And he says to them, Do ye not know this parable? and how will ye be acquainted with all the parables?
The disciples asked the Lord what the parable of the sower meant. His reply is not an explanation but a question about their own ability to follow Him. That question sets the sower above every other parable He would tell: miss this one, and the rest stay closed.
The Lord's words weigh what the disciples had and what they lacked. One writer draws out why this parable was the test case.
The apostles came to the Lord to seek enlightenment about the meaning of the parable of the sower. He told them that He had entrusted the mysteries of the kingdom to them, though these stayed hidden from the unbelieving crowd. But it was one thing to hold these mysteries in the form of a parable, and another thing to know their true inner sense. Their question about the parable of the sower confessed their ignorance on that second point. Compared with the others, this parable was elementary and introductory. Suppose they could not grasp this first lesson about phases of the kingdom never revealed before. How much less could they understand further parables, more advanced and more complex?
This parable stands at the door because of what it handles. It says what a human heart produces on its own, and what must happen to it before anything grows for God.
The Lord's own words show how important this parable is: "Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?" The truth it teaches is elementary. It lies at the doorway of all truth. In one sentence it is this: there can be no fruit for God apart from repentance and the Word of God. For the human heart is like a farmer's field, which grows nothing but weeds if left to itself. Someone must plough the soil and sow the seed.
Once you open the parable, the failure it describes is not the fault of the sower or of the seed.
If we interpret the parable strictly, we must all recognise that the Lord is the Sower. The seed is the word of God. So the Sower was perfect, the sowing was faultless, and the seed good. Yet, because of what the soil is like, three cases out of four bring no lasting result.
The question carries reproach. But that reproach assumes something high about the people He aims it at. Christ would not press for an understanding He had made impossible.
People once complained about the prophets that they "spoke parables." Still, disciples at least should understand them. "Do you not understand this parable?" the Lord once asked His twelve disciples. "How then will you understand all the parables?" It is our shame to be like those who see and do not perceive, and hear and do not understand. The Lord does not trifle with us. He does not invite us to see what He forbids us to understand.
In the same talk the Lord rebukes them for not understanding. He also says that understanding is a gift. The two do not clash.
The Lord's answer did not ignore the parable form. He insisted they should have been able to understand it. "Do you not understand this parable?" He asks. "How then will you understand all the parables?" Yet He adds, "To you it has been given to know." That does not deny their responsibility, since God does not withhold His gifts on a whim. It throws us on Himself for the ability… Grace does not free us from the conditions holiness demands. It makes us able to meet them.
The Lord explained this parable and expected the others to follow from it. So His explanations work as samples of method. They give readers a standard instead of guesswork.
Some argue that there is no fixed standard for interpretation. Several things show that this is not the case. First, our Lord Himself explains the parable of the sower in great detail. He explains the parable of the weeds in the same way. In Mark He makes clear that these are samples of how we should interpret all parables… He meant the parables He explains to guide us in interpreting the others.
- Threshold. The sower is the first and simplest parable. Its lesson lies at the door of all truth, so missing it locks the rest.
- Seed. Nothing grows for God apart from repentance and the Word. The Sower is perfect and the seed is good, yet three soils in four bear no lasting fruit.
- Rebuke. The Lord's question reproaches slowness. In doing so it shows He never invites us to see what He forbids us to understand.
- Gift. "To you it has been given to know" does not cancel responsibility. It throws us back on Him for the ability He expects us to have.
- Key. The explanations He does give are samples of method, handed over so we can read every other parable by them.
The sower sows the word
Mark 4:14 opens the Lord's own explanation of the parable He has just told. It names the two things everything else depends on: who sows, and what the seed is. The rest of the parable then turns on a third thing the verse does not name — the ground.
The one scattering the seed is the Lord Himself, and the seed is what He came to speak.
