And he spoke to them many things in parables, saying, Behold, the sower went out to sow
Jesus sits by the sea and teaches in parables for the first time, beginning with a man scattering seed. The whole chapter rests on this picture: who sows, what the seed is, and why one seed gives such different results.
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The disciples noticed the change of method and asked about it. His answer tied the parables to His own rejection.
This is the first time the word parable occurs in the New Testament. The disciples, struck by this method of teaching, asked the Lord: "Why do you speak to them in parables?" (v. 10). The Lord's answer is telling. It confirms that the teaching of the parables of the kingdom of heaven relates to the rejection of the king… This is solemn indeed. They could not see because they had refused to see.
The Lord's own explanation of the next parable tells us who the sower is. (Some older translations read "the sower" here, where the ESV has "a sower".)
The identity of the sower is not difficult to clear up. In explaining the second parable our Lord says: "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man." Our Lord Himself is the Sower. He came with the precious seed, the fine wheat, and of course He Himself is the grain of wheat. The seed He sows can only bear fruit as it falls on good ground. In the ground it dies, and out of death comes the fruit… We would take this parable in the first sense to apply to the days of our Lord on the earth. In a wider sense we must take it as a picture of the whole age, while He is absent from the earth and the Kingdom is in the hands of men. The sowing He began continues still, and the result of sowing is likewise the same.
A sower does not come to collect a harvest. He comes to put seed in. That reverses what God had been doing with people until now.
The Saviour likened Himself to a sower of seed (Matt. 13:3–8). This marks a new departure in the ways of God with man. In the earlier ages of the world's history God had been looking for fruit from man, above all from Israel. He had every right to do so. But He sought it in vain, because flesh is evil beyond cure… God no longer looks for fruit from man. His present action is to sow the good seed of the gospel, and so produce His own fruit. This work has been proceeding ever since the Son of God came to earth.
Matthew and Luke name the seed differently, and each name teaches something.
Mark calls the seed simply the word, with no qualification. In Luke we read something more exact: "The seed is the word of God." This phrase states the divine origin of the word… But in Matthew we have not the general term but the specific one. The seed is there described as the "word of the kingdom." This phrase covered the subject of the word, while that of Luke looked to its Author.
One seed, four outcomes: the difference cannot lie in the seed. That changes how we judge apparent failure in preaching.
The seed was pure; it was the word of God. There could be no doubt about its power to grow… So wherever it fell, the only hindrance to a full crop would be the condition of the ground — in other words, the heart of the person it might come to. Men might think of blaming the Word for the apparent failure of the work. Against such thoughts the Lord would warn us… All who preach or teach may make sure that it is the word of God they are using. They can count on it being enough, as the Holy Spirit applies it, to do a divine work in the hearts and consciences of men.
This parable comes first for a reason. One soil in four bears fruit, and that number shapes what a reader should expect as the message spreads.
The first parable is not a representation of the kingdom, but of the work by which the kingdom is formed. All the other parables in the chapter rest on it… The seed falls on four kinds of ground, and in only one does it bring forth fruit… How empty is the hope that preaching the gospel everywhere would bring blessing everywhere! … Gentiles as well as Jews were to hear the word of the kingdom.
- Sower. The Son of Man Himself goes out with the seed. The sowing He began still goes on through the whole age of His absence.
- Seed. It is the word of the kingdom. Matthew names its subject, Luke names its Author, and the seed carries its own power to grow.
- Soil. Since the seed is uniform and pure, every failure traces back to the ground, not to the message.
- Speech. Parables opened the kingdom's secrets to the disciples. They left in the dark those who had refused to see.
- Sequel. This first parable is the foundation of the chapter. It shows the work that forms the kingdom, and it warns us not to expect fruit everywhere the message is preached.
and as he sowed, some [grains] fell along the way, and the birds came and devoured them;
The parable opens with a sower, and his first seed lands on a packed footpath where nothing can sink in. Two questions follow: why does good seed produce nothing here, and who are the birds that carry it off?
Commentators point out that the picture of a sower marks a change in how God is dealing with people. Before this, He had come looking for fruit that was already there. Now He comes sowing into a world where there was nothing.
