The Sower Scattering Seed by the WaysideBible World
4:3Mark 4:3
Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:
Hearken is a command to give close attention, and behold points to a sower going out to sow seed as Jesus taught the crowd from a boat drawn a little from shore. The sower is Christ come to plant truth and loyalty in hearts, and the seed is the word of God and its principles of grace sown in the heart as in soil. The same seed brings different harvests because hearts differ, with wayside hardness, stony shallowness, and thorny worldliness losing the word, while good ground bears thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. He left hearers free to choose, using no force to compel belief, so those who desired truth could ask and understand while those who rejected it remained in blindness. Every gospel laborer is therefore to keep sowing everywhere beside all waters without discouragement over slow results, preparing hearts by Christlike care and trusting God to awaken the seed to fruit.
Setting and Picture
Hearken opens a parable spoken in the early morning on the shore of the Sea of Galilee after a night spent in prayer, taught from a fisherman's boat pulled out a little from shore to a crowd gathered on land because the pressing multitude was too dense to teach from the beach. The Teacher was the Commander of angels and the Honored of Heaven, preaching salvation and deliverance in the open air to a common listening company, patient with the tempted and tender to the sorrowing, with words of life bringing light to darkened minds. The sower going out to sow pictures the spreading of the gospel, with the seed falling on different kinds of ground and producing different harvests according to how hearers respond.
The picture was drawn directly from what the hearers could see at the time, with sowers casting seed and reapers harvesting early grain in plain sight together in the fields. Around them lay the plain of Gennesaret and its hills, with fruitful valleys and hillsides, barren rocks on the beach, birds and sea-fowls, lake, mountains, fields and sunlight. Sowers were visible in the fields nearby while the teaching was given from the boat on the sea to the people on shore.
That familiar landscape, with its visible sowers, varied ground, and seed, was used to make spiritual teaching clear and memorable and to impress it upon the listeners. The varied ground, seed, and sowers before the hearers helped fix the teaching in their minds, and seed and its growth supplied a natural image through which divine truth was taught. So seeing those natural objects again would daily remind them of the truth taught and fasten it in their minds as a lasting reminder of instruction about salvation.
The opening call to listen is a command introducing a lesson meant to hold attention and stir the hearers to respond. The saying remains pure and beautiful in unadorned simplicity today as when it was given more than eighteen hundred years ago.
Meaning of Sower and Seed
The sower going out to sow is Christ, who came to scatter the heavenly seed of truth broadcast like grain and to establish God's kingdom by planting a new principle of loyalty in hearts, not by force or political conquest. The parable itself is seed, for through it precious truths of grace were sown to bring people back to loyalty to God. The same laws that govern the sowing of natural seed govern the sowing of truth.
The seed is the word of God, the precious truths of grace and principles sown in the heart. The going out to sow pictures the sowing of that word, and the whole lesson is one of great importance in which earthly things teach spiritual truths and the things of nature direct hearers to heed God's voice and convey eternal truth. As soil must be prepared for natural seed, so the heart must be prepared to receive the seed of truth.
The heart is like soil and like a garden in which good or bad seed is planted. Repentance breaks up the soil of the heart, while evil tendencies like thorns that choke good grain must be uprooted through earnest effort in Christ's name and strength. The growth of the plant then illustrates the development of character and spiritual growth, with the stages of growth helping to explain that inward development.
The seed cast into the ground teaches Christ's death, and the blade springing up teaches the resurrection. Seed sown in the heart may take root and bear good fruit or be overcome by thorns and brambles, and a person's actions reveal which has taken place. Teachings are like seed planted to grow in the heart and take root and bear fruit, but mixing Scripture with fanciful interpretation produces infidelity.
Why Jesus Taught in Parables
Jesus spoke this parable to meet the doubt, discontent, and perplexity that arose because so many expected a Messiah who would set up a temporal kingdom to exalt and glorify Israel as a nation. When He did not assume temporal authority, the people refused to receive Him as Redeemer, the leaders and the learned and wealthy and scribes and Pharisees and teachers would not accept Him, and His followers were left wondering why the long-looked-for Messiah was not acknowledged. Even His chosen disciples grew impatient that He did not take such authority, His own relatives were disappointed and rejected Him, and His disciples were mortified that it was the poor, the afflicted, and the humbler class who became His disciples. Their perplexity over His refusal to establish an earthly kingdom led Him to add further illustrations to turn their thoughts from a worldly kingdom to God's work of grace in the soul.
