1 That day Jesus went out of the house and was sitting by the sea. 2 And large crowds gathered to Him, so He got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd was standing on the beach. 3 And He spoke many things to them in parables, saying, “Behold, the sower went out to sow; 4 and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. 5 Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. 6 But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. 7 Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. 8 And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. 9 He who has ears, let him hear.”

Parables comprise nuance in story form, truth conveyed powerfully but cryptically. So Jesus concludes this parable with, “He who has ears, let him hear,” a challenge to go below the surface of an otherwise benign anecdote. Following the dialogue between Jesus and the Pharisees, this particular story contains a powerful message about the various responses to His ministry.

The story has a farmer planting seed, in the fashion of a sower walking along, casting out seed by hand from his seed bag. The image has the seed falling on various kinds of ground. Certain principles apply when interpreting parables: the main one is to look for the main thought and not get hung up on the details. In this parable, for example, there is no thought about the relative amount of seed falling on the different kinds of soil, nor whether the farmer was careless where he sowed. We disagree with the interpretation that Christians should sow the word of God broadly because one quarter of it will fall on hearts that are like the good ground. This is unwarranted and misses the focus of the story, about the four different kinds of ground and how they provide for the growth of the seed (or lack thereof).

Jesus had attracted quite a crowd, and this despite acerbic objections of the religious leaders and His incisive challenge to their spiritual errors. The crowds, by their actions, were undeterred by those who once held complete control over their behavior and approach to God. This grassroots following of Christ was growing, and the Pharisees and scribes were becoming quite worried.

Because of the crowd size, Jesus moved to a boat for a better vantage point for communicating the story. With Him sitting (the common position for a rabbi when teaching) and the crowd standing on the shore, they were accepting His teaching as authoritative.

Lord, help me to have ears to hear Your teachings clearly. I want to understand both the surface meanings as well as the nuances. Please take me deeper.