The very fact that Christ came as the sower proved that Israel was set aside. If He had still been coming to Israel as His vineyard, He would have come looking for fruit from the vine He planted long ago. He had already come to Israel, looking for fruit and finding none. Now He comes in the new character of the sower, which is a completely different thing. He comes into an empty world, where there was nothing, and He starts a fresh work.
When seed comes to nothing, suspicion falls on the sower or on the seed. This first case clears both.
Here the sowing produces nothing at all. The seed falls on a hard, closed heart. It does not even sprout. Man's spiritual enemy carries it off at once. None of the blame for this failure belongs to the Sower or to the seed. Both are perfect, without a fault of any kind. But the ground was hard and beaten down, never ploughed, and the birds of the air were watching to steal the good seed.
A footpath is hard because of everything that has walked over it. Writers apply that to the traffic of an ordinary life.
It is a solemn thing to read even of a man like this that the word was "sown in his heart" (v. 19). That does not mean he was converted. He does not even "understand." But why? Because, like the path, the ground it is sown on is trodden too hard for the seed to sink in. The seed lies out in the open in front of the birds of heaven, almost inviting the tempter to "catch it away." There are many souls like this. They are taken up with things that harden them and deaden them to everything else — business or pleasure, lawful or lawless.
The hearing may be real. It just stops short of the conscience.
The "wayside" hearers are those who hear, but the word never reaches their conscience. It is like seed that falls on the hard road and never sinks below the surface. The birds of the air can eat such seed without trouble. Satan can take away what held only passing interest for the mind and never touched the conscience.
Christ Himself says what the birds stand for, and the same birds reappear later in the chapter.
Birds are used as symbols of evil agents. In the dream of Pharaoh's baker, the birds ate the baked goods he was carrying on his head (Gen. 40:17). In the parable of the Sower, Christ explains that the birds which ate the seed by the path stand for "the wicked one" (Matt. 13:4, 19). In the parable of the Mustard Seed, the kingdom of heaven becomes a great system with roots in the earth, and the birds of the air shelter under it (Matt. 13:31-32). The Greek word is the same in both parables: πετεινόν.
The picture also shows how quickly the enemy works.
Birds you never saw a moment before appear and carry off crumbs thrown on the ground. In the same way the enemy takes away the seed that was sown, because the hearer did not care for it.
The Lord's explanation says this hearer "does not understand" (v. 19). One writer argues that this is not about brainpower.
But is this a question of mental capacity, of intellectual understanding? Not at all. The Lord says the word was "sown in the heart." It aimed itself at the conscience, and the hearer could accept it or reject it. But the heart would not have it and turned against it. "And does not understand it" means "he would not understand or receive it."
So the enemy's activity never cancels the hearer's accountability.
The man who heard it is no less guilty. What was sown in his heart fitted every need — man's nature and man's condition.
- Sower. Christ did not come to collect fruit from ground already planted. He came to start fresh, sowing the word into a world that had none.
- Seed. The same perfect seed falls everywhere. Where nothing grows, the fault is not in the sower or the seed.
- Soil. The path is trodden hard, so the word stays on the surface. The mind hears it; the conscience never does.
- Snatcher. The birds are the wicked one. He appears out of nowhere and carries off what the hearer left uncared for.
- Solemn. "Does not understand" means "would not receive." The enemy takes only what the heart has already refused, so the hearer stays guilty.
and others fell upon the rocky places where they had not much earth, and immediately they sprang up out of [the ground] because of not having [any] depth of earth,
This second ground in the parable looks at first like a success: the seed grows, and it grows fast. The verse raises the question of why fast growth proves nothing, and what is missing under the surface.
The ground here is not soil littered with stones. Commentators describe solid rock lying just under a thin layer of earth.
It is rocky ground, not stony: bedrock, with a slight layer of earth over it. In it the seed grows fast, but only at the surface. That is the very thing that destroys it a little while later. At first the rock works like a hot-house: "immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil." Then the sun grew hotter and scorched it. And because it had no root, it withered away.
The phrase "immediately they sprang up" is not praise. A mind can take in a great deal while the heart never faces its own state.
