<p>8:8 <i>And other fell into the good ground, and grew, and brought forth fruit a hundredfold- </i>The next parable in Matthew is clearly related to this parable of the sower. There, the same word is used for the &quot;good seed&quot;, the &quot;children of the Kingdom&quot; (Mt. 13:24,38). The ground refers to the hearts of people; but in the parable of the good seed, the seed itself is paralleled with the person. The word had become flesh in them, as it was in the Lord Himself (Jn. 1:14). John the Baptist had preached about the need to be a &quot;good&quot; plant bearing good fruit, or else face condemnation (Mt. 3:10, and repeated by the Lord in Mt. 7:17-19). The appeal was for the audience to be as John intended, to follow where his teaching led. They had initially accepted that teaching but had failed to follow where it led. And this was to be their condemnation.&nbsp;</p><p>Mk. 4:8 adds the significant detail that it was the&nbsp;<i>fruit</i>&nbsp;that the plant yielded which &quot;sprung up and increased&quot;. The picture is of a plant bringing forth seeds which themselves germinate into separate plants and bear fruit. This can be interpreted in at least two ways:&nbsp;<br />1) True spiritual development in our lives is a cumulative upward spiral; successfully developing spiritual fruit leads to developing yet more.<br />2) The new plants which come out of our fruit refer to our converts, both from the world and those within the ecclesia whom we help to yield spiritual fruit. There is another link here with the parable of the vine bearing fruit: &quot;I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should&nbsp;<i>go</i>&nbsp;and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain&quot; (Jn. 15:8,16). This connects with Christ's command to them to&nbsp;<i>go</i>&nbsp;into the world preaching the Gospel and thereby making converts. In this sense our spiritual fruiting is partly through our bringing others to glorify God through the development of a God-like character. It is in this context of using the word for preaching and personal spiritual development that we receive the glorious encouragement &quot;that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he (will) give it you&quot; (Jn. 15:7,16). Every believer who truly strives to bring forth fruit to God's glory, both in preaching to others and in personal character development, will find this promise constantly true.</p><p>God works like this because He is prepared to accept that different people will make something different of His Truth. The parable of the sower shows this in that the &quot;good ground&quot; brings forth 30, 60 or 100 fold. Some believers respond three times as actively to the Gospel as others; yet they will all be accepted at the end. I see a connection between this parable and the Lord's words to the rich, righteous young man: '&quot;If you will be&nbsp;<i>perfect</i>...&quot; sell what you've got; and then you'll receive&nbsp;<i>100 fold</i>&nbsp;in this life, and eternal life in the Kingdom' (Mt. 19:12,21). Presumably, that man at that time was (say) in the 30 or 60 fold category. The Lord wanted him in the 100 fold category. But if that man didn't sell all that he had, it doesn't necessarily mean that Christ would have rejected him ultimately. In this context, He says: &quot; Many that are first (in this life) will be last (least- in the Kingdom); and the last shall be first&quot; (Mt. 19:30). Those who don't sell all that they have will be in the Kingdom, but least in it. The poor of his world, rich in faith, will be great in the Kingdom (James 2:5). We need to ask ourselves whether we really accept the parable of the sower; whether we are strong enough to let another brother be weak, to accept that even if he's in the 30 fold category, he's still acceptable to his Lord, just living on a different level. Indeed, it isn't for us to go very deeply at all into how exactly the Lord sees others; because we can't know. The point to note is that God wants us to rise up the levels of commitment. Paul was persuaded that the Romans were &ldquo;full of goodness, filled with all knowledge&rdquo;, but he prayed they would be filled yet further (Rom. 15:13,14).</p><p>Growth was in fact possible on each type of ground, and the New Testament contains examples of where this happened. I suggest that in fact there are only three types of ground- the way side, the rocky and the thorny. These three types of ground would then match the three types of good ground- which gave 30,60 and 100 fold increase. Putting the gospel records together, the Lord's description of the good ground contains elements of the initially good response from the three bad types of ground. The good ground represents a good state of mind- for the ground is clearly to be understood as the heart of those receiving the word. This category therefore refers to those on the three other types of ground who&nbsp;<i>did</i>&nbsp;respond to the end, who overcame the pressures upon them not to respond further. This also removes the moral problem which is otherwise presented- in that it would appear that the seed of the word is spread, but the good ground people can do nothing else but respond, and the bad ground people can do nothing but not ultimately respond because of who they are by nature and where they are situated in life. The good ground category had to 'keep the word' (Lk. 8:15)- they didn't let men tread it underfoot nor birds take it away. Given their position in life, even by the wayside, they still responded by keeping the word. There was an element of choice and human effort required- rather than some categories being inevitably unable to keep the word because of their location in life and surrounding influences upon them. In this we see huge encouragement in our cluttered lives today, subject as they are to negative spiritual influences which at times seem too strong to resist. And we are further encouraged in our own sowing of the seed- nobody is incapable of response, from the deepest room in a strict Moslem family to sharing a one room apartment in Europe surrounded by materialistic, unGodly people.