Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• While Jesus used metaphorical speech before (ex. 5:13-16; 7:6, 24-27), Matthew 13 is the first time Jesus specifically spoke in “parables.” The Greek word parabole means “something cast beside” something else, like a comparison or an analogy. The synoptic Gospels expand that meaning to nearly any kind of indirect or metaphorical speech. Historically, the early church has treated the Gospel parables as direct allegories, assigning specific groups to each character or item. Modern theological study understands parables to be both more and less specific than simple allegories. Jesus used parables to proclaim how the kingdom of God is both already and not yet. Boring describes parables as “like a musical composition, a painting, or a poem that is not an illustration of a prosaic point, but is itself an inseparable unity of form and meaning. To reduce a parable to a “point” is to dismiss it as parable and domesticate its message to more comfortable and manageable categories.” Parables challenge the hearers understanding of the world around them. Jesus used parables not to offer tidy moral teachings, but to subvert the secure assumptions under which his hearers categorized their lives and offer a new and different vision for the world.
• It is difficult to read this parable apart from the often used allegorical interpretation of the four kinds of “soil,” leading the hearer to the question of “what kind of soil am I?” The point Jesus seemed to be making however, was the surprising abundant harvest of the kingdom of God, despite the overwhelming threats it faced. Boring also points out that neither this, or any of the seed parables, portray a slow, natural evolutionary progress to the kingdom of God, but instead a progress that happens mysteriously, concealed and underground.
• One primary issue in the parable is if the harvest (“a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown”) is normal or amazing. Scholars are divided, some saying a harvest of a hundredfold was not considered exceptional, while others argue that four- to ten-fold was more expected, with all of these being the move from the ordinary world to the extraordinary biblical world of hope and promise.
• Matthew understands “the sower” to be Jesus, who has accompanied his church throughout history (28:18), and is the one who is present and active in the sowing of the world (13:37).
• The interpretation of the parable (v. 18-23) is direct allegory, but one should note that while the parable was given to the crowds, the allegory was only explained to the disciples. A parable CAN be allegory, however, a parable is not exclusively allegory.
• Boring offers 4 affirmations for modern readers in wondering together about the parable of the sower:
1) The victory of the kingdom of God is sure. This is not an exhortation to work harder to bring in the harvest, because just like the germination of a seed happens in secret and underground, the kingdom of God will come. The harvest is God’s doing, and God is faithful.
2) The line between sowing and harvesting is not straight; there will be challenges and difficulties.
3) Although the work of the believers don’t affect the final outcome, the choices they make do matter. Believer cannot blithely assume they are “good soil.”
4) The parable presents temporary pessimism in the mission but ultimate optimism in the harvest, which helped Matthew’s readers who looked around at a destroyed temple, a crucified and ascended (and thus no longer present with them) Christ, and the threat of persecution relate to the struggles of the seed as their own struggle, and thus they could look forward to the eventual harvest.
Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
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