And again he began to teach by the sea. And a great crowd was gathered together to him, so that going on board ship he sat in the sea, and all the crowd were close to the sea on the land.
Mark 4 opens with a change in how Jesus teaches. He sits in a boat, the crowd stands on the shore, and He speaks in parables — a setting commentators read as a turning point in His ministry.
The scene follows the hostility of chapter 3, where the religious leaders set themselves against Him. One writer explains what that break makes room for.
The Jewish leaders rejected Christ, and Christ then broke all links with Israel according to the flesh, as Mark 3 sets out. This gives occasion to reveal the true character of the Lord's service. Up to this moment, in His ministry of grace, it might appear that He was seeking fruit from Israel. The parable of the Sower now makes it clear that He was really doing a work to produce fruit.
Another writer looks back over chapters 2 and 3, and notes what the Lord could already see coming.
These two chapters (2 and 3) give a complete outline of the unrelenting hatred of the chosen nation toward our Lord, which ended in His death. The hour for His crucifixion had not come, but He already saw the spirit that would in the end condemn Him to be crucified.
The layout of the scene was practical first. The crowd had to hear Him, and He had used a boat this way before.
Now again a very large crowd from the nearby towns gathered by the sea, and He taught them the precious truths of God. But so that they could hear, and so He could speak more easily, He got into a boat, as He had done before (Mark 3:9). Sitting there on the edge of Lake Tiberias, He spoke to the crowd standing on the shore, and taught them many things in parables. Because of this the series is sometimes called the "boat-parables."
The change was not only in where He taught, but in how and in what He said. His earlier message was plain and direct.
At first Jesus announced with authority that the kingdom of heaven was at hand and the appointed time was fulfilled. He invited people of every class to repent and believe this good news. But now the Lord started to teach that only some would accept the gospel, and that it would stir up much hostility, so that the outward form of the kingdom would change as a result. He set this change before His audience in a series of parables — a method of teaching in strong contrast to the plain statements of the Sermon on the Mount.
The same form of words worked in two opposite directions at once, depending on who was listening.
From that point the Saviour started to use this puzzling form of speech. It was clear enough to the devout minority, but it left the godless crowd in the dark. Like the cloud in Moses' day, which stood between Israel and the Egyptians, the parables were light to the one and darkness to the other.
The first parable He tells from the boat marks a reversal in God's dealings with man.
Seated in a boat at the lakeside, the Lord presents the parable of the sower. The sower went out to sow that which, if received in the heart, should bring forth by grace the fruit God desires. That fruit was not to be found in the vineyard, where man was tested just as he was in the flesh, under the old covenant, with the law written on tablets of stone… He no longer seeks fruit from man on the earth, nor in His people, but sows that which ought to bring forth fruit.
If fruit comes only from God's own work, no one nation can claim it for itself. The place where He taught points the same way.
If a work of God is necessary, it cannot be confined to one nation. It proves that the Jew is as needy as the Gentile, and that both alike are helpless to secure their own blessing. So the Lord's service of grace has all the world in view. This truth may be shown by the Lord's own action: He "began to teach beside the sea."
- Rejection — the settled hostility of Mark 3 is the hinge. Chapter 4 is the Lord's answer to a nation that has already refused Him.
- Relocation — He moves out to the water and sits in a boat, while the crowd stands on the shore. That setting gave the series its name: the "boat-parables."
- Reversal — He stops looking for fruit from a people already planted. He sows seed that can produce fruit where there was none.
- Reach — fruit now depends on God's work, not on a nation's advantage. So the service in view takes in the whole world.
- Result — the parables divide the hearers. They are light to those who want to learn and darkness to those who do not, like the cloud between Israel and Egypt.
And he taught them many things in parables. And he said to them in his doctrine,
Mark's fourth chapter marks a shift in how Jesus teaches: the crowd stands on the shore, He speaks from a boat, and plain statements give way to stories. Why the change, what does a parable do, and what was the "teaching" — some versions say "doctrine" — that He now gave in this form?
Commentators read this verse as a turning point. Two things changed at once: how Jesus spoke, and what He said.