The Lord's word in verse 13 shows that this parable of the sower must be understood, or His other parables will not make sense to us. It holds the key that unlocks the whole series… The Lord Himself was the Sower, without a doubt, and the Word was the divine testimony that He spread. For this great salvation was first spoken by the Lord, and then confirmed to us by those who heard Him (Hebrews 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? But even when He sowed the word, not every grain produced fruit. Only one case out of the four bore a crop.
A farmer sows where nothing is growing. That the Lord takes up this role marks a change in how God deals with people.
The very fact that Christ came as the sower proved that Israel was set aside. If Israel were still His vineyard, He would have come seeking fruit from the vine He planted long before. He had already come to Israel, seeking fruit and finding none. He now comes in the new character of the sower, which is quite another thing. He comes into an empty world, where there was nothing, and He begins a fresh work… So the Lord now comes as sower. He is not looking for fruit. He is doing the thing that will produce it.
Kelly gives the reason this fresh work was needed.
This was His work now, scattering abroad the seed of the Word. There was nothing in man acceptable to God. It was a question of something new and divine, the fruit of the working of grace. There must be new life if there is to be fruit for God.
Three of the four sowings come to nothing, and it is natural to wonder whether the message itself was at fault.
The seed was pure; it was the word of God. Of its germinating power there could be no doubt, for that Word lives and remains (1 Peter 1:23). So the only thing that could stop a full crop, wherever it fell, was the condition of the ground. That means the heart of the person it came to. Men might think of blaming the Word for the apparent failure of the work. Against such thoughts the Lord would warn us… We do well to remember this. Then all who preach or teach will make sure it is the word of God they are using. They will count on it being enough, as the Holy Spirit applies it, to do a divine work in the hearts and consciences of people.
The sower does not aim at selected patches. He throws the seed wide.
The sowing is broadcast, with the result that the seed falls on various types of ground. Mark 4:14 declares that the sower sows the word. The word of God today is not withheld from anyone: it is available for all. The seed also is all good seed: if it does not produce, the fault is in the ground, not in the seed.
Three forces work against the seed once it is sown.
He Himself is the great Sower and His fellow servants sow after Him. That which is sown is the Word, even as He came to preach the Word. The devil, the flesh and the world are the hindering forces.
Commentators apply this beyond the Lord's own preaching.
The parable is first about the Lord's spoken ministry concerning the kingdom. But it applies more widely to every occasion when His Word is preached, whether in a gospel meeting or a meeting for the blessing of the Lord's people. The Lord was unique in His preaching, and His words were always perfect. Even so, a sower goes out to sow every time the Word of God is ministered.
So the parable holds up a mirror to the listener, not only to the preacher.
- Sower. The one sowing is Christ, and He sows the very word He Himself is — the sowing is faultless because the Sower is.
- Seed. The seed is the word of God, living and full of germinating power; no crop ever fails because the seed was weak.
- Sowing. The Sower throws it wide and withholds it from no one. It marks a new work: God is no longer seeking fruit from man but producing it Himself.
- Soil. Since Sower and seed are perfect, the whole difference lies in the heart that hears. The devil, the flesh and the world all work to stop it there.
- Servants. The sowing has not stopped. His servants sow after Him, so the question of the soil comes to us today.
and these are they by the wayside where the word is sown, and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.
Jesus has just told a crowd about a sower whose seed lands on four kinds of ground. Now He explains the first kind, and names two reasons the word fails: a heart packed hard like a path, and an enemy who acts fast.
The "wayside" is not a field at all but the footpath running through it, packed hard by constant traffic. One writer draws the picture out from the human side:
The trodden pathway across the Galilean hillside is a fitting picture of great numbers of people, then and now. Everything in a man's life flows out of his heart. The heart is the road that all of it travels. Duty and enterprise, as well as pleasure and pain, all crowd in daily, one after another, along the highway of the heart. These earthly things come one after another without end. Each one demands attention, if not the whole mind. Together they wear the heart down into the ruts of a dull routine. When truth from above falls in such a street, it lies unnoticed.
These people do hear. But the word never gets past interest and opinion.
