June 4 I Tuesday

2 Chronicles 21-22

John 14

“This is the meaning of the parable: the seed is the Word of God.”   —Luke 8:11

Jesus’s “Parable of the Sower” is one of the few parables that are recorded in three of the four Gospels. Jesus tells us of a sower sowing seeds and how as he scattered, these seeds fell onto different soils, which produced different results. Some fell along the path, got trampled and the birds ate it; some fell on rocky ground and when it grew, the plant withered; some fell among thorns
and when it grew choked the plant; and some fell on good soil and grew to yield a crop a hundred times more than was sown.

Some commentaries focus their discussion on which of these soils represent the Christian. They may differ in their arguments for whether the former three soils could depict a Christian but they all unanimously agree that the seed that lands in the good soil is a Christian. Yet, this should not be the main concern of the parable.

A seed has one objective when it is planted in the field and that is to produce a harvest, which is the only reason that a sower sows it. The seed, Jesus explains in the parable, is the Word of God. The only objective of the Word is to produce fruit in our hearts, which creates in us a greater appetite for Jesus—a desire for godliness.

If this parable is about sowing the Word of God, then the key to this parable is in the different kinds of soil, which are the different responses that people make to the Word of God. The diverse consequences are not a result of the sower or the seed. Rather, they are due to the fact that the soils are different, which causes the outcomes to be varied. This is not a parable about the minds of people––though our mind is a means by which it gets through to the heart––but about the soil, which represents the hearts of people. It is about our receptivity to the seed, which is the Word of God.
A more suitable name for this parable is probably, “The Parable of the Soils.”

We cannot overemphasize this responsibility for believers of Jesus Christ to teach and preach the Word of God. Jesus did not say, “whoever has eyes to see, let them see” but “whoever has ears to hear, let them hear” (Luke 8:8). The central thrust of God’s agenda in our world comes through the ministry of the Word of God. We may not know the type of soil we are sowing to when we share the Word but this should not stop us
from sowing because some may fall onto hearts that are ready to receive Jesus.

Prayer: Dear God, thank You for Your Word. May it be like a seed and produce fruits in my life. Open the hearts of those whom I share the gospel with to bear fruit also.