The parable is brief and comprehensive, picturing the different classes He had to teach and the tendencies of the human heart, including the worldly-minded, the evil-disposed, and the hard-hearted. It explains why His personal ministry of goodness and mercy in healing the afflicted and casting out demons had meager and limited immediate results. The limited results came because He left men to themselves in correcting the evils of their natures and left them free to choose or reject Him of their own free will. He used no miraculous agency to compel belief and no direct power to force obedience, but only instructed them how to unite human effort with divine power and triumph over besetting sins through His strength. In this way He preserved the free moral agency God gave man and gave moral power to Christian character to fit it for the courts of Heaven.
His illustrations were given to awaken thought, and fuller explanation of the mystery of the kingdom of God was given to those who desired understanding and asked Him, as the twelve did. Understanding this parable opens understanding of all parables. Those who followed Him and received Him could understand His words and gain practical knowledge of God's kingdom, while those who rejected truth and neglected their opportunities remained in chosen ignorance. To those without, all things were done in parables, so that seeing they would not perceive and hearing they would not understand, lest they be converted and forgiven.
The parable was simple enough for the disciples to understand, yet their dullness showed they needed open minds ready to believe. Its simple, familiar illustration also let Him expose hypocrisy and wrongdoing without giving His opponents grounds to arrest Him. Thus He used it to awaken thought and explain the kingdom of God to all who wanted to understand.
Soils and Responses of Hearers
The same sower sowing the same seed brings forth different results because of the soil, and the difference shows how hearers respond to the teaching of Christ. Seed that falls on poor soil is lost or choked and yields no fruit unto eternal life, while seed that falls on good ground produces a harvest. Good soil itself bears in differing measure, some thirty, some sixty, and some even a hundredfold. Poor response and slow visible results are no reason to cease sowing beside all waters, for the lesson is to keep sowing truth everywhere even when fruit is not immediately seen.
Wayside hearers have hearts hardened by neglected duty and corrupt company until regard for truth is lost. Stony-ground hearers welcome truth with excitement but have no deep-rooted principle, so when trial, sacrifice, or correction comes their zeal is silenced and they fall away. Thorny-ground hearers accept truth but allow love of the world, dishonest gain, riches, cares, pleasures, and worldly honors to crowd it out until their hearts turn from the truth.
Some who hear are only briefly stirred and soon lose the impression amid worldly cares, temptations, and unfavorable surroundings and return to indifference. Others begin a holier life from the teaching and bear fruit from it. They are guided by its principles and carry them out in life.
The condition of the heart determines whether the word takes root and grows, and hearers are answerable for resisting hardness and permitting evil growths to hinder it. As soil must be prepared for natural seed, so the heart must be prepared to receive the seed of truth, for the heart is like soil or a garden in which good or bad seed is planted. Wayside, stony, and thorny hearts need not remain as they are but can be cultivated by choice with divine help. Deep repentance breaks up the soil of the heart, and evil tendencies, like thorns choking good grain, must be uprooted through earnest effort in the name and strength of Christ.
Sowing the Gospel Today
The going out of the sower pictures the work of Christ and the work of His servants and of every gospel laborer. He placed Himself in the great thoroughfares where the stream of travel from all parts of the world passed, in order to sow the gospel seed broadcast to every kind of hearer. That worldwide message must not be localized but is to be given in all cities and all villages and proclaimed in the highways and byways, wherever access can be gained, by speaking the words He gives and going forth everywhere following His example. The seed of truth, the Word of God, thus scattered falls upon all kinds of soil, some by the wayside to be trodden down and devoured, some on stony ground to spring up quickly and then be scorched and withered, some among thorns to yield no fruit, and some on good ground to bring forth thirty, sixty, and even a hundredfold.
Seed sown on good soil bears fruit in differing amounts, while seed on poor soil produces no fruit unto eternal life, and just so will be the experience of every gospel laborer. Poor response and slow visible results are no reason to cease work or be discouraged. The lesson is to keep sowing the truth everywhere beside all waters, even when results are not immediately visible. The sower does not stop because some seed fails to bear fruit.
