Editor’s Note: Julian is a layman who has taught Sunday School in various Southern Baptist churches for the past 20 years. The article originally appeared at his personal site, Ridgetop Reflections, as a part of a series of posts.
“Then he told them many things in parables, saying: ‘A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop – a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.’” (Matt. 13: 3-8 NIV)
Jesus often spoke to the multitudes in parables, which are simple stories designed to illustrate spiritual lessons. Many of his parables were related to agriculture, since most of his listeners were familiar with agrarian principles. Having grown up on a cotton farm in Georgia, they speak to my heart as well.
This particular parable, commonly known as the Parable of the Sower, has always been my favorite. As with so many of Jesus’ teachings, it seems that every time I read it and take the time to digest its full meaning, I see something new.
If you’re familiar with the story, you know that our Lord went on to explain the parable to his disciples, telling them that the seed represents the message of the gospel. It sometimes falls on hardened soil, never penetrating the listener’s heart. The seed falling on rocky soil represents those who receive the message with joy, but whose roots of faith are so shallow that trouble or persecution causes them to fall away. The seed falling among thorns are those who allow the “worries of this life and the deceitfulness of riches” to choke the word, making it unfruitful. And last, of course, are those who hear the word, understand it and produce a bountiful crop.
As I reflect on my own faith journey, I can see myself in all four stages of this parable at different times in my life. My heart was hardened for many years, not allowing those seeds of the gospel to take root at all. After coming to faith at the age of twenty-four, very little spiritual growth took place in the rocky soil of my heart for the next twenty years. Even after finally surrendering my heart fully, I still struggle with my sinful nature and the cares of this world to maintain a fruitful, Spirit-filled life. Invariably, when I come to this parable in the Scriptures, I still stop to consider where I am on the faith spectrum illustrated by Christ’s words.
Others may view this parable from the perspective of the farmer, seeing their role as simply sowing the seed, sharing the gospel with whomever may cross their path, knowing that it will often fall on hardened, rocky, or thorn-infested hearts. A major flaw in that perspective is not realizing that the farmer sowing the seeds also has the responsibility of preparing the soil. Never lose sight of the fact that the determining factor of the impact of the gospel in this parable was the condition of the soil.
As planting season approached, my father would spend countless hours preparing the soil of our fields before a single cotton seed was sown. We would often start by clearing the fields of rocks lying on the surface. Prominent in my memories are vivid images of him clad in his overalls, setting up the plows and harrows on his International Harvester Farmall tractor, and heading for the fields with a wide-brimmed hat cocked on his head and a dust cloud trailing behind. Soil samples were tested to determine the nutrients to add to the soil as we planted the seeds. As in so many aspects of life, preparation was vital.
And so it is with spreading the gospel. We can spout the truths of God’s Word on every street corner and to every person we meet. But if we have not prepared the soil by first establishing a relationship and living a life that reflects those truths, our testimony will often fall on deaf ears. If people do not sense the love of God in our hearts or experience from us the grace of God by which we claim to have been transformed, they will want little to do with the Christ we profess.
1 Peter 3:15 says “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect…” (NIV) As you digest that verse, ask yourself, “Does my life reflect the hope that Peter is talking about – a hope so visible that it would prompt such a question?” That is the essence of lifestyle evangelism.
The world desperately needs the hope that only Jesus Christ provides. As a good friend often reminds me, “You never know who’s watching or whose life you are impacting by your actions.” It is often those daily, seemingly inconsequential interactions with others that prepare the soil of someone’s heart to one day receive the life-changing good news of the gospel so that it takes root, flourishes, and yields a bountiful crop.
Prepare the soil of someone’s life this week by making God visible through yours.
Julian, thank you for this message. It is so right on the nail head . Some people go out of their way to let you know they are Christians because they know deep inside their lives and actions have prepared any soil for faith to prosper. thank you
Thanks for the encouraging words, Eric.
Julian,
I have two problems with your post.
You being from the farm should know about the of the land. For those who do not, go to Google maps, find some farmland and you will see certain things. You will see that there are fields. These fields, as we know, is where the farmer expects his crop to grow. You will also see pathways, like driveways, paths from farm to house and so forth. You will also see, at least in many cases areas around the fields that are composed of trees and or shrubs, and non-arable land.
You said that we as ‘farmers’ are responsible to make the soil hospitable for the seed. But the parable is not speaking of the farmer as irresponsible. Was the farmer wrong to not make the rocky path into good rich soil? Of course not. The place for crop growth is in the field, not the pathway. Neither did your father, I presume, expected crops from the drain ditch along the road, or right along the fence line, or in the tree line.
You misrepresented the parable, and made it to say something else other than what the Word of God was saying. That is eisegesis.
That ties into the other problem I have with your post.
The farmer CAN prepare the soil for the seed, even as your dad with your help did so.
But the parable doesn’t address this at all. So when you teach from this parable about how we are responsible to prepare other men’s hearts, you are not teaching from God’s Word. Its your word, not His.
Lets look at it. You said:
“And so it is with spreading the gospel. We can spout the truths of God’s Word on every street corner and to every person we meet. But if we have not prepared the soil by first establishing a relationship and living a life that reflects those truths, our testimony will often fall on deaf ears.”
And yet we are told in another place:
What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.
