Green Shoot Rising Through a Broken WallBible World
4:18Mark 4:18
And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word,
The seed is the word of God preached to bring people back to loyalty to Him, and the soil is the hearer's heart, so these are people who hear the word with interest but let it be choked before it can bear fruit. Their first response may be all aglow with truth, yet worldly surroundings and temptation draw them back into indifference and former sins instead of carrying the teaching into daily practice. The thorns that crowd out the word and make it unfruitful are the cares of this life, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in. When self is cherished and business, gain, pleasure and honor absorb time and mind, prayer and Bible study are neglected, convictions of the Spirit are silenced, and the loveliness of Christ fades until there is almost no sense of God's claims. Thorny ground need not remain thorny, for by choice and deep repentance that breaks up the soil, by watchfulness and prayer and persistent effort in Jesus' strength to root out evil tendencies, the word can take root and bear fruit to God's glory.
Parable Setting and Design
The parable to which this verse belongs was spoken in the early morning by the Sea of Galilee after a night spent in prayer, with Jesus sitting in a fisherman's boat drawn a little from shore because the dense multitude pressed to the water's edge. Lake, mountains, spreading fields, sunlight, sowers and reapers side by side, fruitful valleys, beach rocks, and birds were in plain sight, and the lesson was drawn from the nature and scenery at hand so that seeing those objects afterward would bring the truth back to mind. It has been handed down in pure unadorned simplicity as a scene of seed scattered across a field, preaching salvation to the common crowd.
It was given to meet doubt and discontent when people, disappointed that no new temporal kingdom was set up to exalt and glorify them as a nation, refused Him as Redeemer. Even chosen disciples were impatient that temporal authority was not assumed, relatives were disappointed and rejected Him, and followers were mortified that the learned and wealthy, the scribes and Pharisees and teachers, would not accept Him as Saviour and Messiah while the poor, the afflicted, and the humbler class generally became His disciples. The parable form was to awaken thought in the hearers, with the mystery of the kingdom of God given to those who desire fuller explanation and ask for it as the disciples did. Those without hear only parables, so that seeing they see and not perceive and hearing they hear and not understand lest they be converted and their sins forgiven.
The verse belongs to a parable showing the different tendencies and kinds of human hearts, and it helps explain why Christ's ministry had limited immediate results. The hearers respond according to character and freely choose whether to receive Christ, not being forced or compelled to believe or obey. They must unite their own efforts with Christ's power to overcome the sins that beset them.
The parable illustrates the kingdom of heaven and God's work for His people, where the seed is the gospel truth and the word preached to bring people back to loyalty to God. God prepares hearers' hearts to receive the seed. The soil represents the hearer's heart, so failure of the word among thorns is caused not by a different sower or seed but by the hearer's response.
Thorny Hearers Described
These are people who hear and receive the word with interest, and at first their experience may be all aglow with truth. They become absorbed in Scripture study, seeing new beauty in every line, with the good seed springing up to bear fruit to the glory of God. Yet their response does not endure, for after a time worldly cares, unfavorable surroundings, and temptation draw them back into indifference and former sins. This stands in contrast to hearers who begin a holier life and carry the teachings into daily practice.
They receive the word into an unprepared heart overgrown with harmful influences and obstructed by worldly things. There the seed takes root among thorns, but life's cares, the deceitfulness of riches, and other desires and forbidden desires crowd out righteousness and choke it before it can bear fruit. Pride, passion, self-love, love of the world, envy, and malice must be rooted out and continually resisted through diligent cultivation and guarding of the heart, with patient, earnest effort in Jesus' name and strength to remove these evil tendencies. Worldly concerns and reluctance to accept self-denial keep the truth from taking root in a cleansed life, so the word remains unfruitful. Unless these evils are persistently removed, faith is in danger of being overcome by Satan's influence, and hearers can become worse than before they heard the words of life.
Hearing alone is not enough, for when self is cherished in the heart the word's life is quenched and faith remains shallow and fruitless. Whether the seed takes root and bears fruit or the thorns and brambles prevail is revealed by actions, as thorns and brambles compete with the word that is heard. The heart needs deeper ploughing so the word can take root and bear good fruit to God's glory.
