The Parable of the Sower.
In the parable of the sower there is nothing at all novel. Our Saviour did not affect novelty in His illustrations of what He had to say to men about Divine truth; and however new and however strange might be some of the doctrines which He preached, His illustrations of those doctrines were such as all people could very well comprehend.
I. "A sower went forth to sow." (1) By the sower our Lord fist of all means Himself. And that was His work chiefly sowing the seeds of Divine truth in the minds of men. As to the reaping, the reaping began, we may say, on the day of Pentecost, when our Lord reaped a sheaf of first-fruits in the conversion of five thousand souls; and the reaping resulting from our Lord's sowing has been going on ever since. (2) But meaning Himself first of all, He surely by this sower that goes forth to sow meant His apostles and the seventy disciples whom He sent out to preach the Gospel.
II. Then, in the next place, as to the seed. The sower is the Son of God, as we have seen, and all Christ's people engaged in this very work of sowing. The seed is the Word of God. And as the seed is the Word of God, let us recognize the importance of being truly, thoroughly, honestly scriptural.
III. The ground represents the heart, such as the heart may be the heart rather than the head, the affections rather than the intellect. There is nothing fatalistic in the parable, nothing to drive to despair the man who feels he is bad and wishes to be a true Christian, and nothing to encourage in sin the man who has no desire after good things. God's grace can do for the heart, be it what it may, what man's skill has done a thousand times for the land that he cultivates. There are some who know that their hearts were once as hard as a turnpike road, and are now as soft as a newly-ploughed and harrowed field where waves the autumn corn. There are some whose hearts, like the stony ground, are full of thorns, but now the good seed is bearing fruit there; and if any man feels his heart is like the wayside, or the stony place, or the thorny ground, let him cry to God for His grace, and He will subdue all these evils and make his heart into the honest and the good heart, that shall yield fruit to His own glory and to the man's comfort.
H. Stowell Brown, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvi., p. 376.
Matthew 13:1-9 , Matthew 13:18-23
The Parable of the Sower.
Notice the various obstacles which successively meet the seed and mar its fruitfulness.
I. The wayside. There is a condition of heart which corresponds to the smoothness, hardness, and wholeness of a frequented footpath that skirts or crosses a ploughed field. The spiritual hardness is like the natural in its cause as well as in its character. The place is a thoroughfare; a mixed multitude of this world's affairs tread over it from day to day, and from year to year. The soil, trodden by all comers, is never broken up and softened by a thorough self-searching. Owing to its hardness, it does not take the seed into its bosom.
II. The stony ground. A human heart, the soil on which the sower casts his seed, is in itself and from the first hard both above and below; but by a little easy culture, such as most people in this land enjoy, some measure of softness is produced on the surface. Among the affections, when they are warm and newly stirred, the seed speedily springs. Many young hearts, subjected to the religious appliances which abound in our time, take hold of Christ and let Him go again. In the rich young man the seed sprang hopefully, but it withered soon; he did not lightly part with Christ, but he parted; he was very sorrowful, but he went away.
III. The thorns. In the application of the lesson this term must be understood not specifically, but generically. In the natural object it indicates any species of useless weed that occupies the ground and injures the growing crop; in the spiritual application it points to the worldly cares, whether they spring from poverty or wealth, which usurp in a human heart the place due to Christ and His saving truth. (1) Thorns and thistles occupying the field suck in the sap which should go to nourish the good seed, and leave it a living skeleton. (2) Thorns and thistles, favoured as indigenous plants by the suitableness of soil and climate, outgrow the grain both in breadth and height.
IV. The good ground. While all the ground that was broken, deep and clean in spring and summer, bears fruit in harvest, some portions produce a larger return than others. While all believers are safe in Christ, each should covet the best gifts.
W. Arnot, The Parables of our Lord,p. 43.
References: Matthew 13:1. H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. x., p. 395.Matthew 13:1-3. Expository Outlines on the New Testament,p. 32.Matthew 13:1-8. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. i., p. 24.Matthew 13:1-23. Parker, Inner Life of Christ,vol. ii., p. 225; A. B. Bruce, Parabolic Teaching of Christ,p. 14.Matthew 13:1-52. Ibid., The Training of the Twelve,p. 44.