leave the seed without power to bring souls to Christ's side, and because any hearing may be the hearer's last with the opportunity then lost forever, Christ must be exalted in every presentation of truth. Teaching is seed planted in the heart, so books that mix Scripture with fanciful interpretations can grow into infidelity.
Jesus spoke this rebuke to His disciples after He had taught the crowd from a boat the parable of the sower, which plainly set forth the work He had come to do. The sower is the key to all His parables, so that if this plain lesson drawn from seed cast into soil is not grasped the greater truths He taught in this way cannot be understood. The seed is the word of God, and though sower and seed are the same, the harvest depends wholly on the condition of the hearer's heart. Some are hardened by neglected duty, some receive eagerly but have no root and fall before trial and sacrifice, and others let love of the world and its cares choke the word so that hearing does not become a fruitful life. Understanding is given to those who are willing to see and hear and obey, while those who shut their eyes and resist remain in darkness by their own choice, yet no heart need remain hard or shallow or choked, for the soil can be broken up by repentance and cleansed by earnest effort in Christ's strength.
Setting and Purpose as Key
Jesus spoke this question in the course of His public teaching of the parable of the sower, given from a boat on the Sea of Galilee to the multitude gathered on the shore. The parable of the sower is the key and necessary starting point for understanding all His other parables, so that if this plain parable is not grasped the greater truths taught in parables will not be understood. Jesus expected the disciples to understand it and to use its meaning as the key to the rest, linking this parable of the seed and the different kinds of hearers to all that would follow.
He taught through familiar scenes from nature and earthly seed-sowing, making lessons plain through objects so that the mind is led from natural seed cast into soil to gospel truth and remembers it. Lessons for children are to be made plain in the same way, leading their minds from nature to God and sowing seeds of truth. His illustrations were meant to awaken thought and prompt inquiry, and hearers who wanted fuller understanding could ask Him and receive an explanation, as the disciples did.
Understanding depends on willingness to see and hear, for the Pharisees deliberately shut their eyes and ears and left their hearts unreachable, while the disciples received His teaching. He reproved the disciples for failing to understand the sower, which plainly illustrated the very teaching He had come to give, so that if they could not grasp this clear lesson they would not be able to understand greater truths He would teach in parables. Those who follow closely, obey, open their minds to instruction, and are ready to believe will receive deeper knowledge of God's kingdom, while those who reject truth and neglect their opportunities to understand remain in darkness by their own choice.
The sower parable in this setting also addressed doubts about why many people, including the learned and wealthy, did not accept Jesus as Messiah.
What the Sower Reveals
The parable gives a brief, clear picture of the different kinds of people taught and the tendencies of the human heart, explaining why the ministry had limited immediate results. The seed is the word of God, and although the sower and seed are the same, the different results depend on the condition of the hearer's heart. Some hearers are hardened by neglected moral duty and corrupt influences, some receive truth eagerly but lack deep roots so that trials, sacrifice, or correction make them fall away, and others accept truth while love of the world, dishonest gain, anxiety, and worldly cares choke it. These responses show that hearing and professing truth do not necessarily produce a changed, fruitful life.
Through earthly seed-sowing the parable explains the sowing of gospel truth and God's work for His people, leading the mind from natural seed cast into soil to truth that brings people back to loyalty to God. People are left free to accept or reject Christ without compulsion, and are called to join their own efforts with divine power to overcome sin. Hearers need not remain hard, shallow, or thorn-choked, for by resisting the Spirit they become inattentive to God's word and responsible for the conditions that keep it from taking root and growing. Yet the heart as soil must and can be prepared, with repentance breaking up the soil and earnest, diligent effort in Christ's strength uprooting evil tendencies that would choke the good seed.
The beaten path pictures hearts hardened to truth, yet Christlike personal care and ministry can soften hard hearts so the seed takes root. Teaching believers to live by Christ's life and character, deny self, trust Him, serve others, and win souls helps keep the word from being choked and uproots worldly influences. The seed's planting and growth also illustrate Christ's death and the truth of the resurrection, with natural and spiritual processes corresponding as the plant grows.
Sowing Seed in Practice
Truth sown in the mind is as seed that may lie dormant for a time until grace awakens it to life, and then it bears fruit for God's glory. Its effect may not be seen at once, but it can later spring up and bear fruit and help save many, with the instruction passed on to future generations. Lessons for children are to be made plain through objects, leading their minds from nature to God as seeds of truth are sown, and the full good produced by such teaching may not be seen until the great day of God. Hearing the truth can leave an impression that takes root in the heart and leads to conversion, even when a person hears only one discourse and later encounters the truth elsewhere.
In early life good seed must be sown in the good soil of the mind and heart so that it bears fruit unto eternal life. The soil of children's hearts must be carefully prepared, and the Sower's good seed needs prepared soil in the heart to grow, for the parable of the sower is the key to understanding all parables. Parents should not send little ones away to school too early nor trust the molding of the infant mind to other hands, but should themselves be the best teachers until children are eight or ten years old. Their schoolroom should be the open air amid flowers and birds and their textbook the treasures of nature, with parents opening God's great book of nature before them as fast as their minds can comprehend it, so the lessons will not soon be forgotten. Great pains to cultivate children's minds and form correct habits prepares the heart for the Sower, and if half the time and labor now wasted in following the fashions of the world were given to this cultivation a marked change would appear in families.
The parable governs gospel preaching: the seed sown is the theory of the truth with its evidences, and it springs up and bears fruit to the glory of God when Christ as Saviour of the world with His redeeming love and cross is presented together with that theory. Discourses that are wholly argumentative leave the seed without power to bring souls to Christ's side, and because any hearing may be the hearer's last with the opportunity then lost forever, Christ must be exalted in every presentation of truth. Teaching is seed planted in the heart, so books that mix Scripture with fanciful interpretations can grow into infidelity.