The King teaches parables about God's kingdom
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📚The same day Jesus went out of the house, and sat by the lake. 2 📚And great crowds gathered together to him, so he went into a boat, and sat down, and the whole crowd stood on the shore. 3 📚And he told them many things in parables, saying, “Now a sower went out to sow.13:3 The Greek word translated “parable” means a comparison of one thing with another. Jesus used parables to compare the spiritual things of God's kingdom with natural, physical things. Parables are “earthly illustrations of heavenly truth”. The Lord here compares Himself to someone who sows seed (see v 37). The seed He sows is the truth God has revealed (Luke 8:11. Compare 1 Cor 3:6; 9:11; 1 Pet 1:23). See His own explanation of this parable in vs 18-23.⚜
4 📚And as he sowed, some seeds fell by the path, and the birds came and ate them up. 5 📚Some fell on stony places, where they had not much soil. And immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil.
13:5 Here “stony places” is not good soil with some rocks scattered on top. It is rock beneath with a little soil on top. The seed did not get down into the good earth. The warmth of the sun germinated this seed quickly.⚜
6 📚And when the sun was up, they were scorched, and withered away, because they had no root. 7 📚And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up, and choked them.
13:7 Farmers generally will not sow seed among thorns or on a footpath or on rocky places. But those who sow the seed of God's Word will sow it in all the earth (Mark 16:15), and some will surely fall in minds and hearts not well prepared to receive it.⚜
8 📚But others fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixty fold, some thirty fold.
13:8 Some soil is better and more productive than others.⚜
9 📚Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear”.
10 📚And the disciples came, and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”
11 📚He answered and said to them, “Because it is given to you to know the mysteries 📖 of the kingdom of heaven, 📖 but to them it is not given. 12 📚For whoever has, to him will be given, and he will have an abundance. But whoever does not have, from him will be taken away even what he has.
13:11-12 Jesus gives two reasons for His use of parables – one reason was to reveal the truth, the other was to conceal the truth. There are secret truths, mysteries about the kingdom of God which could be received only by those who had repented and believed in the Lord Jesus and entered the kingdom. Those, like the Pharisees and Sadducees, who had hardened their hearts against the truth and willfully rejected Christ, could not understand what He meant. Christ's way of speaking was in judgment on a rebellious and unbelieving nation (vs 12-15).⚜
13 📚Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
14 📚“And in them is fulfilled the prophecy
of Isaiah which says,
Hearing you will hear and
will not understand,
and seeing you will see and
will not perceive.
15 📚For this people's heart has become fat,
and their ears are hard
of hearing,
and they have closed their eyes,
so that they would not at any time
see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their heart,
and be converted, and be healed by me.
13:14-15 Isa 6:9-10. The people deliberately and willfully prevented themselves from turning to God. Refusing spiritual light inevitably leads to judgment.⚜
16 📚“But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear.
13:16 Compare Matt 16:17; 2 Cor 4:6; Eph 1:17-18. The ability to hear and understand spiritual truth is one of God's great gifts. Let us ask Him for it.⚜
17 📚For truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.
13:17 Those men of God who lived before Christ came longed to see the Messiah and hear His words (compare 1 Pet 1:10-12).⚜
18 📚“Therefore listen to the parable of the sower. 19 📚When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the one who received seed by the path.
13:19 Notice the words “does not understand”. Compare v 23. Because of spiritual blindness and ignorance this kind of person is careless and unconcerned about God's truth. The evil one is Satan. He is eager to destroy God's Word from men's hearts. Satan's purpose appears in Luke 8:12.⚜
20 📚But the one who received seed in stony places, is he who hears the Word, and immediately receives it with joy, 21 📚but he has no root in him, so lasts only for a while. For when pressure or persecution comes because of the Word, he immediately stumbles.
13:20-21 The picture here is shallowness and superficiality in regard to God's Word. This kind of man is religious only as long as it makes him happy. Trouble destroys his happiness and therefore his religion. There is no deep determination to go on to the end regardless of what might happen. There is no depth of discipleship, no persistent effort to learn the things of Christ and apply them.⚜
22 📚And the one who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the Word, and the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word, and it becomes unfruitful.
