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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadBob Utley You Can Understand the Bible - Matthew 13:3 - 13:9
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NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat_13:3-9
3And He spoke many things to them in parables, saying, "Behold, the sower went out to sow; 4and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. 5Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. 6But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. 7Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. 8And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. 9He who has ears, let him hear."
Mat_13:3 "the sower went out to sow" This parable (Mat_13:3-9) is extremely important because Jesus Himself gave interprets it. The seed, the sower, the soils, and the harvest are all significant in Jesus' interpretation of the parable (Mat_13:18-23).
It is somewhat allegorical or at least typological. Allegory seeks a hidden, deeper level of meaning in a text. It imports meaning into the text that has no relation at all to the intended meaning of the original author or his day or even the thrust of Scripture as a whole. Typology, on the other hand, seeks to focus on the unity of the Bible, based on one divine Author and one divine Plan. Similarities in the OT pre-figure NT truths. These similarities rise naturally out of a reading of the entire Bible (cf. Rom_15:4; 1Co_10:6; 1Co_10:11).
Mat_13:4-7 "the road. . .the rocky places. . .thorns" Usually the village farmers worked together and plowed the entire field around their homes. In this field were footpaths, some shallow ground and some places where thorn bushes had established themselves. All of the field had been plowed. The sowers scattered the seed indiscriminately in this large plowed field.
Mat_13:8 "And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty" The plants bearing of fruit, not the precise amount, is the focal point. We must be careful not to identify germination with salvation! Joh_8:31 says "those Jews who had believed Him," yet later in the context it is obvious they are not saved (i.e., Joh_8:59). The Bible differentiates between an initial emotional response and a life changing permanent discipleship. In this parable germination referred to the first, and fruit-bearing to the second.
Mat_13:9 See note at Mat_11:15.