The Parable of the sower, recorded three times in the gospels with minor variations was clearly intended by the Lord Jesus to be a key and unforgettable feature of his message.
Like so much of the teaching of Scripture, Jesus makes some details of the parable’s meaning perfectly clear and others deliberately vague and ambiguous. This must be so that we will think hard and exercise spiritual discernment to work out the story (I Cor. 2:13-14).
Who is “the sower”? God, Jesus, the believer preaching individually, a missionary organisation, the whole church – or all five acting as one?
Who or what is “the evil one,” “the devil” and “Satan” who “snatches away” the word from some people’s hearts, “so that they may not believe and be saved”? Is it the present evil world, those opposed to Jesus Christ, or hardness of heart on the part of the hearer – or all three? See the context of the parable in Matthew 13:14-15 for a clue.
The crop and the good soil
What is “the crop” yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown? Does it represent multiplication of spiritual qualities in the hearts of individual believers, or multiplication of converts – or both?
The most intriguing ambiguity is “the good soil.” Must a person have “a noble and good heart” before receiving the word, so enabling it to germinate? It would seem so. How does that fit in with the notion that no one is good and that we are all equally sinful before conversion? Jesus seems to equate an honest and good heart with an initial willingness to listen and give some serious attention to his message, rather than dismiss it out of hand.
The two “missionary” brothers who sowed the seed in my heart fifty years ago told me that sisters make the best preachers, and that seed is best sown by living a sanctified life each day in our homes, consistently dedicated to the truth. Jesus said, “All by itself the soil produces grain” (Mark 4:28). Or, as Paul expressed it, “God makes it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow” (I Cor. 3:6-7).
Producing
Let me show you about a very dear sister and myself. The truth came to each of us almost fifty years ago in different parts of the Caribbean — one in a big city and the other in a remote village among fields of sugar cane. Year by year this has been the crop from the two of us:
Over those fifty years, as Jesus promised, there has been a crop, in fact a thirty-fold increase. In one case, most of the converts have been from the sister’s own extended family, in the other, most of the converts have been through personal witness. That’s not important. What is important is that God made two seeds grow into fifty brothers and sisters, all but three of whom are still alive and yielding spiritual fruit today.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One