Thorns That Choke Word
The thorns that choke the word are the cares of this life, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts or desires of other things entering in, which crowd out righteousness and make the word unfruitful in the thorny-ground hearers who receive it. Unless these are persistently rooted out and resisted, they choke the truth before it can bear fruit, and removing them requires patient, earnest effort in Jesus' name and strength, otherwise faith is overcome.
The weeds to be rooted out are pride, passion, self-love, love of the world, envy, malice, selfishness, love of worldly fashions, empty conversation, earthly possessions and a selfish disposition, which overgrow the unprepared heart and weigh against the good seed as it grows and takes deeper root, threatening eternal destiny. Because the heart is not prepared and guarded but left overgrown with harmful influences, worldly cares, forbidden desires and these faults choke the word before it can bear fruit.
Love of wealth chokes the good seed through desire for dishonest gain, anxiety about gaining, keeping or increasing possessions, pursuit of the pleasures and honors wealth brings, use of deception to gain wealth, neglect of religious meetings for fear of temporal loss, and decreasing willingness to give as riches increase until the heart turns from the truth it once loved. Cares and covetousness and love of money and earthly things crowd out concern for Christ's kingdom, salvation, the spread of truth and influence for good, keeping people from salvation and weakening them for good. Even care for religious work can become a false excuse for accumulating more.
Worldly concerns and the pursuit of wealth absorb energy and time so that business leaves no time for prayer, Bible study, or seeking and serving God, making worldly things more important than eternal things, with the soul's life spent nourishing worldliness so the word cannot bear fruit. The process of choking is that various things come in to occupy the mind so the words of life are forgotten and labor spent is to a great extent lost unless thorough plans fasten truth upon minds and hearts. Satan allures with many attractions and the attractions of this world to enchain the person and paralyze moral powers, unimportant things are cherished instead of precious truth and things pleasing the fancy and soothing the carnal mind are sought until convictions of the Spirit are silenced and the loveliness of Christ fades from the mind. Though the first experience may be all aglow with truth and absorbed in Scripture study seeing new beauty in every line with the good seed springing up to bear fruit to God's glory, after a time truth struggles for supremacy in the mind but the cares of life gain the victory until there is almost no sense of God's claims and no fruit is brought forth.
Fruitless Outcome and Remedy
The seed sown among thorns springs up but is choked by growing thorns so that no fruit results to the glory of God. Unless pride, passion, self-love, love of the world, envy, malice, life's cares, the deceitfulness of riches, and other desires are rooted out and continually resisted, they crowd out righteousness and choke the word before it can bear fruit. When faith is thus overcome, those who heard the words of life can become worse than before they heard them, and their eternal destiny is threatened.
Thorny soil need not remain thorny, for the soil is the hearer's heart and failure comes not from a different sower or seed but from the hearer's response. Repentance breaks up the soil, and choking growths and evil tendencies can be overcome only through earnest effort in the name and strength of Christ. That change comes through choice, deep repentance, watchfulness and prayer, letting Jesus captivate the heart, giving up all for Him, sacrificing idols and consuming dross in order to reflect His image, and patient, earnest, diligent cultivation of the heart with persistent uprooting of evil. Resisting God's Spirit instead leads to neglect and hardness, while earthly possessions, a selfish disposition and love of the world endanger the hearer on every hand through loving possessions too well and claiming as one's own what God has only lent to advance His work. Even when truth presented in clearness charms the mind and warms and quickens by the Spirit until sacrifice is almost on the altar, without full consecration the saving influence wears away, the spirit of sacrifice is lost, Satan and evil angels again obtain control, love of the world revives to serve treasure instead of God, and again and again the heart is affected yet the world comes in and chokes the good seed in the battle between truth and love of the world for victory over the heart.
Sowers help prevent that choking through personal, Christlike ministry by which even a heart as hard as a beaten path may be softened so the seed can take root. They are to teach new believers the foundations of Christian life, including living Christ's life, bearing burdens, denying natural inclinations, serving and enduring hardship, trusting Christ, and caring for the lost, lest the word be choked by thorns or lost through shallow soil. Truth must be sown carefully and selflessly while growth is trusted to God, for it may lie dormant until His grace convicts the heart, awakens the seed, and brings it to fruit. Preaching that is wholly argumentative theory and evidences without Christ leaves thorny hearers unbalanced, but when Christ as Saviour of the world, the cross, and His redeeming love are exalted in connection with the theory of truth with practical application to the heart, the seed can still spring up and bear fruit to God's glory, and that balancing must not be missed since some are hearing the last sermon they will ever hear and will never again have the chain of truth brought before them.
