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Receiving the Word

It's not too often that I blog on a passage of scripture I'm soon teaching.  I suppose it's my way of making sure I don't use the blog site as a preaching site.  Still, there are times when it seems worth it to "muse" a bit about what I'm also preparing to teach.  Here's one, and it's sort of a continuation of what I began yesterday to say in that post about "Eating the book".

Luke 8:4-15 (NIV)
4 While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable:
5 "A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up.
6 Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture.
7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants.
8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown." When he said this, he called out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
9 His disciples asked him what this parable meant.
10 He said, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, "'though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.'
11 "This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God.
12 Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.
13 Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away.
14 The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.
15 But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.

First of all, I'd invite your comments...it's one of the more familiar passages, or stories, Jesus told.  Living in farm country affords me a nice mental picture of what is going on.  Farmers this time of the year are busy in their fields.  I've even seen some taking first crop hay, which I know is earlier than usual...a testimony to the warm winter/spring we're enjoying.
It seems very obvious that the story is not about seeds, or sowing...as much as it is about soils...various types of soil.
  • Hardened pathway soil, 
  • rocky soil (I remember picking rocks in fields as a young boy - the worst job in the world I think), 
  • soil that was full of thorns, thistles, weeds.  Someone once said, "A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows."
  • And finally, good soil.
There's reasons why each exist, but the point Jesus makes is that in three out of the four possibilities the seed cannot take root - "he who has ears to hear, let him hear"...it's Jesus' way of saying, "take note, ask yourself the question about the garden called your heart.

The prophet Jeremiah may have been the original source of Jesus' story.  He said some 600 years before Jesus, 
3 This is what the LORD says to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem: "Break up your unplowed ground and do not sow among thorns.  Jeremiah 4:3 (NIV) 

Soil is hardened as it is left alone.  It gets full of weeds, and becomes a place of "no useful growth".  Breaking up the ground is something that is happening right now in my part of the world.  Tractors pull tillers and diggers out in the fields.  I don't see much plowing these days, but those other instruments do the job.  It's important to "tear" up the ground a bit, open it up, make it tender to receive the seed.  After the seed is sown in tender earth, open, ready to receive it, it will grow.
Still, thorns and thistles, weeds, will also...the ground once prepared takes on the need of tending.  

It's all hard work...farmers are hard workers.  The growth will come with a little effort... Jesus said it this way.
15 But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop. 
  • hear the word
  • retain it
  • persevere
Those are the means to growth.

Peace

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