The first class, where nothing comes of the word at all, is the wayside hearers. This is the enemy's direct, destructive power, and it keeps the Word from entering. The word does not get below the surface. It goes no further than talk, theories, or admiration of the preacher.
Another writer names the part of a person the word never reaches.
The "wayside" hearers hear without the word reaching the conscience. It is like seed that falls on the hard road but does not sink beneath the surface. Satan can take away what is of only passing interest to the mind, and never touch the conscience.
The Lord says the word was sown in them. That phrase matters. Something arrived, and the hearer answers for what he did with it.
The first class represented here comes before us in the wayside hearer. In him we see the power of Satan at work. Yet it works in a way that leaves the man himself fully responsible. It is solemn to read even of such a person that the word was "sown in his heart." That does not imply conversion. He does not even "understand." But why? Because the ground it falls on, like the wayside, is trodden too hard for the seed to get in. So it lies out in the open before the birds of heaven, tempting the tempter, as it were, to catch it away.
Mark calls him Satan; the other accounts use other names, and one of them tells us what he is after.
The Pharisees had made the blasphemous charge that the Lord was in alliance with Satan (3:22-30). Here the Lord declared Satan to be the foremost enemy of the word of the kingdom. He catches away the word "immediately" — so energetic is his opposition. Luke presents him as the devil, the adversary of man, in contrast with the Saviour of men, and gives his aim in stealing the word: that they should not believe and be saved.
This verse is the first of three failures. A different power spoils each soil, and the devil comes first.
The Lord shows by the three classes that the power of the devil removes the seed — the birds. The power of the flesh keeps the seed from rooting — the rocks. The power of the world keeps the seed from bearing fruit — the thorns.
One writer turns the picture on the reader. What state is your own heart in?
If your heart is uncultivated, there is nothing there to receive the seed. No tenderness, no softness of soil — only ground trodden down by feet that pass over it every day. And not only that — the devil is at hand. Mark this. The very best piece of truth may fall on your heart. If it does not find a lodging there through God's grace, if it does not gain a place in the soul by His mighty power, that is the very truth the devil will take from you.
If hard ground is the problem, then something must break it before sowing can help.
It is very necessary these days to testify that the plough must come before the seed-basket. What makes the heart good? He who has gone out to plough the fallow ground and sow the seed.
- Path — Daily traffic of duty, business and pleasure beats the heart hard. The word lands on the surface and lies there unnoticed.
- Hearing — They listen, but the word never reaches the conscience. It stays at talk, theories, or admiration of the preacher.
- Sown — The word does enter the heart, yet no conversion follows. The hearer stays fully responsible for what he lost.
- Snatched — Satan moves "immediately." Luke gives his aim: that they should not believe and be saved. He is the first of three powers — devil, flesh, world — that spoil the harvest.
- Ploughed — The plough must come before the seed-basket; only broken ground keeps what is sown in it.
And these are they in like manner who are sown upon the rocky places, who when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy,
Mark 4:16 is the Lord's own explanation of the second soil in the parable of the sower. It is the seed that lands on rocky ground and shoots up at once. Can someone welcome God's message with real gladness and still stay unchanged?
Before looking at any single soil, it helps to see the frame the Lord sets.
In the strict interpretation 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. Yet, because of the character of the soil, three cases out of four give no lasting result.
This hearer is not hostile. He looks like the best case, not the worst — and that is what makes him worth a close look.
In the next class of hearers, the stony ground illustrates the opposition of the flesh. And for this purpose it is pictured, not at its worst, but at its best. This is not the natural man's rejection of the Word. It is his reception of it. Yet there is no more real fruit than in the first case. The seed grows fast, because the rocky bed acts like a warm garden bed, so it springs up with plenty of promise. But the very thing that helps this ready growth prevents it lasting.
The wayside hearer could blame his circumstances, since traffic had beaten his path hard.
