Revisiting The Parable of The Sower
The secret to spiritual growth...
The four soils are not 4 kinds of people, they're descriptions of how the word of God works on our hearts.
What kind of soil are you? Hard ground, resistant to God’s word? Rocky and shallow, unable to withstand trials? Thorny and choked by concerns and worldly pleasures? Or are you good soil that will produce much fruit?
Sometimes the parable of the story is taught like one of Aesop’s fables. The supposed moral is: Don’t be resistant or weak or selfish, instead listen to God’s instructions and live by them; then you will produce a lot of good works!
But is that what Jesus meant? Let’s take a look:
The Sower and The Seed
“Consider the sower who went out to sow…” (Matt 13:3)
Jesus himself tells what to pay attention to in the parable, and it’s the sower. A strange sower who throws his seed everywhere regardless of the soil type. It’s such an odd image! Everyone listening would have immediately recognized the sower was doing something bizarre.
Who is this sower, and why would he do this? It’s Jesus, and the seed is his word, his word of forgiveness and God’s work of reconciling all people to himself.
And he’s willing to sow everywhere because there is something very special about this seed: It has the power to transform the soil on which it lands!
Here’s the trick to understanding the whole parable: remember the Sower and the seed.
The Soils
The hard path represents the person who hears, but does not understand Jesus' word. What parts of your heart are packed hard? Where in my life am I resisting God’s love? Is there an invitation to repentance, to receiving help and forgiveness, that I keep ignoring?
The rocky ground represents the person who hears the good news and rejoices briefly, but quickly forgets it because life is hard. What part of my heart is angry or frustrated at God because things are difficult? What am I clawing for control over, hoping to secure myself instead of patiently suffering in faith?
The thorny ground represents the person who hears but is distracted by worldly comforts and pleasures. What part of my heart is looking to my bank account, my status, my productivity instead of to God?
The good soil represents the person who hears and understands the good news. Where in my life am I surrendered to God’s good will? Where can I hear and truly receive the reality that: “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32).
The Secret to Spiritual Growth
We can be all four soils in the same week, or even at the exact same time in different parts of our lives. The point is that God’s word is transforming the soil in our hearts! (Soil can’t till itself!)
Remember, Jesus told us to pay attention to the Sower and that really strange seed of his.
Think about a small flower growing through a crack in the pavement. Let it alone and, eventually, the pavement loses. Just so, the word of God and our resistant hearts.
Jesus and his words will transform my heart! It will break up the hard ground, clear away the rocks, and overwhelm the weeds. God’s word makes my heart into good, receptive soil.
And this is the secret to spiritual growth: He who has ears to hear… listen. To Jesus!
Is your heart compacted and resistant? Anxious or distracted? Peace, be still! Hear the good news for you and for the whole world:
“I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my Spirit within you, and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances” (Ezekiel 36:25-27 CSB).
And
“God did not send his Son into the world to condemn you, but to save you through him!” (John 3:17). And so “there is now no condemnation for you, who is in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did” (Romans 8:1-3).
Provisions for the Road
Your spot is already reserved and paid for!
- September 12
- Time: 10 AM Pacific | 11 AM Mountain | 12 PM Central | 1 PM Eastern
- Cost: FREE (Thanks to generous donors!)
Stories are full of sights, sounds, smells, and real human drama. The Gospel authors wanted you to see Jesus’ face, to hear his voice. Reading the Gospels with your imagination is simply reading biblical stories the way they were meant to be read.
The heart of this practice is to let the Holy Spirit make Jesus present to you, to let him catch your eye and ask: "And what about you?"
God can teach us with facts. But he meets us in our imagination.
In this workshop you’ll:
- Learn how imagination is a God-given tool for encountering God in Scripture.
- Walk through a simple 5-step method of reading with your imagination.
- Practice the method and ask your questions
- Leave with a complete worksheet and list of passages to start with.
Food for Thought
Things the team found interesting this week, no endorsement implied.
Own It or Change It
By Assael Romanelli Ph.D., LCSW at Psychology Today
You keep doing the thing you say you want to stop. The Integrity Fork can help your mouth and your feet align again.
The Seed and the Diamond: The Parable of the Sower and the Journey of the Interior Castle
By Jean Khoury at the School of Mary
As I researched the Parable of the Sower I came across this fascinating article aligning the soil types with the mansions of St. Teresa of Ávila’s Interior Castle. Super interesting!
Why the Internet is Making Men and Women Hate Each Other
By Samuel D. James on Substack
"The Web’s disembodied nature means all of us lose an important connection to reality when we encounter the world through the Internet. None of us are just “users” in the abstract." The Lindsay Clancy case is exposing "how the heavily gendered dynamics of social media work in real-time."
