Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Matthew 13:5

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Matthew 13:5. Stony places — Where there was a thin surface of earth, and a rock at the bottom.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

PARABLES

54. The sower (Matthew 13:1-23; Mark 4:1-29; Luke 8:1-18)

To visit all the towns of Galilee was a huge task. Jesus and his disciples were helped in this work by a group of women who went with them to look after their daily needs (Luke 8:1-3). Crowds of people came to see Jesus wherever he went, and were often a hindrance to the progress of the gospel. It seems that one reason Jesus began to teach extensively in parables was to separate those who were genuinely interested from those who were merely curious (Matthew 13:1-3a; Mark 4:1-2).

The parable of the sower draws its lessons from the four different kinds of soil rather than from the work of the sower. The preacher puts the message of the kingdom into people’s hearts as a farmer puts seed into the ground. But people’s hearts vary just as the soil in different places varies. Some people hear the message but do not understand it because they are not interested. Others show early interest but soon give up because they have no deep spiritual concern. Others are too worried about the affairs of everyday life. Only a few respond to the message in faith, but when they do their lives are changed and a spiritual harvest results (Matthew 13:3-9,Matthew 13:18-23; Mark 4:3-9,Mark 4:13-20).

Parables may provide a pictorial way to teach truth, but they are more than just illustrations. Their purpose is to make the hearers think about the teaching. Those who gladly receive Jesus’ teaching will find the parables full of meaning. As a result their ability to understand God’s truth will increase. But those who have no genuine interest in Jesus’ teaching will see no meaning in the parables at all. Worse still, their spiritual blindness will become darker, and their stubborn hearts more hardened. Because their wills are opposed to Jesus, their minds cannot appreciate his teaching, and consequently their sins remain unforgiven (Matthew 13:10-17; Mark 4:10-12).

Although the teaching of parables may cause the idly curious to lose interest in Jesus, the basic purpose of a parable is to enlighten, not to darken. A parable is like a lamp, which is put on a stand to give light, not hidden under a bowl or under a bed. The more thought people give to their master’s teaching, the more enlightenment and blessing they will receive in return. But if they are lazy and give no thought to the teaching, their ability to appreciate spiritual truth will decrease, until eventually it is completely gone (Mark 4:21-25).

Returning to the picture of the sower, Jesus shows that good seed will always produce healthy plants and good fruit if given the opportunity. The farmer sows the seed, but he must wait for the soil to react with the seed and make it grow. Likewise the messenger of the gospel must have patient faith in God as the message does its work in people’s hearts (Mark 4:26-29).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

And he spake to them many things in parables, saying …

Here Christ began a new type of teaching, using PARABLES, partly for concealment, partly for illustration. His reasons for this methods will be noted more fully under Matthew 13:10, below. There are, to be sure, parables in the Old Testament, but Christ's use of this device exceeded any previous conception of it, and are still, some 2,000 years afterward, the marvel of all who study them.

A parable is a story which is made the vehicle of a spiritual message, it differs from a fable in that the parable COULD have happened, and probably DID. In a fable, there are many impossibilities, such as an animal talking, etc. The parable also differs from the myth in that the latter bears no relation whatever to reality. Allegory, such as Paul's reference to Sarah and Hagar, the wives of Abraham, builds a spiritual analogy upon well known historical facts.

Behold, the sower went forth to sow; and as he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured them: and others fell upon rocky places, where they had not much earth: and straightway they sprang up, because they had no deepness of earth: and when the sun was risen, they were scorched: and because they had no root, they withered away. And others fell upon the thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked them: and others fell upon the good ground, and yielded fruit; some a hundred fold, some sixty, some thirty. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

I. Parable of the Sower, verses Matthew 13:3-9:

Some commentators accept the rule of "ONE parable, ONE point!" For example, Henry H. Halley wrote, "Ordinarily, a parable was meant to show one point, and should not be pressed for lessons in every detail."Henry H. Halley, Bible Handbook (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Press, 1959), p. 404. This view of expositors is probably due to the excesses of some who went too far, using incidental and inert elements of the parable for advancing all kinds of notions and speculations; but, whatever caused the widespread opinion that only one lesson, or point, is to be sought in a parable, it is clear that Christ, in the cases where he explained his parables, made many points. It is the view here that one is always safe in following the example of the Saviour instead of the opinions of men.

This parable of the sower is a vivid picture of a farmer, sowing wheat from a bag strapped over his shoulder, scattering seed by thrusting his hand into the bag and hurling the seeds in an arc, somewhat in front of him, as he walked through the field. A hard, trampled path crossed the field, and some of the seeds fell upon it, where they were quickly gathered by the birds. Part of the field had very thin soil; and the seed that fell there sprouted quickly and withered quickly. A portion of the field was infested with thorns; and the seed in that area, after a long struggle with the hardier thorns, failed to produce a harvest. The good ground was the productive part of the field which rewarded the sower's efforts. There is no reason to suppose Jesus invented this story. He saw it, as travelers to that part of the world may still see it. The genius and divinity of our Lord lie in the fact that he saw so much more in such an incident than any man ever saw before.

He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. This was Christ's invitation to study that innocent story for its hidden meaning. Even yet, the true and full implications of this rich narrative come only to those with perceptive minds and hearts, attuned to the detection of spiritual truth.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

In parables - The word “parable” is derived from a Greek word signifying “to compare together,” and denotes a similitude taken from a natural object to illustrate a spiritual or moral subject. It is a narrative of some fictitious or real event, in order to illustrate more clearly some truth that the speaker wished to communicate. In early ages it was much used. Pagan writers, as Aesop, often employed it. In the time of Christ it was in common use. The prophets had used it, and Christ employed it often in teaching his disciples. It is not necessary to suppose that the narratives were strictly true. The main thing - “the inculcation of spiritual truth” - was gained equally, whether it was true or was only a supposed case. Nor was there any dishonesty in this. It was well understood no person was deceived. The speaker was not “understood” to affirm the thing “literally narrated,” but only to fix the attention more firmly on the moral truth that he presented. The “design” of speaking in parables was the following:

1. To convey truth in a more interesting manner to the mind, adding to the truth conveyed the beauty of a lovely image or narrative.
2. To teach spiritual truth so as to arrest the attention of ignorant people, making an appeal to them through the “senses.”
3. To convey some offensive truth, some pointed personal rebuke. in such a way as to bring it “home” to the conscience. Of this kind was the parable which Nathan delivered to David 2 Samuel 12:1-7, and many of our Saviour’s parables addressed to the Jews.
4. To “conceal” from one part of his audience truths which he intended others should understand. Thus Christ often, by this means, delivered truths to his disciples in the presence of the Jews, which he well knew the Jews would not understand; truths pertaining to them particularly, and which he was under no obligations to explain to the Jews. See Mark 4:33; Matthew 13:13-16.

Our Saviour’s parables are distinguished above all others for clearness, purity, chasteness, importance of instruction, and simplicity. They are taken mostly from the affairs of common life, and intelligible, therefore, to all people. They contain much of “himself” - his doctrine, life, design in coming, and claims, and are therefore of importance to all people; and they are told in a style of simplicity intelligible to the child, yet instructive to people of every rank and age. In his parables, as in all his instructions, he excelled all people in the purity, importance, and sublimity of his doctrine.

Matthew 13:3

A sower went forth to sow - The image here is taken from an employment known to all people, and therefore intelligible to all.

Nor can there be a more striking illustration of preaching the gospel than placing the seed in the ground, to spring up hereafter and bear fruit.

Sower - One who sows or scatters seed - a farmer. It is not improbable that one was near the Saviour when he spoke this parable.

Matthew 13:4

Some seeds fell by the way-side - That is, the hard “path” or headland, which the plow had not touched, and where there was no opportunity for it to sink into the earth.

Matthew 13:5

Stony places - Where there was little earth, but where it was hard and rocky, so that the roots could not strike down into the earth for sufficient moisture to support the plant.

When the sun became hot they of course withered away. They sprang up the sooner because there was little earth to cover them.

Forthwith - Immediately. Not that they sprouted and grew any quicker or faster than the others, but they were not so long in reaching the surface. Having little root, they soon withered away.

Matthew 13:7

Among thorns - That is, in a part of the field where the thorns and shrubs had been imperfectly cleared away and not destroyed.

They grew with the grain, crowded it, shaded it, exhausted the earth, and thus choked it.

Matthew 13:8

Into good ground - The fertile and rich soil.

In sowing, by far the largest proportion of seed will fall into the good soil; but Christ did not intend to teach that these proportions would be exactly the same among those who heard the gospel. Parables are designed to teach some “general” truth, and the circumstances should not be pressed too much in explaining them.

An hundred-fold ... - That is, a hundred, sixty, or thirty “grains” for each one that was sowed an increase by no means uncommon. Some grains of wheat will produce twelve or fifteen hundred grains. The usual proportion on a field sown, however, is not more than twenty, fifty, or sixty bushels for one.

Matthew 13:9

Who hath ears ... - This is a proverbial expression, implying that it was every man’s duty to pay attention to what was spoken, Matthew 11:15.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Now as we enter into the thirteenth chapter, we come into the area of the parables that deal with the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. And in these we have more or less a key to all parables.

And years ago when I was in seminary I had a very smart professor who exhorted us young seminarians to not preach from the parables until we've been pastoring for at least thirty years. I now qualify. And I wish I had back a lot of those sermons that I preached from the parables when I thought my professor didn't know what he was talking about. But over the years there has been a definite change in my understanding of the parables.

I do not profess to have a perfect understanding even at this point. And as I look at these parables I cannot stand before you tonight and say, well now this is what Jesus meant, and have that kind of confidence. All I can share is what I have come to learn, and what I have come to believe, but as I continue to grow I cannot guarantee that in time I might even come to other understandings than what I presently possess. I will frankly confess to you, that I do not consider my understanding of the parables complete. I am certain that there is more to be gleaned then what I have yet been able to gather.

The same day Jesus went out of the house, and he sat by the seaside. And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so he went into his ship, and he sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore ( Matthew 13:1-2 ).

So now He is sitting. He has taken the posture of the teacher, and this is to the multitudes. Contrast to the Sermon on the Mount, when His disciples were coming to Him, He opened His mouth and taught them saying, but now He is talking to the multitudes from that little ship just offshore.

And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold a sower went forth to sow; and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: and some fell upon stony places, where they did not have much earth: and immediately they sprung up, but because they had no deepness of earth: when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had not root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: but others fell on good ground, and brought forth fruit, some a hundred, some sixty, and some thirtyfold. Who has ears to hear let Him hear ( Matthew 13:3-9 ).

Now let's jump for a moment to verse eighteen, where Jesus explains this parable. And this one we can understand, because Jesus explains it.

Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and understands it not, then comes the wicked one, and catches it away that which was sown in his heart. And this is he which received seed by the way side. But he that received the seed in stony places, the same is he that hears the word, and he receives it with joy at once; and yet he has not root in himself, and thus he abides for just a while: for when tribulation, or persecution arises because of the word, by and by he is offended. He also that received the seed among the thorns is he that hears the word; and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word and he becomes unfruitful. But he that received the seed into the good ground is he that hears the word, understands it, and bears fruit, and brings forth some hundred, some sixty, some thirty ( Matthew 13:18-23 ).

Now Luke also tells us of that parable. And Luke gives us a few more words of Christ concerning it. First of all, he tells us that the field is the world. He that sows is the Son of man. The field is the world, the seed is the Word of God, and he who sows it is the Son of man, Jesus Christ.

God's Word sown throughout the world, some of it falls on the wayside. The birds pluck it up. The bird is the evil one Jesus tells us in Luke. Satan immediately comes along and plucks the Word out of the person's heart. So there is an immediate rejection. There is nothing, there is no response. The Word doesn't take root. It does nothing.

In the second category there are those who receive the Word with joy. Oh they get all excited. They have a tremendous emotional experience, but there is no depth. And soon when trials come, persecution begins to come, they fall away, because they have lacked depth. They've never rooted themselves in the truth. They've never really studied. They've never really developed a foundation for their faith.

The third category, and unfortunately, I think that this is the category that we would probably have to deal mostly with, is that which fell among thorns. Lives who received the Word of God, there has been that development within them through the Word, but thorns have grown up with it. And the thorns ultimately choke out the life, that it becomes unfruitful. And when we read that those thorns are the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things, we realize that that fits many of us. How that our lives are not as fruitful for the Lord as they should be, because we've allowed the cares of this world, that desire for riches or for other things to choke out the fruitfulness from our own lives. And as we look at our lives, we see that we are not bringing forth that fruit that the Lord would have us to bring forth.

And so I would warn you of this third type of soil. Let us take care, lest we be burdened down with the cares of this life, the deceitfulness of riches, so that God's Word is not productive and bearing fruit in us.

Now there is what is called, expositional constancy. And I think that it is very important in understanding parables that we abide by this law of expositional constancy. And that is a theological phrase used in Hermeneutics whereby in interpreting scripture, if a figure is used to represent something in one passage, every time that same figure is used in a figurative way, it represents the same thing. In other words, here the field is the world, therefore in all of the parables where you have a field, in each parable the field represents the world. The seed is the Word of God. Therefore, wherever you have parables that involve the planting of seed, it is the planting of the Word of God. And it is important that we establish this expositional constancy, or else you can start reading into the parables other things, than what was intended by the parable. You have to remain true to the types, otherwise there would be just total confusion.

Now the question arises, after Jesus spoke this parable,

The disciples came, and they said, Lord, Why are you speaking to them in parables? ( Matthew 13:10 )

Obviously it was a beginning of a new method of teaching by Jesus.

And he answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you know the mysteries of the kingdom, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that what he has. Therefore I speak to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophesy of Isaiah, which says, By hearing ye shall hear, and ye shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive. For this people's heart is waxed gross, their ears are dull to hearing, and their eyes they've closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear ( Matthew 13:11-16 ).

Now, why did Jesus turn to the method of parables? And be careful here, because a lot of people, surface reading would say, "well, He is trying to hide the truth, He is trying to disguise it, so only His disciples can understand it." I would like to suggest to you that first of all, that is the opposite reason why a person uses parables. The purpose of a parable is always to illustrate a truth. When a person cannot understand, when a person cannot see, then you use a story. You take something that is familiar to them, something that they can understand, and you tell the story, and then by the story you illustrate the truth that you are trying to get across to them.

Now the people had come to the place where they were dull of hearing. They were beginning to close their ears. Stories are always attractive. And they are a method by which the truth can be imparted as the story unfolds the truth, and you can see it in a parallel form. And the purpose of parables are never really to hide, the purpose of illustrations in the parable is an illustration. It is not to hide the truth, but it is to suddenly reveal the truth, in such a way that you can understand. It is to draw attention. And any good speaker when he realizes he's beginning to lose the attention of the hearers, will say: "now let me tell you a story," and everybody wakes up, "oh a story, let's hear a story."

You know that it is a means of attracting attention, and you also know that it is a means of illustrating a truth in a very subtle way, because now they see it. Though they may have closed their eyes, maybe they don't want to see, but suddenly they see it.

And this happened with Jesus and the Pharisees, as He was later on using some of the parables. He was nailing them, and all of a sudden they would say, uh, wait a minute, that was against us. And they realized He was speaking these parables against them. But He was coming at them in a way, that He was just telling a story, but suddenly they saw that it was directed towards them. And the truth would hit. And of course they would become angry when they saw. Hey, He really trapped us there, wiped us out with that one. And so Jesus because of the dullness of their hearing, because of the blindness of their eyes, because of the attitude, He now turns. He will still seek to reveal the truth.