Here it was the nature of the ground itself. The prophet — or rather, God through him — speaks of a "heart of stone" (Ezekiel 36:26); and this, beyond question, is exactly what is pictured here. Yet there is earth as well, a shallow responsiveness that promises a great deal at the start. But there has been no deep conviction and no true repentance. The feelings are engaged, but not the conscience. Such a person may be warm and enthusiastic, and may learn the truth quickly, but he has not counted the cost.
The word "immediately" is the warning sign. So what should the word do first in a person?
The Lord explains that these hearers receive the word with gladness, but there is no work of God in their souls. It is not a good sign when someone receives the word with joy without any previous trouble of soul. 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. That leads to self-judgment and repentance towards God.
Joy itself is not the problem. The order is.
Scripture says of true converts that they "received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit" (1 Thessalonians 1:6). That affliction came before their gladness. It came because the word convicted them and woke them up to their sin. The stony ground hearer skips the affliction, because he is unaware of his real need. He lands himself in only a surface gladness, which fades under testing — and he fades with it.
Some avoid pressing repentance for fear of clouding the freeness of grace. One writer treats that shortcut as its own danger.
Suppose someone takes the joy of Christianity, but has never judged his life and state as God sees it. That is really to slight and ignore Him altogether, and to make much of self. Speed in receiving the blessing is anything but the sign of a divine work. So repentance is all-important. Many have lost sight of it, out of a desire to guard the freeness of grace... But this remedy is at least as dangerous as the disease it was meant to cure.
This verse also shapes how we judge other people's responses, even the ones that move us.
I may see tears. I may hear groans and cries. I may even see a fairly long profession of accepting Christ, and think that a person is born again. But my thoughts are — let me repeat — not Scripture... We may be deceived into counting these promising "cases of blessing." Then we discover with bitterness the "afterward" of Mark 4:16-17, and that they had no root in themselves... The reality of new birth is proved by whether it lasts... Appearances may fool us; they never fool God.
- Sower — The Lord sows, and the seed is the word of God. The sowing is faultless, so any failure lies in the ground, not in the message.
- Rock — Under a thin layer of soil lies a heart of stone. The same shallowness that makes growth fast makes it short.
- Immediately — Quick gladness with no earlier trouble of soul is not a good sign. Where God works, He reaches the conscience first.
- Order — Real converts receive the word in affliction, and then with joy. This hearer skips the affliction and keeps only a surface gladness.
- Afterward — Tears and professions may convince us, but they prove nothing. Appearances fool us; they never fool God.
and they have no root in themselves, but are for a time then, tribulation arising, or persecution on account of the word, immediately they are offended.
The parable of the sower gives four kinds of hearers. The second looks the most promising, because this hearer takes the word at once, with joy. Verse 17 explains why that welcome collapses. There is no root, so the first pressure that comes because of the word ends the whole thing.
The picture is not a field littered with stones. The ground itself shows what kind of hearer this is.
If what we have already looked at is indifference, this is shallowness. In the first hearer you get carelessness, recklessness and a lack of feeling. Here you get no root, no depth, shallowness and emptiness. That is what the stony ground hearer is. What the Lord means here by stony ground is not soil with stones scattered about in it, as you have often seen as you pass through the country. It is a hard surface or bed of rock, with only a thin coating of earth over it.
The problem is not the joy itself. The problem is where that joy stopped.
Here we have the flesh, or nature, doing its best and proving how weak it is. The work went no deeper than the feelings. It never reached the conscience and convicted it before God. To take the joy of Christianity without ever judging your life and state as God sees it is to slight Him and ignore Him altogether, and to make much of self. Being quick to receive the blessing is anything but the sign of a work of God. So repentance is all-important. It has been too much forgotten, because people wanted to guard the freeness of grace and free the gospel from legal burdens.
If instant joy is the wrong sign, what is the right one? God works in a set order.
It is not a good sign when a soul receives the word with joy, having never been troubled about itself before. If God is working with a soul, He deals with the conscience and wakes up a sense of sins and guilt. So the first effect of the word is not joy but trouble. This leads to self-judgment and repentance towards God. After self-judgment the darkness passes and the light of God enters the dark heart. The light stirs the soul, and when it has done its work, the love of God meets that soul and gives it confidence.
