The Sower's Seed: How Hearts Receive God's Word

Our Lord's parable of the sower functions simultaneously as solemn warning and faithful description of what occurs perpetually in the world. Calls to holy living are constantly sown; yet people respond with either sudden rejection or gradual forgetfulness. These calls differ in degree and impressiveness, but each plants a truth distinctly in the hearer's mind. A person who hears Christian truth cannot afterward claim ignorance—Yahweh has made him see and recognize it.

This parable examines how different people treat these divine calls. First, the unscrupulous: by bold, impulsive acts of sin, they cast out whatever incommodes their plans for enjoyment. Judas, Ananias and Sapphira exemplify this willful rejection. Such action provokes God's righteous justice and produces hardened hearts—a dreadful punishment.

Second, the light-minded and careless: they possess capacity to receive the Word initially, moved by powerful truth as one might be struck by a dramatic scene. Yet lacking internal energy to grasp and extract the Word's power, they soon fall away. Beginning differs fundamentally from continuing. The commencement is naturally fresh; continuation requires repeating duties when freshness vanishes and only the sense of obligation remains. This is the true test—how many fail under such circumstances? When circumstances change, upon how many can we depend to maintain their profession of faith? Here lies the critical measure of genuine discipleship.