</p><p>Jeremias claims that a yield of tenfold was considered good in first century Palestine (Joachim Jeremias,&nbsp;<i>The Parables of Jesus</i>&nbsp;(New York: Scribner&rsquo;s, 1972) p. 150). Even if that is somewhat conservative, the point is that the seed on good ground yielded amazingly. This element of unreality speaks of how each person in the &lsquo;good ground&rsquo; category will experience growth and blessing out of proportion to their tiny spiritual beginnings. The parable of the mustard seed makes the same point. Amazing harvests is the language of the Messianic Kingdom, both Biblically and in Judaism. The beginning of the Kingdom experience is in our response to God&rsquo;s word in this life. The one hundred fold response is huge- but then so is the loss. It&rsquo;s as if the Lord is trying to encourage the disciples after the conclusions drawn about the general failure of the ministry of John- and therefore the Lord&rsquo;s also. His point is that despite all the failure,&nbsp;<i>some</i>&nbsp;will respond, and their response and blessing will be so huge that this more than counterbalances all the failure of others. If we can bring one person towards eternity, this is so wonderful that all the rejection of our message is worthwhile.&nbsp;</p><p>In Palestine, sowing precedes ploughing. The sower sows on the path which the villagers have beaten over the stubble, since he intends to plough up the path with the rest of the field. He sows amongst thorns because they too will be ploughed in. And it has been suggested that the rocky ground was land with underlying limestone which barely shows above the surface. Even if some preaching work appears not to bear fruit, this shouldn't discourage us from the essentially outgoing spirit we should have in spreading the word far and wide. Many of the parables have an element of unreality about them, designed to focus our attention on a vital aspect of teaching. The sower parable has 75% of the seed sowed on bad ground, due to the almost fanatic way the sower throws the seed so far and wide, evidently without too much attention to whether it lands on responsive soil or not. His emphasis was clearly on broadcasting the seed far and wide. We should desire to see the spread of God&rsquo;s ways, His Truth, His will, the knowledge of the real Christ, to as many as possible.&nbsp;<br />The word / seed which fell into good ground produced fruit. This connects with Jn. 15:5,7, which says that the branches of the vine bring forth fruit through the word abiding in them. Likewise the good ground keeps the word and continually brings forth fruit (Lk. 8:15). It is common for us to learn something from the word, apply it for a few days, and then forget it. Yet surely the implication is that if our hearts are truly open to the word, it will have permanent effects upon us, if the word abides in us. For this reason it is necessary to pray at least daily for our minds to be good ground for the word, and to retain what we already comprehend. Those on the good ground who hear and understand in Mt. 13:23 are described as those who hear and keep the word (Lk. 8:16). True understanding of the word's teaching is therefore related to an ongoing practical application of it. We may read a human book and understand it at the moment of reading; understanding God's word is quite a different concept. Truly understanding it means keeping it in our heart and therefore in our lives. The seed fell on good ground, &quot;sprang up, and bare fruit&quot;; indeed, it kept on bearing fruit (Lk. 8:8,15). The plant being sown was therefore a repeating crop. True response to the word will lead to wave after wave of spiritual progression. Again, we see that the sower parable is describing an ongoing response to the word- it keeps on being sown by the believer keeping the word, and fruit is continuously brought forth.</p><p><i>As he said these things, he cried: He that has ears to hear, let him hear</i>- The Lord so wanted their response. The very muscles of the Lords face, His body language, would have reflected an earnest, <i>burning</i> care and compassion. The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost; He put His whole personality into the task. And we beseech men &ldquo;in the face of Christ&quot; (2 Cor. 2:10 RV). We are to be <i>His</i> face to this world and to our brethren. With raised eyebrows, lines showing in our forehead, one eye half closed&hellip; our body language should reflect the depth of our concern for others. Having spoken of how our attitudes to God's word will elicit from Him varying responses, the Lord <i>cried</i>, loudly, &quot;he that has ears to hear, <i>let him hear</i>&quot; (Lk. 8:8). There is then the sickening anti-climax of :9, where the disciples ask Him whatever His parable meant.&nbsp; One senses a moment of silence in which the Lord composed Himself and camouflaged the pain of His disappointment; and then His essential hopefulness returns in :10: &quot;Unto you it is given (potentially, anyway) to know (understand) the mysteries (parables) of the Kingdom of God&quot;.</p><p>There is a fine point of translation in Lk. 8:8 which needs to be appreciated: &ldquo;<i>As</i> he said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear&rdquo; (ASV and Greek). It seems that the Lord was &lsquo;throwing out&rsquo; this challenge several times, as He spoke the parable. As the sower sows seed, so the Lord was challenging His hearers to decide what type of ground they were, as they heard the parable.</p>