Bible stories : The Parable of the Sower
Everything you need to know about The Parable of the Sower? Next, there is the crowded heart. That is the seed that falls on ground where weeds choke out its growth. Slowly and surely, these people, busy with the cares and riches of the world, just lose interest in the things of God. Finally, there is the fruitful heart that receives the Word. The seed falls on good ground and the plants produce a rich harvest. We are the ones who determine what kind of soil our hearts will be. We decide whether we will have a hard heart, a shallow heart, a crowded heart, or a receptive heart. This is exactly what James meant when he said, “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21).
Thorny places implies people whose hearts are filled with worldly lust and other pleasures which don’t allow the word of God to grow in their hearts. Good ground is the heart of those who accept the word of God and produce good fruits for their Master by obeying word of God. The seeds were sown in all kinds of soils. They were not specifically sown on good ground alone. Similarly, nowadays, through technological advancement everyone in the world is getting the word of God by various media. As each and every individual is special in the eyes of God, the word of God reaches everyone without difference in race or country or colour or language.
The Parable of the Sower (sometimes called the Parable of the Soils) is a parable of Jesus found in the three different Gospel books of The Holy Bible in Matthew 13:1-23, Mark 4:1-20, and Luke 8:4-15. Speaking to a large crowd, Jesus tells a story of a farmer who sows the seed and does so indiscriminately. Some seed falls on the wayside with no soil at all, some on rocky ground with little soil, some on soil which contains thorns, and some on good soil. In the first three cases, the seed is taken away or fails to produce a crop, but when it falls on good soil it grows, yielding thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold. See even more details with the The Parable of the Sower video on YouTube.
Later, Jesus explains to his disciples that the seed represents the Gospel, the sower represents anyone who proclaims Jesus is the messiah and Son of God, God the Father himself. The various soils represent people’s responses to it, The first three representing rejection and not holding onto their faith while the last one represents holding and growing their faith until the end. The Parable of the Sower story begins with a farmer in this farmer who had a big huge bag of seeds. He decided one day that he was going to go into his field and he was going to start sowing seeds.
Now wait for a second here I’ve heard of sewing machines and sewing clothes, but I’ve never heard of sowing seeds. What does “The Parable of the Sower” mean? Well, sowing seeds actually just means to scatter or to throw seeds. So the farmer went to his field, he started to scatter seeds around and throw seeds around into the field. Some of the seeds fell onto a path while other seeds fell onto Rocky soil. Still, others fell into the soil with thorn bushes. And finally, some seeds fell into good soil. Now after some time, the seeds that fell onto the path were snatched up and eaten by birds.
The last kind of soil that Jesus talks about is a deep, fertile soil. The word of the gospel falls in that soil and it sends down roots, it sends then a deep foundation into the soil and grabs on and begins to get nourished by the soil. The plant sprouts up and it begins to produce fruit and that’s the kind of life Jesus is saying, that you ought to have. That’s the kind of response you ought to have to the gospel. Not when it gets choked out, not when it gets shriveled up by persecution, not one that just really doesn’t care and has no penetration at all. But one that receives the word and sends down roots into it, begins to get nourished by it and then creates fruit.