There was a more hopeful appearance in this case. The word was received, but the ground was rocky; there was no depth of earth. Appearances came very quickly — "immediately they sprang up." There is little or no sense of sin. Everything is taken in far too readily. "The plan of salvation" may be thought excellent. There may be no denying that his mind has been enlightened. But such a person has never measured his awful condition in God's sight. The good word of God is tasted, but the ground is rocky. Conscience has not been properly exercised. Whereas, in a real work of heart, conscience is the soil in which the word of God takes effect. There can never be a real work of God without a sense of sin.
The first hearer had an excuse of sorts. This one has none: the problem is what he is, not what happened to him.
Here it is the nature of the ground that is at fault. With the hearer beside the path, you could argue that circumstances made him what he was. The traffic over that ground had packed it 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). Beyond question, that is exactly what is pictured here. Yet there is earth as well, a surface responsiveness which promises a great deal at the start.
This soil is not a picture of open rejection. It shows human nature at its most welcoming — and still failing.
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... Here is not the natural man's rejection of the Word, but his reception of it. Yet there is no more real fruit than in the first case.
This hearer welcomes the word with joy. Writers treat that instant gladness as evidence against the work, not for it.
Some also received the word with joy. This was proof that the conscience was untouched. When the conscience is reached, the result is anything but joy — until forgiveness is known. The feelings may be stirred for a time, and the word listened to with a joy that will give way to sorrow. The reason truth is taken up so lightly with joy is that there is no root, and so it is received in joy and given up in trouble.
Heat is what exposes rootless growth. Here is what the burning sun stands for.
Everything is fine 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 comes worldly loss and persecution for confessing Christ. When trials and afflictions and the cross meet them on their way, they stumble. These are the scorching sun that withers the seed and all its fruit.
If shallowness is the problem, the plough is the answer.
The importance of this process in the soul cannot be overestimated. The lack of it is the secret of so much of the shallow profession all around us. The seed gets no deep root in unbroken ground. The deeper the furrow made by the ploughshare of conviction, the deeper the root, and the more abundant the fruit in later days.
- Rock — the trouble is bedrock under a thin layer of soil. The fault is in the ground itself, not in anything that happened to it.
- Rush — fast growth is a symptom, not a success. The same shallowness that speeds it up guarantees the collapse.
- Rejoicing — joy before any sense of sin stirs the feelings but never reaches the conscience.
- Roasting — trouble and persecution are the sun. Heat does not create the weakness. It only shows there was never any root.
- Root — the deeper the furrow of conviction, the deeper the root and the fuller the fruit. Ploughing must come before sowing.
but when the sun rose they were burned up, and because of not having [any] root were dried up;
Matthew 13:6 is the second half of a two-verse picture: seed that fell on rocky ground, came up fast, and then met the sun. It raises a question every hearer has to face: why did a plant that started so well die so fast?
The ground here is not soil littered with stones. Commentators describe a shelf of rock just under a thin skin of earth. That explains both the fast start and the quick death.
It is rocky ground, not stony: bed-rock with a slight layer of earth over it. In that thin soil the seed grows fast, but only near the surface. The very thing that destroyed it a little later was what first produced this hot-house growth: "immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil." Later the sun grew hotter and scorched it. Because it had no root, it withered away.
So why was there no root? One writer points to the conscience.
In the next case the word is received at once with joy. That tends to prove the heart will not keep it, for the conscience was hardly reached. A conscience touched by the word makes a man serious. He sees himself in the presence of God, and that is always a serious thing, however much His grace attracts him or His goodness gives him hope. If the word has not reached the conscience, there is no root. He received the word for the joy it gave; when it brings trouble, he gives it up.
The sun is not bad weather. It stands for the trouble that comes to a person because he has taken up the word.
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 loss in the world and persecution come on them for confessing Christ. When trials and afflictions and the cross meet them on their way, they are offended. These are the scorching sun that withers the seed and all its fruit.
The same heat would have done a healthy plant good. Sun drives roots downward — unless there is nowhere for them to go.
Normally the sun's rays would have driven the seed to root deeper and firmer, as the root struck downwards in search of moisture. Here the heat withered it instead, and hurried the growth to its total destruction.
The trouble was underground, not in the green leaf above.
