by Brad on November 11, 2009
Mark 4:21-25 [show] And he said to them, "Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand? For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear." And he said to them, "Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away." (ESV)
We could conclude that Mark was grabbing a few random sayings from Jesus in order to lead us into the Kingdom parables to come. After all, we seem to suddenly switch from an examination on the condition of the individual’s heart in the Parable of the Sower to parables about the Kingdom of God later in the chapter. It seems that Mark is introducing to us a segue between the individual and the Kingdom, and that he is joining the first parable about heart soils to parables about growing wheat and mustard seeds.
But, in fact, Mark has both the individual and the Kingdom in view.
In the Parable of the Sower, the good heart with the good soil is adding numbers to the Kingdom even as he is being saved. And here Mark’s transition is subtle and natural. Those who hear the Gospel will share it. They will put in on lamp stand for others to see. The once hidden Kingdom of God now demands Kingdom people who will do the same. Jesus’ expectation is that all who hear and receive the Gospel will continue bringing it out for those who haven’t heard it or even now refuse to hear.
The warning here is stark. Be careful how you hear, Jesus says, because the measure you use will not only be measured back to you, but more. The implications of this is broad and significant. If you reveal the Gospel more will be revealed to you. If you love your neighbor and brother, more love will given to you. But if you hide the Gospel, the Gospel will be hidden from you. If you judge others, God will judge you far harsher than even you judged. If you hate your brother, even the love you think you have from him and from others will be taken from you.
Jesus is very clear. If you live outside the Kingdom and demand the rules the world uses, you will have them. Only there will be no mercy because you will be judged under the Law and apart from God’s grace and mercy that is now granted even to unbelievers. But those who embrace the Kingdom through faith in Jesus will be given more as grace and mercy increases in the joy of living daily in the kindness of the Savior.
by Brad on November 8, 2009
Mark 4:1-20 [show] Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: "Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold." And he said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that
"they may indeed see but not perceive,
and may indeed hear but not understand,
lest they should turn and be forgiven."
And he said to them, "Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold." (ESV)
Jesus informs us that there are four types of heart soils, but that only one is unnatural to this world. These other soils – the soil that is hard, the shallow, rocky soil and the soil that is kind to weeds – don’t require God’s touch at all. Like the ground we would find walking through fields, along ocean shores, up in the mountains, or out in the dessert, the different grounds found in Jesus’ parable is just the same. They are each natural grounds, each common to the earth, that behaves exactly as the surrounding, wild terrain.
But when a gardener works a patch of ground to plant a garden of flowers or a fruit orchard, he prepares it. He first tills the hard ground, then pulls up all the weeds, adds fertilizer, removes rocks and old roots all to make a favorable place to his plant seeds. In other words, a gardener takes wild ground and tames it. He works a ground that couldn’t tolerate exotic flowers and fruit by itself, and then transforms it to receive whatever he wants to plant.
So a gardener completely changes a natural soil into a useful garden that is fruitful and productive for him.
The Holy Spirit is the Master Gardner. He waters hard, dry ground and softens hearts with the Word of God. He tenaciously tills the stony ground of hearts and prepares them to receive the Gospel. When he plants the Gospel, the well-prepared soil receives the Lord Jesus in the fullness of love and happily obeys his commands. And the Spirit is always busy pulling weeds, pulling those idols from our hearts that would otherwise make the Gospel boring and unlovely to us.
If left to themselves, our hearts would see the weeds rise up and choke off the Gospel or bake under the hot, blazing light of its truths. But when the Spirit gets a hold of a heart and plants the Gospel, it becomes useful to God and produces a harvest of righteousness. It becomes the good soil that Jesus speaks of that yields super crops of magnificent fruit.