Jesus isn't trying to hide truth from men. Jesus wants to reveal truth to men. But if a man cannot take it straight, then He will couch it in an illustration in order that they might catch the parallel and still get the truth. So this is why He began to adopt the form of parables.

Therefore [He said] many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which you see, and they have not seen them, to hear those things which you hear, and they have not heard them ( Matthew 13:17 ).

And then He explained to them the parable of the sower.

Now in verse twenty-four,

Another parable he put forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened to a man which sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares ( Matthew 13:24-25 )

Now here is seed that is being sown, but it is definitely declared that it's bad seed.

the tares among the wheat, and he went his way. And when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then there also appeared the tares. So the servants of the householder came and said, Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where did this tares come from? And he said unto them, An enemy has done this. And the servants said unto him, Shall we go out and gather them up? And he said, No; lest while you are gathering up the tares, you also root up some of the wheat. Let them both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn ( Matthew 13:25-30 ).

Now Jesus is beginning to show that the kingdom of heaven, the church is not going to be a perfect representation, that there are going to arise within the church, that which is not true, that which is not genuine, that which is false, the tares will be there with the wheat. There will be that seed that falls on the stony ground. There will be the seed that falls among thorns. There will be those that will be unfruitful. And as far as the tares are concerned, they're even worth than those who are unfruitful.

There will be those that will grow up within the church system, they will come into the church system within the kingdom of heaven, that which is manifestly wrong. And rather then rooting it out, let them grow together, until the harvest, until the end, and then gather the tares and put them in the fire and burn them, but the wheat into the barn. So that into the system of God's kingdom there will come that which the enemy has planted, and God knows there are enemies to the cause of Christ in the church today.

I cannot for the life of me understand those men who are in the pulpit across the country today, who do not believe that the Bible is God's inspired Word. What are they then teaching? Why are they in the pulpit, if they do not believe the Word of God, to be the Word of God? If they do not believe the Bible to be divinely inspired of God, then what are you teaching the people? And there are tares that are growing with the wheat.

And it upsets me, because every time you get some kind of an article in the paper that deals with controversy, you can always find some stupid liberal theologian that will come with some position against those who are evangelical and all, and will make all of these derogatory statements against anyone who has a fervent love for Jesus Christ. And yet, Dr. so and so, the Pastor of such a church declares, well it's just a fad among the young people, and it'll all pass. And this kind, I don't understand. Well, the Lord said, let them grow. Now you see, if I were God, I wouldn't let them grow together. I'd say, go out and get rid of them, wipe them out. But God has His reasons. And the Lord is warning us here.

Now,

Another parable he put forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among the herbs ( Matthew 13:31-32 ),

Now most of your herb plants are very small. You know, you grow them in little boxes in your windowsill. But of all the herb plants, the mustard is the biggest. And of course mustard plants can get as high as the pulpit here. It's the biggest of the herbs that you grow.

But Jesus said concerning this particular mustard seed,

that it became a tree, [now that's an abnormality] so that the birds of the air come to lodge in the branches thereof ( Matthew 13:32 ).

Now there are those expositors who say that this is a parable that is illustrating how that the kingdom of heaven will have a small beginning. Jesus is gonna start with His twelve disciples, but as they have preached the gospel, the influence of the gospel is going to spread, until it is a great tree, and the birds of the air can come and nest in it. So that glorious influence of the gospel as it gradually spreads from just a very small humble beginning, as a small little mustard seed, but grows into a great tree: problems.

In expositional constancy, what are the birds? They are the ones, the evil ones, who came and plucked up the seed so it could not take root, could not grow. From this expositional constancy birds are always used in a bad sense in your analogies or in your comparisons. So inasmuch as in the previous parable He pointed out, that there were gonna be tares that are going to be growing along with the wheat in the kingdom, He is only further illustrating the same thing, as the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, but somehow it has abnormal growth. It grew bigger than what it really is intended to be.

The true kingdom of heaven... well let me just say this, I think that the World Council of Churches is the wild mustard seed that's growing abnormally out of proportion. It's a monstrosity, and every bird of heaven lodges in its branches. And if you can think of any evil notify them, they'll be glad to do it. But I believe that that's exactly what Jesus is warning us about. That there will be this abnormal forced thing of man, not representative of the true righteous kingdom of heaven, and it will become a shelter for all kinds of evil purposes, as the church has been used today as a shelter for all kinds of evil purposes. Read Readers Digest this month, if you are questioning what I am saying about the World Council of Churches. If that doesn't make your blood boil, you're dead.

Now,

Another parable he spoke unto them; The kingdom of heaven is liken unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened ( Matthew 13:33 ).

Now again there are two interpretations. The first is, that the kingdom of heaven being like leaven, leaven having this unique capacity of permeating a whole loaf. All you do is take your little starter, and you mix up a new batch of dough, and you take a starter, that is a piece from the last batch that's already fermented, and you put it into the new batch of dough. And this little batch of leaven, the fermented from the old loaf, will permeate and the whole loaf will become permeated with the leavening process of just a little leaven hid in this measure of meal, three measures, it will leaven the whole thing.

And so the church is going to have, though it starts very small, is gradually going to develop and grow until it influences the whole world for good. And they teach that this will be the influence of the church. It will ultimately permeate and influence the entire world, though it starts off just so small, but yet this effect of the gospel in permeating the whole world.

As I look at the world today, I cannot honestly rejoice for the tremendous effect that the world has received from the influence of the church. I look at a sick world; a world that seems to me is getting sicker every day. I have difficulty with that particular interpretation. Also, because leaven is always used in the scripture as a type of sin.

Jesus said to His disciples: "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees" ( Matthew 16:6 ), which is hypocrisy. Paul writing to the Galatians concerning the problems that were existing there said, "Don't you know that a little leaven, leavens the whole lump" ( Galatians 5:9 ). Writing to the Corinthians concerning an incestuous relationship he said, "purge out the old leaven" ( 1 Corinthians 5:7 ). And always leaven is used expositional, as a type of evil of sin, because leaven is actually the process of deterioration by rotting. And thus, it makes a beautiful type of sin that has a way of permeating the total person. It has a way of rotting, it has a way of destroying, its influence is permeating and rotting; not destroying necessarily, but rotting, and permeating.

So the other interpretation is that Jesus is giving a series of parables in which He is illustrating the same truth, or making the same warning all the way along, that the church is not going to be perfect. That there will come into the church evil influences, that will actually permeate themselves through the entire church.

Now I would like to suggest historically that this indeed has happened, and that even we ourselves are not totally devoid of the leavening influence of the Babylonian religion that was introduced into the church by Constantine. There was introduced into the church this leavening agent back at the time of Constantine, as he sought to bring together the pagan world and Christianity by bringing the pagan holidays, the pagan celebrations, and the pagan rituals and all, right into the church, taken from the old-aged mystery Babylon religion and incorporating that into the church. It was leaven and it began to leaven the whole lump. Until it is -- you can point around to the church today and you can see all kinds of remnants of that aged Babylonian religion, that even we ourselves are not totally free of. I say that because we still celebrate Christmas and Easter, which have their pagan origins, not Christian origins, it's a part of the leaven that leavened the whole lump.

Now all of these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables, and without a parable He did not speak unto them. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, and they said, Declare to us the parable of the tares of the field. And He answered and unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man ( Matthew 13:34-37 );

So you have now your expositional constant.

The field is the world, [expositional constant]; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; [interesting expositional constant, which puts a whole light on the other things] but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; The harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers the angels. And therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; and so shall it be at the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, they shall gather up of his kingdom, [notice, out of His kingdom] all things that offend, and them which do iniquity ( Matthew 13:38-41 );

They will grow together. It will be a corrupting influence within the church. It's the sad history of the church that it has been corrupted by these influences within it.

And he shall cast them into the furnace of fire: and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. And whoever has ears to hear, let him hear ( Matthew 13:42-43 ).

Quite heavy.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in the field; the which when a man has found, he hides, and for the joy thereof he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field ( Matthew 13:44 ).

Two interpretations. Number one, the kingdom of heaven is glorious, it's like a treasure. When you discover it, man, you go out and sell everything in order that you might obtain that treasure; buy the field, obtain the treasure.

The other, now I've preached some tremendous sermons on that interpretation, that was before I've been pastoring for thirty years. That one has a serious flaw. The doors to the kingdom of heaven are opened freely to every man; you don't have to buy it, you can't buy it. It's a gift of God.

Again, what is the field? The field is the world. Who then gave everything to purchase the world? Jesus Christ. What then is the treasure? Are you ready for this? You.

Back in the Old Testament the story of Ruth, classic example of the law of redemption. Where Boaz ultimately purchased the field in order that he might have the bride. He told his brother, hey, you know Elimelech's our brother, sold the field that's coming up for redemption, the right of redemption. You are the guy. He said, oh, I'll take it. He said well, there is a catch. Whoever takes it has to take Ruth as his wife to bear a child by her for the family. He said, oh my wife wouldn't allow me to do that. He said, Boaz why don't you buy it? And Boaz said, all right I'll do that, because he was in love with Ruth and he bought the field in order that he might obtain the bride.

Now in this case the treasure is the church. And Jesus purchased the field in order that he might obtain the treasure. He didn't need another world, but yet He came to redeem this world.

Now you remember that when Jesus came, Satan took him into a high mountain and showed Him all of the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them? And he said, "All of these will I give unto you, if you will bow down and worship me, for they are mine and I can give them to whomever I will" ( Matthew 4:8-9 ). Jesus didn't dispute that. It belonged to Satan because men had forfeited it to Satan. Jesus came to redeem it back to God, but not by bowing down to Satan, but by going to the cross, and there shedding His blood and paying the price of redemption. And so Jesus purchased the world in order that He might take the bride out of it, His church, the treasure. So the parable became even more beautiful when I came to a real understanding.

And the next is of parallel.

The kingdom of heaven like unto a merchant man [again the Lord], seeking goodly pearls ( Matthew 13:45 ):

But the interesting thing is, is that a pearl to a Jew was not considered a valuable ornament. It was something that was prized by gentiles, not the Jews. So when you come to this pearl of great price, you're coming to really the gentile bride of Christ or you're coming basically to the whole bride of Christ, composed of gentiles also. Basically it is always basic Jewish, but composed also of gentiles.

Who, when he has found one pearl of great price, went out and sold all that he had, and bought it ( Matthew 13:46 ).

Now Jesus isn't the pearl of great price, that you have to sell everything and buy Him. The gift of Jesus is by free grace to you. He is the one, who gave everything, in order that He might redeem you.

Now again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that is cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind ( Matthew 13:47 ):

The sea of course is again the world of people, humanity, in an expositional constancy. And so the net is cast into it and men pull it in and it has every kind in it.

Which, when it was full, they drew it to shore, and they sat down, and they gathered the good into vessels, but the cast the bad away. And so it will be at the end of the world: the angels will come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Jesus said unto them, Have you understood all those things? And they said unto him, Yes, Lord ( Matthew 13:48-51 ).

I don't understand them yet, but it's interesting.

Then he said unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, which brings forth out of his treasure things new and old ( Matthew 13:52 ).

So there are these glorious things that we are constantly discovering in the richness in Christ and ever discovering new experiences in the old troops. And so the faithful householder who keeps bringing forth out of the treasury these glorious things.

And it came to pass, that when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed from there. And when he was coming to his own country [that is the area of Nazareth], he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and they said, Where did He get this wisdom, and how is he doing these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, aren't they still living here? Where did he get all of these things? And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, and in his own household. And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief ( Matthew 13:53-58 ).

Self-explanatory.

Shall we pray? Oh, we ask Lord that you by your Holy Spirit will reveal thy truth to our hearts. Thy Word is truth. Lord, we realize that there is so much to be gained through the work of your Spirit in teaching us Thy ways. Give us, Father, a greater faith, a greater knowledge, a greater knowledge of Thyself. Lord, help us that we might bring forth fruit, hundredfold, Lord, preferably. God let our lives abound with the fruit of thy Spirit. Root out, O Lord, those thorns that would choke out the fruitfulness from our lives. Cause us to become sterile. Oh God, help us we pray and so commit ourselves unto You and to the kingdom that we will seek first primarily the kingdom of God and Your righteousness. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. "

Contending for the Faith

Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:

Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: Stony places are areas where there are underlying ledges of rock, probably of limestone, with only a thin layer of soil on top.

and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: Being warmed by the hot Mediterranean sun and having no room to grow downward the seed quickly germinates and shoots skyward. For a short time these plants may even look more promising than others. But what at first seems to be a success story ends in tragedy.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

C. Adaptations because of Israel’s rejection of Jesus 13:1-53

"The die is cast. The religious leaders have openly declared their opposition to their Messiah. The people of Israel are amazed at the power of Jesus and His speech, but they fail to recognize Him as their King. Not seeing the Messiahship of Jesus in His words and works, they have separated the fruit from the tree. Because of this opposition and spiritual apathy, the King adapts His teaching method and the doctrine concerning the coming of the kingdom to the situation." [Note: Toussaint, Behold the . . ., p. 168.]

Jesus had occasionally used parables to illustrate His teaching (e.g., Matthew 7:24-27; Matthew 9:15-17; Matthew 11:16-19; Matthew 12:43-45). Rising opposition led Him to use them more. Now He began to use parables to reveal new truth about the kingdom. [Note: See Mark L. Bailey, "Guidelines for Interpreting Jesus’ Parables," Bibliotheca Sacra 155:617 (January-March 1998):29-38.] Chapter 13 contains Jesus’ third major discourse in Matthew, His Parables about the Kingdom. [Note: See J. Dwight Pentecost, Thy Kingdom Come, pp. 215-45; idem, The Parables of Jesus.] Matthew presented the first two discourses as uninterrupted monologues by Jesus, except for a question and answer at Matthew 18:21-22. He interrupted this third discourse frequently with narrative introductions.

John and Jesus had previously announced that the kingdom was at hand. Jesus stopped saying that when Israel’s rejection of Him was firm (i.e., after chapter 12). Instead He began to reveal new truth about the kingdom because of Israel’s rejection of Him and His rejection of the nation. This new truth, revelation not previously given, was a mystery. The term "mystery," as it occurs in the New Testament, refers to newly revealed truth. It has nothing to do with spookiness. God had previously not revealed it, but now He did.

Kingsbury perceived the theme of this speech as "instruction in the secrets of the Kingdom" and outlined it as follows: (I) On the Secrets of the Kingdom as Being Revealed to the Disciples But Not to Israel (Matthew 13:3-35); and (II) On the Secrets of the Kingdom as Urging Disciples to Obey Without Reserve the Will of God (Matthew 13:36-52). [Note: Kingsbury, Matthew as . . ., p. 112.]

As elsewhere in Matthew, references to the kingdom indicate the future messianic (millennial) kingdom. However, Jesus taught some things here about the unseen growth and development of the kingdom in the inter-advent age that precede the establishment of that kingdom.

Matthew presented this discourse in a chiastic (crossing) structure. [Note: David Wenham, "The Structure of Matthew XIII," New Testament Studies 25 (1979):516-22.] This structure is common in the Old Testament and in other Jewish writings. It enhances the unity of the discourse and focuses attention on the central element as what is most important. A diagram of this structure follows.

A    The introduction Matthew 13:1-2

B    The first parable to the crowds Matthew 13:3-9

C    An explanatory interlude: purpose and explanation Matthew 13:10-23

D    Three more parables to the crowd Matthew 13:24-33

E    An explanatory interlude: fulfillment and explanation Matthew 13:34-43

D’    Three parables to the disciples Matthew 13:44-48

C’    An explanatory interlude: explanation and response Matthew 13:49-51

B’    The last parable to the disciples Matthew 13:52

A’    The conclusion Matthew 13:53

This structural analysis reveals that the discourse consists of two sections of four parables each, the first four to the multitudes and the last four to the disciples. In each section one parable stands out from the others. In the first group this is the first parable and in the second group it is the last one. The central section between the two groups of parables explains the function of the parables and explains one of them.