In this case the seed sprang quickly into life and showed very rapid growth. But the burning sun beat down on these lush young plants. They were so scorched that they withered and died. There was a great deal of green stalk and leaf on display, but no matching root development. So at the crucial moment, when they needed it most, they "lacked moisture" (Luke 8:6), and they withered away. They had no underground connection with springs or streams of water, such as the tree of the first Psalm had.
The plant died, and its death showed what it always was. What lasts marks out God's work from man's.
So there is no root in the man himself; Christ is not his real and great necessity. Therefore, "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 "lasts for a while." "I perceive that whatever God does endures forever" (Ecclesiastes 3:14).
One writer links three phrases from the parable into a chain.
Notice the words, "immediately receives it with joy." There is no deep work of conscience, no moral judgment of self or of sin. As a result there is no depth of root, no power of endurance… We should ponder with the greatest care how these expressions hang together: "immediately, with joy," "no root," "withered away." A person may take in the plan of salvation with the mind only, with no spiritual work in the conscience. That is a great danger. Such a reception often comes with the most joyful emotions. It stirs the natural feelings, but the truth has not entered the heart. The Word has cut no furrow.
- Rock — A shelf of bed-rock under a thin skin of soil is the whole problem. What made the seed shoot up fast is what killed it.
- No furrow — Feeling took the word in, but the Word never cut into the conscience. God makes a person serious before He makes him glad.
- No root — There was nothing for roots to go into, so the plant had no hidden supply — unlike the tree planted by streams of water.
- Sun — Heat that should have driven roots deeper scorched the plant instead. The sun stands for trouble and persecution that come because of the word.
- Withered — Permanence is the seal of God's work; what lasts only "for a while" was never more than religion of the flesh.
and others fell upon the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them;
This is the third ground in the parable of the sower, and it looks the most ordinary. Nothing attacks the seed here. It shares its ground with something already growing, and loses.
The trouble starts before the sowing. The thorns own the ground first, and Matthew keeps the spotlight on them.
Here the ground is already occupied with something else, and something that is native to the soil as well. The thorns were there before the seed fell among them. So much so that Matthew takes no account of the seed's apparent growth at all — only of the thorns. Luke mentions that growth only to show that the flourishing thorns choked the seed.
What was already there stays hidden until the word arrives and forces it into the open.
In the thorny ground hearers, the roots of thorns already filled the ground before the good seed fell into their hearts. Those roots are the desires for the things of this life, for riches and pleasures. They sprang up and choked the word. Although the roots were already in the heart, they did not spring up until the good seed was sown there. The heart may not show how firmly present things grip it. No one may even realise it, until the word of God comes and tests it.
The Lord Himself explains what the thorns stand for, and Mark and Luke list them.
"Other seeds fell among thorns." There you have the world. The Lord says, "the cares of this age" — that is the first thing mentioned. Then "the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things," or "pleasures of life." Those are the three things mentioned in Mark and Luke.
Being poor is no safer than being rich. Each also carries the other's danger.
Poverty and riches, as Agur long ago noted (Prov. 30:8-9), are seen here as alike unfavourable to spiritual life. Yet riches may entice the poor, and care may weigh heavily upon the prosperous rich man. The deceitfulness of riches is so great a snare that the Lord said elsewhere a rich man can hardly enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 19:23). But He was careful to keep this from meaning that salvation itself differs for different classes of people. Everyone who realises his need of salvation belongs to one class only: "Christ died for sinners" covers every case.
The second soil failed under open attack. This one fails to something that never looks like an enemy at all.
The influence of present things on eternal things is not openly hostile, as affliction and persecution were in the previous class. But it is just as deadly, and far more dangerous, because it works so quietly. The thorns were growing too near the seed. A mile away it would not have mattered. Because they were close, they could secretly and effectively rob the good seed of the light, air, moisture and nourishment it needed from the soil.
A crowded heart may still say yes to the message. What it cannot do is produce anything.
The Lord shows here how utterly impossible it is to produce fruit for God while the heart is occupied with the world. In Luke the whole range of worldly influences is shown — its cares, its riches, its pleasures. The three combined, or any one of them, may so fill the heart that the word of God does nothing in it. It falls on the ear. The mind may even quietly agree with it. Yet it produces no saving faith in the soul and no fruit in the life, because there is no purpose of heart for God and no break with the world.