The verse gives this hearer a time limit. That limit is the diagnosis.
The seed grows fast, because the bed of rock acts like a natural hot-bed under it, so it springs up quickly with plenty of promise. But the very thing that makes it grow so readily is what stops it lasting. The seed cannot root itself in the rock, and the sun withers it up. So there is no root in the man himself. Christ is not his real and great necessity. So when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, he falls away at once. This is the religion of the flesh, of sentiment, of unreality, and this is where it ends. 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."
Nothing exposes this hearer while life stays comfortable. The trouble comes because of the word.
All is well with those who receive the word with joy but have no root, as long as they live at ease in the world. Their fruit looks as fair and promising as any fruit in the church. But then loss in the world and persecution come, because they profess Christ. When trials, 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 same heat does two opposite things, depending on what it falls upon.
Trial comes in many forms. It either proves that faith is real and strengthens the faith that is there. Or it exposes the hollowness of mere profession, as with the stony-ground hearer.
The failure lies underground, so we cannot judge who has really believed.
I may see tears, I may hear groans and cries. I may even see someone profess to accept Christ for a long time, and think that he is born again. But my thoughts are not Scripture. We may count these promising cases as "cases of blessing." Then we find out, with bitterness, the "afterward" of Mark 4:16-17: they had no root in themselves. Continuing is what proves that new birth is real. Appearances may deceive us, but they never deceive God.
- Rock. The soil is a hard shelf of rock under a thin skin of earth — the hearer's trouble is depth, not the seed.
- Root. The word reached the feelings but never the conscience. There was joy, but no judgment of self before God.
- Order. Where God works, the word first brings trouble, then self-judgment. Only then come the light and love that give confidence.
- Sun. All looks fine while life is easy. Loss and persecution for the word are the heat that scorches.
- Time. "Endures for a while" is the verdict. What lasts is the seal of God's work. Trial either strengthens real faith or exposes an empty profession.
And others are they who are sown among the thorns these are they who have heard the word,
The Lord is explaining His own parable, and here He names the third hearer: the one sown among thorns. This person hears the word, yet no fruit follows — so what was already growing in that ground before the seed arrived?
Everything in the parable is perfect except the soil. Whatever fails here cannot be traced to the seed or to the one scattering it.
If we take the parable strictly, 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 was good. Yet because of what the soil is like, three cases out of four give no lasting result.
The Lord is not describing people who never heard the message. These people did hear, and that gives them the look of real converts.
In each case the Lord is speaking of those who have heard the word, not of those who have never heard the gospel. Hearing the word points to some claim of faith. That claim gives hope of a real conversion, until something proves otherwise.
In this case the word did more than land on the ground. Something began to grow.
The seed was good and alive, for it sprouted; but the thorns choked its growth.
Thorns do not arrive with the seed. They were rooted in that ground beforehand, and the sowing brought them into the open.
Before the good seed fell into the hearts of the thorny ground hearers, roots of thorns already filled the ground. Those roots are the desires for the things of this life, for riches and pleasures. They sprang up and choked the word. The roots were already in the heart, but they did not spring up until the good seed was sown there. Present things can grip the heart hard, and no one may see or feel that grip until the word of God tests it.
A thorn works on the plant in two ways at once. And the original word for "cares" is a strong one.
The thorns act in two ways. They shut the light out, and as they grow they take a terrible grip on the plant and choke it. So the plant has neither light nor fruit... The original word for "cares" is very strong — the strongest word there is. It means corroding, perplexing, withering care; care that would, so to speak, cut a man in two!
Poverty and wealth each supply their own thorn, so the warning reaches everyone who hears.
The evil works in various forms, but at heart it is worldly lust and real selfishness — distrust of God and indifference to His interests. So the heart is either overwhelmed with anxiety or busy chasing present things. Even the look of devotion is lost, and the soul goes back, sometimes eagerly, to the world it had seemed to leave... But you who are poor, watch against cares that creep in; you who are rich, do not be enticed by the deceitfulness of riches; both of you, see that you judge "the lusts of other things!"
