the Fourth Week of Advent
Click here to join the effort!
Bible Dictionaries
Parable of the Sower
1910 New Catholic Dictionary
or
Title applied to one of the few parables recorded concurrently by all three Synoptists (Matthew 13; Mark 4; Luke 8). It belongs to that group of parables dealing with the Kingdom of Heaven. The discourse was addressed to a "great multitude" by the shore of Lake Tiberias. Christ was teaching them from the boat. The similitude Jesus employs is a familiar picture of the Palestinian peasant sowing his field. Every detail of typical Galilean fields is depicted: the small foot-paths ("wayside"), hard and beaten, running straight across the field; the parts strewn with stones and boulders; the luxuriant growth of thorns and thistles; finally, the more or less good soil. The sower scatters the seed. Christ tells where each one falls and its fate. Some seed falls on the foot-paths, it is trodden down or devoured by the fowl of the air; some on the rocky ground, this germinates and sprouts quickly, but having neither moisture nor roots it is scorched by the sun and withers away; other seed falls on better ground but the thorns and thistles depriving it of light and air choke it; a considerable portion falls on good soil and yields fruit in varying degrees, thirty, sixty, and a hundred fold. Christ Himself fully and minutely afterwards explained to His disciples the truths He would impart by this parable. The sower is Christ; the seed is the tidings of the Kingdom of God; the wayside, indifferent and careless Christians with hard and unimpressionable hearts; birds of the air, Satan; the rocky ground, superficial Christians, creatures of impulse and without stability; scorching sun, temptations and persecutions for the faith; the thorny ground, inordinate desires and passions of the heart, and anxieties and allurements of the world. After showing the three-fold fate of the unfruitful seed, Jesus balances the picture and gives the triple species of the fruitful seed seen in the thirty, sixty, and hundred-fold yield. Points for application are inexhaustible. The precise date when this parable was uttered is uncertain; probably during the second year of His ministry. This parable is read, according to Saint Luke's account, on Sexagesima Sunday.
These files are public domain.
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
Entry for 'Parable of the Sower'. 1910 New Catholic Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/ncd/p/parable-of-the-sower.html. 1910.
