Mark 4:4 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters | Metropolitan Tabernacle

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Mark 4:4

Comments

Here are the different types of soil the seed falls on, representing the different categories of hearer. ‘It came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side.’ They represent the different categories of hearer of the gospel: every single individual is in one of these four categories. This seed fell on the hardened pathway where everybody passed, the traffic of many people had hardened down the surface. The farmer ploughed the ground, but he may even have left the pathway untouched as a way through the field. The seed was sown there. It did to some very limited extent embed itself in that hardened surface, but much of it was exposed and was visible to the birds that made short work of it. In fact, flocks of birds would follow the sower. It was never going to settle in the soil long enough to germinate. It was never going to get enough moisture to grow in that dry environment. No seed can take root because it is a thoroughfare.

Application

The preacher may wish to link each type of soil to the application Christ makes of it, and go through them one by one. The parable is not intended to suggest that people are unchangeably fixed, that there can never be any change, that those who start as pathway hearers can only ever remain as pathway hearers. The parable is given to bring about change by the power of the Spirit of God. It is intended to point out what are our deficiencies and what are the traps set for us to prevent us profiting from the gospel. The parable works to bring people to repentance. It is a matter of stepping out of one category and into a better one.

The parables express the wonder of the gospel in God given pictures. They present the message so simply, free from all jargon and expressing the simple truths of the gospel in ways that a child can understand. There is an inability in some preachers of the gospel to put themselves in the place of unbelievers, which is strange since the majority are converted from non-Christian backgrounds. This parable provides a wonderful way of studying different unsatisfactory responses to the gospel without alienating or denigrating the sinner.

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Mark 4:4 Commentary and Bible Study