13:22 Worldly worries and concerns for wealth are like choking, destroying thorns (Mark 4:19 adds the words “desires for other things” and Luke 8:14 adds the word “pleasures”). This is one reason why Christ and His apostles taught that disciples should trust God for their needs and not worry, that they should set their hearts on spiritual, heavenly things, not on things of this world. See Matt 6:19-34; Col 3:1-3; 1 Tim 6:9-10.⚜
23 📚But the one who received seed in the good ground is he who hears the Word, and understands it. He indeed bears fruit. 📖 Some produce a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty”.
13:18-23 This is the first of His parables that Jesus Himself explained. It gives us hints as to how to understand all His parables. Parables have one or more principal points or purposes, often only one. In every parable we should try to lay hold of the principal point or points. The details of Christ's parables also may have meanings. We see that here in His explanation of the parable of the sower. It is even more plain in vs 37-43 where Jesus explains the parable of the wheat and weeds.
But we should not put such emphasis on the details that we lose sight of the main point or points. And we should never try to show our cleverness in trying to interpret the details. Compare note at Ex 25:9. Our interpretation should be simple and natural.
We should not try to get our doctrines from the parables. The plain teachings of Christ and the apostles give us doctrine. But we should understand that the parables cannot be contrary to sound doctrine. We should look for Christ in the parables (as in all the Bible. Compare Luke 24:27, 44). We should pay attention to the way Jesus introduced each parable, and the application at the end (if there is an application given).
We should apply the parables, as far as possible, to ourselves and our situation now. In them are spiritual lessons and moral principles for us all. We will not profit from the parables if we do not follow the truth we find in them.
In the parable of the sower the principal lesson concerns the different condition of men's hearts. In no case is there a change in the sower or the seed.⚜
13:23 The key word here is “understands”. Compare v 19. It is not said that any of the others understood what they heard. But this kind of person has been taught by God and has his spiritual eyes opened – Luke 24:45. This makes all the difference. We can produce spiritual fruit only as we understand the teachings of the Bible, God's Word. What we do not understand we will not apply to our lives, and may quickly forget. God wants us to study and understand His truth. See Deut 6:6-7; Josh 1:8; Ps 1:1-2; 119:1; Prov 2:1-8; Acts 8:30-35; 1 Cor 2:12-16; Eph 1:17-18; 4:13-14; Col 1:9; 2:2.⚜
24 📚He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 📚But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. 26 📚But when the blade sprang up, and began to produce a crop, the tares also appeared.
27 📚“So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? Then from where have these tares come?’
28 📚“He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and gather them up?’
29 “But he said, ‘No. While you are gathering up the tares you may also root up the wheat along with them.
13:29 There can be no way for God's servants to rid the world of evil men, without at the same time destroying some good men. One reason is that it may not always be easy to distinguish between “weeds” and “wheat” in their early stages. In any case, who will do the separating and destroying? Apart from God Himself who has the wisdom or power? And we should always remember that “children” of Satan may in time become children of God (Rom 3:9; Eph 2:1-4; Titus 3:3-7).⚜
30 📚Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will say to the reapers, “First gather the tares together and tie them in bundles to burn them. But gather the wheat into my barn.”’”
13:24-30 The Lord Himself explained this parable in vs 37-43. The “field” represents conditions on earth. The world belongs to God, and His purpose is to have His kingdom rule over all and every part of it. The good “seed” is not the Word of God as in the parable of the sower, but God's children, born of His Spirit into His kingdom (John 1:12-13; 3:3-8).
At present in the world and in the church there is a mixture of good and bad. The Greek word here translated “tares” means a kind of weed almost identical to wheat in appearance in its early stages (compare 2 Cor 11:13-15). They represent the children of Satan (v 38; see John 8:44; 1 John 3:8). God's enemy is Satan who “sows” evil men in the world. Generally speaking there are only two kinds of people on earth – those who are God's children and in His kingdom and those who are not.⚜
13:30 At the great harvest at the end of this age God will separate all His children from all Satan's children. Compare Matt 25:31-46. Observe that Satan's children are gathered first. The final issue of the harvest will be the same as described in Matt 3:12.⚜
31 📚He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field. 32 📚It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown, it is the largest of the garden plants, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches”.
13:31-32 The main point of this parable is plain – though the kingdom of God had a very small beginning, it was to grow very large. It began its work in this age with Christ and a few disciples. Now it has spread throughout the earth. Christ is the one who planted the seed, His “field” is the whole earth, as in the parable of the weeds and wheat. The mustard seed was the smallest of all seeds planted by farmers (this is Jesus' meaning here – see Mark 4:31). The kind of mustard plant referred to here can grow as high as three meters.