Does this only describe a claim of faith that fades, or does it also touch true believers? One writer applies it to both.
The parable is mainly about the heart first receiving God's Word, and about the things that hinder this. But whatever hinders that first receiving will also hinder the fruitfulness of those who have truly received the Word.
Either way, the list of thorns is not limited to obvious vices.
"Other" here stands over against everything the word bears witness to. It means everything except the word, all that is not the word — to put it plainly, all that is not Christ... Whatever it is, if the natural heart loves it, wants it, takes pleasure in it, it is a lust that chokes the seed.
- Perfect sowing. The Sower is faultless and the seed is the word of God. When there is no fruit, look at the soil.
- Real hearing. This hearer does hear, and the seed even sprouts. What happens next shows what the heart was already full of.
- Occupied ground. Thorn roots were in the heart already. Sowing did not plant them, it exposed them.
- Double grip. Thorns shut out the light and strangle the plant. The word for "cares" means care that could cut a man in two.
- Everyone's warning. Anxiety crushes the poor; wealth deceives the rich. "Other things" means anything the natural heart loves that is not Christ.
and the cares of life, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things, entering in, choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.
The thorns in this parable are not left to guesswork — the Lord names them. Three forces get in among the seed, and the result is a life that heard the word and still produced nothing.
A thorn harms a plant in two ways at once. And the first thorn named here carries a far stronger word than English shows.
The thorns work in two ways. They shut out the light, and the growing thorn takes a terrible grip on the plant and chokes it. It has neither light nor fruit... The original word for "cares" is very strong — the strongest word that can be used. It means corroding, perplexing, withering care, care that, so to speak, would cut a man in two!
The first two thorns catch different people. One grows in poverty, the other in wealth — and the third grows anywhere.
The "cares" point especially to the poor man's struggle over how to live at all, how to keep food on the table. This is the fight for a daily living, the cares of this life. If faith does not meet them, they stop the spiritual word from thriving in the heart. The wealthy are wide open to the "deceitfulness of riches," above all when the love of money goes together with having it (1 Tim. 6:9-10). The "lusts of other things" cover every ambitious chase after passing goals, however innocent those goals may be in themselves. People in every condition are open to this, and it can fill the heart until what is divine is crowded out.
Mark's list is the fullest of the three Gospel accounts, and the third item is the widest. It is deliberately vague, and that vagueness is the point — "other" is measured against one standard.
Notice, dear friends, that the lusts of other things destroy it just as surely as the cares of this world do. What are these other things? "Other" is set here against everything the word testifies about. It means everything except the word, all that is not the word — to be plainer, all that is not Christ... No matter what it is, if the natural heart loves it, desires it, finds pleasure in it, it is a lust that chokes the seed.
Mark alone says where the trouble happens. The thorns enter in and do their damage inside a person, in the one place the word was meant to fill.
Mark records the fullest description of these worldly forces. Luke sums them up as the "cares and riches and pleasures of this life." Matthew mentions only two of the three, and he expands them — "the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches." Mark's list is fuller still. He also adds that these things do their damage by entering into the heart, where the word of God should be hidden (Ps. 119:11).
Nothing here openly fights the word. The eye and the heart are simply divided, and the thorns outgrow the wheat.
These hearers have no singleness of eye and heart. A busy world with its constant demands takes over their attention. So do the worries of everyday life, and the excitements of a restless, reckless age. Such divided efforts to serve both God and money always end the same way: flourishing thorns and withered wheat.
This soil looks devoted for a time. The warning that follows is aimed at the reader, rich or poor.
The evil works in various forms, but at heart it is worldly lust and real selfishness. It distrusts God and is indifferent to His interests. So the heart gets either overwhelmed with anxiety or busy chasing present things. Even the appearance of devotedness is lost. The soul goes back to the world it had seemed to leave, sometimes with intense eagerness... But you who are poor, watch against creeping cares. You who are rich, do not let the deceitfulness of riches entice you. Both of you, see that you judge "the lusts of other things!"