Seed so sown is not lost even when buried for years beneath the rubbish of the world and the pleasing fables people enjoy through personal, interested efforts and the wise distribution of publications. After earthly sorrow or affliction softens the heart, that buried seed springs up and bears fruit to the glory of God. Even one discourse may leave an impression that travels with the hearer, so that when truth is heard again it finds place in the heart and leads to conversion and fruit. Words sown in listeners' minds can later spring up, bear fruit, and help save many, as attentive hearers pass the instruction on to future generations.
Practical Warnings for Life
Those who wait and watch for Christ's coming must not be idle, nor become so busy in worldly matters that they cease to watch and forget their position, falling into busy excitement like worldlings and becoming surfeited and drunken with the cares of this life. Love of gain, whether for a small treasure or a large one, benumbs the spiritual powers, eclipses the attractions of heaven, puts eternal life out of mind, removes the weight of obligation to God and fellow men, sacrifices peace of mind and joy of soul and the approbation of God, and forfeits the heavenly mansions and glorious rest prepared for those who love God. To toil thus is to toil in the way of the transgressor whose wages is death, and this world-loving spirit is a crazing, benumbing drunkenness and an insanity greater than that of the drunkard who barters house and food and clothing for drink.
Early in life the mind is impressible, and good seed sown in good soil can produce fruit unto eternal life. Children therefore need good principles implanted and firm, self-controlled habits formed, so that sin's allurements do not smother the growth of the word. Parents must prepare the hearts of little children by teaching them themselves until eight or ten years of age, making the open air amid flowers and birds their schoolroom and the treasures of nature their textbook, opening God's great book of nature before them as fast as their minds can comprehend it, cultivating their minds and forming correct habits instead of wasting time and labor following the fashions of the world. Teachers likewise should make lessons plain through objects so as to plant seeds of truth in children's minds, whose good may become clear only later. Hearts sown among thorns include young minds occupied with books of science and philosophy where the thorns of skepticism are only partially concealed, with vague fanciful fairy stories, and with works on Scripture subjects woven with human fanciful interpretations, whose teaching is seed that grows into a plentiful harvest of infidelity seen in human depravity.
Neglect of one's own eternal welfare to faultfind, watch brethren, and dwell on little things such as dress, furniture and fixings, while leaving important saving truth and great principles of faith, lets poisonous weeds grow and choke the good seed unawares and weakens the churches so they cannot correct wrong in others. Cares of providing a habitation and carrying on work can occupy the mind and choke the good seed even while the clear rays of truth penetrate darkness and charm the mind, yet God can darken outer vision and remove eyesight so spiritual vision becomes clearer, with angels presenting truth link after link in a harmonious whole until mist disappears and truth in its clearness and beauty overbalances skepticism and brings rejoicing. When truth is presented clearly and brought to bear upon the heart, hearers may be warmed and quickened and get the sacrifice almost on the altar yet not consecrate all fully to God, and as the saving influence wears away they lose the spirit of sacrifice, come again under Satan's control with revived love of the world, and serve treasure instead of God in a repeated battle between truth and the world for the heart that leaves no fruit to God's glory.
Words heard are seed sown in the mind that can take root and spring up and bear fruit, and hearing the word is like seed sown that can spring up and bear fruit. When the hearer is weak, talk of unbelief and darkness and perplexity with difficult passages of Scripture from trusted ministers or brethren lodges within and later yields loss of faith in the Bible, inability to preach, openness to temptation, fascination by error, and departure to join opponents of truth. Those who speak out unbelief become agents through whom Satan transmits his fiery darts to other minds, working unperceived and exulting in the conquest, with evil angels claiming the ensnared person as prey. By contrast, seeds of truth planted in minds and hearts under the Holy Spirit's influence spring up and bear fruit for God's glory and the saving of souls.