You do not clear thorny ground by attacking the thorns. You clear it by filling it with something better.
We all know that since the fall the ground produces thorns and briars. People have tried many methods to get rid of them. Experience has taught the farmer that there is only one way to do it. He may plough and harrow, but for every root he breaks, two plants will grow up, and his field will become a briar patch. Let him instead sow the field with grass seed, and as the grass grows up it will drive out the briars. 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.
- Room. This soil fails over room. The thorns were in the ground first, so the word arrives to find the space taken.
- Exposure. The roots stay hidden until the word is sown. God's word shows how firmly present things grip a heart.
- Named. The thorns are the world in the heart: the cares of this age, the deceitfulness of riches, the desires for other things. They crowd poor and rich alike.
- Nearness. No open attack ruins this soil. The thorns grow close and steal its light, air and nourishment.
- Fruit. Agreeing with the word bears nothing without a break from the world. Do not fight the thorns; let the things of Christ fill the room instead.
and others fell upon the good ground, and produced fruit, one a hundred, one sixty, and one thirty.
Here the seed finally lands where it can work, and the parable reaches a harvest. But the yield is not the same in every case. The Lord names three amounts, and commentators have long asked why.
The picture of God sowing rather than harvesting marks a turn in His dealings with people.
The Saviour likened Himself to a sower of seed (Matt. 13:3-8). This marks a new turn in God's ways with man. In earlier ages God had looked to man for fruit, and to Israel above all. He had every right to do so. But He looked in vain, for the flesh is evil beyond cure... God no longer looks for fruit from man. He now sows the good seed of the Gospel, and so produces His own fruit.
Yet only one throw in four comes to anything, and even that one is mixed.
The sower here is the Lord Himself, yet out of four casts of the seed, three are unsuccessful. Only in the last case does the seed bear ripe fruit. Even there the result is mixed and held back — "some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." Natural things still hinder fruitfulness, more or less.
The word "good" raises a problem. Scripture elsewhere describes the human heart very differently.
Someone may ask why the hearts of some are compared to good ground, when Scripture teaches that every heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. It is not because there is anything good in them by nature. Only the facts are given here, not the cause behind them. We simply see the preaching of the word and the receiving of it.
The first three soils fail through the devil, human nature, and the world. One influence is left to explain the fourth.
We are not told what has made it good. But if we have the devil, nature, and the world in the first three parables, what influence is left? There is nothing but the Holy Spirit. Today we badly need to say that the plough must come before the seed-basket. What makes the heart good? He who has gone out to plough the unbroken ground and sow the seed.
The three amounts mark real differences among believers. They do not mark a line between saved and lost.
This group alone describes true believers, and all of them bear fruit, though the Lord names three different measures. Thirty-fold is not large, but it is fruit; sixty-fold is more fruit, and one hundred-fold is much fruit (John 15:2-5).
The same forces that killed the seed earlier appear here in a weaker form.
In the other cases the power of Satan and the attractions of the world kill the growth completely. Here they only reduce the amount of fruit produced.
The natural heart rejects the word. So the fruit here needs a cause outside the soil.
If all that is in the natural heart hates and rejects the word, why does it bear fruit here? Our Lord Himself tells us at the start of John 15: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser." That is why the seed takes root in any heart and produces fruit. God values and loves every branch of the true vine so much that He Himself stoops to be their vinedresser. First He gives them the power by which the seed takes root and grows. Then, when it becomes a branch in Christ, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.
The parable does not say why the yields differ.
Does the difference come from faithfulness or from opportunity? The Lord does not take up the question here. But other scriptures show that God will take both into account in the great Day of Rewards.
Matthew counts down from a hundred; Mark counts up from thirty. Commentators differ on whether this carries meaning.
Is this difference of order a mere accident? No, it is designed, and there is a divine purpose in it... the order of the words in Matthew points to the decline of the whole company of people who profess faith — yes, even in the fruit-bearing of the good seed. This is not through any defect in the good seed, which is the Word, but through some bad quality in the good ground.
Another writer doubts that the falling order carries that weight.
The suggestion that an age running to its end may account for the falling numbers will hardly fit here... Even so, may our hearts long to prove in full the work of God in our souls.