In the fourth chapter we see a marked change in the ministry of the Servant of Jehovah. At this point the Lord changed His teaching, both in what He taught and in how He gave His message. At first Jesus announced with authority that the kingdom of heaven was near and the appointed time had come. He invited people of every class to repent and believe this good news. But now the Lord began to teach that only some would accept the gospel, and that it would stir up much hostility. So the outward form of the kingdom would change as a result.
Hamilton Smith traces the change back to what happened in Mark 3.
The Jewish leaders rejected Christ, and Christ then broke every link with Israel as a nation on natural ground, as Mark 3 shows. This opens the way to reveal the true character of the Lord's service. Until now, in His ministry of grace, it might look as if He was seeking fruit from Israel. The parable of the Sower now makes it clear that He was doing a work to produce fruit. His ministry was indeed a test for Israel. It proved that fallen man, left as he is, bears no fruit for God. If there is to be any fruit, it can only come through God's own work in the souls of men, pictured by the sowing of the seed.
Kelly names what was being sown.
This was His work now: scattering the seed of the Word far and wide. There was nothing in man that God could accept. It was a matter of something new and Divine, the fruit of the working of grace.
The word itself carries the idea of setting two things side by side.
The word "parable" means the act of placing things together, and so it means a comparison or likeness. A parable is to its subject what a portrait is to the person. It is a likeness given in a puzzling form, yet clear enough to show an attentive mind what is meant. So it can be used without causing offence, and it can carry truth gently and with power. But it is understood only if the senses are awake and in use. Otherwise it falls on ears that do not value it and do not hear.
The physical setting shaped the delivery, and it gave this group of stories a nickname.
Now again a very great crowd from the neighbouring towns assembled by the sea, and He whose voice was "as the voice of many waters" ministered to them the precious truths of God. But that they might hear, and that He might speak the more conveniently, He boarded a boat, as He had done before (Mark 3:9), and sitting like this on the edge of Lake Tiberias, He addressed the standing multitude gathered on the shore, teaching them many things in parables. From this circumstance the series of them is sometimes called the "boat-parables."
Turpin points to the first word of the teaching that follows.
He begins it with this: "Listen." That word belongs to Mark alone; you will not find it in the other Gospels: "Listen." I believe He had a reason for using this word. First, it warns against any lightness of mind about the simple picture through which He would convey the most profound truth. "Listen." He has something to say which at first sight might seem of little account to those who listened or heard. So He would press on them the importance of what He is about to say.
This way of teaching sorted the crowd by desire.
By such a method of teaching He tested everyone in the vast crowd who heard what He said, to see who were eager to learn. For we read: "He did not speak to them without a parable" (4:34); yet He spoke, as Mark alone tells us, "as they were able to hear it" (4:33). The profit of souls was His aim, and all who wanted it had the interpretation.
One image catches the double effect.
Thomas Fuller compared the parables to God's appearance at the Red Sea, which was light to the Israelites and darkness to the Egyptians at the same time.
- Cause. After the leaders' rejection, Jesus changed both what He taught and how He taught it.
- Method. A parable sets two things side by side. It gives up its meaning only to an attentive mind.
- Message. He is no longer looking for fruit from man, but sowing seed that can produce fruit by God's own work.
- Call. "Listen" — Mark alone records it — warns against treating a simple picture as a small matter.
- Outcome. The same words are light to those who want to learn and darkness to those who do not. Everyone who wanted the meaning received it.
Hearken Behold, the sower went forth to sow.
Mark 4 marks a turn in the Lord's ministry. He sits in a boat by the sea and teaches the crowd in pictures. This verse holds three things worth weighing: a call to listen, a person who sows, and a going out that changes God's dealings with man.
The parable begins and ends with an appeal to the ear. One writer sets the opening call alongside the closing words, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear":
In this chapter the phrase occurs again (v. 23). It comes with special emphasis at the close of the parable of the sower. This force is even more striking when we connect it with the Lord's call for attention at the start of the parable. "Listen," He said, and having portrayed Himself as the Sower, He added, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." It was a summons to the individual to free himself from the heedless mass.
