'The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by
the sea side. 2. And great multitudes were gathered
together unto Him, so that He went into a ship, and
sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. 8. And
He spake many things unto them in parables, saying,
Behold, a sower went forth to sow; 4. And when he
sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls
came and devoured them up: 6. Some fell upon stony
places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith
they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
6. And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and
because they had no root, they withered away. 7. And
some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and
choked them: 8. But other fell into good ground, and
brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some
sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. 9. Who hath ears to hear,
let him hear.'--MATT. xiii. 1-9.
The seven parables of the kingdom, in this chapter, are not to be
regarded as grouped together by Matthew. They were spoken
consecutively, as is obvious from the notes of time in verses 36 and
53. They are a great whole, setting forth the 'mystery of the
kingdom' in its method of establishment, its corruption, its outward
and inward growth, the conditions of entrance into it, and its final
purification. The sacred number seven, impressed upon them, is the
token of completeness. They fall into two parts: four of them being
spoken to the multitudes from the boat, and presenting the more
obvious aspects of the development of the kingdom; three being
addressed to the disciples in the house, and setting forth truths
about it more fitted for them.
The first parable, which concerns us now, has been generally called
the Parable of the Sower, but he is not the prominent figure. The
subject is much rather the soils; and the intention is, not so much
to declare anything about him, as to explain to the people, who
were looking for the kingdom to be set up by outward means,
irrespective of men's dispositions, that the way of establishing it
was by teaching which needed receptive spirits. The parable is both
history and prophecy. It tells Christ's own experience, and it
foretells His servants'. He is the great Sower, who has 'come forth'
from the Father. His present errand is not to burn up thorns or to
punish the husbandmen, but to scatter on all hearts the living seed,
which is here interpreted, in accordance with the dominant idea of
this Gospel, as being 'the word of the kingdom' (ver. 19). All who
follow Him, and make His truth known, are sowers in their turn, and
have to look for the same issue of their work. The figure is common
to all languages. Truth, whether intellectual, moral, or spiritual,
is seminal, and, deposited in the heart, understanding, or
conscience, grows. It has a mysterious vitality, and its issue is
not a manufacture, but a fruit. If all teachers, especially
religious teachers, would remember that, perhaps there would be
fewer failures, and a good deal of their work would be modified. We
have here four sowings and one ripening--a sad proportion! We are
not told that the quantity of seed was in each case the same. Rather
we may suppose that much less fell on the wayside, and on the rocky
soil, and among the thorns, than on the good ground. So we cannot
say that seventy-five per cent, of it was wasted; but, in any case,
the proportion of failure is tragically large. This Sower was under
no illusion as to the result of His work.
It is folly to sow on the hard footpath, or the rocky ground, or
among thorns; but Christ and His servants have to do that, in
endless hope that these unreceptive hearts may become good soil. One
lesson of the parable is, Scatter the seed everywhere, on the most
unlikely places.
I. Our Lord begins with the case in which the seed remains quite
outside the soil, or, without metaphor, in which the word finds
absolutely no entrance into the heart or mind. A beaten path runs by
the end, or perhaps through the middle, of the cornfield. It is of
exactly the same soil as the rest, but many passengers have trodden
it hard, and the very foot of the sower, as he comes and goes in his
work, has helped. Some of the seed, sown broadcast, of course falls
there, and lies where it falls, having no power to penetrate the
hard surface. As in our own English cornfields, a flock of bold,
hungry birds watch the sower; and, as soon as his back is turned,
they are down with a swift-winged swoop, and away goes the exposed
grain. So there is an end of it; and the path is as bare as ever,
five minutes after it has been strewed with seeds.
The explanation is too plain to be mistaken, but we may briefly
touch its main features. Notice, then, that our Lord begins with the
case in which there is least contact between His word and the soul,
and that, as the contact is least in degree, so it is shortest in
duration. A minute or two finishes it. Notice especially that the
path has been made hard by external pressure. It is not rock, but
soil like the other parts of the field. It represents the case of
men whose insensibility to the word is caused by outward things
having made a thoroughfare of their natures, and trodden them into
incapacity to receive the message of Christ's love. The heavy
baggage-wagons of commerce, the light cars of pleasure, merry
dancers, and sad funeral processions, have all used that way, and
each footfall has beaten the once loose soil a little firmer. We are
made insensitive to the gospel by the effect of innocent and
necessary things, unless we take care to plough up the path along
which they travel, and to keep our spirits susceptible by a distinct
effort. How many hearers of every teacher are there, who never take
in his words at all, simply because they are so completely
preoccupied!
Notice what becomes of the seed that lies thus bare. 'Immediately,'
says Mark, 'Satan cometh.' His agents are these light-winged
thoughts that flutter round the hearer as soon as the sermon or the
lesson is over. Talk of the weather, criticism of the congregation,
or of the sower's attitude as he flung the seed, or politics, or
business, drive away the remembrance of even the text, before many
of our hearers are out of sight of the church. Then the whirl of
traffic begins again, and the path is soon beaten a little harder.