The seed is the word of God preached to bring people back to loyalty to Him, and the soil is the hearer's heart, so these are people who hear the word with interest but let it be choked before it can bear fruit. Their first response may be all aglow with truth, yet worldly surroundings and temptation draw them back into indifference and former sins instead of carrying the teaching into daily practice. The thorns that crowd out the word and make it unfruitful are the cares of this life, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in. When self is cherished and business, gain, pleasure and honor absorb time and mind, prayer and Bible study are neglected, convictions of the Spirit are silenced, and the loveliness of Christ fades until there is almost no sense of God's claims. Thorny ground need not remain thorny, for by choice and deep repentance that breaks up the soil, by watchfulness and prayer and persistent effort in Jesus' strength to root out evil tendencies, the word can take root and bear fruit to God's glory.
Parable Setting and Design
The parable to which this verse belongs was spoken in the early morning by the Sea of Galilee after a night spent in prayer, with Jesus sitting in a fisherman's boat drawn a little from shore because the dense multitude pressed to the water's edge. Lake, mountains, spreading fields, sunlight, sowers and reapers side by side, fruitful valleys, beach rocks, and birds were in plain sight, and the lesson was drawn from the nature and scenery at hand so that seeing those objects afterward would bring the truth back to mind. It has been handed down in pure unadorned simplicity as a scene of seed scattered across a field, preaching salvation to the common crowd.
It was given to meet doubt and discontent when people, disappointed that no new temporal kingdom was set up to exalt and glorify them as a nation, refused Him as Redeemer. Even chosen disciples were impatient that temporal authority was not assumed, relatives were disappointed and rejected Him, and followers were mortified that the learned and wealthy, the scribes and Pharisees and teachers, would not accept Him as Saviour and Messiah while the poor, the afflicted, and the humbler class generally became His disciples. The parable form was to awaken thought in the hearers, with the mystery of the kingdom of God given to those who desire fuller explanation and ask for it as the disciples did. Those without hear only parables, so that seeing they see and not perceive and hearing they hear and not understand lest they be converted and their sins forgiven.
The verse belongs to a parable showing the different tendencies and kinds of human hearts, and it helps explain why Christ's ministry had limited immediate results. The hearers respond according to character and freely choose whether to receive Christ, not being forced or compelled to believe or obey. They must unite their own efforts with Christ's power to overcome the sins that beset them.
The parable illustrates the kingdom of heaven and God's work for His people, where the seed is the gospel truth and the word preached to bring people back to loyalty to God. God prepares hearers' hearts to receive the seed. The soil represents the hearer's heart, so failure of the word among thorns is caused not by a different sower or seed but by the hearer's response.
Thorny Hearers Described
These are people who hear and receive the word with interest, and at first their experience may be all aglow with truth. They become absorbed in Scripture study, seeing new beauty in every line, with the good seed springing up to bear fruit to the glory of God. Yet their response does not endure, for after a time worldly cares, unfavorable surroundings, and temptation draw them back into indifference and former sins. This stands in contrast to hearers who begin a holier life and carry the teachings into daily practice.
They receive the word into an unprepared heart overgrown with harmful influences and obstructed by worldly things. There the seed takes root among thorns, but life's cares, the deceitfulness of riches, and other desires and forbidden desires crowd out righteousness and choke it before it can bear fruit. Pride, passion, self-love, love of the world, envy, and malice must be rooted out and continually resisted through diligent cultivation and guarding of the heart, with patient, earnest effort in Jesus' name and strength to remove these evil tendencies. Worldly concerns and reluctance to accept self-denial keep the truth from taking root in a cleansed life, so the word remains unfruitful. Unless these evils are persistently removed, faith is in danger of being overcome by Satan's influence, and hearers can become worse than before they heard the words of life.
Hearing alone is not enough, for when self is cherished in the heart the word's life is quenched and faith remains shallow and fruitless. Whether the seed takes root and bears fruit or the thorns and brambles prevail is revealed by actions, as thorns and brambles compete with the word that is heard. The heart needs deeper ploughing so the word can take root and bear good fruit to God's glory.
