“parables.” Matthew 13:3 is the first use of “parable” in the New Testament. A parable is a story that illustrates one or more points, principles, or instructive lessons that the speaker wants to make. Parables typically use familiar situations from everyday life or use things that are well-known or commonly believed. A parable differs from a fable. Parables use human characters and situations that are known and understood while fables generally use non-human characters such as plants, animals, and inanimate objects. Jotham made his point in a fable when he said, “The trees once went out to anoint a king over them” (Judg. 9:8; cp. Judg. 9:7-20). Parables also differ from allegories. In an allegory, each major part of the allegory has a counterpart in real life; there is no single important point like there is in many parables. However, many parables have aspects of an allegory in that they have more than one important point that has a counterpoint in real life.

Rhetoricians have argued for years about parables and whether they use similes or metaphors, or whether they make one point or can make several. The reason for the lack of rhetorical clarity with parables is almost certainly that in centuries past no one analyzed parables—or cared to analyze them—the way that rhetoricians and grammarians try to do now. The people like Jesus Christ who used parables used them to make a point or points, and sometimes the parable was only a sentence long, and sometimes it was a whole story; sometimes the speaker used similes, sometimes metaphors, and sometimes the figure hypocatastasis; sometimes many points were significant but often there was only one major point. The student of the Bible will find much more value in learning the meaning of each parable—the point or points it makes and why, when, and to whom it was spoken—than in trying to figure out if the parable really is a “parable” based on man-made rhetorical definitions.

Often a speaker will use a parable because the point that he or she is trying to make is immediately understood and quite easily remembered by the audience. But Jesus Christ used parables in a very unique way: he used them in such a way that the spiritually mature usually understood what he meant, but people with no spiritual understanding—the curiosity seekers; the doubters; the proud—did not understand what he meant. This caused some consternation among his disciples. They wanted the audience to understand Jesus, so they asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” Jesus explained that part of the reason he spoke in parables was that it revealed the heart and character of the people in his audience (see commentary on Matt. 13:13).

We are now some 2,000 years after Christ and his parables are doing now what they did in Christ’s day; confusing the spiritually immature, and blessing the spiritually mature.

[For more on the figures of comparison; simile, metaphor, and hypocatastasis, see commentary on Rev. 20:2.]

“The Sower.” The Parable of the Sower and its explanation is in Matthew 13:3-9, 18-23; Mark 4:3-9, 14-20; and Luke 8:5-8, 11-15.

The parable Jesus tells in verses 3-8 is almost universally referred to as “The Parable of the Sower” because that is what Jesus called it (Matt. 13:18). However, it could just as well be called “The Parable of the Soils,” because the parable is not primarily about God who sows the seed; nor is it about the seed itself, which is the Word of God (Mark 4:14; Luke 8:11). The parables have different names in different Bibles and commentaries because they are not named in the Bible itself: different scholars named the parables according to their best understanding of the subject of the parable.

In the Parable of the Sower, the people would have likely thought that the “sower” was God, but Jesus could have been referring to himself as he did in the parable of the weeds of the field (Matt. 13:27). Actually, however, in the Parable of the Sower, the “sower” is not specifically named because it is anyone who speaks the Word to lead people to salvation. The seed in this parable is the word of God (Mark 4:14; Luke 8:11), specifically the “message about the kingdom” (Matt. 13:19) which Jesus and others were preaching and teaching, and if a person believed the message and obeyed God they would be saved. Today, after the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2), we are in the Administration of Grace and people who believe in the death, resurrection, and Lordship of Jesus are saved (Rom. 10:9).

The focus of the Parable of the Sower is not the seed, but the people who hear the Word of God and the kind of soil they are. The important but unstated lesson in the Parable of the Sower is that each person determines the kind of “soil” they are: like the path (v. 4); like rocky places (v. 5); like thorny ground (v. 7), or good soil (v. 8). It is misreading this parable and misunderstanding life to read the parable and say, “we are what we are,” and we are stuck that way. Christ did not teach about the types of soils so we can discover what kind of soil we are but cannot change that. He taught about them as a warning, so people who need to change can change.

It is a powerful lesson that the first parable in the New Testament is Jesus speaking about people being different kinds of soil. Jesus was always trying to get people to focus on God and thus be saved and also have great rewards in his coming kingdom. He knew that in the huge crowd he was addressing all kinds of people were there: “path people,” “rocky soil people,” “among-the-weeds people,” and “good soil people,” and the goal of his parable was to wake people up to the kind of soil they were being and get them to change and be good soil. No wonder he ended his parable with, “Anyone who has ears had better listen!” Today, some 2,000 years after Jesus taught the parable, it should still be having the same effect Jesus meant it to have: waking each person up to the necessity of being a “good-soil” person.

Jesus’ explanation reveals the lesson.

• The person who is the path: If a person is hard-hearted (like the soil on the path is hard), then they will not understand the Word, and/or not care about it. However, that should be obvious to them, even if they have to hear it from others. The challenge that the “path-person” has is to soften their heart and do things that cause them to grow in the Word so that their heart will receive it. If they do not care enough to do these things, the Devil will eventually snatch away the Word from their heart and mind and it will cease to matter to them at all. But be warned: no one has to remain hard soil.
• The person who is rocky soil: This is the person who receives the Word with joy but has no depth of understanding, so they abandon the Word when there is trouble or persecution. The key to understanding this “soil” (this kind of person) is realizing that when a person has no depth of knowledge or understanding, they know it. We all know when we do not know or understand something, and when it comes to the things of God, that is unacceptable. After hearing the Word of Christ, each person has the responsibility to do what it takes to grow in the Word, both by quitting activities that are ungodly or detrimental and by doing things that contribute to a complete and godly walk with the Lord. No one has to remain shallow, rocky soil.
• The person who is soil with thorns: This is the person who likes the Word of God, but never gets rid of their worldly attachments. They want to be rich, or want “to have fun” or want to be involved in worldly interests (Mark 4:19), and/or they are overly concerned about worldly things. The key to this “soil” (this person), is that anyone who hangs on to worldly desires realizes that fact. No one loves money, fame, sports, sex, alcohol, drugs, video games, etc., without realizing it. A man or woman knows if he or she has watched 20 hours of sports, soap operas, or game shows, on TV in the week but has not read the Bible at all. Everyone can make the freewill choice to put away the things of the world and spend more time and energy with the things of God. No one has to remain thorny soil.
• The person who is good soil: This is the person who hears the Word and understands it and brings forth fruit. The mistake that people can make when reading about this soil is assuming that the “soil” (person) was always that way—somehow inherently godly and God-knowing. Nothing could be further from the truth. Christ is talking about soil in a kind of overview of a person’s life. The person who is good soil started out as everyone else started: ignorant of the deep things of God and with worldly loves and attachments. But they put aside the things of the world and focused on the things of God and grew in the Word. Eventually, their life produced great fruit. Everyone can be good soil if they want to badly enough.

[For more on the future kingdom of Christ on earth, see Appendix 3, Christ’s Future Kingdom on Earth. For more on rewards in the future, see commentary on 2 Cor. 5:10, “good or evil.”]

“Pay attention.” The Greek word is idou (#2400 ἰδού), and it is used to get our attention. Ordinarily, it would have been good to translate this as “Listen,” but since the parable ends with a command to “listen” (v. 9), it would have seemed an undue emphasis to double up on that word, thus the translation here, “pay attention.” See commentary on Matthew 1:20.