"Modern readers are so used to thinking of parables as helpful illustrative stories that they find it hard to grasp the message of this chapter that parables do not explain. To some they may convey enlightenment, but for others they may only deepen confusion. The difference lies in the hearer’s ability to rise to the challenge. Far from giving explanations, parables themselves need to be explained, and three are given detailed explanations in this chapter (Matthew 13:18-23; Matthew 13:37-43; Matthew 13:49-50). But that explanation is not given to everyone, but only to the disciples (Matthew 13:10; Matthew 13:36), and Matthew not only makes the point explicit in Matthew 13:34 (only parables for the crowds, not explanations), but also confirms it by a formula quotation in Matthew 13:35: parables are ’hidden things.’ In this way the medium (parables) is itself integral to the message it conveys (the secrets of the kingdom of heaven)." [Note: France, The Gospel . . ., p. 500.]

"Perhaps no other mode of teaching was so common among the Jews as that by Parables. Only in their case, they were almost entirely illustrations of what had been said or taught; while, in the case of Christ, they served as the foundation for His teaching." [Note: Edersheim, 1:581.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The focus in the first parable is on the soils rather than on the sower. Some seeds fell beside the path that was hard from traffic (Matthew 13:4). They lay on the surface where birds saw them and devoured them before they could germinate. Other seeds fell where the topsoil was thin (Matthew 13:5-6). Their roots could not penetrate the limestone underneath to obtain necessary moisture from the subsoil. When the hot weather set in, the seeds germinated quickly but did not have the necessary resources to sustain continued growth. Consequently they died. A third group of seeds fell among the thorns that grew along the edges of the field (Matthew 13:7). These thorn bushes robbed the young plants of light and nourishment, so they died too.

"The figure marks a new beginning. To labor in God’s vineyard (Israel, Isaiah 5:1-7) is one thing; to go forth sowing the seed of the Word in a field which is the world, quite another (cp. Matthew 10:5)." [Note: The New Scofield . . ., p. 1013.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The parable of the soils 13:3b-9 (cf. Mark 4:3-9; Luke 8:5-8)

The first parable is an introduction to those that follow, and the last one is a conclusion and application of the whole series. [Note: Stanley D. Toussaint, "The Introductory and Concluding Parables of Matthew Thirteen," Bibliotheca Sacra 121:484 (October-December 1964):351-55.]

"Modern interpretation of the parable has increasingly recognized this implication of the literary form of this particular parable, over against the dogmatic assertion of earlier NT scholarship, following Adolf Jülicher, that a parable has only a single point and that all the rest is mere narrative scenery, which must not be ’allegorized’ to determine what each detail means. In this cast the way the story is constructed demands that the detail be noticed, and to interpret those details individually is not arbitrary ’allegorization’ but a responsible recognition of the way Jesus constructed the story." [Note: France, The Gospel . . ., p. 503.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

2. Parables addressed to the multitudes 13:3b-33

Jesus spoke four parables to the multitudes and provided some instruction about how to interpret them to His disciples.

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 13

MANY THINGS IN PARABLES ( Matthew 13:1-58 )

Matthew 13:1-58 is a very important chapter in the pattern of the gospel.

(i) It shows a definite turning-point in the ministry of Jesus. At the beginning of his ministry we find him teaching in the synagogues; but now we find him teaching on the seashore. The change is very significant. It was not that the door of the synagogue was as yet finally shut to him, but it was closing. Even yet in the synagogue he would find a welcome from the common people; but the official leaders of Jewish orthodoxy were now in open opposition to him. When he entered a synagogue now, it would not be to find only an eager crowd of listeners; it would be also to find a bleak-eyed company of Scribes and Pharisees and elders weighing and sifting every word to find a charge against him, and watching every action to turn it into an accusation.

It is one of the supreme tragedies that Jesus was banished from the Church of his day; but that could not stop him from bringing his invitation to men; for when the doors of the synagogue were closed against him, he took to the temple of the open air, and taught men in the village streets, and on the roads, and by the lake-side, and in their own homes. The man who has a real message to deliver, and a real desire to deliver it, will always find a way of giving it to men.

(ii) The great interest of this chapter is that here we see Jesus beginning to use to the full his characteristic method of teaching in parables. Even before this he had used a way of teaching which had the germ of the parable in it. The simile of the salt and the light ( Matthew 5:13-16), the picture of the birds and the lilies ( Matthew 6:26-30), the story of the wise and the foolish builder ( Matthew 7:24-27), the illustration of the garments and the wine-skins ( Matthew 9:16-17), the picture of the children playing in the market-place ( Matthew 11:16-17) are all embryo parables. They are truth in pictures.

But it is in this chapter that we find Jesus' way of using parables fully developed and at its most vivid. As someone has said, "Whatever else is true of Jesus, it is certainly true that he was one of the world's supreme masters of the short story." Before we begin to study these parables in detail, let us ask why Jesus used this method and what are the great teaching advantages which it offers.

(a) The parable always makes truth concrete. There are very few people who can grasp and understand abstract ideas; most people think in pictures. We could for long enough try to put into words what beauty is, and at the end of it no one would be very much the wiser; but if we can point at someone and say, "That is a beautiful person," no more description is needed. We might try for long enough to define goodness and in the end leave no clear idea of goodness in people's minds; but everyone recognizes a good person and good deed when he sees them. In order to be understood, every great word must become flesh, every great idea must take form and shape in a person; and the first great quality of a parable is that it makes truth into a picture which all men can see and understand.

(b) It has been said that all great teaching begins from the here and now in order to get to the there and then. If a man wishes to teach people about things which they do not understand, he must begin from things which they do understand. The parable begins with material which every man understands because it is within his own experience, and from that it leads him on to things which he does not understand, and opens his eyes to things which he has faded to see. The parable opens a man's mind and eyes by beginning from where he is and leading him on to where he ought to be.

(c) The great teaching virtue of the parable is that it compels interest. The surest way to interest people is to tell them stories. The parable puts truth in the form of a story; the simplest definition of a parable is in fact that it is "an earthly story with a heavenly meaning." People will not listen, and their attention cannot be retained, unless they are interested; with simple people it is stories which awaken and maintain interest, and the parable is a story.

(d) The parable has the great virtue that it enables and compels a man to discover truth for himself It does not do a man's thinking for him; it says, "Here is a story. What is the truth in it? What does it mean for you? Think it out for yourself".

There are some things which a man cannot be told; he must discover them for himself. Walter Pater once said that you cannot tell a man the truth; you can only put him into a position in which he can discover it for himself. Unless we discover truth for ourselves, it remains a second-hand and external thing; and further, unless we discover truth for ourselves, we will almost certainly forget it quickly. The parable, by compelling a man to draw his own conclusions and to do his own thinking, at one and the same time makes truth real to him and fixes it in his memory.

(e) The other side of that is that the parable conceals truth from those who are either too lazy to think or too blinded by prejudice to see. It puts the responsibility fairly and squarely on the individual. It reveals truth to him who desires truth; it conceals truth from him who does not wish to see the truth.

(f) One final thing must be remembered. The parable, as Jesus used it, was spoken; it was not read. Its impact had to be immediate, not the result of long study with commentaries and dictionaries. It made truth flash upon a man as the lightning suddenly illuminates a pitch-dark night. In our study of the parables that means two things for us.

First, it means that we must amass every possible detail about the background of life in Palestine, so that the parable will strike us as it did those who heard it for the first time. We must think and study and imagine ourselves back into the minds of those who were listening to Jesus.

Second, it means that generally speaking a parable will have only one point. A parable is not an allegory; an allegory is a story in which every possible detail has an inner meaning; but an allegory has to be read and studied; a parable is heard. We must be very careful not to make allegories of the parables and to remember that they were designed to make one stabbing truth flash out at a man the moment he heard it.

The Sower Went Out To Sow ( Matthew 13:1-9; Matthew 13:18-23)

13:1-9,18-23 On that day, when he had gone out from the house, Jesus sat on the seashore; and such great crowds gathered to hear him that he went into a boat, and sat there; and the whole crowd took their stand on the seashore; and he spoke many things in parables to them. "Look!" he said, "the sower went out to sow; and, as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside: and the birds came and devoured it. But some seed fell upon stony ground, where it had not much earth; and, because it had no depth of earth, it sprang up immediately; but when the sun rose it was scorched, and it withered away because it had no root. Other seed fell upon thorns, and the thorns came up, and choked the life out of it. But others fell on good ground, and yielded fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who has ears, let him hear."

Here is a picture which anyone in Palestine would understand. Here we actually see Jesus using the here and now to get to the there and then. There is a point which the Revised Standard Version obscures. The Revised Standard Version has: "A sower went out to sow." The Greek is not a sower, but: "The sower went out to sow."

What in all likelihood happened was that, as Jesus was using the boat by the lakeside as a pulpit, in one of the fields near the shore a sower was actually sowing, and Jesus took the sower, whom they could all see, as a text, and began: "Look at the sower there sowing his seed in that field!" Jesus began from something which at the moment they could actually see to open their minds to truth which as yet they had never seen.

In Palestine there were two ways of sowing seed. It could be sown by the sower scattering it broadcast as he walked up and down the field. Of course, if the wind was blowing, in that case some of the seed would be caught by the wind and blown into all kinds of places, and sometimes out of the field altogether. The second way was a lazy way, but was not uncommonly used. It was to put a sack of seed on the back of an ass, to tear or cut a hole in the corner of the sack, and then to walk the animal up and down the field while the seed ran out. In such a case some of the seed might well dribble out while the animal was crossing the pathway and before it reached the field at all.

In Palestine the fields were in long narrow strips; and the ground between the strips was always a right of way. It was used as a common path; and therefore it was beaten as hard as a pavement by the feet of countless passers-by. That is what Jesus means by the wayside. If seed fell there, and some was bound to fall there in whatever way it was sown, there was no more chance of its penetrating into the earth than if it had fallen on the road.

The stony ground was not ground filled with stones; it was what was common in Palestine, a thin skin of earth on top of an underlying shelf of limestone rock. The earth might be only a very few inches deep before the rock was reached. On such ground the seed would certainly germinate; and it would germinate quickly, because the ground grew speedily warm with the heat of the sun. But there was no depth of earth and when it sent down its roots in search of nourishment and moisture, it would meet only the rock, and would be starved to death, and quite unable to withstand the heat of the sun.

The thorny ground was deceptive. When the sower was sowing, the ground would look clean enough. It is easy to make a garden look clean by simply turning it over; but in the ground still lay the fibrous roots of the couch grass and the bishop weed and all the perennial pests, ready to spring to life again. Every gardener knows that the weeds grow with a speed and a strength that few good seeds can equal. The result was that the good seed and the dormant weeds grew together; but the weeds were so strong that they throttled the life out of the seed.

The good ground was deep and clean and soft; the seed could gain an entry; it could find nourishment; it could grow unchecked; and in the good ground it brought forth an abundant harvest.

The Word And The Hearer ( Matthew 13:1-9; Matthew 13:18-23 Continued)

This parable is really aimed at two sets of people.

(a) It is aimed at the hearers of the word. It is fairly frequently held by scholars that the interpretation of the parable in Matthew 13:18-23 is not the interpretation of Jesus himself, but the interpretation of the preachers of the early Church, and that it is not in fact correct. It is said that it transgresses the law that a parable is not an allegory, and that it is too detailed to be grasped by listeners at first hearing. If Jesus was really pointing at an actual sower sowing seed, that does not seem a valid objection; and, in any event, the interpretation which identifies the different kinds of soil with different kinds of hearers has always held its place in the Church's thought, and must surely have come from some authoritative source. If so, why not from Jesus himself?

If we take the parable as a warning to hearers, it means that there are different ways of accepting the word of God, and the fruit which it produces depends on the heart of him who accepts it. The fate of any spoken word depends on the hearer. As it has been said, "A jest's prosperity lies not in the tongue of him who tells it, but in the ear of him who hears it." A jest will succeed when it is told to a man who has a sense of humour and is prepared to smile. A jest will fad when it is told to a humourless creature or to a man grimly determined not to be amused. Who then are the hearers described and warned in this parable?

(i) There is the hearer with the shut mind. There are people into whose minds the word has no more chance of gaining entry than the seed has of settling into the ground that has been beaten hard by many feet. There are many things which can shut a man's mind. Prejudice can make a man blind to everything he does not wish to see. The unteachable spirit can erect a barrier which cannot easily be broken down. The unteachable spirit can result from one of two things. It can be the result of pride which does not know that it needs to know; and it can be the result of the fear of new truth and the refusal to adventure on the ways of thought. Sometimes an immoral character and a man's way of life can shut his mind. There may be truth which condemns the things he loves and which accuses the things he does; and many a man refuses to listen to or to recognize the truth which condemns him, for there are none so blind as those who deliberately will not see.

(ii) There is the hearer with the mind like the shallow ground. He is the man who fails to think things out and think them through.

Some people are at the mercy of every new craze. They take a thing up quickly and just as quickly drop it. They must always be in the fashion. They begin some new hobby or begin to acquire some new accomplishment with enthusiasm, but the thing becomes difficult and they abandon it, or the enthusiasm wanes and they lay it aside. Some people's lives are littered with things they began and never finished. A man can be like that with the word. When he hears it he may be swept off his feet with an emotional reaction; but no man can live on an emotion. A man has a mind and it is a moral obligation to have an intelligent faith. Christianity has its demands, and these demands must be faced before it can be accepted. The Christian offer is not only a privilege, it is also a responsibility. A sudden enthusiasm can always so quickly become a dying fire.

(iii) There is the hearer who has so many interests in life that often the most important things, get crowded out. It is characteristic of modern life that it becomes increasingly crowded and increasingly fast. A man becomes too busy to pray; he becomes so preoccupied with many things that he forgets to study the word of God: he can become so involved in committees and good works and charitable services that he leaves himself no time for him from whom all love and service come. His business can take such a grip of him that he is too tired to think of anything else. It is not the things which are obviously bad which are dangerous. It is the things which are good, for the "second best is always the worst enemy of the best." It is not even that a man deliberately banishes prayer and the Bible and the Church from his life; it can be that he often thinks of them and intends to make time for them, but somehow in his crowded life never gets round to it. We must be careful to see that Christ is not shouldered out of the topmost niche in life.

(iv) There is the man who is like the good ground. In his reception of the word there are four stages. Like the good ground, his mind is open. He is at all times willing to learn. He is prepared to hear. He is never either too proud or too busy to listen. Many a man would have been saved all kinds of heartbreak, if he had simply stopped to listen to the voice of a wise friend, or to the voice of God. He understands. He has thought the thing out and knows what this means for him, and is prepared to accept it. He translates his hearing into action. He produces the good fruit of the good seed. The real hearer is the man who listens, who understands, and who obeys.

No Despair ( Matthew 13:1-9; Matthew 13:18-23 Continued)

(b) We said this parable had a double impact. We have looked at the impact it was designed to have on those who hear the word. But it was equally designed to have an impact on those who preach the word. Not only was it meant to say something to the listening crowds; it was also meant to say something to the inner circle of the disciples.

