No Weeds in Good Soil

 

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK

NO WEEDS IN GOOD SOIL

Mark 4:1-9

4:1 Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water's edge. 2 He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: 3 "Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times." 

9 Then Jesus said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." 

NIV

Mark uses the term lake and in fact, it is called by two names, the Lake of Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee. Here in this verse, the Greek word is actually the word for the seashore. Not that this has any bearing on the truth Jesus taught, but it is just interesting. So Jesus gets into the boat, and someone had to be in the boat with him so as to put it out a little bit out on the lake. Matthews account does not indicate that he was out on the lake but just sat in a boat, docked or anchored at the shoreline. But now we get to the good stuff, the parable of the sower and the seeds. As we know this parable and have studied its meaning before, heard sermons on its meaning, read commentaries on its meaning, we know we have ears to hear and we have heard. In addition, as we will get to sometime later, we have been, as his disciples were, given the secret of the kingdom. So then, when we consider all the four things that happened to the seed, the four different places it was scattered, we can be certain, without a doubt, that we are indeed the good soil. The seed, the word of God has been planted in us for many years, and it sprang up, it grew, it became a good vine, and has produced a crop. We could refer to the parable that Jesus said he is the vine and we are the branches whereas because we are connected to him we produce the fruit of the vine, a good crop of fruit, and multiplies. But here we are the soil that the word, which again can mean Jesus, for he is the word that became flesh and lived in our neighborhood,  or the normal way, dwelt among us. Some might say the multiplying indicates that we become great evangelists, or witnesses bringing many more into the kingdom. But we do not think that is the way to see this multiplying. First, we are but the soil, and it is the seed, the word of God, that is planted in us and it grows in us, grows and grows, and increases within us. The word cannot be static or stagnant, if it is planted in good soil, a person who accepts the seed and wants it to grow, it will indeed become a full grow plant within us and continue to increase more and more, never topping out, never stopping from multiplying truths into our life. It is sad that others were those different areas or had the cares of the world choke out the truth of God. We could spend hours writing about all the different things that happen to the seed, but just to consider one. It is easy to be distracted by the things of the world, but they are but weeds, and if we see a weed in our garden we pull it out and trash it. However, with good soil, there are no weeds, only the word.