Parable of the Sower(s)

Read Matthew 13:1-23

      Jesus was the first to call it “the parable of the sower” (13:18), but we can wonder why it isn’t called “the parable of the soils,” since it’s about the way different kinds of people receive messages of divine truth, some to great effect, others to no lasting effect, and still others to no good effect at all.

      Modern ministry-marketers would have told “the parable of the sowers” to illustrate their view that ministry is like a series of sowers, getting meager, temporary, or no results at all until finally one came along whose methods produced spectacular results all the time.  Oh, and there’s a book and a seminar available so you can use his methods and get his results, too. 

      The real lesson of the parable is the different ways of “hearing” the gospel.  Some people are spiritually impenetrable, and the gospel goes in one ear and out the other (with an assist by the devil, 13:19).  Others embrace it in a flush of enthusiasm, but just as quickly abandon it at the first signs of trouble (3:20-21).  For others it isn’t opposition, but the world’s allures that keeps the gospel from bearing fruit (3:22).  But there are some in whom the gospel takes deep root, and bears much fruit. 

      The question we all face is, “Which kind of hearer am I?”  The famous fourth century preacher Chrysostom warned, “Mark this, I pray thee, that the way of destruction is not one only, but there are differing ones, and wide apart from one another.  Let us not soothe ourselves upon our not perishing in all these ways, but let it be our grief in whichever way we are perishing.”