The Parable of the Sower: What Jesus Teaches About the Heart
It is possible to sit through the teaching of Scripture and still resist the very thing God is saying. In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus describes people who hear the same Word but do not receive it in the same way. Before I use this parable to explain someone else’s response, I need to consider what happens when Scripture challenges me.
Jesus used the familiar work of a farmer scattering seed. Some landed on a packed path, where birds ate it before it could take root. Other seed sprouted in thin soil over rock, only to wither when the sun came up. Thorns choked another part of the crop, while the good soil produced a harvest. The seed was not defective because some of the ground failed to bear fruit.
Matthew 13 records the parable and Jesus’ explanation, with Mark and Luke supplying further details. All three direct us to the way God’s Word is received. That is a warning for the person listening and an encouragement for the person teaching. Faithful teaching can meet resistance without the message itself having failed.
Why Jesus Used Parables
In Matthew 12, some Pharisees attributed Jesus’ work by the Holy Spirit to Beelzebub. Scribes and Pharisees also demanded another sign despite what He had already done. On that same day, Jesus left the house and taught a large crowd from a boat. The people could hear His words from the shore, but being close enough to hear did not mean they welcomed what He said.
The disciples asked why He spoke in parables. Jesus explained their purpose by applying Isaiah’s warning about people who heard and saw without understanding:
Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
Matthew’s account says the people had closed their own eyes. Jesus revealed kingdom truth to disciples who sought understanding, while leaving resistant hearers without that explanation. I do not understand Him to be refusing salvation to a sincere seeker or forcing innocent people to reject Him. These hearers were responsible for what they did with the truth already before them.
His answer also included this warning:
For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.
A person who receives His teaching is given more understanding, while someone who keeps refusing it loses even what he seemed to have. I should not assume that repeated exposure to Scripture will benefit me regardless of how I respond. If I keep defending a sin whenever the Word exposes it, I am practicing resistance rather than learning obedience. It can become easier to dismiss a warning simply because I have heard it so often.
The Seed Is the Word
Luke records Jesus’ explanation of what the seed represents:
Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
Matthew calls it the word of the kingdom, while Mark calls it the word. The emphasis is on God’s message, not the sower’s charisma. A gifted speaker can hold an audience’s attention without bringing anyone to faith, and an emotional appeal can obtain a public response that has little to do with receiving Christ.
God uses pastors preaching publicly, friends speaking together, and parents teaching children. The setting can be ordinary and the person speaking can feel inadequate. Our responsibility is to explain Scripture faithfully with the gospel of Jesus Christ at the center. Replacing that message with entertainment or applying enough pressure to make someone agree cannot produce spiritual life.
The gospel concerns Jesus, the eternal Son who is fully God and fully man. His sinless life made Him the perfect sacrifice, and He willingly gave Himself to be slain for our sins. Wicked men tortured His body and crucified Him. His saving sacrifice was complete through His shed blood and death before His burial and bodily resurrection. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus. Father and Son were united in providing our salvation.
Christ died for the whole world, and His offer is genuine even though people can resist it. Everyone who repents and believes is forgiven and born again, receiving new life from God. The Holy Spirit lives within the believer and seals him as God’s own, so his salvation is eternally secure. Good works follow as the fruit of that new life; they do not produce it, earn salvation, or keep us saved. As we consider the soils, we must distinguish evidence of life from an attempt to purchase salvation through good conduct.
The Hardened and Shallow Hearers
The wayside was ground packed hard by people’s feet. Seed lay on its surface until birds took it away. Jesus compared that ground to the person who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it:
When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart.
The Word had actually reached this person’s heart. Jesus does not describe someone who had never encountered the message. Mark names the enemy who takes it away and emphasizes the speed of his response:
When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts.
Satan opposes the gospel and seeks to prevent people from believing it. Sharing the Word involves a spiritual conflict, so we need more than confidence in our ability to win an argument. Yet the enemy’s activity does not remove the hearer’s responsibility. Pride and a determination to protect a particular sin can give someone a reason to resist the very truth that would expose him.
If a person you love keeps dismissing the gospel, keep praying and speaking honestly. Becoming cruel or cynical toward him will not make his heart receptive. God can break the hard ground, and the resistance you see today need not be treated as the final word about his future. I also need to guard against becoming so occupied with his refusal that I overlook my own.
On the stony ground, there is enough soil for an immediate sprout but not enough depth for roots. The early growth looks promising until the sun scorches it. Jesus describes a hearer whose first response may look equally encouraging:
But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while.
Jesus then describes tribulation or persecution arising because of the Word. The Greek word translated “stumbles” in Matthew 13:21 is skandalizō, which can describe taking offense, stumbling, or falling away. The pressure exposes the lack of root that was already there.
Luke describes belief that lasts for a time and gives way under testing. I do not take a brief, enthusiastic response as proof that someone has been born again. Joy can certainly accompany genuine faith, and we should be glad when someone welcomes the gospel. But joy alone cannot tell us how deeply the person has received it.