The work of gospel sowers is to prepare hearts to receive the seed of truth. Hearts may be hard like a beaten path so the seed cannot take root, but personal, Christlike care and sympathy for individuals can soften them and awaken interest in eternal life, allowing truth to take root. From the beginning sowers should teach the foundations of Christian life, receiving salvation through Christ's sacrifice and living out His life and character in self-denial, service, trust, and care for the lost, and this keeps the seed from being lost in shallow soil or choked by thorns.
Sowing is spreading truth, and Christ's workers must sow it carefully, earnestly, and with self-denial, then trust God to bring it to life. Truth sown like seed may lie dormant for a time and take time to show its effect. Yet God's grace can awaken it in the heart so that it springs up and bears fruit to His glory and helps save many. After His crucifixion and resurrection, attentive listeners would recall and repeat His teaching for the benefit of later generations, continuing to the end of time.
Preaching is sowing gospel seed, and the minister is the sower and his discourse the seed sown upon hearers. The seed is precious truth and heavenly food of more value than gold, the theory of the truth with its evidences, and it should be delivered thoughtfully so hearers can receive it, understand it, retain it, carry it away, digest it, comprehend it, and let it take root and bear fruit. It springs up and bears fruit to the glory of God when Christ as Saviour of the world, His cross, and His redeeming love are presented and exalted in connection with that theory, with practical application to the heart, for discourses wholly argumentative and not presenting Christ leave souls only impressed and not balanced on His side. Truth is to be given in short discourses, not bringing out the whole counsel of God in one discourse, but in such well-measured portions that people can retain it and be impressed in soul by it. Delivery is to be in the most pleasant manner with a governed, calm, earnest, impressive voice full of pathos and melody, so hearers want to hear again and receive the message as the voice of God, following the example of Jesus the greatest teacher, and not raising the voice to a high key and shouting truth as through a trumpet, which is nervous power rather than the calm spirit and power of the Holy Ghost and loses effect. Such care is urgent because some may be hearing their last sermon and never again be so situated to have the chain of truth brought before them, and that lost golden opportunity is lost forever.
Personal, interested effort in the wise distribution of publications is the sower going out to sow. Placing books containing God's light and truth for this time, with spiritual and practical lessons of lasting value, in as many homes as possible is sowing gospel seed, and teaching people how to present those books is part of that sowing. The seed sown as truth in a tract or paper reaches people who will not listen to a living preacher, is presented even to businessmen and to all who may not be willing to buy, meets their ideas and needs exactly, and makes impressions on the mind that cannot readily be forgotten. It convicts and converts souls, makes the gospel plain, reveals the way of salvation, and leads them to see the efficacy of Christ's atonement and trust in its power. The seed of truth can lie buried for years beneath the rubbish of the world and pleasing deceptive fables, and after earthly sorrow or affliction softens the heart it springs up and bears fruit to the glory of God.
Those who compose the churches are to be sowers of the seeds of truth everywhere they are, at home, in the workshop, in the market, as well as in the meeting-house. In missionary work precious seed is sown in hope that it will bear a harvest. To become such laborers they must be earnest Bible students studying the will of God most earnestly, becoming familiar with the Bible by reading it carefully and prayerfully. They must learn to cast themselves and their burden on Christ by studying to realize the value of the cross of Christ and learning to bear it, and live holy lives with the fear of God before them.
The mind in early life is impressible soil, and good seed sown then upon good ground bears fruit unto eternal life. Right sowing gives taste and aptitude for study, while a parent's errors and example sown in children are reproduced in them and do permanent injury to their mental powers. The heart is soil that must be carefully prepared for the Sower to scatter good seed, and parents must do this preparing work for young children by keeping them home and teaching them themselves until eight or ten years old, refusing to trust the molding of the infant mind to other hands too early. 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 lessons given in such surroundings are not soon forgotten. This preparation means cultivating the minds of children and forming correct habits instead of wasting time and labor following the fashions of the world, and such faithful work brings a marked change in families. In teaching children, clear object lessons drawn from nature can lead their minds to God and sow seeds of truth whose lasting good will be revealed on the great day of God.