If the seed had got ever so little way into the ground, the sharp
beaks of the thieves would not have carried it off so easily.
Impressions so slight as Christ's word makes on busy men are quickly
rubbed out. But if the seed sown vanishes thus swiftly, the fault is
not in it, but in ourselves. Satan may seek to snatch it away, but
we can hinder him.
Our Lord uses a singular expression, 'This is he that was sown by
the way side,' which appears to identify the man with the seed
rather than with the soil. It has been suggested by some
commentators that this expression is to be regarded as conveying the
truth that the seed sown in the heart and growing up there becomes
the life-spring of the individual, and that therefore we may speak
of him or of it as bearing the fruit. But this explanation will not
avail for the case where there is no entrance of the word into the
heart, and so no new birth by the word. More probably we are to
regard the expression simply as a conversational shorthand form of
speech, not strictly accurate, but quite intelligible.
II. The next variety of soil differs from the preceding in having its
hindrance deep seated. Many a hillside in Galilee--as in Scotland or
New England--would show a thin surface of soil over rock, like skin
stretched tightly on a bone. No roots could get through the rock nor
find nourishment in it; while the very shallowness of earth and the
heat of the underlying stone would accelerate growth. Such premature
and feeble shoots perish as quickly as they spring up; the fierce
Eastern sun makes a speedy end of them, and a few days sees their
springing and withering. It is a case of 'lightly come, lightly go.'
Quick-sprouting herbs are soon-dying herbs. A shallow pond is up in
waves under a breeze which raises no sea on the Atlantic, and it is
calm again in a few minutes. Readily stirred emotion is transient.
Brushwood catches fire easily, and burns itself out quickly. Coal
takes longer to kindle, and is harder to put out.
The persons meant are those of excitable temperament, whose feelings lie
on the surface, and can be got at without first passing through the
understanding or the conscience. Such people are easily played on by
the epidemic influence of any prevalent enthusiasm or emotion, as every
revival of religion shows. Their very 'joy' in hearing the word is
suspicious; for a true reception of it seldom begins with joy, but
rather with 'the sorrow which worketh repentance not to be repented of.'
Their immediate reception of it is suspicious, for it suggests that
there has been no time to consult the understanding or to form a
deliberate purpose; stable resolutions are slowly formed. It is the
sunny side of religion which, has attracted them. They know nothing of
its difficulties and depths. Hence, as soon as they find out the
realities of the course which they have embraced so lightly, they
desert, like John Mark running away as soon as home comforts at Cyprus
were left behind. The Christian life means self-denial, toil, hard
resistance to many fascinations. It means sweat and blood, or it means
nothing. Whether there be 'persecution' or no, there will be affliction,
'because of the word,' and all the joyful emotion will ooze out at the
man's finger-ends. The same superficial excitability which determined
his swift reception of the word will determine his hasty casting of it
aside, and immediately he stumbles. All his acts will be done in a
hurry, and none of his moods will last. Feeling is in its place down
in the engine-room, but it makes a poor pilot. Very significant is
that phrase, 'No root in himself.' His roots are in the accidents of
the moment. His religion has never really struck root in him, but only
in the superficial layer of him. His conscience, will, understanding,
are unpenetrated by its fibres. So it is easily pulled up, as well as
soon withered.
There is another profound truth in this picture. The hard,
impenetrable rock lies right under the thin skin of soil. The nature
which is over-emotional on its surface is utterly hard at its core.
The most heartless people are those whose feelings are always ready
to gush; the most unimpressible are those who are most easily
brought to a certain degree of emotion by the sound of the word.
This class is an advance on the former, in that there has been a
real contact with the word, which has lain longer in their hearts,
and has had some growth. We may regard it as either better or worse
than the former, according as we consider that it is better to
accept and feel than not to accept at all, or that it is worse to
have in some measure possessed and felt than not to have received
the word of the kingdom.
III. In one part of the field was a patch where the soil was neither
rammed solid, as on the footpath, nor thin, as where the rock
cropped out, but where there had been a tangle of thorns, which grow
luxuriantly in Palestine. These had been cut down, but not stubbed
up, as is plain from the very fact that the seed reached the ground,
as also from the description of them as 'springing up.' The two
growths advance together. In this case, the seed has a longer life
than in the former. It roots and grows, and even, according to the
other evangelist's version, fruits, though it does not mature its
fruit. There is no question of 'falling away' here. Only the
hardier growth, which had the advantage of previous possession, and
which pushes up its shoots above ground all round the more tender
plant, gets the start of it, and smothers its green blades,
overtopping it, and keeping it from sun and air, as well as drawing
to itself the nourishment from the soil. The main point here is
simultaneousness of the two growths. This man is, as James calls
him, a 'double-minded man.' He is trying to grow both corn and thorn
on the same soil. He has some religion, but not enough to make
thorough work of it. He is endeavouring to ride on two horses at
once. Religion says 'either--or'; he is trying 'both--and.' The
human heart has only a limited amount of love and trust to give, and
Christ must have it all. It has enough for one--that is, for Him;
but not enough for two,--that is, for Him and the world. This man's
religion has not been powerful enough to grub up the roots of the
thorns. They were cut down when the seed was sown, for a little
while, at the beginning of his course; the new life in him seemed to
conquer, but the roots of the old lay hid, and, in due time, showed
again above ground. 'Ill weeds grow apace'; and these, as is their
nature, grow faster than the good seed. So the only thing to do is
to get them out of the ground to the last fibre.
