Four Soils, One Seed

Observe. Jesus interprets the parable for the disciples. The farmer sows the word. The path represents those who hear, and Satan takes the word away at once. The rocky ground is those who receive the word with joy but have no root, and fall away when trouble or persecution comes because of it. The thorns are those who hear, but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and desires for other things choke the word and make it unfruitful. The good soil hears, accepts, and produces a crop.

Interpret. Three failures, one success, and each failure has a cause. The path is a hardness that never lets the word in. The rocks are a shallowness that welcomes the word for what it gives and abandons it when it costs. The thorns are a crowdedness in which the word is not rejected but out-competed. The third is the most modern of the three. Jesus lists worry, wealth and wanting, and the thorns do not kill the plant; they only keep it from bearing. A choked Christian life can look alive from the outside.

Apply. This is a passage for self-examination rather than for judging others. Which of the three failures is nearest to your own experience right now: the hardness, the shallowness or the crowding? What specifically are the thorns in your week, and could any of them be cut back? And what would it take for you to hear the word this week and accept it, in the plain sense of letting it stay?