In the Old Testament a tree was sometimes used as a symbol of a great kingdom (Ezek 31:6; Dan 4:20-22). Eventually, in the age to come, Christ's kingdom will fill the earth and replace all others (see notes on Dan 2:44-45).
In the OT birds sometimes symbolize nations and peoples (Isa 46:11; Jer 12:9; Ezek 17:22-24; see Ezek 31:3-6). It seems likely that here they represent nations and peoples who become “Christianized” – greatly influenced by Christianity without becoming truly Christian – the birds are not branches of the tree. However it should be noted that in the parable of the sower birds stand for Satan and evil spirits (vs 4,19), and some think that here also they mean Satan's attempts to injure and destroy God's kingdom.⚜
33 📚He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until the whole was leavened”.
13:33 There is large disagreement among scholars about the meaning of this brief parable. Some say it is a picture of the spread of God's kingdom in the world. Some say it symbolizes the inner working of God's Word in the individual and in the church as a whole. Others say it signifies the secret working of evil in the church, and link it with verses like 2 Thess 2:7. They point out that yeast (leaven) is often used in the Bible as a symbol of evil (see Matt 16:12; Ex 12:8; 1 Cor 5:6-8; Gal 5:9), and that “woman” in theological matters may also symbolize evil teaching or apostasy (see Rev 2:20; 17:3; Jer 51:2-3, 7).
Of course the kingdom of heaven is not evil in itself, but this may describe a certain aspect of the kingdom in this present age, and the apostasy that will permeate the visible church on earth. Jesus warned His disciples to beware of the “yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (see notes at Matt 16:6, 12). Perhaps this parable is a prophecy that the church would grow careless and that ritualism, traditionalism, hypocrisy, denial of Bible truth, carnal reasoning and unbelief (the Pharisees and Sadducees were guilty of all of these) would spread throughout all branches of Christianity.⚜
34 📚Jesus said all these things to the crowd in parables, and without a parable he did not say anything to them,
13:34 But at this particular time and occasion He used only parables. At other times, of course, He used the ordinary forms of speech.⚜
35 📚so that there might be a fulfilment of what was spoken by the prophet, saying,
I will open my mouth in parables.
I will utter things which have been kept
secret from the foundation
of the world.
13:35 Ps 78:2. These hidden things were the secret truths of God's kingdom.⚜
36 📚Then Jesus sent the crowd away and went in the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, “Explain the parable of the tares of the field to us”.
37 📚He answered and said to them, “He who sows the good seed is the Son of man. 38 📚The field is the world. The good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked one.
13:38 Here “children of the kingdom” signify believers in Christ, those born again by God's Spirit (John 1:12-13; 3:3-8).⚜
39 📚The enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. 40 📚Therefore just as the tares are gathered up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. 41 📚The Son of man will send forth his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom everything that causes stumbling, and those who do evil,
42 📚and will throw them into a furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43 📚Then the righteous will shine out like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.
13:37-43 Notice again that when the Lord Jesus explained a parable He gave significance to the details.⚜
13:43 Prov 4:18; Dan 12:3; 1 Cor 15:40-44. We cannot yet imagine what glory this indicates – 1 John 3:1-3.⚜
44 📚“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field that a man finds and hides again, and for joy over it goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
45 📚“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 📚When he found one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.
13:44-46 Some think that in these two parables the “treasure” and the “pearl” signify the Church and the one who “found” them signifies Christ. This interpretation is most unlikely. It is much more probable that these parables signify two different kinds of men who find the kingdom of God. It seems that one of the points of the first parable is that the treasure was found unexpectedly. The man “found” it, evidently not knowing previously that it was there. And notice the words “hides again”. Evidently the finder was afraid that someone else would get the treasure before he could secure it. How can all this refer to Christ?
The interpretation of this first parable also rests on the meaning of the word “field”. If the field is the world as in v 38, then obviously a person does not buy the world to get the kingdom of God. But look carefully at the wording of vs 24 and 44 – v 24 has “his” (Christ's) field, but v 44 has “a” field. In v 38 “his field” is said to be the world. But is there any reason to think that “a” field is also the world? A field here seems to indicate any field, and possibly has no special meaning at all. At least we can say that it did not belong to the person who found the treasure, because he went and bought it. So the person can hardly refer to Christ who owns the world and does not need to buy it – in v 24 it is said to be His world already.