The Lord called for attention because a crowd can hear a story and still miss it:
Having hearing ears, or lacking them, would show at once whether a man belonged to the "within" or to the "without." The mass of His listeners evidently thought it was a pretty story and pleasant to the ear, but left it at that, showing they were without. Some others, along with the disciples, were not content with this. They wanted to arrive at its inner meaning, and pushed their enquiries further. They belonged to the within.
In this parable the Lord pictures Himself as the Sower. What He scatters is the word, and the two cannot be pulled apart:
The Lord Himself was the Sower, without a doubt. The Word was the divine testimony that He spread abroad. Scripture says of that great salvation: "It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard" (Heb. 2:3). In John's Gospel we discover that Jesus is the Word. Here He sows the word. Who could sow it like He who was it?
A sower does not come to a field expecting a crop already standing there. That picture marks a shift in God's dealings with man:
Christ came as the sower, and that fact alone proved that Israel was set aside. If He were still dealing with Israel as His vineyard, He would have come seeking fruit from the vine He had planted long before. He had come to Israel previously, seeking fruit and finding none. He now comes in the new character of the sower, which is quite another thing. He comes into a waste world, where there was nothing, and He begins a fresh work.
This also settled what man himself can produce for God:
His ministry was indeed a test for Israel, proving that there is no fruit for God from fallen man as such.
The seed does not come from the soil. It comes in from outside, carrying a life the ground could never supply:
The seed, in itself, is a completely new and distinct thing. It is not in principle like anything that was there before. It finds nothing there that it can call its own. It is not a seed of the soil springing up from it. It is the seed of God — it comes down from heaven… Once it is put into the soil, there is then in the soul what was not there before. It is no improvement or change of what was there before. It is eternal life.
The Sower and the seed are both faultless. So the outcome depends on the ground that receives the seed:
In the strict meaning of the parable we must all recognise that the Lord is the Sower, and the seed is the word of God. So the Sower was perfect, the sowing was faultless, and the seed good. Still, because of the character of the soil, three cases out of four give no lasting result.
The Lord spoke first of His own preaching. But the parable is not shut up in the past:
The immediate subject of the parable is the Lord's spoken ministry about the kingdom. But we can apply the parable more widely. It fits every occasion when His Word is preached, whether in a gospel setting or a meeting for the blessing of the Lord's people. The Lord was unique in His preaching and His words were always perfect. Still, a sower goes out to sow every time the Word of God is ministered.
- Listen. A call to hear opens and closes the parable. It pulls one person out of a crowd that heard the same words and kept none of them.
- Sower. Christ pictures Himself as the Sower, and the One sowing the word is Himself the Word.
- Sowing. He no longer comes seeking fruit from a field planted long ago. He comes to a waste world and begins the work that produces fruit.
- Seed. What He plants is not native to the soil. It comes down from heaven and puts in the soul what was never there before.
- Soil. Sower, sowing and seed are all faultless — so where three of four bear nothing, the ground is on trial, not the seed.
And it came to pass as he sowed, one fell by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured it.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And another fell on the rocky ground, where it had not much earth, and immediately it sprung up out [of the ground] because it had no depth of earth;
Of the four soils in this parable, the second looks the most promising at first. The seed comes up faster here than anywhere else — and that speed is the warning.
The word behind "rocky ground" means solid rock lying just under a thin skin of soil.
It is rocky ground, not stony: bedrock, with a slight layer of earth over it. In that layer the seed grows fast, but only near the surface. That is the very cause of its destruction a little while later. At first it produces forced, greenhouse growth: "immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil." Later the sun grew hotter and scorched it. Because it had no root, it withered away.
So where does the failure lie? Not in the sowing.
In the strict interpretation of the parable we must all recognise this: the Lord is the Sower, and the seed is the word of God. So the Sower was perfect, the sowing was faultless, and the seed good. Still, because of the character of the soil, three cases out of four bring no lasting result.
There is a difference between ground that was made hard and ground that is hard by nature.
