Mark 4:10-20--The Purpose of the Parables

Mark 4:10-20
English Standard Version

The Purpose of the Parables
10 And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. 11 And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, 12 so that

“‘they may indeed see but not perceive,
    and may indeed hear but not understand,
lest they should turn and be forgiven.’”

​13 And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? 14 The sower sows the word. 15 And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. 16 And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. 17 And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. 18 And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, 19 but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. 20 But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”

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Jesus took the Twelve away from the crowds so that He could explain the meaning of His parables to them and they might receive "the secret of the kingdom of God."  To the rest of the crowds the parables revealed the truth to some that the Holy Spirit allowed to see it and concealed the truth from others.  Often in the gospels we see it was the unbelieving Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, and teachers of the Law that immediately understood the meaning of the parable--especially when they perceived it was about them, so understanding the parable and believing it are not the same thing.  Most in the crowd would not understand Jesus' truth claims about Himself that He made by way of parable until after His resurrection.

Jesus made sure the Twelve understood this parable as it was foundational to understanding so many other things that Jesus would talk about.  He explained that the sower sows the "seed" of the Word of God and that the four different kinds of soil represent four different heart conditions.  When we sow the seed of the Word of God, we can't immediately see someone's heart condition, but the condition of their heart (the kind of soil) may be revealed for how they respond to the Word of God.

There are those with hearts as hard as the path that are unable to accept what they hear and it is stolen away by Satan.  The work that the Word does in this case is that such men are without excuse. They cannot say that no one ever told them the truth.

Next was the rocky ground where it appears that the Word is immediately received with joy and there appears to be life, but since there is no depth to the soil and there is no root to the plant, it shrivels up and dies when the trials of tribulation and persecution, represented by the sun's scorching heat, come they quickly fall away and do not persevere to the end (they "deconvert" when things get hard to use today's language).

The third kind of soil was where the seed of the Word fell among the thorns, thistles, and weeds.  The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke out the Word because no one can live for God and material possessions at the same time.  Your heart cannot belong to the kingdom of this world and also to the kingdom of heaven.  There is no duel citizenship.  You will be a citizen of one kingdom or the other.  This was the issue for the rich, young ruler who went away sad when Jesus told him to sell all of his possessions and give everything he had to the poor, because the man had great wealth and loved his stuff more than he loved God or other people made in the image of God.  This love of material possessions choked out the truth of the Word that was being spoken to him and he would not respond to the call of Jesus to give up everything to follow and become His disciple.  Again, there is no fruit to be shown here in this situation, even if it may appear that there was some initial growth.

Finally is the good soil that the Word of God lands on.  This heart has been prepared by God to hear the Word of God, accept it, and respond to it in faith.  The Word takes root in their hearts and it works in a way that is spiritually reproductive--it makes a crop that is visibly larger than the amount of seed sown (30, 60 or 100 plants coming from a single seed).  We get the idea here that when the Word does its work those who hear it are transformed and they can't help but tell others the Word of God and they will share the Word with 30, 60, or maybe 100 more people, or this fruit may be the Fruit of the Spirit which we see at work in the lives of those who have bene born again.  There are a couple of different ways that people have interpreted the "fruit" in this passage, but ultimately that fruit is the evidence that the plant is alive.  Jesus makes that analogy in several of his parables that good trees and vines produce good fruit in their season.  If you come to a tree or vine that is supposed to have fruit on it and it has none, that tree or vine is as good as dead to you and it is fruitless because it has some kind of disease.  Jesus will tell another parable later about how God "prunes" those He loves to make them even more fruitful.

So then we are to speak the Word of God (not any other fancy words of our own) and we are to entrust God to work on the soil of someone's heart and we can somewhat judge the condition of a man's heart by how he or she responds or fails to respond to the Word of God and if it is something temporary or something lasting and if it is fruitful or fruitless.  It would seem to me that Jesus is saying that only the seed that fell on good soil are those who are genuinely saved because although we are not saved by our works, we are saved "unto" them in Ephesians 2 and James tells us that faith without works is dead.  So then just like a fruit tree without fruit is useless, so is a so-called Christian who looks like they walked the aisle, prayed the Sinner's Prayer and maybe even was baptized, but their lives show no "fruit" that comes from genuine repentance and being born again.