Thorns That Choke Word
The thorns that choke the word are the cares of this life, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts or desires of other things entering in, which crowd out righteousness and make the word unfruitful in the thorny-ground hearers who receive it. Unless these are persistently rooted out and resisted, they choke the truth before it can bear fruit, and removing them requires patient, earnest effort in Jesus' name and strength, otherwise faith is overcome.
The weeds to be rooted out are pride, passion, self-love, love of the world, envy, malice, selfishness, love of worldly fashions, empty conversation, earthly possessions and a selfish disposition, which overgrow the unprepared heart and weigh against the good seed as it grows and takes deeper root, threatening eternal destiny. Because the heart is not prepared and guarded but left overgrown with harmful influences, worldly cares, forbidden desires and these faults choke the word before it can bear fruit.
Love of wealth chokes the good seed through desire for dishonest gain, anxiety about gaining, keeping or increasing possessions, pursuit of the pleasures and honors wealth brings, use of deception to gain wealth, neglect of religious meetings for fear of temporal loss, and decreasing willingness to give as riches increase until the heart turns from the truth it once loved. Cares and covetousness and love of money and earthly things crowd out concern for Christ's kingdom, salvation, the spread of truth and influence for good, keeping people from salvation and weakening them for good. Even care for religious work can become a false excuse for accumulating more.
Worldly concerns and the pursuit of wealth absorb energy and time so that business leaves no time for prayer, Bible study, or seeking and serving God, making worldly things more important than eternal things, with the soul's life spent nourishing worldliness so the word cannot bear fruit. The process of choking is that various things come in to occupy the mind so the words of life are forgotten and labor spent is to a great extent lost unless thorough plans fasten truth upon minds and hearts. Satan allures with many attractions and the attractions of this world to enchain the person and paralyze moral powers, unimportant things are cherished instead of precious truth and things pleasing the fancy and soothing the carnal mind are sought until convictions of the Spirit are silenced and the loveliness of Christ fades from the mind. Though the first experience may be all aglow with truth and absorbed in Scripture study seeing new beauty in every line with the good seed springing up to bear fruit to God's glory, after a time truth struggles for supremacy in the mind but the cares of life gain the victory until there is almost no sense of God's claims and no fruit is brought forth.
Fruitless Outcome and Remedy
The seed sown among thorns springs up but is choked by growing thorns so that no fruit results to the glory of God. Unless pride, passion, self-love, love of the world, envy, malice, life's cares, the deceitfulness of riches, and other desires are rooted out and continually resisted, they crowd out righteousness and choke the word before it can bear fruit. When faith is thus overcome, those who heard the words of life can become worse than before they heard them, and their eternal destiny is threatened.
Thorny soil need not remain thorny, for the soil is the hearer's heart and failure comes not from a different sower or seed but from the hearer's response. Repentance breaks up the soil, and choking growths and evil tendencies can be overcome only through earnest effort in the name and strength of Christ. That change comes through choice, deep repentance, watchfulness and prayer, letting Jesus captivate the heart, giving up all for Him, sacrificing idols and consuming dross in order to reflect His image, and patient, earnest, diligent cultivation of the heart with persistent uprooting of evil. Resisting God's Spirit instead leads to neglect and hardness, while earthly possessions, a selfish disposition and love of the world endanger the hearer on every hand through loving possessions too well and claiming as one's own what God has only lent to advance His work. Even when truth presented in clearness charms the mind and warms and quickens by the Spirit until sacrifice is almost on the altar, without full consecration the saving influence wears away, the spirit of sacrifice is lost, Satan and evil angels again obtain control, love of the world revives to serve treasure instead of God, and again and again the heart is affected yet the world comes in and chokes the good seed in the battle between truth and love of the world for victory over the heart.
Sowers help prevent that choking through personal, Christlike ministry by which even a heart as hard as a beaten path may be softened so the seed can take root. They are to teach new believers the foundations of Christian life, including living Christ's life, bearing burdens, denying natural inclinations, serving and enduring hardship, trusting Christ, and caring for the lost, lest the word be choked by thorns or lost through shallow soil. Truth must be sown carefully and selflessly while growth is trusted to God, for it may lie dormant until His grace convicts the heart, awakens the seed, and brings it to fruit. Preaching that is wholly argumentative theory and evidences without Christ leaves thorny hearers unbalanced, but when Christ as Saviour of the world, the cross, and His redeeming love are exalted in connection with the theory of truth with practical application to the heart, the seed can still spring up and bear fruit to God's glory, and that balancing must not be missed since some are hearing the last sermon they will ever hear and will never again have the chain of truth brought before them.