- Entering — the thorns work by getting into the heart, the very place the word was meant to fill.
- Corroding — "cares" is the strongest word there is: withering worry that cuts a man in two.
- Deceiving — riches promise and lie. Anxiety crushes the poor; plenty fools the rich.
- Crowding — "other things" means anything that is not Christ, however innocent it looks.
- Choking — the end is not open rejection. It is withered wheat: a hearer who kept everything but fruit.
And these are they who have been sown on the good ground, such as hear the word and receive it, and bear fruit; one thirty, and one sixty, and one a hundred [fold].
Mark 4:20 is the Lord's own explanation of the fourth soil — the only one of the four in which the seed comes to anything. It answers two questions the parable leaves hanging. What makes ground "good"? And why does the same seed yield such different amounts?
The religious leaders had rejected the Lord. This parable shows what His ministry was really doing. He was not inspecting Israel for a crop already there.
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 doing a work to produce fruit. His ministry was indeed a test for Israel, proving that there is no fruit for God from fallen man as such. If there is to be any fruit, it can only be through God's own work in the souls of men, pictured by the sowing of the seed.
That raises an objection. If every heart is bad, how can God call any heart good ground?
Why are the hearts of some compared to good ground, when Scripture says the heart is "deceitful above all things, and desperately sick"? Not because there is anything naturally good in them. This passage gives only the facts, not the cause behind them. It is simply the fact of the preaching of the word, and the reception of it.
Soil does not become fertile on its own. A farmer breaks it up first.
The good ground hearers are those who not only hear the word but receive it and bring forth fruit. The ground has come under the action of the plough and the harrow. So it has been prepared.
What does that ploughing look like in a person?
Good ground is ground prepared by ploughing up the soil to receive the seed into itself. Without this preparation of repentance there can be no receiving the word of God into the heart in a way that produces fruit.
Three verbs carry the whole verse, and each one is a step further than the last.
What marked those on the good ground was loyalty to the truth. Notice the three things said here: they heard, they received, and they brought forth. These are three very important realities. They heard; many a person hears. Do you receive? They received, and then they brought forth fruit — that is, they practised it.
The middle verb is the one Mark presses. He uses a different Greek word here than for the rocky-ground hearers earlier in the chapter.
In Mark, the word is received into the heart — that is, it is taken to oneself, welcomed and cherished. The truth is received not in a formal sense as in verse 16, where a different Greek word is used, but in the love of it.
Genuine believers do not all bear the same amount.
On the other hand, there is seed that falls on good ground and yields fruit, some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred. Even there the result is uneven. What is fatal to the unbeliever can do grave harm to the fruitfulness of the faithful.
The same forces that ruined the first three soils still work in the fourth. Here they cut the harvest down instead of killing it. Even so, the lowest figure is a real harvest.
This group alone describes true believers. All of them bear fruit, though in three different measures. Thirty-fold is not large, but it is fruit; sixty-fold is more fruit; and one hundred-fold is much fruit.
The numbers are not decoration. One grain does not stop at one plant.
The word is the seed of one grain. One soul, made alive by the power of the word working inside it, becomes the living source of an effect multiplied many times over. That effect is not only righteousness, but testimony, and souls brought to righteousness. Those souls become the vessels and keepers of grace and truth through that testimony, and they hold out the word of life themselves.
- Prepared. No soil is good by nature. Good ground is ground God has broken up, so fruit traces back to His work, not to anything already in the person.
- Received. Mark's verb means more than hearing. The heart welcomes the word and loves it, unlike the rocky ground's shallow, formal reception.
- Practised. Hearing is not enough. Those on good ground receive the word and then put it into practice.
- Multiplied. One soul made alive spreads far beyond itself: righteousness, testimony, and other souls brought in.
- Measured. Thirty, sixty, a hundred. Every real believer bears fruit, but what kills the crop in other soils can still shrink it here.