Is this principle not true with Gospel preaching? Must we first prepare the soil, plant, and water it ourselves before a crop will be produced? Of course not. In the reality of the church, we all have parts to play, and jobs to do. We may reap a crop that others have planted and watered.Or we may plant and water and others may reap.
You also said:
“It is often those daily, seemingly inconsequential interactions with others that prepare the soil of someone’s heart to one day receive the life-changing good news of the gospel so that it takes root, flourishes, and yields a bountiful crop.”
Is this made up theology? I am not saying we shouldn’t live our lives as a witness for Jesus. But you seek definitively as if the soil of another’s heart is prepared by our choices. Certainly God uses our good choices many times in His preparing of a heart. But He also uses our sins and subsequent repentance as well. He uses trudges and death to prepare hearts. He uses all sorts of things to prepare hearts for salvation.
It is not our responsibility to prepare hearts. There are many moral people in this world doing ‘right’ things and making ‘good’ choices that have nothing to do with Jesus. Salvation happens many times IN SPITE of the actions of Christians. And that is good since there is a multitude of people who claim to be Christian who are not. Some of those are moral upstanding [in the world’s eyes] citizens, and some of them the world thinks are lying cheats.
Does their despicable actions UNPREPARE the hearts you think your good actions prepared?
How does that work, brother?
Your words are pleasant to the ear, but they are not teaching Bible truth.
Mike, thanks for your passioned response. You packed a lot into two points! Rather than respond to each issue you raise, I will only make two points myself.
First, this was a blog post, not an all-encompassing theological treatise on spreading the gospel or even on the Parable of the Sower.
Second, it was written from the perspective of a layman, as Adam’s introductory note explains. As laymen, I believe that most of our contributions to spreading the gospel will be preparing the soil of people’s hearts through relationships in our role as Christ’s ambassadors, living our lives in such a way that people will want to know more about the source of the hope they see in our lives that might be missing in theirs. This is what I believe our Lord meant by letting our light so shine before men that they see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven. I will be forever grateful for the people in my life who worked to prepare the soil of my heart to receive the gospel. They are just as responsible for my coming to the saving knowledge of Christ, probably even more so, than the pastor who was there for me when my heart was ready.
Julian,
I am a layman as well. And i have taught Sunday School and led Bible studies.
Being a layman is not an excuse for misusing the Word of God.
Not everything in your first post was wrong. By only responding to me by speaking of the things I didn’t bring up is hardly a proper reply.
Yes! we are to live our lives so that others, the saved and the unsaved, might glorify God.
But that wasn’t all you were saying in your OP.
Yes we are influenced by others godly lives even as we influence by our godly choices. But there is a difference between our obedience to God [letting our light shine] and saying that such shining is responsible for preparing the soil of the heart. Not everyone who experiences what you did by the godly examples of those you encountered and others like them, have a heart prepared to produce a bountiful crop. That is because there isn’t a cause and effect relationship between the two. For even as it is God who moved in them, it was God who moved in you to draw you to Him. God makes the difference: He gives the increase, the growth, the life.
The responsibility for Christians is to be obedient -to let their light shine- not to be responsible for how that affects others, as if by our actions we are responsible to make a heart a good receptacle for the Gospel seed.
“its just a blog post.”
Or maybe its just a Sunday School Class.
As teachers, we have a higher standard to walk in than if we were not.
Your original passage, didn’t say what you claimed it was teaching.
That some of the things you said were true doesn’t make up for the things you said that were not true.
And notice please, that you did not address what I said that was untrue in your response to me.
Should not we as teachers, even lay teachers, have a passion about defending God’s Word as able to stand on its own as the source of truth? And isn’t taking liberties with it by interjecting our own unbiblical ideas something that should be contested?
Mike, relax. You may disagree with Julian’s handling of the text, but you’re responding as if he’s peddling heresy.
Adam,
So error needs not to be called out as long as it is not heretical?
Besides, I am relaxed.
Mike,
Without getting too much further into the weeds here, I can see what I believe is the main issue you raise in your comments- that of the “responsibility” of the farmer to prepare the soil. You are right in that Christ does not address that specifically in the parable and in that sense, it is extra-biblical. It was certainly not my intent to convey that preparing the soil was solely the responsibility of the farmer, but in the agrarian sense, it often is- as it was with my father. Perhaps I could have made it clearer that my focus in this post was primarily in the field of evangelism through our day-to-day personal interactions. In those relationships, I believe we should be more attentive to preparing the soil than we often are.
I do appreciate your candid comments. It is this kind of feedback that makes fledgling writers such as myself hopefully communicate clearer and edit more attentively. Thank you.
Julian,
Thanks for your gracious reply.
I do see that you have a heart for evangelism.
Iron sharpens iron.
Julian, I certainly am a layman and as I responded on an early post I got the intent and message of your article. I think your point was well written and made. A lot of my Sunday School and Bible Study classes generate discussion and thought but I always revert back to John 3.16 if I ever have any doubt on teachings, not all of us are Biblical scholars but we do know enough to know sincere messages based on the Bible than someone who goes rouge as they say now. I think it was a good illustrative message not to profound Biblical scholars but to people like me who need and like the parables to ponder and analyze. All in all it is a point settled in a gracious way.
Thanks, Eric.