Seed so sown is not lost even when buried for years beneath the rubbish of the world and the pleasing fables people enjoy through personal, interested efforts and the wise distribution of publications. After earthly sorrow or affliction softens the heart, that buried seed springs up and bears fruit to the glory of God. Even one discourse may leave an impression that travels with the hearer, so that when truth is heard again it finds place in the heart and leads to conversion and fruit. Words sown in listeners' minds can later spring up, bear fruit, and help save many, as attentive hearers pass the instruction on to future generations.
Practical Warnings for Life
Those who wait and watch for Christ's coming must not be idle, nor become so busy in worldly matters that they cease to watch and forget their position, falling into busy excitement like worldlings and becoming surfeited and drunken with the cares of this life. Love of gain, whether for a small treasure or a large one, benumbs the spiritual powers, eclipses the attractions of heaven, puts eternal life out of mind, removes the weight of obligation to God and fellow men, sacrifices peace of mind and joy of soul and the approbation of God, and forfeits the heavenly mansions and glorious rest prepared for those who love God. To toil thus is to toil in the way of the transgressor whose wages is death, and this world-loving spirit is a crazing, benumbing drunkenness and an insanity greater than that of the drunkard who barters house and food and clothing for drink.
Early in life the mind is impressible, and good seed sown in good soil can produce fruit unto eternal life. Children therefore need good principles implanted and firm, self-controlled habits formed, so that sin's allurements do not smother the growth of the word. Parents must prepare the hearts of little children by teaching them themselves until eight or ten years of age, making the open air amid flowers and birds their schoolroom and the treasures of nature their textbook, opening God's great book of nature before them as fast as their minds can comprehend it, cultivating their minds and forming correct habits instead of wasting time and labor following the fashions of the world. Teachers likewise should make lessons plain through objects so as to plant seeds of truth in children's minds, whose good may become clear only later. Hearts sown among thorns include young minds occupied with books of science and philosophy where the thorns of skepticism are only partially concealed, with vague fanciful fairy stories, and with works on Scripture subjects woven with human fanciful interpretations, whose teaching is seed that grows into a plentiful harvest of infidelity seen in human depravity.
Neglect of one's own eternal welfare to faultfind, watch brethren, and dwell on little things such as dress, furniture and fixings, while leaving important saving truth and great principles of faith, lets poisonous weeds grow and choke the good seed unawares and weakens the churches so they cannot correct wrong in others. Cares of providing a habitation and carrying on work can occupy the mind and choke the good seed even while the clear rays of truth penetrate darkness and charm the mind, yet God can darken outer vision and remove eyesight so spiritual vision becomes clearer, with angels presenting truth link after link in a harmonious whole until mist disappears and truth in its clearness and beauty overbalances skepticism and brings rejoicing. When truth is presented clearly and brought to bear upon the heart, hearers may be warmed and quickened and get the sacrifice almost on the altar yet not consecrate all fully to God, and as the saving influence wears away they lose the spirit of sacrifice, come again under Satan's control with revived love of the world, and serve treasure instead of God in a repeated battle between truth and the world for the heart that leaves no fruit to God's glory.
Words heard are seed sown in the mind that can take root and spring up and bear fruit, and hearing the word is like seed sown that can spring up and bear fruit. When the hearer is weak, talk of unbelief and darkness and perplexity with difficult passages of Scripture from trusted ministers or brethren lodges within and later yields loss of faith in the Bible, inability to preach, openness to temptation, fascination by error, and departure to join opponents of truth. Those who speak out unbelief become agents through whom Satan transmits his fiery darts to other minds, working unperceived and exulting in the conquest, with evil angels claiming the ensnared person as prey. By contrast, seeds of truth planted in minds and hearts under the Holy Spirit's influence spring up and bear fruit for God's glory and the saving of souls.