Christ specifies what He deems thorns. We can all understand care
being so called; but riches? Yes, they too have sharp prickles, as
anybody will find who stuffs a pillow with them. But our Lord
chooses His words to point the lesson that not outward things, but
our attitude to them, make the barrenness of this soil. It is not
'this world,' but 'the care of this world,' not 'riches,' but 'the
deceitfulness of riches,' that choke the word. These two seem
opposites, but they are really the same thing on two opposite sides.
The man who is burdened with the cares of poverty, and the man who
is deceived by the false promises of wealth, are really the same
man. The one is the other turned inside out. We make the world our
god, whether we worship it by saying, 'I am desolate without thee,'
or by fancying that we are secure with it. Note that the issue in
this case is--unfruitfulness. The man may, and I suppose usually
does, keep up a profession of Christianity all his life. He very
likely does not know that the seed is choked, and that he has become
unfruitful. But he is a stunted, useless Christian, with all the sap
and nourishment of his soul given to his worldly position, and his
religion is a poor pining growth, with blanched leaves and abortive
fruit. How much of Christ's field is filled with plants of that
sort!
IV. The parable tells us nothing about the comparative acreage of
the path and the rocky and thorny soils on the one hand, and of the
fertile soil on the other. It is not meant to teach the proportion
of success to failure, but to exhibit the fact that the reception of
the word depends on men's dispositions. The good soil has none of
the faults of the rest of the field. It is loose, and thus unlike
the path; deep, and thus unlike the rocky bit; clean, and thus
unlike the thorn brake. The interpretation given of it by our Lord
seems at first sight incomplete. It is all summed up in one word,
'understandeth.' Then, did not the second and third classes, at all
events, understand? They received the word, and it had some growth
in them. The distinction between them and the good-soil hearer is
surely of a moral nature, rather than of so purely intellectual a
kind as 'understanding' suggests. Hence, Luke's keep fast 'in an
honest and good heart' may seem a more adequate statement. But
Biblical usage does not regard 'understanding' as a purely
intellectual process, but rather as the action of the whole moral
and spiritual nature. It knows nothing of dividing a man up into
water-tight compartments, one of which may be full of evil, and the
other clean and receptive of good. According to it, we 'understand'
religious truth by our hearts and moral nature in conjunction with
the dry light of intellect. So the word here is used in a pregnant
sense, and includes the grasp of the truth with the whole being, the
complete reception of the word of the kingdom not merely into the
intellect, but into the central self which is the undivided fountain
from which flow the issues of life, whether these be called
intellect, or affection, or conscience, or will. Only he who has
thus become one with the word, and housed it deep in his inmost
soul, 'understands' it, in the sense in which our Lord here uses
that expression. 'Thy word have I hid in mine heart' exactly
corresponds to the 'understanding' which is here given as the
distinctive mark of the good soil.
The result of that reception into the depths of the spirit is that
he 'verily beareth fruit.' The man who receives the word is
identified with the plant that springs from the seed which he
receives. The life of a Christian is the result of the growth in him
of a supernatural seed. He bears fruit, yet the fruit comes not from
him, but from the seed sown. 'I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me.' Fruitfulness is the aim of the sower, and the test of the
reception of the seed. If there is not fruit, manifestly there has
been no real understanding of the word. A touchstone, that, which
will produce surprising results in detecting spurious Christianity,
if it be honestly applied!
There is variety in the degree of fruitfulness, according to the
goodness of the soil; that is to say, according to the thoroughness
and depth of the reception of the word. The great Husbandman does
not demand uniform fertility. He is glad when He gets an
hundredfold, but He accepts sixty, and does not refuse thirty, only
He arranges them in descending order, as if He would fain have the
highest rate from all the plants, and, not without disappointment,
gradually stretches His merciful allowance to take in even the
lowest. He will accept the scantiest fruitage, and will lovingly
'purge' the branch 'that it may bring forth more fruit.'
No parable teaches everything. Paths, rocks, and thorns cannot
change. But men can plough up the trodden ways, and blast away the
rock, and root out the thorns, and, with God's help, can open the
door of their hearts, that the Sower and His seed may enter in. We
are responsible for the nature of the soil, else His warning were
vain, 'Take heed, therefore, how ye hear.'