Here it is the nature of the ground that is at fault. With the hearer by the path, someone might argue that circumstances had made him what he was. The traffic over it had made the ground hard. Here it was the nature of the ground itself. The prophet — or rather, God through him — speaks of a "heart of stone" (Ezek. 36:26). That, beyond question, is exactly what this ground pictures. Yet there is earth also, a surface responsiveness which promises a great deal at the beginning: "they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy." As the parable states it, this is a sign of a lack of depth.
A quick start looks like a strong one. Commentators read the speed the other way.
Here we have the flesh, or nature, doing its best, but proving its utter weakness... Here the work went no deeper than the affections. It never reached the conscience and convicted it before God. Some take the joy of Christianity where there has been no judgment of the life and state as God sees it. That is really to slight and ignore Him altogether, and to make much of self. Haste in receiving the blessing is anything but the sign of a divine work. So repentance is all-important. It has been too much lost sight of, through a desire to guard the freeness of grace.
If the affections are only topsoil, where does a root go down?
The hearer had received it with joy. He leaves it when trouble comes. His conscience never comes into God's presence, and he does not feel the need of a troubled conscience. The word of God fixes its roots in the conscience, because God reveals His presence there and awakens it. God Himself is revealed to the heart, and one finds oneself in His presence, conscious of being there. Self-judgment follows, the darkness passes away, and the light of God shines in the heart... If the announcement of pardon gives joy, there is reason to fear that the conscience is not awakened.
The heat does not create the problem. It shows one that was there from the start.
One may be responsive and enthusiastic at first and still not have the root of the matter in him. He is a stranger to the living work of the Spirit of God. Then a little heat of opposition or persecution arises. He may be as willing to give up his profession as he was to take it up at first. If in the first case we see Satan's activity, in this case the flesh is prominent — first its energy, then its weakness.
- Depth — The trouble is depth, not the seed. The Sower is perfect and the seed good; the shallow layer over rock decides everything that follows.
- Nature — The lack of depth is what the ground is, not what happened to it. Scripture's name for it is a heart of stone.
- Speed — Where there is no depth, growth is fast. Immediate joy without any dealing with sin is a symptom, not a success.
- Root — Depth comes when the word touches the conscience. There the word fixes its roots, self-judgment follows, and God's light shines in.
- Heat — The sun only shows what was there all along. Whoever took up a profession easily gives it up just as easily when trouble comes.
and when the sun arose it was burnt up, and because of its not having any root, it withered.
The seed in this verse comes up fast, looks alive, then dies in one hot day. The verse points straight to the reason: it had no root.
The picture is not a field littered with loose stones. One writer describes the actual ground the Lord had in view.
The expression "on stony ground" does not mean quite what we mean when we use the word in everyday speech. It is not ground with stones in it, because that by itself would not stop the root from getting down into the earth. By stony ground the blessed Lord means an actual surface of rock. Over it lies a very slight, thin coating of earth.
The plant failed at the point where it looked strongest — its speed. God's first work in a person looks very different.
The Lord explains that this stands for people who hear the word and receive it with gladness at once. But there is no work of God in their souls. It is not a good sign when a soul, without previous exercise, receives the word with joy. If God is working with a soul, He deals with the conscience, awakening a sense of sins and guilt. So the first effect of the word is not joy but trouble.
Where can the word go down and hold in a person? Commentators point to the conscience.
The hearer had received it with joy. He leaves it when trouble comes. His conscience never came into God's presence, and he never felt the need of a troubled conscience. The word of God fixes its roots in the conscience, because God makes His presence known and that awakens the conscience. God reveals Himself to the heart, and one finds oneself in His presence, aware of being there. Self-judgment follows, the darkness passes away, and the light of God shines in the heart.
The missing root is not in the soil but in the man himself. And what is missing is the mark of everything God does.
So there is no root in the man himself; Christ is not his real and great necessity. So "when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away." This is the religion of the flesh, of sentiment, of unreality. This is its end. It lacks the sign and seal of a work that is truly divine — permanence. It "endures for a while." "I perceived that whatever God does endures forever" (Ecc. 3:14).
The heat is not an accident of the weather. It stands for what a person meets once he takes the side of Christ in this world.
