But that in the good ground, these are they who in an honest and good heart, having heard the word keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.
The parable's final soil is the only one that produces a crop. Luke describes it by the state of the heart, not by the size of the harvest. Two questions follow: where does such a heart come from, and why does the fruit need patience?
The seed was the same in every case. The difference lay in the ground. One writer traces that difference to its source:
The seed is the word of God, and is the same in each of the cases before us. There was nothing defective in the seed. The results have to do with the soil or ground. Luke speaks of an honest and good heart; that is never found in man naturally, but only as produced by the grace of God.
What makes such a heart honest? Not the absence of sin:
This does not mean the heart was without sin. It means the heart realised and owned its sin, like the tax collector: "God, be merciful to me, a sinner." No one is honest in the sight of God who does not feel and own his sin. Owning our sin breaks up the hard ground. The heart then receives the word of salvation, holds it fast, and bears fruit with patience.
Luke traces both the failures and the success back to what is going on inside a person. One commentator sets the two agents side by side:
Where the Word is received, Luke describes people who hear it, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience. Along with the Word of God there is the working of the Spirit. Together they produce this honest and good heart. So faith purifies the heart, and it does so through feeling and confessing our sinfulness. Luke, as always, brings out the moral roots, both of what hinders and of what receives the Word.
The phrase joins two Greek words with different shades of meaning. One writer gives an example of each:
"Honest and good" was the Greek ideal, kalos kagathos. The word agathos is like the Hebrew tou, "good" in the sense of doing good; compare Matthew 7:17; Matthew 20:15; Matthew 25:21 onwards. Mary of Bethany illustrates kalos, "excellent," and Joseph of Arimathea illustrates agathos.
"Honest" here is wider than the English word today. It is not only about telling the truth. One reference work says it covers "any honourable conduct," and lists this verse with Romans 12:17 and Philippians 4:8 (Morrish Bible Dictionary).
Luke's word for the fruitful hearer is that he holds fast. Reading the three accounts together fills out the picture:
All of them heard the word, but not all were fruitful. To get the full instruction of this parable, we must keep in view what each of the three Gospel writers who recorded it tells us. In Matthew the fruitful ones hear and understand. In Mark they hear and receive. In Luke they hear and keep. To understand, to receive, and to keep are all necessary to be a fruit-bearing hearer of the Word of God.
Luke ends with "patience." One writer explains it as "a patient endurance that does not give way under trial and suffering" (J. A. Trench). What keeps such people going is not the fruit itself but Christ:
They may seem to the world to be bright and blessed fruits, but if people do not have Christ they grow tired. There will be no enduring unless Christ has possession of the soul. But if He has, there will be a lasting motive, and people will go on and "bear fruit with patience." Those who hear and keep it go steadily on. Their motive for action is in the Lord. Trouble may come into the church. Disappointment may arise, even from fellow believers. But they go on just the same, because they have Christ before them. The word they have heard and keep connects them with Christ, and He is more than anything else.
Luke also leaves out the smaller yields. He names only the full harvest: "one measure, and that is perfect — one hundredfold." It shows "the work of God in the soul by the Word of God" (J T Mawson).
- Ground, not seed. The seed never fails. Every difference in the harvest traces back to the soil. That is why the Lord explains the outcome by describing a heart.
- Ploughed first. An honest heart is one that owns its sin rather than one free of it — broken-up ground, not naturally good ground.
- Given, not grown. Grace produces that heart, through the Word and the Spirit working together.
- Held fast. Matthew's hearer understands, Mark's receives, Luke's keeps. Fruitful hearing does all three.
- Proved by time. Fruit comes with endurance. Only a soul that has Christ keeps going when trouble and disappointment come.
And no one having lighted a lamp covers it with a vessel or puts it under a couch, but sets it on a lamp-stand, that they who enter in may see the light.
Right after the parable of the sower, Jesus turns from soil to lamplight. He moves from what the word grows inside a person to what it must do outside. The picture comes from an ordinary home, and it raises a sharp question: if God has lit a light in you, what could justify covering it?
The parable of the sower ends with fruit. This saying adds a second result of the same seed, and one writer traces both to conversion.
Verse 16 adds that truly receiving the Word produces light as well as fruit. Every real conversion means the lighting of a fresh candle in this dark world. Cares and riches and pleasures choke the word. In the same way a "vessel," which speaks of work and daily toil, or a "bed," which speaks of ease, may hide the candle that has been lit. Every candle lit by receiving the Word is to be put on open display for the good of others. Let us all take this home to ourselves. If the light is really there it cannot be entirely hidden, as verse 17 shows. If year after year nothing shows, only one conclusion can be drawn — there is nothing to show.
Receiving life is not the end of the story. Another writer names what comes next:
when the word of God has taken hold of a man, the next thing is testimony. God let the disciples, not the nation, know the mysteries of the kingdom of God. They had light themselves, and the next thing was to give light to others.… This drives home responsibility in the use of light.
The word behind "lamp" is not our modern candle.
The Greek word lychnos is sometimes translated 'light,' which it never really means, and sometimes 'candle.' It properly means 'lamp' — a hand-lamp fed with oil. Some passages show the truth more clearly when the same word is always translated the same way. Luke 8:16 is one: there the 'lamp' pictures the testimony of the word by Christ.
Commentators differ here. One reads the lit lamp as a Person:
The Light, the Candle that God's own hand has lit for us, is the Lord Himself, our Saviour. He was speaking of Himself in the parable. "I am the light of the world," He said on another occasion.
One writer reads the two covers Jesus names as two ways of smothering a testimony.
Who would hide a lighted lamp under a vessel or basket or under a bed? Will a believer choose to be ashamed of having others know he is a believer? If the Spirit of God has "lighted" him, it is so that he may give light to others. Let him then be willing to have nothing secret, so that his conduct and words bear witness to his faith. Hiding the light under a vessel means we are too busy with the things of this life to witness for Christ. Putting the light under a bed means we are too lazy to let our light shine for the Lord.
God is not neutral about whether the light shows.
To receive a new nature by the operation of the Word of God is not enough. God raises up a testimony for Himself. Where a candle is lit, it is not meant to be covered: it is to shine, to give light, "so that those who enter may see the light." God loves that the light should be apparent. Is it not there to be seen?
One writer sets the two Gospel accounts side by side and finds two circles the one lamp reaches:
Put the lamp on its proper stand, and it would shed its light on everyone in the house (Matt. 5:15), as well as on everyone who might come in (Luke 8:16).
Who can shine, then? One writer answers by pointing to the new life itself, not to ability.
The shining of the light is not a question of gift. It is not the exercise of gift in preaching and teaching. It is the new life expressing something of Christ, by being like Christ: "blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without fault, in the middle of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world" (Phil. 2:15).
- Lit — every real conversion lights a fresh lamp in a dark world. The seed that bears fruit for God also becomes light for people.
- Fed — the word means a small hand-lamp filled with oil. It pictures the testimony of the word. Some read the lit lamp as Christ Himself, the Light of the world.
- Hidden — the jar stands for being too busy with daily life. The bed stands for being too lazy. Both smother a testimony, as thorns choke a seed.
- Placed — God wants the light seen. Luke's wording stretches it past the household to anyone who comes in.
- Shining — this is not about preaching ability. It is a new life that looks like Christ among a crooked generation.