It is not difficult to see that in the hearts of the disciples there must sometimes have been a certain discouragement. To them Jesus was everything, the wisest and the most wonderful of all. But, humanly speaking, he had very little success. The doors of the synagogue were shutting against him. The leaders of orthodox religion were his bitterest critics and were obviously out to destroy him. True, the crowds came to hear him, but there were so few who were really changed, and so many who came to reap the benefit of his healing power, and, who, when they had received it, went away and forgot. There were so many who came to Jesus only for what they could get. The disciples were faced with a situation in which Jesus seemed to rouse nothing but hostility in the leaders of the Church, and nothing but a very evanescent response in the crowd. It is nothing surprising if in the hearts of the disciples there was sometimes deep disappointment. What then does the parable say to the preacher who is discouraged?

Its lesson is clear--the harvest is sure. For discouraged preachers of the word the lesson is in the climax of the parable, in the picture of the seed which brought forth abundant fruit. Some seed may fall by the wayside and be snatched away by the birds; some seed may fall on the shallow ground and never come to maturity; some seed may fat among the thorns and be choked to death; but in spite of all that the harvest does come. No farmer expects every single seed he sows to germinate and bring forth fruit. He knows quite well that some will be blown away by the wind, and some will fall in places where it cannot grow; but that does not stop him sowing. Nor does it make him give up hope of the harvest. The farmer sows in the confidence that, even if some of the seed is wasted, none the less the harvest will certainly come.

So then this is a parable of encouragement to those who sow the seed of the word.

(i) When a man sows the seed of the word, he does not know what he is doing or what effect the seed is having. H. L. Gee tells this story. In the church where he worshipped there was a lonely old man, old Thomas. He had outlived all his friends and hardly anyone knew him. When Thomas died, Gee had the feeling that there would be no one to go to the funeral so he decided to go, so that there might be someone to follow the old man to his last resting-place.

There was no one else and it was a wild, wet day. The funeral reached the cemetery; and at the gate there was a soldier waiting. He was an officer, but on his raincoat there were no rank badges. The soldier came to the graveside for the ceremony; when it was over he stepped forward and before the open grave swept his hand to a salute that might have been given to a king. H. L. Gee walked away with this soldier, and as they walked, the wind blew the soldier's raincoat open to reveal the shoulder badges of a brigadier.

The brigadier said to Gee: "You will perhaps be wondering what I am doing here. Years ago Thomas was my Sunday School teacher; I was a wild lad and a sore trial to him. He never knew what he did for me, but I owe everything I am or will be to old Thomas, and today I had to come to salute him at the end." Thomas did not know what he was doing. No preacher or teacher ever does. It is our task to sow the seed, and to leave the rest to God.

(ii) When a man sows the seed, he must not look for quick results. There is never any haste in nature's growth. It takes a long, long time before an acorn becomes an oak; and it may take a long, long time before the seed germinates in the heart of a man. But often a word dropped into a man's heart in his boyhood lies dormant until some day it awakens and saves him from some great temptation or even preserves his soul from death. We live in an age which looks for quick results, but in the sowing of the seed we must sow in patience and, in hope, and sometimes must leave the harvest to the years.

The Truth And The Listener ( Matthew 13:10-17; Matthew 13:34-35)

13:10-17,34,35 The disciples came and said to him: "Why do you speak to them in parables?" "To you," he answered them, "it has been given to know the secrets of the Kingdom, which only a disciple can understand, but to them it has not been so given. For it will be given to him who already has, and he will have an overflowing knowledge. But what he has will be taken away from him who has not. It is for that reason that I speak to them in parables, for although they can see, they do not see; and although they can hear, they do not hear or understand. There is being fulfilled in them Isaiah's prophecy which says, 'You will certainly hear, but you will not understand; and you will certainly look, but you will not see; for the heart of this people has grown fat, and they hear dully with their ears, and their eyes are smeared, lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I will heal them. But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears because they hear.' This is the truth I tell you--many prophets and righteous men longed to see things that you are seeing, and did not see them, and to hear the things that you are hearing, and did not hear them."

Jesus spake all these things to the crowds in parables, and it was not his custom to speak to them without a parable. He did this that that which was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled: "I will open my mouth in parables: I will utter things which have been hidden since the foundation of the world."

This is a passage full of difficult things; and we must take time to try to seek out its meaning. First of all there are two general things at the beginning which, if we understand them, will go far to light up the whole passage.

The Greek word in Matthew 13:11, which I have translated

secrets (as the Revised Standard Version also does), is musteria

( G3466) . This means literally mysteries which is, in fact, how

the King James Version renders it. In New Testament times this

word mystery was used in a special and a technical way. To us a

mystery means simply something dark and difficult and impossible

to understand, something mysterious. But in New Testament times

it was the technical name for something which was unintelligible

to the outsider but crystal clear to the man who had been

initiated.

In the time of Jesus in both Greece and Rome the most

intense and real religion was found in what were known as the

Mystery Religions. These religions had all a common character.

They were in essence passion plays in which was told in drama the

story of some god or goddess who had lived and suffered and died

and who had risen again to blessedness. The initiate was given a

long course of instruction in which the inner meaning of the

drama was explained to him; that course of instruction extended

over months and even years. Before he was allowed finally to see

the drama he had to undergo a period of fasting and abstinence.

Everything was done to work him up to a state of emotion and of

expectation. He was then taken to see the play; the atmosphere

was carefully constructed; there was cunning lighting; there were

incenses and perfumes; there was sensuous music; there was in

many cases a noble liturgy. The drama was then played out; and it

was intended to produce in the worshipper a complete

identification with the god whose story was told on the stage.

The worshipper was intended literally to share in the divinity's

life and sufferings and death and resurrection, and therefore

shared in his immortality. The cry of the worshipper in the end

was: "I am Thou, and Thou art I."

We take an actual example. One of the most famous of all the mysteries was the mystery of Isis. Osiris was a wise and good king. Seth, his wicked brother, hated him, and with seventy-two conspirators persuaded him to come to a banquet. There he persuaded him to enter a cunningly wrought coffin which exactly fitted him. When Osiris was in the coffin, the lid was snapped down and the coffin was flung into the Nile. After long and weary search, Isis, the faithful wife of Osiris, found the coffin and brought it home in mourning. But when she was absent from home, the wicked Seth came again, stole the body of Osiris, cut it into fourteen pieces, and scattered it throughout all Egypt. Once again Isis set out on her weary and sorrowful quest. After long search she found all the pieces; by a wondrous power the pieces were fitted together and Osiris rose from the dead; and he became for ever afterwards the immortal king of the living and the dead.

It is easy to see how moving a story that could be made to one who had undergone a tong instruction, to one who saw it in the most carefully calculated setting. There is the story of the good king; there is the attack of sin; there is the sorrowing search of love; there is the triumphant finding of love; there is the raising to a life which has conquered death. It was with that experience that the worshipper was meant to identify himself, and he was supposed to emerge from it, in the famous phrase of the Mystery Religions, "reborn for eternity".

That is a mystery; something meaningless to the outsider, but supremely precious to the initiate. In point of fact the Lord's Supper is like that. To one who has never seen such a thing before, it will look like a company of men eating little pieces of bread and drinking little sips of wine, and it might even appear ridiculous. But to the man who knows what he is doing, to the man initiated into its meaning, it is the most precious and the most moving act of worship in the Church.

So Jesus says to his disciples: "Outsiders cannot understand what I say; but you know me; you are my disciples; you can understand." Christianity can be understood only from the inside. It is only after personal encounter with Jesus Christ that a man can understand. To criticize from outside is to criticize in ignorance. It is only the man who is prepared to become a disciple who can enter into the most precious things of the Christian faith.

Life's Stern Law ( Matthew 13:10-17; Matthew 13:34-35 Continued)

The second general thing is the saying in Matthew 13:12 that still more will be given to the man who has, and even what he has will be taken away from the man who has not. At first sight this seems nothing less than cruel; but so far from being cruel, it simply states a truth which is an inescapable law of life.

In every sphere of life more is given to the man who has, and what he has is taken away from the man who has not. In the world of scholarship the student who labours to amass knowledge is capable of acquiring more knowledge. It is to him that the research, the advanced courses, the deeper things are given; and that is so because by his diligence and fidelity he has made himself fit to receive them. On the other hand, the student who is lazy and refuses to work inevitably loses even the knowledge which he has.

Many a person in childhood and schooldays had a smattering of Latin or of French or of some other language, and in later life lost every word, because he never made any attempt to develop or use them. Many a person had some skill in a craft or game and lost it, because he neglected it. The diligent and hard-working person is in a position to be given more and more; the lazy person may well lose even what he has. Any gift can be developed; and, since nothing in life stands still, if a gift is not developed, it is lost.

It is so with goodness. Every temptation we conquer makes us more able to conquer the next and every temptation to which we fail makes us less able to withstand the next attack. Every good thing we do, every act of self-discipline and of service, makes us better able for the next; and every time we fail to use such an opportunity we make ourselves less able to seize the next when it comes.

Life is always a process of gaining more or losing more. Jesus laid down the truth that the nearer a man lives to him, the nearer to the Christian ideal he will grow. And the more a man drifts away from Christ, the less he is able to reach to goodness; for weakness, like strength, is an increasing thing.

Man's Blindness And God's Purpose ( Matthew 13:10-17; Matthew 13:34-35 Continued)

Matthew 13:13-17 of this passage are among the most difficult verses in the whole gospel narrative. And the fact that they appear differently in the different gospels shows how much that difficulty was felt in the early Church. Being the earliest gospel, we would expect Mark to be the nearest to the actual words of Jesus. It ( Mark 4:11-12) has:

To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for

those outside everything is in parables; so that they may indeed

see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand;

lest they should turn again, and be forgiven.

If these verses be taken at their superficial value with no attempt to understand their real meaning, they make the extraordinary statement that Jesus spoke to men in parables in order that they might not understand, and in order to prevent them turning to God and finding forgiveness.

Matthew is later than Mark and makes one significant change:

This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do

not see, and hearing they do not here, nor do they understand.

As Matthew has it, Jesus spoke in parables because men were too blind and deaf to glimpse the truth in any other way.

It is to be noted that this saying of Jesus leads into a quotation from Isaiah 6:9-10. That was another passage which caused a great deal of heart-searching. In the Revised Standard Version, which is a literal translation of the Hebrew, it runs:

Go, and say to this people: "Hear and hear, but do not

understand; see and see, but do not perceive." Make the heart of

this people fat, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest

they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand

with their hearts, and turn and be healed.

Again it sounds as if God had deliberately blinded the eyes and deafened the ears and hardened the hearts of the people, so that they would be unable to understand. The nation's lack of understanding is made to seem a deliberate act of God.

Just as Matthew toned down Mark, so the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, and the version which most Jews used in the time of Jesus, toned down the original Hebrew:

Go, say to this people: "Ye shall hear indeed, but ye shall not

understand; and seeing ye shall see and not perceive." For the

heart of this people has become gross, and with their ears they

hear heavily, and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time

they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and

understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I

should heal them.

The Septuagint, so to speak, removes the responsibility from God and lays it fairly and squarely upon the people.

What is the explanation of all this? We may be certain of one thing--whatever else this passage means, it cannot mean that Jesus deliberately delivered his message in such a way that people would fail to understand it. Jesus did not come to hide the truth from men; he came to reveal it. And beyond a doubt there were times when men grasped that truth.

When the orthodox Jewish leaders heard the threat of the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, they understood all right, and recoiled in horror from its message to say: "God forbid!" ( Luke 20:16). And in Matthew 13:34-35 of this present passage Jesus quotes a saying of the Psalmist:

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the

words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable; I will

utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and

known, that our fathers have told us.

That is a quotation from Psalms 78:1-3, and in it the Psalmist knows that what he is saying will be understood, and that he is recalling men to truth that both they and their fathers have known.

The truth is that the words of Isaiah, and the use that Jesus made of them, must be read with insight and with an attempt to put ourselves in the position both of Isaiah and of Jesus. These words tell of three things.

(i) They tell of a prophet's bewilderment. The prophet brought a message to people which to him was crystal clear; and he was bewildered that they could not understand it. That is repeatedly the experience of both the preacher and the teacher. Often when we preach or teach or discuss things with people, we try to tell them something which to us is relevant, vivid, of absorbing interest and of paramount importance, and they hear it with a complete lack of interest, understanding, and urgency. And we are amazed and bewildered that what means so much to us apparently means nothing at all to them, that what kindles a fire in our bones leaves them stone cold, that what thrills and moves our hearts leaves them icily indifferent. That is the experience of every teacher and preacher and evangelist.

(ii) They tell of a prophet's despair. It was Isaiah's feeling that his preaching was actually doing more harm than good, that he might as wet speak to a brick wall, that there was no way into the mind and the heart of this deaf and blind people, that, as far as any effects went, they seemed to be getting worse instead of better. Again that is the experience of every teacher and preacher. There are times when those whom we seek to win seem, in spite of all our efforts, to be getting further away from, instead of nearer to, the Christian way. Our words go whistling down the wind; our message meets the impenetrable barrier of men's indifference; the result of all our work seems less than nothing, for at the end of it men seem further away from God than they were at the beginning.

(iii) But these words tell of something more than a prophet's bewilderment and a prophet's despair; they also tell of a prophet's ultimate faith. Here we find ourselves face to face with a Jewish conviction apart from which much of what the prophet, and of what Jesus, and of what the early Church said is not fully intelligible.

To put it simply, it was a primary article of Jewish belief that nothing in this world happens outside the will of God; and when they said nothing they meant literally nothing. It was just as much God's will when men did not listen as when they did; it was just as much God's will when men refused to understand the truth as when they welcomed it. The Jew clung fast to the belief that everything had its place in the purpose of God and that somehow God was weaving together success and failure, good and evil in a web of his designing.

The ultimate purpose of everything was good. It is exactly this thought that Paul plays on in Romans 9:11. These are the chapters which tell how the Jews, the chosen people of God, actually refused God's truth and crucified God's son when he came to them. That sounds inexplicable. But what was the result of it? The gospel went out to the Gentiles; and the ultimate result is that the Gentiles will some day gather in the Jews. The apparent evil is gathered up in a larger good, for all is within the plan of God.

That is what Isaiah was feeling. At first he was bewildered and in despair; then the light came and in effect he said "I cannot understand the conduct of this people; but I know that all this failure is somehow in the ultimate purpose of God, and he will use it for his own ultimate glory and for the ultimate good of men." Jesus took these words of Isaiah and used them to encourage his disciples; he said in effect, "I know that this looks disappointing; I know how you are feeling when men's minds and hearts refuse to receive the truth and when their eyes refuse to recognize it; but in this, too, there is purpose--and some day you will see it."

Here is our own great encouragement. Sometimes we see our harvest and we are glad; sometimes there seems to be nothing but barren ground, nothing but total lack of response, nothing but failure. That may be so to human eyes and human minds, but at the back of it there is a God who is fitting even that failure into the divine plan of his omniscient mind and his omnipotent power. There are no failures and there are no loose ends in the ultimate plan of God.

The Act Of An Enemy ( Matthew 13:24-30; Matthew 13:36-43)

13:24-30,36-43 Jesus put forward another parable. "The Kingdom of Heaven," he said to them, "is like what happened when a man sowed good seed in his field. When men slept, his enemy came and sowed darnel in the middle of the corn, and went away. When the green grain grew, and when it began to produce its crop, then the darnel appeared. The servants of the master of the house came to him and said, 'Sir, did we not sow good seed in your field? From where, then, did it get the darnel?' 'An enemy has done this,' he said to them. The servants said to him, 'Do you wish us to go and collect the darnel?' But he said, 'No; for if you gather the darnel the danger is that you may root up the corn at the same time. Let them both grow together until the harvest time; and at the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather the darnel and bind them into bundles for burning. But gather the corn into my storehouse."'"