All is well with those who receive the word with joy but have no root, while they live at ease in the world. They produce fruit as fair and promising as any seen in the church. But then worldly loss and persecution come, because they profess Christ. When trials and afflictions and the cross meet them on their path, they fall away. These are the scorching sun that withers the seed and all its fruit.
The heat that kills the shallow crop is the very heat that ripens the rooted one. So the outcome of a trial is settled long before the trial comes.
So it is with every test and trial of life; they all have their sure effect on us. They either scorch and wither us, like the corn on the rocky ground that dies when the sun is up, or they bring our Christian life and fruit to maturity. Our secret life with our Lord decides which of these two effects happens in our case. Suppose we are much with Him, striking our roots downward in the knowledge of Himself, drawing our refreshment and strength from the hidden springs in Him. Then we need not dread the trial.
- Rock — the soil is not stony ground but bedrock under a thin skin of earth; the roots can reach nothing below the surface.
- Speed — gladness that comes at once, with nothing before it, is a warning and not a proof. God's work begins with trouble over sin, not joy.
- Root — the word takes root in the conscience, where a person finds himself in God's presence. Without that, there is no root at all.
- Sun — the heat is trouble and persecution that come because of the word, and it exposes what was never there.
- Fruit — the same sun that withers the shallow crop ripens the rooted one. The hidden life with Christ, formed before the heat arrives, decides which it will be.
And another fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.
This third soil looks the most hopeful of the failures: nothing snatches the seed away, and nothing scorches it. Yet the harvest is nothing, so the real question is not whether the heart heard the word, but why it has no grain to show.
The thorns did not arrive after the sowing.
The seed fell, but the ground that took it was already occupied and overrun with thorns. These people looked well. They had received the seed, as far as anyone could see. There were indeed roots in them, but they were the roots of something else. The thorns were growing there before anyone scattered the seed. They had taken over the ground; they occupied all of it and drew their food from it. No doubt when the soil first took the word, these thorns looked feeble and of very little importance, and people may have supposed they were pulled up. But they left the roots there, and the roots sprang up, crowding out the good seed — choked it — and so no fruit came.
The problem was there all along, but nothing showed it.
Although the roots were already in the heart, they did not spring up until the good seed was sown there. How firmly present things grip the heart may not show, and may go unrecognised, until the word of God comes and tests it. Then the true state of the heart is exposed.
Later in the chapter the Lord names them, and the warning reaches the poor and the rich alike.
Such are those who hear the word. But the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things enter in and choke the word, so it becomes unfruitful. That is serious, and it is not uncommon. May we beware! The evil works in various forms. At bottom it is worldly lust and real selfishness, distrust of God and indifference to His interests. So the heart gets either overwhelmed with anxiety or busy chasing present things. It even loses the look of devotedness, and the soul goes back, sometimes with intense eagerness, to the world it had seemed to leave. None of us can do without God's guard against them all. You who are poor, watch against creeping cares. You who are rich, do not let the deceitfulness of riches lure you. Both of you, see that you judge the lusts of other things!
That last phrase is the widest of the three.
"Other" here stands against everything the word testifies of. It means everything except the word, everything that is not the word — to be plainer, everything that is not Christ. When the word is choked, it is the testimony about Christ that is choked. And Christ Himself is the word presented to us in that testimony. God's purpose in planting the seed of divine truth in us is to reveal Christ, to bring us into fellowship with Him, to form Him within us. So I say again, the lusts of other things mean anything and everything but Christ. Whatever it is, if the natural heart loves it, wants it, finds pleasure in it, it is a lust that chokes the seed.
The second soil failed under heat and pressure. This one fails without any open conflict at all.
This influence is not openly hostile, like the affliction and persecution of the previous class. But it is no less deadly, and far more dangerous, because it works out of sight. The thorns were growing too close to the seed; a mile away it would not have mattered. So, in secret and with full effect, they robbed the good seed of the light, air, moisture and food it needed from the soil. In the same way, the cares, riches and pleasures of this life, if they rule the heart, choke the good seed, and the dreadful result is no fruit.
