James Nisbet's Church Pulpit Commentary
Matthew 13:3
SOWERS OF SEED
‘A sower went forth to sow.’
The parables, of which the text is one, do not seem to have been suggested by any immediate wants of Christ’s hearers: the difficulties with which they deal are such as were not likely to be felt by converts in the first enthusiasm of hope. The lessons taught were meant to remove the stumbling-block which the seeming imperfection of His success might place in the path of future disciples.
I. ‘Take heed how ye hear.’—To our Lord’s hearers the one great practical lesson taught by the parable was, Take heed how ye hear. The same seed was cast upon every heart in that crowd. Nothing was wanting to its excellence—the difference was in the soil on which it fell.
II. ‘Take heed how ye speak.’—But there is another lesson now that the seed is sown not by the lips of the Son of God, but by frail and erring men! Must we not say, Take heed how ye speak? We are all sowers, and the chance word of a youth to his friend, or of a child to his parent, may be the seed whence good fruit springs which shall endure to eternity. But, alas! it is not only good seed which is thus sown.
III. Sowers of the Divine seed.—There are some lessons for those who own it to be their duty to help in sowing the Divine seed in the world.
(a) There is the lesson of responsibility: the duty of taking heed what seeds we sow.
(b) There is the lesson of humility taught to those who have done any successful work for God. Paul had planted, Apollos watered, but it was God who had given the increase.
(c) There is also encouragement to the despondent. The seed’s growth is not affected by any weakness in the planter.
Professor Salmon.
Illustration
‘Is there anything on the spot to suggest the images thus conveyed? So I asked as I rode along the track under the hillside, by which the Plain of Gennesareth is approached, seeing nothing but the steep sides of the hill, alternately of rock and grass. And when I thought of the parable of the Sower, I answered, that here at least there was nothing on which the Divine teaching could fasten: it must have been the distant cornfields of Samaria or Esdraelon on which His mind was dwelling. The thought had hardly occurred to me, when a slight recess in the hillside, close upon the Plain, disclosed at once in detail, with a conjunction which I remember nowhere else in Palestine, every feature of the great parable. There was the undulating cornfield descending to the water’s edge. There was the trodden pathway running through the midst of it, with no fence or hedge to prevent the seed from falling here and there on either side of it, or upon it; itself hard with the constant tramp of horse and mule and human feet. There was the “good” rich soil, which distinguishes the whole of that Plain and its neighbourhood from the bare hills elsewhere descending into the Lake, and which, where there is no interruption, produces one vast mass of corn. There was the rocky ground of the hillside, protruding here and there through the cornfields, as elsewhere, through the grassy slopes. There were the large bushes of thorn—the “Nabk,” that kind of which tradition says that the Crown of Thorns was woven—springing up like the fruit trees of the more inland parts, in the very midst of the waving wheat.’
(SECOND OUTLINE)
THE SEED AND THE SOIL
As the sower sowed the seed, some fell:—
I. By the wayside.—This was the path across or by the side of the field. Here the birds devoured it. Satan is that bird of prey which follows God’s seedsmen and steals the precious seed. There is a solemn petition in the Litany, ‘From hardness of heart, good Lord, deliver us.’
II. On stony places.—Here was no depth of soil. This is the picture of a man who receives the word with joy. But he cannot bear the sneers of his clever friends, or the laugh of the worldly. The hot sun of persecution kills the sickly seed.
III. Among thorns.—There are two great thorns which choke the Word. In the case of the poor it is care. In the case of the rich it is money and pleasure.
IV. On good ground.—No ground is good by nature. No heart is good until the Holy Spirit has made it good. Good ground, therefore, means ground prepared by God. He mercifully did so in the case of Lydia (Acts 16:14).
V. Scatter this seed.—Above all things, we shall desire to scatter this precious seed far and wide.
(a) Think of the peace it imparts! (Psalms 119:165; St. John 16:33).
(b) Think of the joy it bestows! (Psalms 119:162; Jeremiah 15:16).
(c) Think of the light it communicates! (Psalms 119:130; 2 Corinthians 4:6).
(d) Think of the hope it inspires! (Romans 15:4).
The Rev. F. Harper.
Illustration
‘Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet, once had deep conviction of sin. He consulted a minister, and the unfaithful steward laughed his fears to scorn, and bade him dance them away at balls, and drown them in wine. Alas! in Burns’ case, the thorn of pleasure choked the good seed.’
(THIRD OUTLINE)
HINDRANCES TO GROWTH
There is no doubt about the meaning of this parable. In every heart there is all the capability of service. It is not only the great saints of God who have this capability, but all of us. There are three hindrances:
I. The hindrance of sin.—There is an exhaustive catalogue of the things that keep people from God. Not one when asked to answer for all his innumerable opportunities will be able to make this excuse, ‘I could not.’ Capability is there; the footprint plain, good soil just here and there printed by the marks of evil. Oh, how bitterly lamented the first great sin! And those that came after? The path is no longer separate footprints, but it is a path now trodden down. Only one thing will serve—the ploughshare.
II. The hindrance of levity.—One sees the shallow heart, the heart of sheer levity, in which the seriousness of repentance and the difficulty of right, and the power of the enemy have never been believed in for a moment. After a very little while the condition into which it gets is that which is described in the United States of America, where emotional revivals have raged and gone on until all power of emotion has been lost, as the ‘burnt districts,’ the burnt heart which blazes away in one little flare all its power of emotion, which has nothing left behind. If the ploughshare was the cure for the hard footpath, sometimes one is tempted to ask what is there for hope for the heart which sheer levity has used up?
III. The hindrance of pre-occupation.—After sin shallowness, after shallowness pre-occupation. What was it that choked that soil? Does our Lord say poisonous weeds? No. What is a weed? A weed is simply something growing in the wrong place. An ear of wheat is a weed in your garden, and a rose is a weed in your field. So the very things planted round the outskirts of the heart, the daily occupations, the business honestly and earnestly pursued, the family cares taken on as just the one thing in which you are called to serve God, the amusements which recreated the weary brain and braced the shattered nerve—those very things which were God’s protection round the heart, where the central place was to be reserved for bearing fruit to Himself, those may grow up in the middle of the fruitful soil, keeping out the knowledge of the love of God.
Each heart here is capable of bringing forth that fruit for Him provided only that the sin which has hardened the soil be done away, and the hardness ploughed up by penitence; provided only that the shallowness which made things seem easy give way to the seriousness which faces and overcomes the difficulty; provided only that pre-occupation is turned into care for the things of this world in God and for God.
—Bishop Mylne.
Illustration
‘We have several Scripture examples of the four characters. Pharaoh and Festus may be named as “wayside” hearers. King Saul, Herod Antipas, the Galatians (Galatians 5:7), some of the disciples in Galilee (John 6:66), proved to be like the “stony ground”; Balaam, Judas, and Ananias, like the “thorny ground.” The young ruler, Simon Magus, and Demas, combine some of the features of the two latter classes; Felix combines those of the first and second. Peter was in danger of being one of the second class; Lot and Martha of belonging to the third. Of the good soil, Nathanael and Lydia are striking instances.’