The pictures in this parable would be clear and familiar to a Palestinian audience. Tares were one of the curses against which a farmer had to labour. They were a weed called bearded darnel (Lolium Temulentum). In their early stages the tares so closely resembled the wheat that it was impossible to distinguish the one from the other. When both had headed out it was easy to distinguish them; but by that time their roots were so intertwined that the tares could not be weeded out without tearing the wheat out with them.

Thomson in The Land and the Book tells how he saw the tares in the Wady Hamam: "The grain is just in the proper stale of development to illustrate the parable. In those parts where the grain has headed out, the tares have done the same, and there a child cannot mistake them for wheat or barley; but when both are less developed, the closest scrutiny will often fail to detect them. I cannot do it at all with any confidence. Even the farmers, who in this country generally weed their fields, do not attempt to separate the one from the other. They would not only mistake good grain for them, but very commonly the roots of the two are so intertwined that it is impossible to separate them without plucking up both. Both, therefore, must be left to grow together until the time of harvest."

The tares and the wheat are so like each other that the Jews called the tares bastard wheat. The Hebrew for tares is zunim, whence comes the Greek zizanion ( G2215) ; zunim is said to be connected with the word zanah ( H2181) , which means to commit fornication; and the popular story is that the tares took their origin in the time of wickedness which preceded the flood, for at that time the whole creation, men, animals and plants, all went astray, and committed fornication and brought forth contrary to nature. In their early stages the wheat and the tares so closely resembled each other that the popular idea was that the tares were a kind of wheat which had gone wrong.

The wheat and tares could not be safely separated when both were growing, but in the end they had to be separated, because the grain of the bearded darnel is slightly poisonous. It causes dizziness and sickness and is narcotic in its effects, and even a small amount has a bitter and unpleasant taste. In the end it was usually separated by hand. Levison describes the process: "Women have to be hired to pick the darnel grain out of the seed which is to be milled.... As a rule the separation of the darnel from the wheat is done after the threshing. By spreading the grain out on a large tray which is set before the women, they are able to pick out the darnel, which is a seed similar in shape and size to wheat, but slate-grey in colour."

So then the darnel in its early stages was indistinguishable from the wheat, but in the end it had to be laboriously separated from it, or the consequences were serious.

The picture of a man deliberately sowing darnel in someone else's field is by no means only imagination. That was actually sometimes done. To this day in India one of the direst threats which a man can make to his enemy is "I will sow bad seed in your field." And in codified Roman law this crime is forbidden and its punishment laid down.

The whole series of pictures within this parable was familiar to the people of Galilee who heard it for the first time.

The Time For Judgment ( Matthew 13:24-30; Matthew 13:36-43 Continued)

It may well be said that in its lessons this is one of the most practical parables Jesus ever told.

(i) It teaches us that there is always a hostile power in the world, seeking and waiting to destroy the good seed. Our experience is that both kinds of influence act upon our lives, the influence which helps the seed of the word to flourish and to grow, and the influence which seeks to destroy the good seed before it can produce fruit at all. The lesson is that we must be for ever on our guard.

(ii) It teaches us how hard it is to distinguish between those who are in the Kingdom and those who are not. A man may appear to be good and may in fact be bad; and a man may appear to be bad and may yet be good. We are much too quick to classify people and label them good or bad without knowing all the facts.

(iii) It teaches us not to be so quick with our judgments. If the reapers had had their way, they would have tried to tear out the darnel and they would have torn out the wheat as well. Judgment had to wait until the harvest came. A man in the end will be judged, not by any single act or stage in his life, but by his whole life. Judgment cannot come until the end. A man may make a great mistake, and then redeem himself and, by the grace of God, atone for it by making the rest of life a lovely thing. A man may live an honourable life and then in the end wreck it all by a sudden collapse into sin. No one who sees only part of a thing can judge the whole; and no one who knows only part of a man's life can judge the whole man.

(iv) It teaches us that judgment does come in the end. Judgment is not hasty, but judgment comes. It may be that, humanly speaking, in this life the sinner seems to escape the consequences, but there is a life to come. It may be that, humanly speaking, goodness never seems to enter into its reward, but there is a new world to redress the balance of the old.

(v) It teaches us that the only person with the right to judge is God. It is God alone who can discern the good and the bad; it is God alone who sees all of a man and all of his life. It is God alone who can judge.

So, then, ultimately this parable is two things--it is a warning not to judge people at all, and it is a warning that in the end there comes the judgment of God.

The Small Beginning ( Matthew 13:31-32)

13:31-32 Jesus put forward another parable to them: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, and, when it has grown, it is the greatest of herbs, and it becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in its branches."

The mustard plant of Palestine was very different from the mustard plant which we know in this country. To be strictly accurate the mustard seed is not the smallest of seeds; the seed of the cypress tree, for instance, is still smaller; but in the east it was proverbial for smallness. For example, the Jews talked of a drop of blood as small as a mustard seed; or, if they were talking of some tiny breach of the ceremonial law, they would speak of a defilement as small as a mustard seed; and Jesus himself used the phrase in this way when he spoke of faith as a grain of mustard seed ( Matthew 17:20).

In Palestine this little grain of mustard seed did grow into something very like a tree. Thomson in The Land and the Book writes: "I have seen this plant on the rich plain of Akkar as tall as the horse and his rider." He says, "With the help of my guide, I uprooted a veritable mustard-tree which was more than twelve feet high." In this parable there is no exaggeration at all.

Further, it was a common sight to see such mustard bushes or trees surrounded with a cloud of birds, for the birds love the little black seeds of the tree, and settle on the tree to eat them.

Jesus said that his Kingdom was like the mustard seed and its growth into a tree. The point is crystal clear. The Kingdom of Heaven starts from the smallest beginnings, but no man knows where it will end. In eastern language and in the Old Testament itself one of the commonest pictures of a great empire is the picture of a great tree, with the subject nations depicted as birds finding rest and shelter within its branches ( Ezekiel 31:6). This parable tells us that the Kingdom of Heaven begins very small but that in the end many nations will be gathered within it.

It is the fact of history that the greatest things must always begin with the smallest beginnings.

(i) An idea which may well change civilization begins with one man. In the British Empire it was William Wilberforce who was responsible for the freeing of the slaves. The idea of that liberation came to him when he read an exposure of the slave trade by Thomas Clarkson. He was a close friend of Pitt, then Prime Minister, and one day he was sitting with him and George Grenville in Pitt's garden at Holwood. It was a scene of beauty, with the Vale of Keston opening out before them, but the thoughts of Wilberforce were not on that but on the blots of the world. Suddenly Pitt turned to him: "Wilberforce," he said, "why don't you give a notice of a motion on the slave-trade?" An idea was sown in the mind of one man, and that idea changed life for hundreds of thousands of people. An idea must find a man willing to be possessed by it; but when it finds such a man an unstoppable tide begins to flow.

(ii) A witness must begin with one man. Cecil Northcott tells in one of his books that a group of young people from many nations were discussing how the Christian gospel might be spread. They talked of propaganda, of literature, of all the ways of disseminating the gospel in the twentieth century. Then the girl from Africa spoke. "When we want to take Christianity to one of our villages," she said, "we don't send them books. We take a Christian family and send them to live in the village and they make the village Christian by living there." In a group or society, or school or factory, or shop or office, again and again it is the witness of one individual which brings in Christianity. The one man or woman set on fire for Christ is the person who kindles others.

(iii) A reformation begins with one person. One of the great stories of the Christian Church is the story of Telemachus. He was a hermit of the desert, but something told him--the call of God--that he must go to Rome. He went. Rome was nominally Christian, but even in Christian Rome the gladiatorial games went on, in which men fought with each other, and crowds roared with the lust for blood. Telemachus found his way to the games. Eighty thousand people were there to spectate. He was horrified. Were these men slaughtering each other not also children of God? He leaped from his seat, right into the arena, and stood between the gladiators. He was tossed aside. He came back. The crowd were angry; they began to stone him. Still he struggled back between the gladiators. The prefect's command rang out; a sword flashed in the sunlight, and Telemachus was dead. Suddenly there was a hush; suddenly the crowd realized what had happened; a holy man lay dead. Something happened that day to Rome, for there were never again any gladiatorial games. By his death one man had let loose something that cleansed an empire. Someone must begin a reformation; he need not begin it in a nation; he may begin it in his home or where he works. If he begins it no man knows where it will end.

(iv) But this was one of the most personal parables Jesus ever spoke. Sometimes his disciples must have despaired. Their little band was so small and the world was so wide. How could they ever win and change it. Yet with Jesus an invincible force entered the world. Hugh Martin quotes H. G. Wets as saying, "His is easily the dominant figure in history.... A historian without any theological bias whatever should find that he simply cannot portray the progress of humanity honestly without giving a foremost place to a penniless teacher from Nazareth." In this parable Jesus is saying to his disciples, and to his followers today, that there must be no discouragement, that they must serve and witness each in his place, that each one must be the small beginning from which the Kingdom grows until the kingdoms of the earth finally become the Kingdom of God

"Though few and small and weak your bands,

Strong in your Captain's strength,

Go to the conquest of all lands;

All must be His at length."

The Transforming Power Of Christ ( Matthew 13:33)

13:33 He spoke another parable to them: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened."

In this chapter there is nothing more significant than the sources from which Jesus drew his parables. In every case he drew them from the scenes and activities of everyday lifer. He began with things which were entirely familiar to his hearers in order to lead them to things which had never yet entered their minds. He took the parable of the sower from the farmer's field and the parable of the mustard seed from the husbandman's garden; he took the parable of the wheat and the tares from the perennial problem which confronts the farmer in his struggle with the weeds, and the parable of the drag-net from the seashore of the Sea of Galilee. He took the parable of the hidden treasure from the everyday task of digging in a field, and the parable of the pearl of great price from the world of commerce and trade. But in this parable of the leaven Jesus came nearer home than in any other because he took it from the kitchen of an ordinary house.

In Palestine bread was baked at home; three measures of meal was, as Levinson points out, just the average amount which would be needed for a baking for a fairly large family, like the family at Nazareth. Jesus took his parable of the Kingdom from something that he had often seen his mother, Mary, do. Leaven was a little piece of dough kept over from a previous baking, which had fermented in the keeping.

In Jewish language and thought leaven is almost always connected with an evil influence; the Jews connected fermentation with putrefaction and leaven stood for that which is evil (compare Matthew 16:6; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; Galatians 5:9). One of the ceremonies of preparation for the Passover Feast was that every scrap of leaven had to be sought out from the house and burned. It may well be that Jesus chose this illustration of the Kingdom deliberately. There would be a certain shock in hearing the Kingdom of God compared to leaven; and the shock would arouse interest and rivet attention, as an illustration from an unusual and unexpected source always does.

The whole point of the parable lies in one thing--the transforming power of the leaven. Leaven changed the character of a whole baking. Unleavened bread is like a water biscuit, hard, dry, unappetizing and uninteresting; bread baked with leaven is soft and porous and spongy, tasty and good to eat. The introduction of the leaven causes a transformation in the dough; and the coming of the Kingdom causes a transformation in life.

Let us gather together the characteristics of this transformation.

(i) Christianity transformed life for the individual man. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Paul gathers together a list of the most terrible and disgusting kinds of sinners, and then, in the next verse, there comes the tremendous statement: "And such were some of you." As Denney had it, we must never forget that the function and the power of Christ is to make bad men good. The transformation of Christianity begins in the individual life, for through Christ the victim of temptation can become the victor over it.

(ii) There are four great social directions in which Christianity transformed life. Christianity transformed life for women. The Jew in his morning prayer thanked God that he had not made him a Gentile, a slave or a woman. In Greek civilization the woman lived a life of utter seclusion, with nothing to do beyond the household tasks. K. J. Freeman writes of the life of the Greek child or young man even in the great days of Athens, "When he came home, there was no home life. His father was hardly ever in the house. His mother was a nonentity, living in the women's apartments; he probably saw little of her." In the eastern lands it was often possible to see a family on a journey. The father would be mounted on an ass; the mother would be walking, and probably bent beneath a burden. One demonstrable historical truth is that Christianity transformed life for women.

(iii) Christianity transformed life for the weak and the ill. In heathen life the weak and the ill were considered a nuisance. In Sparta a child, when he was born, was submitted to the examiners; if he was fit, he was allowed to live; if he was weakly or deformed, he was exposed to death on the mountain side. Dr. A. Rendle Short points out that the first blind asylum was founded by Thalasius, a Christian monk; the first free dispensary was founded by Apollonius, a Christian merchant; the first hospital of which there is any record was founded by Fabiola, a Christian lady. Christianity was the first faith to be interested in the broken things of life.

(iv) Christianity transformed life for the aged. Like the weak, the aged were a nuisance. Cato, the Roman writer on agriculture, gives advice to anyone who is taking over a farm: "Look over the livestock and hold a sale. Sell your oil, if the price is satisfactory, and sell the surplus of your wine and grain. Set worn-out oxen, blemished cattle, blemished sheep, wool, hides, an old wagon, old tools, an old slave, a sickly slave, and whatever else is superfluous." The old, whose day's work was done, were fit for nothing else than to be discarded on the rubbish heaps of life. Christianity was the first faith to regard men as persons and not instruments capable of doing so much work.

(v) Christianity transformed life for the child. In the immediate background of Christianity, the marriage relationship had broken down, and the home was in peril. Divorce was so common that it was neither unusual nor particularly blameworthy for a woman to have a new husband every year. In such circumstances children were a disaster; and the custom of simply exposing children to death was tragically common. There is a well-known letter from a man Hilarion, who was gone off to Alexandria, to his wife Alis, whom he has left at home. He writes to her: "If--good luck to you--you bear a child, if it is a boy, let it live; if it is a girl, throw it out." In modem civilization life is almost butt round the child; in ancient civilization the child had a very good chance of dying before it had begun to live.

Anyone who asks the question: "What has Christianity done for the world?" has delivered himself into a Christian debator's hands. There is nothing in history so unanswerably demonstrable as the transforming power of Christianity and of Christ on the individual life and on the life of society.

The Working Of The Leaven ( Matthew 13:33 Continued)

There remains only one question in regard to this parable of the leaven. Almost all scholars would agree that it speaks of the transforming power of Christ and of his Kingdom in the life of the individual and of the world; but there is a difference of opinion as to how that transforming power works.

(i) It is sometimes said that the lesson of this parable is that the Kingdom works unseen. We cannot see the leaven working in the dough, any more than we can see a flower growing, but the work of the leaven is always going on. Just so, it is said, we cannot see the work of the Kingdom, but always the Kingdom is working and drawing men and the world ever nearer to God.

This, then, would be a message of encouragement. It would mean that at all times we must take the long view, that we must not compare things of the present day with last week, month, or even last year, but that we must look back down the centuries, and then we will see the steady progress of the Kingdom. As A. H. Clough had it:

"Say not, 'The struggle nought availeth;

The labour and the wounds are vain;

The enemy faints not nor faileth,

And as things have been they remain.'

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;

It may be, in yon smoke concealed,

Your comrades chase even now the fliers,

And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And, not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light;

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!

But westward, look! the land is bright."

On this view the parable teaches that with Jesus Christ and his gospel a new force has been let loose in the world, and that, silently but inevitably, that force is working for righteousness in the world and God indeed is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year.

(ii) But it has sometimes been said, as for instance by C. H. Dodd, that the lesson of the parable is the very opposite of this, and that, so far from being unseen, the working of the Kingdom can be plainly seen. The working of the leaven is plain for all to see. Put the leaven into the dough, and the leaven changes the dough from a passive lump into a seething, bubbling, heaving mass. Just so the working of the Kingdom is a violent and disturbing force plain for all to see. When Christianity came to Thessalonica the cry was: "These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also" ( Acts 17:6). The action of Christianity is disruptive, disturbing, violent in its effect.