Hearken is a command to give close attention, and behold points to a sower going out to sow seed as Jesus taught the crowd from a boat drawn a little from shore.
The sower is Christ come to plant truth and loyalty in hearts, and the seed is the word of God and its principles of grace sown in the heart as in soil.
The same seed brings different harvests because hearts differ, with wayside hardness, stony shallowness, and thorny worldliness losing the word, while good ground bears thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.
He left hearers free to choose, using no force to compel belief, so those who desired truth could ask and understand while those who rejected it remained in blindness.
Every gospel laborer is therefore to keep sowing everywhere beside all waters without discouragement over slow results, preparing hearts by Christlike care and trusting God to awaken the seed to fruit.
Setting and Picture
Hearken opens a parable spoken in the early morning on the shore of the Sea of Galilee after a night spent in prayer, taught from a fisherman's boat pulled out a little from shore to a crowd gathered on land because the pressing multitude was too dense to teach from the beach. The Teacher was the Commander of angels and the Honored of Heaven, preaching salvation and deliverance in the open air to a common listening company, patient with the tempted and tender to the sorrowing, with words of life bringing light to darkened minds. The sower going out to sow pictures the spreading of the gospel, with the seed falling on different kinds of ground and producing different harvests according to how hearers respond.
The picture was drawn directly from what the hearers could see at the time, with sowers casting seed and reapers harvesting early grain in plain sight together in the fields. Around them lay the plain of Gennesaret and its hills, with fruitful valleys and hillsides, barren rocks on the beach, birds and sea-fowls, lake, mountains, fields and sunlight. Sowers were visible in the fields nearby while the teaching was given from the boat on the sea to the people on shore.
That familiar landscape, with its visible sowers, varied ground, and seed, was used to make spiritual teaching clear and memorable and to impress it upon the listeners. The varied ground, seed, and sowers before the hearers helped fix the teaching in their minds, and seed and its growth supplied a natural image through which divine truth was taught. So seeing those natural objects again would daily remind them of the truth taught and fasten it in their minds as a lasting reminder of instruction about salvation.
The opening call to listen is a command introducing a lesson meant to hold attention and stir the hearers to respond. The saying remains pure and beautiful in unadorned simplicity today as when it was given more than eighteen hundred years ago.
Meaning of Sower and Seed
The sower going out to sow is Christ, who came to scatter the heavenly seed of truth broadcast like grain and to establish God's kingdom by planting a new principle of loyalty in hearts, not by force or political conquest. The parable itself is seed, for through it precious truths of grace were sown to bring people back to loyalty to God. The same laws that govern the sowing of natural seed govern the sowing of truth.
The seed is the word of God, the precious truths of grace and principles sown in the heart. The going out to sow pictures the sowing of that word, and the whole lesson is one of great importance in which earthly things teach spiritual truths and the things of nature direct hearers to heed God's voice and convey eternal truth. As soil must be prepared for natural seed, so the heart must be prepared to receive the seed of truth.
The heart is like soil and like a garden in which good or bad seed is planted. Repentance breaks up the soil of the heart, while evil tendencies like thorns that choke good grain must be uprooted through earnest effort in Christ's name and strength. The growth of the plant then illustrates the development of character and spiritual growth, with the stages of growth helping to explain that inward development.
The seed cast into the ground teaches Christ's death, and the blade springing up teaches the resurrection. Seed sown in the heart may take root and bear good fruit or be overcome by thorns and brambles, and a person's actions reveal which has taken place. Teachings are like seed planted to grow in the heart and take root and bear fruit, but mixing Scripture with fanciful interpretation produces infidelity.
Why Jesus Taught in Parables
Jesus spoke this parable to meet the doubt, discontent, and perplexity that arose because so many expected a Messiah who would set up a temporal kingdom to exalt and glorify Israel as a nation. When He did not assume temporal authority, the people refused to receive Him as Redeemer, the leaders and the learned and wealthy and scribes and Pharisees and teachers would not accept Him, and His followers were left wondering why the long-looked-for Messiah was not acknowledged. Even His chosen disciples grew impatient that He did not take such authority, His own relatives were disappointed and rejected Him, and His disciples were mortified that it was the poor, the afflicted, and the humbler class who became His disciples. Their perplexity over His refusal to establish an earthly kingdom led Him to add further illustrations to turn their thoughts from a worldly kingdom to God's work of grace in the soul.