Someone may enjoy being welcomed into a church and find reassurance in the prospect of a fresh start. His response is tested when Scripture confronts a sin he intends to keep or obedience brings opposition from people whose approval he wants. Jesus specifically says the trouble comes because of the Word. A message stripped of repentance can remain comfortable for someone who has no intention of yielding to Christ’s authority.
A quick response should therefore lead to patient discipleship as we continue teaching Scripture. People need fellowship and prayer, as well as correction when their assumptions or conduct are wrong. If I judge a ministry only by the number of immediate responses, I can overlook the shallowness Jesus is warning about.
The Crowded Heart
Among thorns, the seed begins to grow, but the competing plants eventually choke it and prevent a harvest:
Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.
Cares can occupy a person’s thoughts until the Word is continually pushed aside. Riches deceive by promising a security and satisfaction they cannot provide. Luke also includes the pleasures of life:
Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity.
A person does not have to announce that he is rejecting God for this to happen. The next financial goal can always seem more urgent, or amusement can become something he will protect at any cost. Scripture is left for later, and later keeps being postponed. His schedule may look respectable to everyone else while the truth he has heard receives less and less of his attention.
Luke says no fruit comes to maturity. Some visible growth or religious activity is not enough to establish that a person is born again. If someone professes faith but continues without fruit, that profession gives no sound basis for assurance. Genuine believers also need to hear this warning, because allowing those worries and desires to govern us can damage our fellowship with God and hinder obedience. Christ does not abandon those who truly belong to Him, but that security does not make spiritual neglect harmless.
I need to be specific about what I am protecting. If I keep neglecting a responsibility God has given me while finding plenty of time to pursue something I want to buy, my priorities need to change. Even necessary concerns can become anxieties that govern my decisions and distract me from His Word. Recognizing the problem is only a beginning; repentance needs to affect how we spend our time and money and what we are willing to give up.
The Good Soil and Lasting Fruit
Good soil receives the seed and produces the harvest the other ground did not. Jesus names different measures of fruitfulness:
But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
I would not use those figures to rank believers by how impressive their results look. The point is that genuinely receiving the Word produces fruit, though the amount is not identical in every person. Luke also tells us to expect that fruit with patience:
But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.
This hearer keeps the Word when the initial excitement has passed. That can be less conspicuous than an enthusiastic beginning. Continuing to trust Christ through a difficult season, accepting correction, and obeying when no one is applauding may reveal more than an impressive first response.
A noble and good heart does not mean someone was naturally sinless or good enough to deserve salvation. Luke describes a person who receives the Word honestly, including its correction. If I agree with a passage about forgiveness but keep making excuses for how I treat someone I resent, I have not responded as I should. Receiving the Word also means trusting God’s promises when I need comfort, even if my circumstances have not yet improved.
As God’s Word produces repentance and obedience in a person’s life, we see evidence of new birth. We are saved by grace through faith in Christ, and good works cannot buy forgiveness. Regeneration is the Holy Spirit giving new life to someone who believes in Christ. It is more than adopting a Christian name, because that new life begins to change how the person lives. I cannot appeal to grace as a reason to dismiss a continued refusal to obey the Savior I claim to trust.
We should not turn these four responses into permanent labels, as though hearers had no responsibility for how they listen. John explains why some resist the light:
And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
Hebrews likewise warns, “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 3:7-8). God convicts and draws through His Word and Spirit, and people are called to receive Him rather than harden themselves. They are not machines compelled to reject the truth.
God can change the soil. He can break hardness, expose desires that have crowded out the Word, and deepen what has remained shallow. We have reason to keep praying and pleading with sinners to come to Christ. The warnings do not give us permission to decide that a person is beyond hope.
Those truly born again remain secure in Christ’s finished work and resurrection life, sealed by the Holy Spirit. They still need to repent when they allow sinful habits or competing desires to interfere with obedience. If I have grown dull toward Scripture, I need to listen again and submit to what it says, trusting the Shepherd who keeps His sheep.
Sowing the Word Without Quitting
The parable also prepares us for the different responses we encounter while teaching. A pastor may see them within one congregation, and parents may see them among children raised under the same teaching. We should examine whether we have explained the message clearly and whether our conduct contradicts it. Yet we cannot assume that every rejection means we have failed or that the Word has lost its power.
Replacing Scripture with something more entertaining will not produce spiritual life. Neither will flattering a person into agreement or pressuring him to give the response we want. Paul explained how he and Apollos served while depending on God:
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.
God used their labor, so dependence on Him gave neither man an excuse to stop working. Yet neither man’s skill could give spiritual life. I am responsible to speak clearly and courageously while depending on God to convict and draw through His Word and Spirit.
Parents can keep teaching, praying with their children, and correcting them without treating either excitement or resistance as a final verdict. A child needs more than one conversation, and so does an adult beginning to understand the gospel. Patient love continues to explain the truth and remains firm about what it says, even when the response is slower than we hoped.
My Final Thoughts
I need to examine my own hearing before using this parable to become suspicious of everyone else’s. If Scripture confronts a desire I have been defending, agreeing that the teaching is good does not settle the issue. I need to respond to what God has said. Jesus also gives us reason to continue speaking His Word without manipulating people or changing the message to obtain faster results. God gives the increase, and we can keep sowing with patience.