Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Mark 4:1-10 Parable of the Sower

1 And again He began to teach by the sea. And a great multitude was gathered to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat in it on the sea; and the whole multitude was on the land facing the sea. 2 Then He taught them many things by parables, and said to them in His teaching: 3 “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 “And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it. 5 “Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. 6 “But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away. 7 “And some seed fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. 8 “But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.” 9 And He said to them, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”


Devotional
Jesus then having rebuked the scribes from Jerusalem and the Pharisees for their blasphemous assertions about Himself now begins to teach the great multitude that had gathered literally from everywhere with parables by the sea. And thus Jesus begins to teach the crowds and us here a very important parable. So Jesus starts by setting out from shore in a small boat just a far enough so He is not overrun by people seeking to be healed by Him. So it is there in the still waters, a few feet or maybe meters from shore where He can project His voice off the waters, Jesus begins to teach again. Now the Scripture says He taught them many things in parables. Though were told everything He taught them at that time in this section of Mark's gospel (See Matt. 13) we are told something that is foundational to following Him and understanding the spiritual realities of doing so. And to do this Jesus uses agrarian or agricultural principles or realities to explain spiritual ones to us. Thus Jesus begins by saying: 3 “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 “And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it." Vs. 3-4

Without revealing too much at this time for Jesus explains the parable for us so when we look at that section then I’ll expand. But for now I’ll try to illuminate some of the metaphors within the parable without giving everything away at this time. Starting with Jesus’ emphatic call to us to listen! or literally hear! For what Jesus is about to say to us must not be causally heard or received. It must be indigested into the depths of our souls, for how we “hear” Jesus when He speaks to us through His Word will have a profound impact on us and our standing with Him later on. Therefore if you remember nothing else, remember this that what God’s Word says and what we hear we must apply our faith to, both our intellect and well as our actions (Heb. 4:2; James 2:18, 26). And thus Jesus describes a sower; that is a person, with a bag of seeds at their side who walks up and down a cultivated fields furrows randomly throwing out seeds on either side of it to seed it. Now as you can imagine there are a lot of variables with this method of seeding, and Jesus will use some of them to reveal spiritual realities to us. The first one Jesus chooses to reveal to us is that as the sower sowed “…some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it.” Vs. 4 That some seed fell by the wayside means it did not find the ground it was intended to, and before it even has a chance to germinate the birds of the air come and devour it. This is the first scenario Jesus presents to us. Now in the Bible
birds of prey and or scavenger species can represent the presence of evil; the Law of Moses gives a list of unclean birds for the Israelites not to eat and these are generally, but not always, thought of in that light in the Scriptures (See Lev. 11:13-18; 20:25-26; Rev. 18:3-4). Here then Jesus is using them in that light to warn us that the sowers seed does not always get a chance to begin, for it is lost by the wayside and then quickly devoured by the birds of the air. The next analogy Jesus uses of the sowers seed is that “Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. 6 “But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away. Vs. 5-6

In Israel it’s not hard to imagine there being stony ground around where one might try to sow seed. And thus Jesus tells us that some of the sowers seed lands on stony ground where there is no depth of earth and thus the seed immediately springs up. But as Jesus warns when the sun came up it was scorched and having no root it withered away. Jesus then is not taking about a full grown plant here. He is talking about a seed that germinates suddenly but ultimately is withered by the sun lacking the roots to sustain it during the heat of the day. Now there are varieties of desert seeds that can sprout in as quickly as 50 minutes from the time they are exposed to even slight moisture; in temperatures ranging from 10-40 degrees Celsius in both dark and light conditions.***
Therefore these seeds unlike the first seeds make it to germination; in fact they are of such a variety that they spring up immediately when exposed to the right conditions maybe being exposed to the earlier morning dew when a sower would sow his seed to avoid the midday heat in Israel, or the moisture in the soil itself after it is cultivated, or mabe watered by some other means. Unfortunately having fallen on the stony ground they have no roots in the fertile soil. And thus when the midday sun rises and beats down on them they are scorched and soon wither away.

The third place Jesus says the sowers seed fell is among the thorns, which as Jesus said “grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop.” vs. 7 It germinated and started to grow, even had roots in the ground, but ultimately became choked out by the thorns before it could come to fruition. Therefore Jesus having given us three different types of scenarios or potential outcomes for the sowers seeds that end negatively, in the forth and finial one He makes abundant use of the positive. Here Jesus says: 8 “But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.” 9 And He said to them, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Now the good ground is where a crop sprang up, increases and produces some thirtyfold, some sixty, some hundred. Therefore the yield from it exceeds many times more than what was initially sown as well as what was lost to either the birds of the air, the stony ground, or the thorns. For where the sowers seed finds good ground it will increase many times more than what was sown. That is what Jesus is emphatically stating here, using natural cycles of agriculture; seeding, growing, then harvesting to explain as much. Thus wherever the sower sows his seed and it finds good ground there is abundance. Jesus then concludes His parable to us all by saying “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Vs. 9

So far I’ve tried not to reveal the parables meaning since Jesus does that for us. So when we look at His explanation in the next post. I’ll make some comments hopefully that will help illuminate some of the Spiritual truths within Jesus' parable.

Scripture Quotations
The Holy Bible, New King James Version, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc.) 1982.

Non Biblical References
*** Gleaned from an article written by Y. Gutterman, Department of Botany, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel; in Oecologia, Volume 10, Number 2 / June, 1972; accessed through the internet via. http://www.springlink.com/

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