Chapter # 4 Paragraph # 1 Study # 3
January 28, 2020
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
(138)
1901 ASV
3 Hearken: Behold, the sower went forth to sow:
4 and it came to pass, as he sowed, some [
seed] fell by the way side, and the birds came and devoured it.
5 And other fell on the rocky [
ground], where it had not much earth; and straightway it sprang up, because it had no deepness of earth:
6 and when the sun was risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.
7 And other fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.
8 And others fell into the good ground, and yielded fruit, growing up and increasing; and brought forth, thirtyfold, and sixtyfold, and a hundredfold.
9 And he said, Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
- I. The Parable of the Sower.
- A. Preliminary considerations.
- 1. Jesus said in 4:11 that the large picture of His teaching in parables was so that The Twelve might "know the mystery (singular) of the Kingdom of God". The Kingdom of God becomes, by this statement, the "Subject" of Jesus' teaching. He also said that His teaching was so that those "without" would have the truth of that Kingdom hidden from them. This is a "pile on" to the characterization of those He "called to Himself" in 3:13 as "those whom He, Himself, wanted".
- 2. Jesus then said in 4:13 that this first parable was a kind of Key to the understanding of all of "the parables". This makes all of Mark's "parables" a "unity" with a common "issue" (the "mystery") that is made most "clear" by the first parable.
- B. The details.
- 1. "Listen: Behold..."
- a. The "larger issue" here is the claim by Mark that Jesus "was teaching" (Imperfect, Indicative) and "was saying" (lego in the imperfect indicative). These two ("teaching and saying") are now made emphatic with "Listen, Behold..." In this light we must keep in mind that the people were claiming that His "teaching" was "authoritative" and "new" (1:22, 27). And, in that light we must keep in mind that Mark had already summarized Jesus' "authoritative, new" doctrine in 1:14-15.
- 1) Mark said "Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God..." (1:14).
- 2) Mark identified the content of that "Gospel" as...
- a) An announcement that "the time is fulfilled".
- b) An announcement that "the Kingdom of God is at hand". This is Mark's preferred way of referring to the "Kingdom" (15 references by him); Matthew's is "the Kingdom of the Heavens" (32 - all of the references in the New Testament - by him) and, by comparing Mark 1:15 to Matthew 4:17 we can see that the difference in the description does not refer to two different Kingdoms; rather, that difference is in the way the single "Kingdom" is described.
- c) A double imperative insisting upon "repentance" and "belief in the Gospel".
- i. The "repentance" issue has to do with a particularly required "attitude toward God" (Acts 20:21).
- ii. The "believe in the Gospel" issue has to do with a particularly required "cessation of resistance toward God and His 'Gospel Truth'". This 'Gospel Truth' includes multiple concepts, but Jesus' particular focus was upon the items list above in i. and ii. as they have particular application to the "revealed" time line of God in Daniel, chapter nine in particular. The issue in "faith" as a cessation of resistance in this setting has to do primarily with Jesus' identity as He Who has authority on earth to forgive sins, and He Who is the "Lord of the Sabbath". These are the issues raised in the conflict stories of chapters 2 and 3. Included in this "resistance" theme is: What particularly is being resisted? The answer, as given in the response section of chapter three, is Jesus' claim that His identity and authority are rooted in God as opposed to the claims of both the official representatives of the nation (He is in league with Satan) and His physical family (He is beside Himself).
- iii. These "two" are inseparable: "repentance toward God" automatically leads to a willingness to embrace His Truth and "impenitence toward God" automatically destroys any ability to "believe Him".
- b. The audience was a "great multitude" who "had been synagogued unto Him" beside the sea on the land while He was in a boat, sitting in the sea.
- 1) These were people who could not be attending to "business as usual" and were "beside the sea, listening to Jesus". This is not unlike the original four whose response to Jesus was to abandon "business as usual" in order to "follow Him".
- 2) The point here is that the "Listen: Behold..." was, by every appearance, addressed to people who had already moved "hearing Jesus teach" up into the highest levels of their "love" (in a very real demonstration of the answer to the question: What is Important?).
- c. The reality, however, was that Jesus was driving a kind of wedge between those that were "curious" enough to come out to hear Him teach and those that were "serious" enough to actually "Listen: Behold...". By His own words, He "taught many things by means of the use of parables" because He had already determined to make sure that the "serious" could learn and the "curious" could not. The backdrop of the "decisions" by the "scribes from Jerusalem" (3:22) and by "His own physical family" (3:21 and 31) stands very large here: He has decided to "shut out those who refused Truth by make-believe nonsense, some of which was deadly".