The Parable of the Sower - Sower and Seed

Matthew 13:1-23 Mark 4:3-9, 14-20 Luke 8:5-15

Jesus said to his disciples, "Don't you understand this parable? How will you understand all of the parables?" (paraphrase Mark 4:13) Because Jesus said understanding this parable is fundamental to understanding His other teachings, it deserves our attention.

Most people who were raised in church or have read the Gospels in the Bible are familiar with this parable. If you are not, or if it has been awhile, the references are listed above. The allegory appears, with varying amounts of detail, in three of the four Gospels.  In Matthew 13:18, Jesus called this teaching "The Parable of the Sower." And indeed, that is how it's most commonly referred to, even though when He explains it to His disciples, He talks more about the soils than the sower. A few churches/pastors might refer to it as "The Parable of the Different Soils."

The Sower

When I realized that Jesus did not call his lesson the Parable of the Soils, I backed up and gave the Sower a second look. The sower sows the Word. The metaphor can legitimately be interpreted several ways; the sower could be:
  (a)  God Himself, this is consistent with an Old Testament typology established in Jeremiah 31:27 Behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast.  The LORD is Yĕhovah.
  (b)  Jesus, this is consistent with another parable found in Matthew 13 about tares (bad seed) that were sown among the wheat (good seed). Verse 37 says that the one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man.
  (c)  Holy Spirit, although the Holy Spirit had not been given to all believers at the time Jesus taught this, the Holy Spirit was given on the first Pentecost after Jesus' resurrection and this application of the metaphor would apply to believers today. "For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God;" John 3:34
  (d)  All Believers, this interpretation can be valid because Jesus commissioned all believers to go into all the world and spread the word of the gospel.
All are true, each a facet on the gemstone of truth.

Ἕστιν δὲ αὕτη ἡ παραβολή Ὁ σπόρος ἐστὶν ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ

Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Luke 8:11

The Seed

The seed is the word of God; word is logos (λόγος). A word uttered by a living voice that embodies a conception or idea. Both Strong's and Thayer's Greek Lexicon extend the definition to apply to a thought.

Similarly, the seed, which is clearly identified as the Word, can have different facets.
  (a)  The Gospel is obviously the Word.
  (b)  Jesus is the Word made flesh cf John 1:14.
Some may object: How can Jesus be both the Sower and the Seed? Quite simply, the pattern for this is found throughout the Gospels where Jesus is both the Savior and the messenger of salvation. In Luke 4, when Jesus unrolls the scroll of Isaiah, reads it aloud in the synagogue, rolls it up again, and proceeds to explain that He is the fulfillment of that scripture, we have a picture of the Word sowing the Word.
  (c)  Word given through the Spirit cf 1 Corinthians 12:8
The seed is the start of the harvest cycle. Another facet of the seed-word is the personalized word given by the Spirit of God for individual guidance.  This is the seed that was sown in the Runaway Bride's heart on New Year's Day. She received a word from the Lord. She knew then that the Lord was calling her to be a wife to Joe.

KatieLyn will never be able to honestly claim that the Sower never showed up to answer her prayers. He did. KatieLyn will never be able to honestly complain that the seed was not sown over her heart. It was. She had a word of knowledge for guidance, and then she ran.

Today I have been building the foundation. Tomorrow's post, Part II, will look at the various soils and explore what can happen to good seed in poor soil.