Mark 4:2 Then He taught them many things by parables, and said to them in His teaching: 3 "Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 "And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it. 5 "Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. 6 "But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away. 7 "And some seed fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. 8 "But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred." 9 And He said to them, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"
Here we have a parable regarding a Sower, not a farmer. There are two things that are consistent throughout the story, the Sower and the seed. All other things in the story vary.
The Sower is spreading the same seed everywhere he goes, and he is not checking the condition of the soil he is throwing his seed on. The soil conditions are not the focus of the Sower, spreading seed is what the Sower is consumed with. The goal of the Sower is to simply sow seed.
Obviously the Sower has more than enough seed to throw around. How else could he be so wasteful in throwing it on poor ground? In the Spirit every believer has a seed bag strapped over their shoulder. It is filled with the precious seed of the Gospel. Like the widow and Elijah when he told her to go get jars to fill and her cruze of oil did not run out until she had no more jars to fill. Until there is no more ground without seed our spiritual seed bags will stay full. Every time you dip your hand in that bag there will be seed to throw.
It appears that the Sower is only seeing a 25% return on his work and effort. So someone might ask, isn’t he casting his pearls before swine?
Before we can rightly answer that question we must first understand the issue of casting pearls. Pearls are not the same as seeds.
Matthew 7:6 (The Message) "Don’t be flip with the sacred. Banter and silliness give no honor to God. Don’t reduce holy mysteries to slogans. In trying to be relevant, you’re only being cute and inviting sacrilege.
A good example of this would be trying to help an unbeliever understand communion by saying we are going to eat crackers and drink juice. By saying this the person deduces that communion is insignificant and silly. It is taking something holy and making it common. Pearls are the Holy things given to us by God that are precious because they are for us as believers.
About The Author
- Tim Atchley
- Knoxville, Tennessee, United States
- I currently serve as Senior Pastor of Harvest Church in Knoxville, Tn. I was sent out from Trinity Chapel of Knoxville in 1993 accompanied by my wife Sheila our four children Sarah, Hannah, Josiah & Isaac and a handful of bold, brave and committed believers determined to plant our first church. Pioneering is hard work but well worth the journey. That is why we desire to make disciples of Christ who will, like us, also embrace the call to plant churches.