The parable is brief and comprehensive, picturing the different classes He had to teach and the tendencies of the human heart, including the worldly-minded, the evil-disposed, and the hard-hearted. It explains why His personal ministry of goodness and mercy in healing the afflicted and casting out demons had meager and limited immediate results. The limited results came because He left men to themselves in correcting the evils of their natures and left them free to choose or reject Him of their own free will. He used no miraculous agency to compel belief and no direct power to force obedience, but only instructed them how to unite human effort with divine power and triumph over besetting sins through His strength. In this way He preserved the free moral agency God gave man and gave moral power to Christian character to fit it for the courts of Heaven.
His illustrations were given to awaken thought, and fuller explanation of the mystery of the kingdom of God was given to those who desired understanding and asked Him, as the twelve did. Understanding this parable opens understanding of all parables. Those who followed Him and received Him could understand His words and gain practical knowledge of God's kingdom, while those who rejected truth and neglected their opportunities remained in chosen ignorance. To those without, all things were done in parables, so that seeing they would not perceive and hearing they would not understand, lest they be converted and forgiven.
The parable was simple enough for the disciples to understand, yet their dullness showed they needed open minds ready to believe. Its simple, familiar illustration also let Him expose hypocrisy and wrongdoing without giving His opponents grounds to arrest Him. Thus He used it to awaken thought and explain the kingdom of God to all who wanted to understand.
Soils and Responses of Hearers
The same sower sowing the same seed brings forth different results because of the soil, and the difference shows how hearers respond to the teaching of Christ. Seed that falls on poor soil is lost or choked and yields no fruit unto eternal life, while seed that falls on good ground produces a harvest. Good soil itself bears in differing measure, some thirty, some sixty, and some even a hundredfold. Poor response and slow visible results are no reason to cease sowing beside all waters, for the lesson is to keep sowing truth everywhere even when fruit is not immediately seen.
Wayside hearers have hearts hardened by neglected duty and corrupt company until regard for truth is lost. Stony-ground hearers welcome truth with excitement but have no deep-rooted principle, so when trial, sacrifice, or correction comes their zeal is silenced and they fall away. Thorny-ground hearers accept truth but allow love of the world, dishonest gain, riches, cares, pleasures, and worldly honors to crowd it out until their hearts turn from the truth.
Some who hear are only briefly stirred and soon lose the impression amid worldly cares, temptations, and unfavorable surroundings and return to indifference. Others begin a holier life from the teaching and bear fruit from it. They are guided by its principles and carry them out in life.
The condition of the heart determines whether the word takes root and grows, and hearers are answerable for resisting hardness and permitting evil growths to hinder it. As soil must be prepared for natural seed, so the heart must be prepared to receive the seed of truth, for the heart is like soil or a garden in which good or bad seed is planted. Wayside, stony, and thorny hearts need not remain as they are but can be cultivated by choice with divine help. Deep repentance breaks up the soil of the heart, and evil tendencies, like thorns choking good grain, must be uprooted through earnest effort in the name and strength of Christ.
Sowing the Gospel Today
The going out of the sower pictures the work of Christ and the work of His servants and of every gospel laborer. He placed Himself in the great thoroughfares where the stream of travel from all parts of the world passed, in order to sow the gospel seed broadcast to every kind of hearer. That worldwide message must not be localized but is to be given in all cities and all villages and proclaimed in the highways and byways, wherever access can be gained, by speaking the words He gives and going forth everywhere following His example. The seed of truth, the Word of God, thus scattered falls upon all kinds of soil, some by the wayside to be trodden down and devoured, some on stony ground to spring up quickly and then be scorched and withered, some among thorns to yield no fruit, and some on good ground to bring forth thirty, sixty, and even a hundredfold.
Seed sown on good soil bears fruit in differing amounts, while seed on poor soil produces no fruit unto eternal life, and just so will be the experience of every gospel laborer. Poor response and slow visible results are no reason to cease work or be discouraged. The lesson is to keep sowing the truth everywhere beside all waters, even when results are not immediately visible. The sower does not stop because some seed fails to bear fruit.