There is undeniable truth there. It is true that men crucified Jesus Christ because he disturbed all their orthodox habits and conventions; again and again it has been true that Christianity has been persecuted because it desired to take both men and society and remake them. It is abundantly true that there is nothing in this world so disturbing as Christianity; that is, in fact, the reason why so many people resent it and refuse it, and wish to eliminate it.

When we come to think of it, we do not need to choose between these two views of the parable, because they are both true. There is a sense in which the Kingdom, the power of Christ, the Spirit of God, is always working, whether or not we see that work; and there is a sense in which it is plain to see. Many an individual life is manifestly and violently changed by Christ; and at the same time there is the silent operation of the purposes of God in the long road of history.

We may put it in a picture like this. The Kingdom, the power of Christ, the Spirit of God, is like a great river, which for much of its course glides on beneath the ground unseen, but which ever and again comes to the surface in all its greatness, plain for all to see. This parable teaches both that the Kingdom is for ever working unseen, and that there are times in every individual life and in history when the work of the Kingdom is so obvious, and so manifestly powerful, that all can see it.

All In The Day's Work ( Matthew 13:44)

13:44 "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure which lay hidden in a field. A man found it, and hid it; and, as a result of his joy, away he goes, and sells everything that he has, and buys the field."

Although this parable sounds strange to us, it would sound perfectly natural to people in Palestine in the days of Jesus, and even to this day it paints a picture which people in the East would know well.

In the ancient world there were banks, but not banks such as ordinary people could use. Ordinary people used the ground as the safest place to keep their most cherished belonging. In the parable of the talents the worthless servant hid his talent in the ground, lest he should lose it ( Matthew 25:25). There was a rabbinic saying that there was only one safe repository for money--the earth.

This was still more the case in a land where a man's garden might at any time become a battlefield. Palestine was probably the most fought over country in the world; and, when the tide of war threatened to flow over them, it was common practice for people to hide their valuables in the ground, before they took to flight, in the hope that the day would come when they could return and regain them. Josephus speaks of "the gold and the silver and the rest of that most precious furniture which the Jews had, and which the owners treasured up underground against the uncertain fortunes of war."

Thomson in The Land and the Book, which was first published in 1876, tells of a case of treasure discovery which he himself came upon in Sidon. There was in that city a famous avenue of acacia trees. Certain workmen, digging in a garden on that avenue, uncovered several copper pots full of gold coins. They had every intention of keeping the find to themselves; but there were so many of them, and they were so wild with excitement, that their treasure trove was discovered and claimed by the local government. The coins were all coins of Alexander the Great and his father Philip. Thomson suggests that, when Alexander unexpectedly died in Babylon, news came through to Sidon, and some Macedonian officer or government official buried these coins with the intention of appropriating them in the chaos which was bound to follow Alexander's death. Thomson goes on to tell how there are even people who make it their life's business to search for hidden treasure, and that they get into such a state of excitement that they have been known to faint at the discovery of one single coin. When Jesus told this story, he told the kind of story that anyone would recognize in Palestine and in the east generally.

It may be thought that in this parable Jesus glorifies a man who was guilty of very sharp practice in that he hid the treasure, and then took steps to possess himself of it. There are two things to be said about that. First, although Palestine in the time of Jesus was under the Romans and under Roman law, in the ordinary, small, day to day things it was traditional Jewish law which was used; and in regard to hidden treasure Jewish Rabbinic law was quite clear: "What finds belong to the finder, and what finds must one cause to be proclaimed? These finds belong to the finder--if a man finds scattered fruit, scattered money...these belong to the finder." In point of fact this man had a prior right to what he had found.

Second, even apart from that, when we are dealing with any parable, the details are never meant to be stressed; the parable has one main point, and to that point everything else is subservient. In this parable the great point is the joy of the discovery that made the man willing to give up everything to make the treasure indubitably his own. Nothing else in the parable really matters.

(i) The lesson of this parable is, first, that the man found the precious thing, not so much by chance, as in his day's work. It is true to say that he stumbled all unexpectedly upon it, but he did so when he was going about his daily business. And it is legitimate to infer that he must have been going about his daily business with diligence and efficiency, because he must have been digging deep, and not merely scraping the surface, in order to strike against the treasure. It would be a sad thing, if it were only in churches, in so-called holy places, and on so-called religious occasions that we found God, and felt close to him.

There is an unwritten saying of Jesus which never found its way into any of the gospels, but which rings true: "Raise the stone and thou shalt find me; cleave the wood and I am there." When the mason is working on the stone, when the carpenter is working with the wood, Jesus Christ is there. True happiness, true satisfaction, the sense of God, the presence of Christ are all to be found in the day's work, when that day's work is honestly and conscientiously done. Brother Lawrence, great saint and mystic, spent much of his working life in the monastery kitchen amidst the dirty dishes, and he could say, "I felt Jesus Christ as close to me in the kitchen as ever I did at the blessed sacrament."

(ii) The lesson of this parable is, second, that it is worth any sacrifice to enter the Kingdom. What does it mean to enter the Kingdom? When we were studying the Lord's Prayer ( Matthew 6:10), we found that we could say that the Kingdom of God is a state of society upon earth where God's will is as perfectly done as it is in heaven. Therefore to enter the Kingdom is to accept and to do God's will. So, then, it is worth anything to do God's will. Suddenly, as the man discovered the treasure, there may flash upon us, in some moment of illumination, the conviction of what God's will is for us. To accept it may be to give up certain aims and ambitions which are very dear, to abandon certain habits and ways of life which are very difficult to lay down, to take on a discipline and self-denial which are by no means easy, in a word, to take up our cross and follow after Jesus. But there is no other way to peace of mind and heart in this life and to glory in the life to come. It is indeed worth giving up everything to accept and to do the will of God.

The Precious Pearl ( Matthew 13:45-46)

13:45-46 "Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant who was seeking goodly pearls. When he had found a very valuable pearl, he went away and sold everything he had, and bought it."

In the ancient world pearls had a very special place in men's hearts. People desired to possess a lovely pearl, not only for its money value, but for its beauty. They found a pleasure in simply handling it and contemplating it. They found an aesthetic joy simply in possessing and looking at a pearl. The main sources of pearls in those days were the shores of the Red Sea and far-off Britain itself, but a merchant would scour the markets of the world to find a pearl which was of surpassing beauty. There are certain most suggestive truths hidden in this parable.

(i) It is suggestive to find the Kingdom of Heaven compared to a pearl. To the ancient peoples, as we have just seen, a pearl was the loveliest of all possessions; that means that the Kingdom of Heaven is the loveliest thing in the world. Let us remember what the Kingdom is. To be in the Kingdom is to accept and to do the will of God. That is to say, to do the will of God is no grim, grey, agonizing thing; it is a lovely thing. Beyond the discipline, beyond the sacrifice, beyond the self-denial, beyond the cross, there lies the supreme loveliness which is nowhere else. There is only one way to bring peace to the heart, joy to the mind, beauty to the life, and that is to accept and to do the will of God.

(ii) It is suggestive to find that there are other pearls but only one pearl of great price. That is to say, there are many fine things in this world and many things in which a man can find loveliness. He can find loveliness in knowledge and in the reaches of the human mind, in art and music and literature and all the triumphs of the human spirit; he can find loveliness in serving his fellow-men, even if that service springs from humanitarian rather than from purely Christian motives; he can find loveliness in human relationships. These are all lovely, but they are all lesser loveliness. The supreme beauty lies in the acceptance of the will of God. This is not to belittle the other things; they too are pearls; but the supreme pearl is the willing obedience which makes us friends of God.

(iii) We find in this parable the same point as in the previous one but with a difference. The man who was digging the field was not searching for treasure; it came on him all unaware. The man who was searching for pearls was spending his life in the search.

But no matter whether the discovery was the result of a moment or the result of a life-time's search, the reaction was the same--everything had to be sold and sacrificed to gain the precious thing. Once again we are left with the same truth--that, however a man discovers the will of God for himself, whether it be in the lightning flash of a moment's illumination or at the end of a long and conscious search, it is worth anything unhesitatingly to accept it.

The Catch And The Separation ( Matthew 13:47-50)

13:47-50 "Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a net which was cast into the sea, and which gathered all kinds of things. When it was full, they hauled it up on to the shore, and sat down, and collected the good contents into containers, but threw the useless contents away. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come, and they will separate the evil from the righteous, and they will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth there."

It was the most natural thing in the world that Jesus should use illustrations from fishing when he was speaking to fishermen. It was as if he said to them: "Look how your daffy work speaks to you of the things of heaven."

In Palestine there were two main ways of fishing. One was with the casting-net, the amphiblestron ( G293) . It was a hand-net which was cast from the shore. Thomson describes the process: "The net is in shape like the top of a bell-tent, with a long cord fastened to the apex. This is tied to the arm, and the net so folded that, when it is thrown, it expands to its utmost circumference, around which are strung beads of lead to make it drop suddenly to the bottom. Now, see the actor; half bent, and more than half naked, he keenly watches the playful surf, and there he spies his game tumbling in carelessly toward him. Forward he leaps to meet it. Away goes the net, expanding as it flies, and its leaded circumference strikes the bottom ere the silly fish is aware that its meshes have closed around him. By the aid of the cord the fishermen leisurely draws up the net and the fish with it. This requires a keen eye, an active frame, and great skill in throwing the net. He, too, must be patient, watchful, wide awake, and prompt to seize the exact moment to throw."

The second way of fishing was with the drag-net, the sagene ( G4522) , what we would call the seine net or the trawl. This is the way referred to in this parable. The seine net was a great square net with cords at each corner, and weighted so that, at rest, it hung, as it were, upright in the water. When the boat began to move, the net was drawn into the shape of a great cone and into the cone all kinds of fish were swept.

The net was then drawn to land, and the catch was separated. The useless material was flung away; the good was put into containers. It is interesting to note that sometimes the fish were put alive into containers rifled with water. There was no other way to transport them in freshness over any time or any distance.

There are two great lessons in this parable.

(i) It is in the nature of the drag-net that it does not, and cannot, discriminate. It is bound to draw in all kinds of things in its course through the water. Its contents are bound to be a mixture. If we apply that to the Church, which is the instrument of God's Kingdom upon earth, it means that the Church cannot be discriminative but is bound to be a mixture of all kinds of people, good and bad, useless and useful.

There have always been two views of the Church--the exclusive and the inclusive. The exclusive view holds that the Church is for people who are good, people who are really and fully committed, people who are quite different from the world. There is an attraction in that view, but it is not the New Testament view, because, apart from anything else, who is to do the judging, when we are told that we must not judge? ( Matthew 7:1 http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Mt+7%3A1) . It is not any man's place to say who is committed to Christ and who is not. The inclusive view feels instinctively that the Church must be open to all, and that, like the drag-net, so long as it is a human institution it is bound to be a mixture. That is exactly what this parable teaches.

(ii) But equally this parable teaches that the time of separation will come when the good and the bad are sent to their respective destinations. That separation, however, certain as it is, is not man's work but God's. Therefore it is our duty to gather in all who will come, and not to judge or separate, but to leave the final judgment to God.

Old Gifts Used In A New Way ( Matthew 13:51-52)

13:51-52 Jesus said, "Have you understood an these things?" They said to him: "Yes." He said to them: "That is why every scribe, who has been instructed in the Kingdom of Heaven, is like a householder who brings out of his treasure-house things new and old."

When Jesus had finished speaking about the Kingdom, he asked his disciples if they had understood. And they had understood, at least in part. Then Jesus goes on to speak about the scribe, instructed in the Kingdom of Heaven, bringing out of his treasure-house things old and new. What Jesus is in effect saying is this: "You are able to understand, because you came to me with a fine heritage. You came with all the teaching of the law and the prophets. A scribe comes to me with a lifetime of study of the law and of all its commandments. That background helps you to understand. But after you have been instructed by me, you have the knowledge, not only of the things you used to know, but of things you never knew before, and even the knowledge which you had before is illuminated by what I have told to you."

There is something very suggestive here. For it means that Jesus never desired or intended that any man should forget all he knew when he came to him; but that he should see his knowledge in a new light and use it in a new service. When he does that, what he knew before becomes a greater treasure than ever it was.

Every man comes to Jesus Christ with some gift and with some ability. Jesus does not ask that he should give up his gift. So many people think that when a man declares for Christ he must give things up and concentrate upon the so-called religious things. But a scholar does not give up his scholarship when he becomes a Christian; rather he uses it for Christ. A business man need not give up his business; rather he should run it as a Christian would. One who can sing, or dance, or act, or paint need not give up his art, but must use his art as a Christian would. The sportsman need not give up his sport, but must play as a Christian would. Jesus did not come to empty life but to fill it, not to impoverish life but to enrich it. Here we see Jesus telling men, not to abandon their gifts, but to use them even more wonderfully in the light of the knowledge which he has given them.

The Barrier Of Unbelief ( Matthew 13:53-58)

13:53-58 When Jesus had concluded these parables, he left there. He went into his native place and he taught them in their synagogue. His teaching was such that they were astonished and said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these powers? Is not this the son of the carpenter? Is not his mother caned Mary? And are James and Joseph and Simon and Judas not his brothers? Where did he get all these things?" And they were offended at him. Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honour except in his own native place and in his own family." And he did not do many deeds of power there because of their unbelief.

It was natural that at some time Jesus should pay a visit to Nazareth where he had been brought up. And yet it was a brave thing to do. The hardest place for a preacher to preach is the church where he was a boy; the hardest place for a doctor to practise is the place where people knew him when he was young.

But to Nazareth Jesus went. In the synagogue there was no definite person to give the address. Any distinguished stranger present might be asked by the ruler of the synagogue to speak, or anyone who had a message might venture to give it. There was no danger that Jesus would not be given the opportunity to speak. But when he did speak, all that he encountered was hostility and incredulity. They would not listen to him because they knew his father and his mother and his brothers and his sisters. They could not conceive that anyone who had lived among them had any right to speak as Jesus was speaking. The prophet, as so often happens, had no honour in his own country; and their attitude to him raised a barrier which made it impossible for Jesus to have any effect upon them.

There is a great lesson here. In any church service the congregation preaches more than half the sermon. The congregation brings an atmosphere with it. That atmosphere is either a barrier through which the preacher's word cannot penetrate; or else it is such an expectancy that even the poorest sermon becomes a living flame.

Again, we should not judge a man by his background and his family connections, but by what he is. Many a message has been killed stone dead, not because there was anything wrong with it; but because the minds of the hearers were so prejudiced against the messenger that it never had a chance.

When we meet together to listen to the word of God, we must come with eager expectancy, and must think, not of the man who speaks, but of the Spirit who speaks through him.

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

Some fell upon stony places,.... Such a place as the Jews call חולסית, a barren, stony place, a place from whence, they say, they take stones, and בית סלע, and which אינו ראוי לזריעה, "is not fit for sowing" d; and such were those places and spots of ground, that some of these seeds fell upon; and design such hearers, in whom the natural hardness of their hearts continues, and who remain unbroken by the word, and are without any true sense of sin, and repentance for it.

Where they had not much earth, to cover them and take root in: this is expressive of such persons who have slight convictions of sin, and awakenings of the natural conscience; some little, light, and speculative notions of the word, in the understanding and judgment; some flashes of natural affection for it, and outward expressions of delight and pleasure in it; some show of grace, and a form of godliness, but no real heart work.

And forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth; to strike their roots downwards: and through the reflection of the heat, upon the rocks and stones, they quickly broke through the thin surface of the earth over them, and appeared above ground before the usual time of the springing up of seed: which may not only denote the immediate reception of the word by these hearers, and their quick assent to it; but their sudden and hasty profession of it, without taking due time to consider the nature and importance thereof; and the seeming cheerfulness in which they did both receive and profess it; though it was only outward and hypocritical, and more on account of the manner of preaching it, than the word itself, and through a selfish principle in them; and did not arise from any real experience of the power of it on their souls, or true spiritual pleasure in it: nor could it be otherwise, since their stony hearts were not taken away, nor hearts of flesh given them; wherefore the word had no place in them, and made no real impression on them; they remained dead in trespasses and sins; the word was not the savour of life unto life unto them, or the Spirit that giveth life; they did not become living and lively stones; they continued as insensible as ever of their state and condition by nature, of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, of the danger they were in, and of their need of Christ, and salvation by him; they were as hard, and obdurate, and as inflexible, as ever, without any real contrition for sin, or meltings of soul through the influence of the love and grace of God; and as backward as ever to submit to the righteousness of Christ, being stout hearted, and far from it; and being no more cordially willing to be subject to the sceptre of his kingdom, or to serve him in righteousness and holiness, than they ever were; for the word falling upon them, made no change in them; their hearts were as hard as ever, notwithstanding the seeming and hasty reception of it; though they did not refuse to hearken to the word externally, did not put away the shoulder, or stop their ears, yet their hearts were still like an adamant stone: nothing but the mighty power of God, and his efficacious grace, can break the rocky heart in pieces; or give an heart of flesh, a sensible, soft, and flexible one, with which a man truly repents of sin, believes in Christ, and becomes subject to him.

d T. Bab. Erachin, fol. 32. 1. & Gloss. in ib. & Bava Bathra, fol. 156. 2. & Gloss. in ib.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 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.   3 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:   5 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 a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.   9 Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.   10 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?   11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.   12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.   13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.   14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:   15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.   16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.   17 For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.   18 Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower.   19 When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.   20 But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;   21 Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.   22 He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.   23 But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

      We have here Christ preaching, and may observe,

      1. When Christ preached this sermon; it was the same day that he preached the sermon in the foregoing chapter: so unwearied was he in doing good, and working the works of him that sent him. Note, Christ was for preaching both ends of the day, and has by his example recommended that practice to his church; we must in the morning sow our seed, and in the evening not withhold our hand,Ecclesiastes 11:6. An afternoon sermon well heard, will be so far from driving out the morning sermon, that it will rather clench it, and fasten the nail in a sure place. Though Christ had been in the morning opposed and cavilled at by his enemies, disturbed and interrupted by his friends, yet he went on with his work; and in the latter part of the day, we do not find that he met with such discouragements. Those who with courage and zeal break through difficulties in God's service, will perhaps find them not so apt to recur as they fear. Resist them, and they will flee.

      2. To whom he preached; there were great multitudes gathered together to him, and they were the auditors; we do not find that any of the scribes or Pharisees were present. They were willing to hear him when he preached in the synagogue (Matthew 12:9; Matthew 12:14), but they thought it below them to hear a sermon by the sea-side, though Christ himself was the preacher: and truly he had better have their room than their company, for now they were absent, he went on quietly and without contradiction. Note, Sometimes there is most of the power of religion where there is least of the pomp of it: the poor receive the gospel. When Christ went to the sea-side, multitudes were presently gathered together to him. Where the king is, there is the court; where Christ is, there is the church, though it be by the sea-side. Note, Those who would get good by the word, must be willing to follow it in all its removes; when the ark shifts, shift after it. The Pharisees had been labouring, by base calumnies and suggestions, to drive the people off from following Christ, but they still flocked after him as much as ever. Note, Christ will be glorified in spite of all opposition; he will be followed.

      3. Where he preached this sermon.

      (1.) His meeting-place was the sea-side. He went out of the house (because there was no room for the auditory) into the open air. It was pity but such a Preacher should have had the most spacious, sumptuous, and convenient place to preach in, that could be devised, like one of the Roman theatres; but he was now in his state of humiliation, and in this, as in other things, he denied himself the honours due to him; as he had not a house of his own to live in, so he had not a chapel of his own to preach in. By this he teaches us in the external circumstances of worship not to covet that which is stately, but to make the best of the conveniences which God in his providence allots to us. When Christ was born, he was crowded into the stable, and now to the sea-side, upon the strand, where all persons might come to him with freedom. He that was truth itself sought no corners (no adyta), as the pagan mysteries did. Wisdom crieth without,Proverbs 1:20; John 13:20.

      (2.) His pulpit was a ship; not like Ezra's pulpit, that was made for the purpose (Nehemiah 8:4); but converted to this use for want of a better. No place amiss for such a Preacher, whose presence dignified and consecrated any place: let not those who preach Christ be ashamed, though they have mean and inconvenient places to preach in. Some observe, that the people stood upon dry ground and firm ground, while the Preacher was upon the water in more hazard. Ministers are most exposed to trouble. Here was a true rostrum, a ship pulpit.

      4. What and how he preached. (1.) He spake many things unto them. Many more it is likely than are here recorded, but all excellent and necessary things, things that belong to our peace, things pertaining to the kingdom of heaven: they were not trifles, but things of everlasting consequence, that Christ spoke of. It concerns us to give a more earnest heed, when Christ has so many things to say to us, that we miss not any of them. (2.) What he spake was in parables. A parable sometimes signifies any wise, weighty saying that is instructive; but here in the gospels it generally signifies a continued similitude or comparison, by which spiritual or heavenly things were described in language borrowed from the things of this life. It was a way of teaching used very much, not only by the Jewish rabbin, but by the Arabians, and the other wise men of the east; and it was found very profitable, and the more so from its being pleasant. Our Saviour used it much, and in it condescended to the capacities of people, and lisped to them in their own language. God had long used similitudes by his servants the prophets (Hosea 12:10), and to little purpose; now he uses similitudes by his Son; surely they will reverence him who speaks from heaven, and of heavenly things, and yet clothes them with expressions borrowed from things earthly. See John 3:12. So descending in a cloud. Now,

      I. We have here the general reason why Christ taught in parables. The disciples were a little surprised at it, for hitherto, in his preaching, he had not much used them, and therefore they ask, Why speakest thou to them in parables? Because they were truly desirous that the people might hear with understanding. They do not say, Why speakest thou to us? (they knew how to get the parables explained) but to them. Note, We ought to be concerned for the edification of others, as well as for our own, by the word preached; and if ourselves be strong, yet to bear the infirmities of the weak.

      To this question Christ answers largely, Matthew 13:11-17; Matthew 13:11-17, where he tells them, that therefore he preached by parables, because thereby the things of God were made more plain and easy to them who were willingly ignorant; and thus the gospel would be a savour of life to some, and of death to others. A parable, like the pillar of cloud and fire, turns a dark side towards Egyptians, which confounds them, but a light side towards Israelites, which comforts them, and so answers a double intention. The same light directs the eyes of some, but dazzles the eyes of others. Now,

      1. This reason is laid down (Matthew 13:11; Matthew 13:11): Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. That is, (1.) The disciples had knowledge, but the people had not. You know already something of these mysteries, and need not in this familiar way to be instructed; but the people are ignorant, are yet but babes, and must be taught as such by plain similitudes, being yet incapable of receiving instruction in any other way: for though they have eyes, they know not how to use them; so some. Or, (2.) The disciples were well inclined to the knowledge of gospel mysteries, and would search into the parables, and by them would be led into a more intimate acquaintance with those mysteries; but the carnal hearers that rested in bare hearing, and would not be at the pains to look further, nor to ask the meaning of the parables, would be never the wiser, and so would justly suffer for their remissions. A parable is a shell that keeps good fruit for the diligent, but keeps it from the slothful. Note, There are mysteries in the kingdom of heaven, and without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness: Christ's incarnation, satisfaction, intercession, our justification and sanctification by union with Christ, and indeed the whole work of redemption, from first to last, are mysteries, which could never have been discovered but by divine revelation (1 Corinthians 15:51), were at this time discovered but in part to the disciples, and will never be fully discovered till the veil shall be rent; but the mysteriousness of gospel truth should not discourage us from, but quicken us in, our enquiries after it and searches into it. [1.] It is graciously given to the disciples of Christ to be acquainted with these mysteries. Knowledge is the first gift of God, and it is a distinguishing gift (Proverbs 2:6); it was given to the apostles, because they were Christ's constant followers and attendants. Note, The nearer we draw to Christ, and the more we converse with him, the better acquainted we shall be with gospel mysteries. [2.] It is given to all true believers, who have an experimental knowledge of the gospel mysteries, and that is without doubt the best knowledge: a principle of grace in the heart, is that which makes men of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord, and in the faith of Christ, and so in the meaning of parables; and for want of that, Nicodemus, a master in Israel, talked of the new birth as a blind man of colours. [3.] There are those to whom this knowledge is not given, and a man can receive nothing unless it be given him from above (John 3:27); and be it remembered that God is debtor to no man; his grace is his own; he gives or withholds it at pleasure (Romans 11:35); the difference must be resolved into God's sovereignty, as before, Matthew 11:25; Matthew 11:26.

      2. This reason is further illustrated by the rule God observes in dispensing his gifts; he bestows them on those who improve them, but takes them away from those who bury them. It is a rule among men, that they will rather entrust their money with those who have increased their estates by their industry, than with those who have diminished them by their slothfulness.

      (1.) Here is a promise to him that has, that has true grace, pursuant to the election of grace, that has, and uses what he has; he shall have more abundance: God's favours are earnests of further favours; where he lays the foundation, he will build upon it. Christ's disciples used the knowledge they now had, and they had more abundance at the pouring out of the Spirit, Acts 2:1-13. They who have the truth of grace, shall have the increase of grace, even to an abundance in glory, Proverbs 4:18. Joseph--he will add,Genesis 30:24.

      (2.) Here is a threatening to him that has not, that has no desire of grace, that makes no right use of the gifts and graces he has: has not root, no solid principle; that has, but uses not what he has; from him shall be taken away that which he has or seems to have. His leaves shall wither, his gifts decay; the means of grace he has, and makes no use of, shall be taken from him; God will call in his talents out of their hands that are likely to become bankrupts quickly.

      3. This reason is particularly explained, with reference to the two sorts of people Christ had to do with.

      (1.) Some were willingly ignorant; and such were amused by the parables (Matthew 13:13; Matthew 13:13); because they seeing, see not. They had shut their eyes against the clear light of Christ's plainer preaching, and therefore were now left in the dark. Seeing Christ's person, they see not his glory, see no difference between him and another man; seeing his miracles, and hearing his preaching, they see not, they hear not with any concern or application; they understand neither. Note, [1.] There are many that see the gospel light, and hear the gospel sound, but it never reaches their hearts, nor has it any place in them. [2.] It is just with God to take away the light from those who shut their eyes against it; that such as will be ignorant, may be so; and God's dealing thus with them magnifies his distinguishing grace to his disciples.

      Now in this the scripture would be fulfilled, Matthew 13:14; Matthew 13:15. It is quoted from Isaiah 6:9; Isaiah 6:10. The evangelical prophet that spoke most plainly of gospel grace, foretold the contempt of it, and the consequences of that contempt. It is referred to no less than six times in the New Testament, which intimates, that in gospel times spiritual judgments would be most common, which make least noise, but are most dreadful. That which was spoken of the sinners in Isaiah's time was fulfilled in those in Christ's time, and it is still fulfilling every day; for while the wicked heart of man keeps up the same sin, the righteous hand of God inflicts the same punishment. Here is,

      First. A description of sinners' wilful blindness and hardness, which is their sin. This people's heart is waxed gross; it is fattened, so the word is; which denotes both sensuality and senselessness (Psalms 119:70); secure under the word and rod of God, and scornful as Jeshurun, that waxed fat and kicked,Deuteronomy 32:15. And when the heart is thus heavy, no wonder that the ears are dull of hearing; the whispers of the Spirit they hear not at all; the loud calls of the word, though the word be nigh them, they regard not, nor are at all affected by them: they stop their ears,Psalms 58:4; Psalms 58:5. And because they are resolved to be ignorant, they shut both the learning senses; for their eyes also they have closed, resolved that they would not see light come into the world, when the Son of Righteousness arose, but they shut their windows, because they loved darkness rather than light,John 3:19; 2 Peter 3:5.

      Secondly, A description of that judicial blindness, which is the just punishment of this. "By hearing, ye shall hear, and shall not understand; what means of grace you have, shall be to no purpose to you; though, in mercy to others, they are continued, yet in judgment to you, the blessing upon them is denied." The saddest condition a man can be in on this side hell, is to sit under the most lively ordinances with a dead, stupid, untouched heart. To hear God's word, and see his providences, and yet not to understand and perceive his will, either in the one or in the other, is the greatest sin and the greatest judgment that can be. Observe, It is God's work to give an understanding heart, and he often, in a way of righteous judgment, denies it to those to whom he has given the hearing ear, and the seeing eye, in vain. Thus does God choose sinners' delusions (Isaiah 66:4), and bind them over to the greatest ruin, by giving them up to their own hearts' lusts (Psalms 81:11; Psalms 81:12); let them alone (Hosea 4:17); my Spirit shall not always strive,Genesis 6:3.

      Thirdly, The woeful effect and consequence of this; Lest at any time they should see. They will not see because they will not turn; and God says that they shall not see, because they shall not turn: lest they should be converted, and I should heal them.

      Note, 1. That seeing, hearing, and understanding, are necessary to conversion; for God, in working grace, deals with men as men, as rational agents; he draws with the cords of a man, changes the heart by opening the eyes, and turns from the power of Satan unto God, by turning first from darkness to light, (Acts 26:18). 2. All those who are truly converted to God, shall certainly be healed by him. "If they be converted I shall heal them, I shall save them:" so that if sinners perish, it is not to be imputed to God, but to themselves; they foolishly expected to be healed, without being converted. 3. It is just with God to deny his grace to those who have long and often refused the proposals of it, and resisted the power of it. Pharaoh, for a good while, hardened his own heart (Exodus 8:15; Exodus 8:32), and afterwards God hardened it, Matthew 9:12; Matthew 10:20. Let us therefore fear, lest by sinning against the divine grace, we sin it away.

      (2.) Others were effectually called to be the disciples of Christ, and were truly desirous to be taught of him; and they were instructed, and made to improve greatly in knowledge, by these parables, especially when they were expounded; and by them the things of God were made more plain and easy, more intelligible and familiar, and more apt to be remembered (Matthew 13:16; Matthew 13:17). Your eyes see, your ears hear. They saw the glory of God in Christ's person; they heard the mind of God in Christ's doctrine; they saw much, and were desirous to see more, and thereby were prepared to receive further instruction; they had opportunity for it, by being constant attendants on Christ, and they should have it from day to day, and grace with it. Now this Christ speaks of,

      [1.] As a blessing; "Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; it is your happiness, and it is a happiness for which you are indebted to the peculiar favour and blessing of God." It is a promised blessing, that in the days of the Messiah the eyes of them that see shall not be dim,Isaiah 32:3. The eyes of the meanest believer that knows experimentally the grace of Christ, are more blessed than those of the greatest scholars, the greatest masters in experimental philosophy, that are strangers to God; who, like the other gods they serve, have eyes, and see not. Blessed are your eyes. Note, True blessedness is entailed upon the right understanding and due improvement of the mysteries of the kingdom of God. The hearing ear and the seeing eye are God's work in those who are sanctified; they are the work of his grace (Proverbs 20:12), and they are a blessed work, which shall be fulfilled with power, when those who now see through a glass darkly, shall see face to face. It was to illustrate this blessedness that Christ said so much of the misery of those who are left in ignorance; they have eyes and see not; but blessed are your eyes. Note, The knowledge of Christ is a distinguishing favour to those who have it, and upon that account it lays under the greater obligations; see John 14:22. The apostles were to teach others, and therefore were themselves blessed with the clearest discoveries of divine truth. The watchmen shall see eye to eye,Isaiah 52:8.