Writers differ on how far this seed got. Some hold that it started and was strangled mid-growth:
The seed was good, it was alive, for it germinated, but the thorns choked its growth. The word of God was the seed. The Sower used nothing else. There is a lesson here for everyone. Let it be the word, and that in its simplicity.
The same crowding can work the other way.
Since the fall the ground produces thorns and briars, and people have tried many methods to get rid of them. Experience has taught the farmer that there is only one way. He may plough and harrow, but for every root he breaks, two plants will grow, and his field will become a briar patch. Let him instead sow the field with grass seed, and as the grass grows it will drive the briars out. This is overcoming evil with good... Let the positive things of Christ fill the heart. Let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. Then we will have little room, and less desire, for the lusts of the flesh.
- Occupied. The thorns were rooted in the ground before the seed arrived; the heart was never empty, only untested.
- Exposed. Their hold is invisible until the word is sown and has to compete for the same soil.
- Named. Cares crush the poor, riches deceive the rich, and the lusts of other things reach everything that is not Christ.
- Quiet. No persecution here, no drought — just close, silent crowding that steals the light and food the seed needs.
- Fruitless. Grain is the test, not a warm hearing. The one cure is to let Christ so fill the heart that He crowds the thorns out.
And another fell into the good ground, and yielded fruit, growing up and increasing; and bore, one thirty, and one sixty, and one a hundred.
Three casts of the seed in this parable end in nothing; only the fourth produces a crop. The failure cannot be traced to the seed or to the one scattering it.
Taking the parable strictly, we must all see that the Lord is the Sower, and the seed is the word of God. Therefore the Sower was perfect, the sowing was faultless, and the seed good. Still, because of the character of the soil, three cases out of four give no lasting result.
The verse calls the fourth soil good, but does not say it was good on its own. One writer traces that goodness to God's own work, and makes it the reason fruit is sure to come.
God had made the good soil good by His own farming work — the hidden visit of the Spirit. It would not have been good otherwise. But once God has visited it in this way, it must bear fruit, because God will always have His work seen. He never lights a lamp to hide it under a basket.
The Lord's own explanation of this soil, a few verses later, lays out three steps. Each one goes further than the last, and the crop only comes at the end.
What marked those on the good ground was loyalty to the truth. Notice the three things said here: they heard, they received, and they produced fruit — three very important realities. They heard; many people hear; do you receive? They received, and then they produced fruit — that is, they practised it. They heard it, they received it, they practised it: some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundredfold.
The same soil, the same seed — and still three different yields. One writer traces the shortfall to the same forces that wrecked the earlier soils.
But there are degrees of fruitfulness in the good ground. Not all bear fruit in the same abundance. The power of Satan and the pull of the world wipe out the growth completely in the other cases. Here they only cut down the amount of fruit produced. Some, the Lord said, bring out fruit thirtyfold, and some sixtyfold, while others, like the seed Isaac sowed (Gen. 26:12), yield a hundredfold.
Another writer says the same of the believer: what killed the other crops can still cut his own.
The last case is the good ground hearer. Good ground is always prepared ground. The word has reached the conscience, and so fruit comes. Even then it comes in different degrees: some thirty, some sixty, some a hundredfold. The things that are fatal to the unbeliever can badly hinder the fruitfulness of the true believer.
Matthew ends this list with thirtyfold. Mark ends with a hundredfold.
In Matthew the return from the good ground is some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Mark reverses it: some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, some a hundredfold. Is this difference of order a mere accident? No, it is designed, and there is a divine purpose in it.
So what did the thirtyfold look like, and when does the hundredfold come? One writer answers both.
In Mark we see the results in another connection. Here is the work of the great Sower, and His results must grow into a full harvest for the glory of God. The yield at first was small. It seemed as though He had spent His strength for nothing: just 120 poor and despised people in an upper room, with no power, waiting in prayer. That was the small beginning — the thirtyfold, if you like. The hundredfold will come when this scripture is fulfilled: "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!" (Ps. 150:6).
This crop keeps growing, and it does not stay with the one who grew it.
