Matthew 13:1-23: The Parables of the Kingdom (1): The Four Soils

Today we are starting a series of parables in Matthew’s Gospel.

We should think of a parable as a riddle. That is, we have to think hard about the parable to work out the point of it, or if we cannot do that, we have to go and ask the person who told it to us what it means. So parables are a bit like a filter. When the thousands gathered to hear Jesus, the parables distinguished the casual enquirer from the earnest seeker in the midst of the crowd.

That is what Jesus means in verse 11, that the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to the disciples, but not to those outside. If the people outside want inside knowledge, they need to come inside—they need to become disciples.

In other words, to understand anything about the kingdom of heaven, we all need to become learners from Jesus, disciples. We need to follow Jesus and sit at his feet listening to him.

This then provides the explanation of verse 12, which otherwise would seem very unfair. Let me read verse 12:

Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. (NIV)

If you understood this verse to refer to, say, money or wealth or power, would not Jesus seem very unfair? “The rich getting richer, the poor get the picture, the bombs never hit you when you’re down so low!”

But Jesus is not speaking about economics, but the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. He is speaking of spiritual riches, and for those who come to follow Jesus as disciples, they have everything in doing so, and they will be given more and more. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things would be given to you”. However, for those who simply remain as the ‘casual inquirer’ or the ‘accidental observer’, there will be no understanding. In fact, the little understanding that they might actually glean will be taken away!

The parables are really an invitation. Jesus is calling the crowds to come to him to learn. If they don’t understand the parables, they can join the circle of disciples, because in and of themselves, the disciples don’t really understand the parables either. Or perhaps more accurately, the disciples do not understand the parables straight away and by themselves when they are left to their own devices. But because they are disciples, that is, learners, they do have one advantage: they have Jesus, and they sit at his feet, and he explains everything to them. When it comes to the ‘secrets of the kingdom of heaven’, it’s not what you know, but who you know. And if you have Jesus Christ, you have the key to the kingdom of heaven, and its secrets are only one question away.

And friends, the invitation implicit in the parables also extends to us, too. There is no parable that need be too difficult for us. But to understand them, we too must come to Christ and follow him. This is true even now, when Jesus is away and ascended to the right hand of God. He remains the key to the parables, and is the one who makes every parable understandable.

Now, the parable itself, the parable of the sower, is a very important parable. When Mark reports that the disciples fail to understand this parable, Jesus exclaims, “You don’t understand this parable? How will you understand any parable!” This is the parable that equips us to understand all the other parables.

The farmer scatters seed, and the seed falls on four types of soil. Unsurprisingly, we often think of this as the parable of the sower, or the four seeds, but it is probably best described as the parable of the four soils.

The seed, we learn from Luke, is God’s word (Luke 8:11). The seed is the same in each case, but it is the soil that is different. As Paul says, the same gospel of Jesus is to some ‘the fragrance of life’ and to others the ‘stench of death’.

The first soil is the path. It’s hard, like a cricket pitch. Tony Gregg’s key just can’t get in, let alone the seed. So the seed fallen on the path sits on top of the soil until it is eaten by the birds. And Jesus tells us in verse 19, that this stands for the person who doesn’t understand the word and doesn’t understand enough to come to Jesus for explanation. The soil of the path includes the casual enquirer into the things of God. And the evil one, Satan, the God of this world comes and takes that seed away.

The second soil is the rocky soil. Probably the nature of this soil is best understood as a thin layer of topsoil with bedrock underneath—we probably shouldn’t think of lots of pebbles in the soil (vv. 4-5). Pebbles I understand are good for the soil because they allow drainage, but a shallow bedrock is like a slab of concrete underneath the soil. The soil looks like it should be good, but it is not deep. Jesus likens this soil in verse 20 to the person who initially receives God’s word with joy, but each of the seedlings are not able to develop deep roots, that is, there is no depth or foundation to their faith in God’s word, so that the joy lasts only a little while, because the faith lasts only a little while. Verse 21 tells us that when trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.

We must expect persecution or opposition because of Jesus. Jesus says, “they persecuted me, they will persecute you”. No student is above his teacher. But at those times we need to remind each other and ourselves that trouble is expected if we are to align ourselves with Christ, and it is only through many trials that we will enter the kingdom.

The third soil is the most insidious, the thorny soil. As you go past Wolli Creek on the train, you see the lantana all over the weeping willows. It’s got much worse over the last 10 years—I guess I notice it since I’ve come back into the area. That is what the thorns on the lantana do—they allow the vine to grow all over the native trees and choke them out. On a smaller scale, the seeds in our parable find soil, and deep soil too, so that they can grow a root, and sprout. But the thorn seeds also are growing at the same time, and as both grows, the thorn plants choke the seed that was sown, and makes it unfruitful. These thorn-choked seeds are, according to Jesus in verse 22, the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth. Luke adds pleasures. Mark talks about the desire for other things.

Friends, this is very sad. There are many things that might distract us. For some it is fear of the future, which works itself out in worry about passing things. For others, it is pleasures or comforts that lie to us. Friends, in our rich and comfortable society, this is the one that most who start the Christian life but don’t finish it succumb to. We generally don’t have the persecutions of other countries yet. But the evidence is suggesting that the ‘soft’ persecution in Western society—the exclusion from polite society because of our Christian life or view of marriage or sexuality—is on the increase.

The fourth soil represents the person who understands, says Matthew. Mark tells us he “accepts” the word. In other words, this is the person who shows repentance and faith. Luke adds that he “retains” the word. It is no hasty, initial, flash in the pan, shooting star response. The word is received by a ready heart, what Luke calls a “good and noble heart”. And by persevering, this soil produces a crop, some plants more fruitful than others, but all the plants bearing seed at different yields.

There are two perspectives from which we can look at this parable. We can look at this parable from the perspective of being the ‘soils’. And this is true. And we want to be the ‘good soil’. It is unlikely if you are here, listening to this talk, that you are the soil on the path—because you’ve come to church to listen to a talk on the Bible. You’ve taken the initiative to put yourself in the path of Bible teaching. So it is most likely that we will be one of the other three soils. We want to be the good soil. We don’t want to fall away when persecution comes, nor do we want to be slowly constricted by the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth. We want to be the good soil. Friends, in the end we are known by our fruit, by our deeds, by the outworking of the faith we claim in our lives. So let us pray to God that each one of us might be found to be the good soil.

However, there is another perspective from which we can consider this parable, and that is the perspective of the preacher, the sower. That is, the disciples who heard this parable were like Jesus Christ also going to be scattering the seed of the word of God. If fact, that is what Jesus was training them to do. And as we adopt this perspective, we need to remember that this parable enables us to be realistic in our expectations of people’s responses to the gospel. For not all will respond positively. Some are like the seed falling on the path. And others will respond well initially, then fall away because of persecution. And still others will have their faith choked out by the slow constriction of worries about this life and the deceitfulness of wealth. No matter how faithful we are in preaching the gospel, the four different responses to it remain. Jesus found it so. Do we really think it would be any different for his followers?

Let’s pray.