      [2.] As a transcendent blessing, desired by, but not granted to, many prophets and righteous men, Matthew 13:17; Matthew 13:17. The Old-Testament saints, who had some glimpses, some glimmerings of gospel light, coveted earnestly further discoveries. They had the types, shadows, and prophecies, of those things but longed to see the Substance, that glorious end of those things which they could not steadfastly look unto; that glorious inside of those things which they could not look into. They desired to see the great Salvation, the Consolation of Israel, but did not see it, because the fulness of time was not yet come. Note, First, Those who know something of Christ, cannot but covet to know more. Secondly, The discoveries of divine grace are made, even to prophets and righteous men, but according to the dispensation they are under. Though they were the favourites of heaven, with whom God's secret was, yet they have not seen the things which they desired to see, because God had determined not to bring them to light yet; and his favours shall not anticipate his counsels. There was then, as there is still, a glory to be revealed; something in reserve, that they without us should not be made perfect,Hebrews 11:40. Thirdly, For the exciting of our thankfulness, and the quickening of our diligence, it is good for us to consider what means we enjoy, and what discoveries are made to us, now under the gospel, above what they had, and enjoyed, who lived under the Old-Testament dispensation, especially in the revelation of the atonement for sin; see what are the advantages of the New Testament above the Old (2 Corinthians 3:7; Hebrews 12:18); and see that our improvements be proportionable to our advantages.

      II. We have, in Matthew 13:1-23, one of the parables which our Saviour put forth; it is that of the sower and the seed; both the parable itself, and the explanation of it. Christ's parables are borrowed from common, ordinary things, not from any philosophical notions or speculations, or the unusual phenomena of nature, though applicable enough to the matter in hand, but from the most obvious things, that are of every day's observation, and come within the reach of the meanest capacity; many of them are fetched from the husbandman's calling, as this of the sower, and that of the tares. Christ chose to do thus, 1. That spiritual things might hereby be made more plain, and, by familiar similitudes, might be made the more easy to slide into our understandings. 2. That common actions might hereby be spiritualized, and we might take occasion from those things which fall so often under our view, to meditate with delight on the things of God; and thus, when our hands are busiest about the world, we may not only notwithstanding that, but even with the help of that, be led to have our hearts in heaven. Thus the word of God shall talk with us, talk familiarly with us, Proverbs 6:22.

      The parable of the sower is plain enough, Matthew 13:3-9; Matthew 13:3-9. The exposition of it we have from Christ himself, who knew best what was his own meaning. The disciples, when they asked, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? (Matthew 13:10; Matthew 13:10), intimated a desire to have the parable explained for the sake of the people; nor was it any disparagement to their own knowledge to desire it for themselves. Our Lord Jesus kindly took the hint, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the parable, directing his discourse to the disciples, but in the hearing of the multitude, for we have not the account of his dismissing them till Matthew 13:36; Matthew 13:36. "Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:18; Matthew 13:18); you have heard it, but let us go over it again." Note, It is of good use, and would contribute much to our understanding the word and profiting by it, to hear over again what we have heard (Philippians 3:1); "You have heard it, but hear the interpretation of it." Note, Then only we hear the word aright, and to good purpose, when we understand what we hear; it is no hearing at all, if it be not with understanding, Nehemiah 8:2. It is God's grace indeed that gives the understanding, but it is our duty to give our minds to understand.

      Let us therefore compare the parable and the exposition.

      (1.) The seed sown is the word of God, here called the word of the kingdom (Matthew 13:19; Matthew 13:19): the kingdom of heaven, that is the kingdom; the kingdoms of the world, compared with that, are not to be called kingdoms. The gospel comes from that kingdom, and conducts to that kingdom; the word of the gospel is the word of the kingdom; it is the word of the King, and where that is, there is power; it is a law, by which we must be ruled and governed. This word is the seed sown, which seems a dead, dry thing, but all the product is virtually in it. It is incorruptible seed (1 Peter 1:23); it is the gospel that brings forth fruit in souls, Colossians 1:5; Colossians 1:6.

      (2.) The sower that scatters the seed is our Lord Jesus Christ, either by himself, or by his ministers; see Matthew 13:37; Matthew 13:37. The people are God's husbandry, his tillage, so the word is; and ministers are labourers together with God,1 Corinthians 3:9. Preaching to a multitude is sowing the corn; we know not where it must light; only see that it be good, that it be clean, and be sure to give it seed enough. The sowing of the word is the sowing of a people for God's field, the corn of his floor,Isaiah 21:10.

      (3.) The ground in which this seed is sown is the hearts of the children of men, which are differently qualified and disposed, and accordingly the success of the word is different. Note, Man's heart is like soil, capable of improvement, of bearing good fruit; it is pity it should lie fallow, or be like the field of the slothful, Proverbs 24:30. The soul is the proper place for the word of God to dwell, and work, and rule in; its operation is upon conscience, it is to light that candle of the Lord. Now according as we are, so the word is to us: Recipitur ad modum recipientis--The reception depends upon the receiver. As it is with the earth; some sort of ground, take ever so much pains with it, and throw ever so good seed into it, yet it brings forth no fruit to any purpose; while the good soil brings forth plentifully: so it is with the hearts of men, whose different characters are here represented by four sorts of ground, of which three are bad, and but one good. Note, The number of fruitless hearers is very great, even of those who heard Christ himself. Who has believed our report? It is a melancholy prospect which this parable gives us of the congregations of those who hear the gospel preached, that scarcely one in four brings forth fruit to perfection. Many are called with the common call, but in few is the eternal choice evidenced by the efficacy of that call, Matthew 20:16; Matthew 20:16.

      Now observe the characters of these four sorts of ground.

      [1.] The highway ground, Matthew 13:4-10; Matthew 13:4-10. They had pathways through their corn-fields (Matthew 12:1; Matthew 12:1), and the seed that fell on them never entered, and so the birds picked it up. The place where Christ's hearers now stood represented the characters of most of them, the sand on the sea-shore, which was to the seed like the highway ground.

      Observe First, What kind of hearers are compared to the highway ground; such as hear the word and understand it not; and it is their own fault that they do not. They take no heed to it, take no hold of it; they do not come with any design to get good, as the highway was never intended to be sown. They come before God as his people come, and sit before his as his people sit; but it is merely for fashion-sake, to see and be seen; they mind not what is said, it comes in at one ear and goes out at the other, and makes no impression.

      Secondly, How they come to be unprofitable hearers. The wicked one, that is, the devil, cometh and catcheth away that which was sown.--Such mindless, careless, trifling hearers are an easy prey to Satan; who, as he is the great murderer of souls, so he is the great thief of sermons, and will be sure to rob us of the word, if we take not care to keep it: as the birds pick up the seed that falls on the ground that is neither ploughed before nor harrowed after. If we break not up the fallow ground, by preparing our hearts for the word, and humbling them to it, and engaging our own attention; and if we cover not the seed afterwards, by meditation and prayer; if we give not a more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, we are as the highway ground. Note, The devil is a sworn enemy to our profiting by the word of God; and none do more befriend his design than heedless hearers, who are thinking of something else, when they should be thinking of the things that belong to their peace.

      [2.] The stony ground. Some fell upon stony places (Matthew 13:5; Matthew 13:6), which represents the case of hearers that go further than the former, who receive some good impressions of the word, but they are not lasting, Matthew 13:20; Matthew 13:21. Note, It is possible we may be a great deal better than some others, and yet not be so good as we should be; may go beyond our neighbours, and yet come short of heaven. Now observe, concerning these hearers that are represented by the stony ground,

      First, How far they went. 1. They hear the word; they turn neither their backs upon it, nor a deaf ear to it. Note, hearing the word, though ever so frequently, ever so gravely, if we rest in that, will never bring us to heaven. 2. They are quick in hearing, swift to hear, he anon receiveth it, euthys, he is ready to receive it, forthwith it sprung up (Matthew 13:5; Matthew 13:5), it sooner appeared above ground than that which was sown in the good soil. Note, Hypocrites often get the start of true Christians in the shows of profession, and are often too hot to hold. He receiveth it straightway, without trying it; swallows it without chewing, and then there can never be a good digestion. Those are most likely to hold fast that which is good, that prove all things,1 Thessalonians 5:21. 3. They receive it with joy. Note, There are many that are very glad to hear a good sermon, that yet do not profit by it; they may be pleased with the word, and yet not changed and ruled by it; the heart may melt under the word, and yet not be melted down by the word, much less into it, as into a mould. Many taste the good word of God (Hebrews 6:5), and say they find sweetness in it, but some beloved lust is rolled under the tongue, which it would not agree with, and so they spit it out again. 4. They endure for awhile, like a violent motion, which continues as long as the impression of the force remains, but ceases when that has spent itself. Note, Many endure for awhile, that do not endure to the end, and so come short of the happiness which is promised to them only that persevere (Matthew 10:22; Matthew 10:22); they did run well, but something hindered them, Galatians 5:7.

      Secondly, How they fell away, so that no fruit was brought to perfection; no more than the corn, that having no depth of earth from which to draw moisture, is scorched and withered by the heat of the sun. And the reason is,

      1. They have no root in themselves, no settled, fixed principles in their judgments, no firm resolution in their wills, nor any rooted habits in their affections: nothing firm that will be either the sap or the strength of their profession. Note, (1.) It is possible there may be the green blade of a profession, where yet there is not the root of grace; hardness prevails in the heart, and what there is of soil and softness is only in the surface; inwardly they are no more affected than a stone; they have no root, they are not by faith united to Christ who is our Root; they derive not from him, they depend not on him. (2.) Where there is not a principle, though there be a profession, we cannot expect perseverance. Those who have no root will endure but awhile. A ship without ballast, though she may at first out-sail the laden vessel, yet will certainly fail in stress of weather, and never make her port.

      2. Times of trial come, and then they come to nothing. When tribulation and persecution arise because of the word, he is offended; it is a stumbling-block in his way which he cannot get over, and so he flies off, and this is all his profession comes to. Note, (1.) After a fair gale of opportunity usually follows a storm of persecution, to try who have received the word in sincerity, and who have not. When the word of Christ's kingdom comes to be the word of Christ's patience (Revelation 3:10), then is the trial, who keeps it, and who does not, Revelation 1:9. It is wisdom to prepare for such a day. (2.) When trying times come, those who have no root are soon offended; they first quarrel with their profession, and then quit it; first find fault with it, and then throw it off. Hence we read of the offence of the cross,Galatians 5:11. Observe, Persecution is represented in the parable by the scorching sun, (Matthew 13:6; Matthew 13:6); the same sun which warms and cherishes that which was well rooted, withers and burns up that which wanted root. As the word of Christ, so the cross of Christ, is to some a savour of life unto life, to others a savour of death unto death: the same tribulation which drives some to apostasy and ruin, works for others a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Trials which shake some, confirm others, Philippians 1:12. Observe how soon they fall away, by and by; as soon rotten as they were ripe; a profession taken up without consideration is commonly let fall without it: "Lightly come, lightly go."

      [3.] The thorny ground, Some fell among thorns (which are a good guard to the corn when they are in the hedge, but a bad inmate when they are in the field); and the thorns sprung up, which intimates that they did not appear, or but little, when the corn was sown, but afterwards they proved choking to it, Matthew 13:7; Matthew 13:7. This went further than the former, for it had root; and it represents the condition of those who do not quite cast off their profession, and yet come short of any saving benefit by it; the good they gain by the word, being insensibly overcome and overborne by the things of the world. Prosperity destroys the word in the heart, as much as persecution does; and more dangerously, because more silently: the stones spoiled the root, the thorns spoil the fruit.

      Now what are these choking thorns?

      First, The cares of this world. Care for another world would quicken the springing of this seed, but care for this world chokes it. Worldly cares are fitly compared to thorns, for they came in with sin, and are a fruit of the curse; they are good in their place to stop a gap, but a man must be well armed that deals much in them (2 Samuel 23:6; 2 Samuel 23:7); they are entangling, vexing, scratching, and their end is to be burned,Hebrews 6:8. These thorns choke the good seed. Note, Worldly cares are great hindrances to our profiting by the word of God, and our proficiency in religion. They eat up that vigour of soul which should be spent in divine things; divert us from duty, distract us in duty, and do us most mischief of all afterwards; quenching the sparks of good affections, and bursting the cords of good resolutions; those who are careful and cumbered about many things, commonly neglect the one thing needful.

      Secondly, The deceitfulness of riches. Those who, by their care and industry, have raised estates, and so the danger that arises from care seems to be over, and they continue hearers of the word, yet are still in a snare (Jeremiah 5:4; Jeremiah 5:5); it is hard for them to enter into the kingdom of heaven: they are apt to promise themselves that in riches which is not in them; to rely upon them, and to take an inordinate complacency in them; and this chokes the word as much as care did. Observe, It is not so much riches, as the deceitfulness of riches, that does the mischief: now they cannot be said to be deceitful to us unless we put our confidence in them, and raise our expectations from them, and then it is that they choke the good seed.

      [4.] The good ground (Matthew 13:18; Matthew 13:18); Others fell into good ground, and it is pity but that good seed should always meet with good soil, and then there is no loss; such are good hearers of the word,Matthew 13:23; Matthew 13:23. Note, Though there are many that receive the grace of God, and the word of his grace, in vain, yet God has a remnant by whom it is received to good purpose; for God's word shall not return empty,Isaiah 55:10; Isaiah 55:11.

      Now that which distinguished this good ground from the rest, was, in one word, fruitfulness. By this true Christians are distinguished from hypocrites, that they bring forth the fruits of righteousness; so shall ye be my disciples,John 15:8. He does not say that this good ground has no stones in it, or no thorns; but there were none that prevailed to hinder its fruitfulness. Saints, in this world, are not perfectly free from the remains of sin; but happily freed from the reign of it.

      The hearers represented by the good ground are,

      First, Intelligent hearers; they hear the word and understand it; they understand not only the sense and meaning of the word, but their own concern in it; they understand it as a man of business understands his business. God in his word deals with men as men, in a rational way, and gains possession of the will and affections by opening the understanding: whereas Satan, who is a thief and a robber, comes not in by that door, but climbeth up another way.

      Secondly, Fruitful hearers, which is an evidence of their good understanding: which also beareth fruit. Fruit is to every seed its own body, a substantial product in the heart and life, agreeable to the seed of the word received. We then bear fruit, when we practise according to the word; when the temper of our minds and the tenour of our lives are conformable to the gospel we have received, and we do as we are taught.

      Thirdly, Not all alike fruitful; some a hundred-fold, some sixty, some thirty. Note, Among fruitful Christians, some are more fruitful than others: where there is true grace, yet there are degrees of it; some are of greater attainments in knowledge and holiness than others; all Christ's scholars are not in the same form. We should aim at the highest degree, to bring forth a hundred-fold, as Isaac's ground did (Genesis 26:12), abounding in the work of the Lord,John 15:8. But if the ground be good, and the fruit right, the heart honest, and the life of a piece with it, those who bring forth but thirty-fold shall be graciously accepted of God, and it will be fruit abounding to their account, for we are under grace, and not under the law.