The work of gospel sowers is to prepare hearts to receive the seed of truth. Hearts may be hard like a beaten path so the seed cannot take root, but personal, Christlike care and sympathy for individuals can soften them and awaken interest in eternal life, allowing truth to take root. From the beginning sowers should teach the foundations of Christian life, receiving salvation through Christ's sacrifice and living out His life and character in self-denial, service, trust, and care for the lost, and this keeps the seed from being lost in shallow soil or choked by thorns.
Sowing is spreading truth, and Christ's workers must sow it carefully, earnestly, and with self-denial, then trust God to bring it to life. Truth sown like seed may lie dormant for a time and take time to show its effect. Yet God's grace can awaken it in the heart so that it springs up and bears fruit to His glory and helps save many. After His crucifixion and resurrection, attentive listeners would recall and repeat His teaching for the benefit of later generations, continuing to the end of time.
Preaching is sowing gospel seed, and the minister is the sower and his discourse the seed sown upon hearers. The seed is precious truth and heavenly food of more value than gold, the theory of the truth with its evidences, and it should be delivered thoughtfully so hearers can receive it, understand it, retain it, carry it away, digest it, comprehend it, and let it take root and bear fruit. It springs up and bears fruit to the glory of God when Christ as Saviour of the world, His cross, and His redeeming love are presented and exalted in connection with that theory, with practical application to the heart, for discourses wholly argumentative and not presenting Christ leave souls only impressed and not balanced on His side. Truth is to be given in short discourses, not bringing out the whole counsel of God in one discourse, but in such well-measured portions that people can retain it and be impressed in soul by it. Delivery is to be in the most pleasant manner with a governed, calm, earnest, impressive voice full of pathos and melody, so hearers want to hear again and receive the message as the voice of God, following the example of Jesus the greatest teacher, and not raising the voice to a high key and shouting truth as through a trumpet, which is nervous power rather than the calm spirit and power of the Holy Ghost and loses effect. Such care is urgent because some may be hearing their last sermon and never again be so situated to have the chain of truth brought before them, and that lost golden opportunity is lost forever.
Personal, interested effort in the wise distribution of publications is the sower going out to sow. Placing books containing God's light and truth for this time, with spiritual and practical lessons of lasting value, in as many homes as possible is sowing gospel seed, and teaching people how to present those books is part of that sowing. The seed sown as truth in a tract or paper reaches people who will not listen to a living preacher, is presented even to businessmen and to all who may not be willing to buy, meets their ideas and needs exactly, and makes impressions on the mind that cannot readily be forgotten. It convicts and converts souls, makes the gospel plain, reveals the way of salvation, and leads them to see the efficacy of Christ's atonement and trust in its power. The seed of truth can lie buried for years beneath the rubbish of the world and pleasing deceptive fables, and after earthly sorrow or affliction softens the heart it springs up and bears fruit to the glory of God.
Those who compose the churches are to be sowers of the seeds of truth everywhere they are, at home, in the workshop, in the market, as well as in the meeting-house. In missionary work precious seed is sown in hope that it will bear a harvest. To become such laborers they must be earnest Bible students studying the will of God most earnestly, becoming familiar with the Bible by reading it carefully and prayerfully. They must learn to cast themselves and their burden on Christ by studying to realize the value of the cross of Christ and learning to bear it, and live holy lives with the fear of God before them.
The mind in early life is impressible soil, and good seed sown then upon good ground bears fruit unto eternal life. Right sowing gives taste and aptitude for study, while a parent's errors and example sown in children are reproduced in them and do permanent injury to their mental powers. The heart is soil that must be carefully prepared for the Sower to scatter good seed, and parents must do this preparing work for young children by keeping them home and teaching them themselves until eight or ten years old, refusing to trust the molding of the infant mind to other hands too early. 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 lessons given in such surroundings are not soon forgotten. This preparation means cultivating the minds of children and forming correct habits instead of wasting time and labor following the fashions of the world, and such faithful work brings a marked change in families. In teaching children, clear object lessons drawn from nature can lead their minds to God and sow seeds of truth whose lasting good will be revealed on the great day of God.