In this last case we see grace at work in the heart, because it grows and bears fruit, and keeps on growing. Anyone who has really received the word in his heart is able to pass it on to others. He may not have the gift of preaching. But he loves the truth, he loves souls, and he loves the glory of the Saviour. The light lit in his heart is meant to shine on everyone around him. He too sows according to his strength, and is responsible to do so.
- Ground, not seed — the Sower was perfect and the seed good; the whole difference in the four cases lies in the soil.
- Ground prepared — God Himself makes the soil good, and once He has worked it, fruit must follow, because He never hides His work.
- Ground receiving — the good hearer hears, receives, and then puts the word into practice.
- Ground yielding — Satan and the world destroy the crop in the other soils. Here they only shrink it, so believers bear thirty, sixty, or a hundred.
- Ground multiplying — Mark's rising order points to a harvest that starts small and ends full. Every fruitful heart becomes a sower in turn.
And he said, He that has ears to hear, let him hear.
The parable of the sower ends with a challenge, not an explanation. Everyone on the shore had ears, so who is the Lord speaking to, and what does He mean by an ear that hears?
This appeal fits the moment the Lord describes: seed going out, with no guarantee of how people will take it. One writer links the two sayings and shows who they draw in.
The words "He who has ears to hear" match, in principle, "A sower went out to sow." They were spoken to Israelites. But they do not address them as a people in a set position. They look to God's gracious working in their own minds and souls. "He who has ears" — for a word was then being sown for people to receive. It was a solemn matter. Many would slight the word, choke it, or deceive themselves about it. But in principle it applied to whoever had ears, and it was for their profit too. Here any Gentile, or anyone whose ear God opened, came in. It stands as a solemn warning as the seed is sown: all is ruined; God is acting in grace, taking this trouble before judgment falls — "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
The Lord is not talking about hearing as a physical ability. He made this call again and again, and one commentator explains what it asks for.
In the days of His life here the Lord often cried, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." He means the person who has an inward ear — an ear the Holy Spirit has opened to listen to the message and take it in.
There is a reason the Lord adds the words at all. What He has just said does not give up its meaning to a casual listener.
Our Lord used this phrase more than once. Each time, the words that went with it carried a meaning that did not lie on the surface. To grasp it truly, a person needed faith and love in the heart, and the Spirit's anointing as well.
The closing words pick single people out of the crowd, and the Lord later sent the same call to churches in decline.
"Listen," He said. Then He pictured Himself as the Sower and added, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." It was a call to one person to break free from the careless crowd. The Lord made this appeal to His earthly people. He then repeated the same cry to each of the seven churches in Asia: "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (Revelation 2 and 3). When the churches decline as a whole, the Lord still calls each person to be faithful and to heed His word and His warning.
Even the good ground gives back different amounts — thirty, sixty, a hundred. So the call that follows leaves no listener comfortable.
On the other hand, some seed falls on good ground and yields fruit, some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred. Even there the result is mixed. What is fatal to the unbeliever can badly damage the fruitfulness of the believer. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear" (verse 9). It is a serious matter for every soul — serious for the one who hears. And what about the one who has no ear to hear?
The Lord repeats this call later in the chapter. One writer finds a second, larger responsibility in the repeat.
In the first case, all Israel carried a general responsibility: to hear their Messiah for their own enlightenment. In the second case there is a further responsibility. Those who have heard in that first sense must hear in such a way that they can pass on to others, faithfully and fully, what they heard. This agrees with the last message of Revelation, sent to the church and to each person: "The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come.' And let the one who hears say, 'Come'" (Revelation 22:17).
- Sown. The call comes as the seed goes out. Many would slight the word, choke it, or deceive themselves about it. God takes this trouble in grace before judgment falls.
- Opened. The ear in view is inward, and the Holy Spirit opens it. The meaning does not lie on the surface; it needs faith and love in the heart.
- Widened. Spoken to Israelites, it reached anyone whose ear God opened — Gentiles included.
- Singled out. It calls one person out of the careless crowd. The Lord sent the same cry to each of the seven churches, where faithfulness had to be personal.
- Passed on. Those who have heard for their own enlightenment carry more. They must hear so well that they can pass it on to others, faithfully and fully.