- Sower. God no longer looks to man for fruit. He now sows to produce His own fruit, so the harvest starts with Him.
- Soil. No heart is good by nature. The plough comes before the seed-basket, and only the Holy Spirit explains a soil that receives the word.
- Seed. The word takes root only because the Father Himself acts as the vinedresser. He gives the power, then prunes for more fruit.
- Fruit. Only this fourth group are true believers, and every one bears fruit. Thirty-fold is small, but it is still fruit.
- Measure. Satan and the world killed the seed elsewhere; here they only cut the yield. Faithfulness or opportunity — God counts both in the Day of Rewards.
He that has ears, let him hear.
The Lord has just told the crowd the parable of the sower, and He ends it with a challenge instead of an explanation. This short sentence sorts them: some heard only a sound, others took the word home.
The parable shows the word received, then dropped — and in some hearts kept and fruitful. The closing call turns that picture into a question for the hearer.
Even where the heart does not refuse the truth, but receives it outwardly, it can abandon it just as quickly. The same will that makes a man gladly receive the gospel makes him drop it in the face of difficulties. But in some cases the word does produce blessed effects. It fell on good ground and brought forth fruit in different degrees. "Who has ears to hear, let him hear." This is a solemn warning to souls. They must look carefully at whether or not they produce according to the truth they have received.
Everyone in the crowd had physical hearing. The ear the Lord means is something else, and it is not self-produced.
While He was here on earth, the Lord often cried, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." That is, the one who has an inward ear — an ear opened by the Holy Spirit to listen to the messages given and to receive them.
It is the smallest thing God asks for. Refusing it has cost people before.
It is an ear to hear. It is the very lowest qualification. It is not, Can you work? Can you do anything? Israel in the wilderness had no ear, and was overthrown; so will you be also if you have none. God says: Does My word have any entrance into your hearts? Have you gained any blessing from anything I have ever said to you? Here is My challenge to you: "He who has an ear, let him hear."
The ear shows itself at once in what a person does after the story ends.
He ended it with the solemn words, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Having ears to hear, or not having them, would show at once whether a man belonged "within" or "without." Most of His listeners thought it was a pretty story, pleasant to the ear. They left it there, which showed they were outside. Others, including the disciples, were not content with this. They pushed further to reach its inner meaning. They belonged to the inside.
This call marks a change in how God deals with people. Later teaching never reverses it.
It is not the law laid down to an ordered people on penalty of death. It is the word, wherever received in faith, to produce fruit. The great principle the Lord introduced when He was here is individual responsibility. This He repeats from on high. The kingdom, when set up, in no way weakens it, as we learn here. The church, as we know from elsewhere, brought in the communion of saints, shared submission, and shared action. Even so, God never allows anyone to give up individual responsibility.
The appeal rests on an opened ear, not on birth. So it reaches beyond the crowd in front of Him.
"He who has ears to hear" answers, in principle, to "The sower went out to sow." He spoke it to Israelites, but not to them as a nation in a fixed position. He spoke it to the gracious work going on in their own minds and souls. But in principle, whoever had ears, this being so, it applied to him and was for his profit too; and here any Gentile, or anyone whose ear God opened, came in. It stands as a solemn warning on the sowing of the seed: everything is ruined, and God is acting in grace, taking these pains before judgment falls.
The same call did not stop with that crowd. The Lord sounded it again to churches that had drifted.
It was a summons to the individual to free himself from the heedless mass. The Lord made this appeal to His people on earth. He 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." In the middle of general church decline, the Lord calls for individual faithfulness in paying attention to His word and His warning.
- Ear given. The hearing meant here is an inward ear, opened by the Holy Spirit. It is the lowest thing God asks, and no one can produce it himself.
- Ear tested. What a person does after the parable ends shows whether he is inside or outside. The careless enjoy the story. Others press on for its meaning.
- Ear owned. The call is not law given to a nation. It makes each person responsible, and shared life among believers never cancels that.
- Ear opened wide. The call rests on an opened ear, not on birth. So anyone comes in, Gentile included. Grace takes this trouble before judgment falls.
- Ear still called. The same cry reached the seven churches in Asia. As the church declines, the Lord still asks each person to listen.