The seeker in the second parable was seeking after many pearls. He was in the business of buying and selling. Not so with Christ. He knew exactly what He wanted when He came to earth, and He was after one great thing all the time – the Church.
The wording of these parables suits better the interpretation that we have here two brief pictures of individuals finding the kingdom of God. The first one finds it without deliberately seeking for it. Compare Rom 10:20 (Isa 65:1); Matt 9:30-31. The kingdom of God is in this world but not obviously so. It is hidden from the great mass of men. But God directs the steps of individuals in ways they do not know, and suddenly they come upon this great treasure. The seeker after pearls represents a different kind of person. He is a thinker and has some knowledge of quality things. God has made him a searcher for truth, justice, beauty, wisdom, salvation. When he learns of the kingdom of God, when he sees it with enlightened spiritual eyes, he knows there is nothing to be compared with it.
Observe that the men in both parables sold everything to buy what they had discovered. But can the kingdom of God be bought? No (Acts 8:20; Rom 6:23; Eph 2:8-9). But it is still described as something to buy (Isa 55:1-2; Rev 3:18). In other words, there is a cost to the one who wants it, and that cost is everything one has (compare Matt 10:37-39; Luke 14:26-27, 33; Mark 10:28). To anyone who has seen its value and its beauty, the cost does not seem too high (Phil 3:7-8).⚜
47 📚“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was cast into the lake and caught every kind of fish. 48 📚When it was full, they pulled it to shore, sat down, and gathered the good into containers, but threw the bad away. 49 📚It will be just like this at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from among the righteous, 50 📚and throw them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth”.
13:47-50 This parable is similar to that of the tares and the wheat, but there are differences also. That one speaks of the gradual development of how things will be in this age. This one speaks of those caught in the gospel net, those who are somehow drawn into Christianity hardly knowing how.
Again we see that during this age, separation of the good and bad is not fully possible for men. Leaders in the church and believers may (and should) try to keep their local churches pure and unmixed with ungodly men (1 Cor 5:1-2, 11-13; 2 Tim 3:1-5). But this will prove on the whole to be impossible to perfectly accomplish. There was a Judas among the twelve apostles, unsuspected by them, and the apostles later warned that evil men would get into the church (Acts 20:23-30; 2 Tim 4:3-4; 2 Pet 2:1-2). The final and complete separation of the good from the bad (true from false Christians) will be at the end of this age. Compare vs 40-43. The Greek word for “net” signifies not a small hand net, but a great dragnet which could draw in a very large number of fish.⚜
51 📚Jesus said to them, “Have you understood all these things?” They said to him, “Yes, Lord”.
13:51 They understood because He both opened the eyes of their understanding and explained His parables to them. So they could say “yes”. See Mark 4:34. If they had not understood, would they not have asked for further explanations, as they did concerning the parable of the weeds and the wheat (v 36)?⚜
52 📚Then he said to them, “Therefore every scribe instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like a man who is the owner of a house who brings out of his treasure things new and old”.
13:52 The Lord Jesus here indicates that His disciples must be teachers. Out of the vast storehouse of the Word of God they would present to people the old treasures of the Old Testament and the new treasures of the New Testament, as Jesus Himself was then doing.⚜
53 📚And it happened that when Jesus had finished these parables, he left there. 54 📚And when he came to his own country 📖, he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, “Where does this man get this wisdom, and these miracles?
The King meets with unbelief and rejection in His own town of Nazareth
55 📚Is this not the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother called Mary, and his brothers, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? 56 And his sisters, aren't they all with us? Then where does this man get all these things?”
13:55-56 These verses indicate that after Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary had other children.⚜
57 📚And they were offended at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honour, except in his own country and in his own house”.
13:57 Compare Luke 4:24-30. They could not believe that a person of (seemingly) so ordinary a background, and low in the social order, could amount to much. People still frequently make such a mistake.⚜
58 📚And he did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief.
13:58 See Mark 6:4-5. Their lack of faith in Him made it impossible for Him to do them the good He otherwise would have done. This is always the case. See the note at Ps 78:41.⚜