<p>13:22&nbsp;<em>And he that was sown among the thorns, this is he that hears the word, and the-&nbsp;</em>One of the ineffable sadnesses of Paul's life must have been to see his converts falling away. Yet he seems to have comforted himself by seeing their defection in terms of the sower parable. Many a missionary has been brought close to that parable for the same reason. It supplies an explanation, an answer, a comfort, as 'Friends one by one depart (some we saw as pillars to our own faith, those we thought would always be there) / Lonely and sad our heart'. Thus Paul saw Demas as a seed among thorns (Mt. 13:22 = 2 Tim. 4:10); he saw Elymas as a tare (Mt. 13:38 = Acts 13:10); and he pleads with the Romans not to slip into the tare category (Mt. 13:41 Gk. = Rom. 14:13).&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>Care of the world-</em>&nbsp;In our age as never before, given more possibilities and knowledge of possible futures and what could go wrong, we have as never before the temptation to be full of such care. The same word is used in Lk. 21:34 about the &quot;cares&quot; which will be a feature of the last days- both of AD70 and today. But in the first instance, the 'world' in view was the Jewish world.<br />
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<em>And the deceitfulness of riches</em>- There are not a few Bible passages which confirm this view of materialism, as&nbsp;<em>the</em>&nbsp;besetting temptation of every human soul, and which confirm that therefore our attitude to materialism,&nbsp;serving God or mammon, is the litmus test of our spirituality. The parable of the sower teaches that for those who begin well in the Truth, who don't fall away immediately or get discouraged by persecution, &quot;the deceitfulness of riches... the cares and pleasures of this life&quot; will be their temptation. I would have expected the Lord to either speak in more general terms about the flesh, or to reel off a list of common vices. But instead He focuses on the desire for wealth as the real problem.&nbsp; The love of wealth is the root of&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;evil behaviour (1 Tim. 6:10). And I would go further, and suggest that so many of the excuses we hear which relate to &quot;I haven't got time&quot; (for reading, preaching, meeting, writing...) are related to this desire for material improvement. The desire for advancement takes an iron grip on a man's soul. As we move through life, our thinking is concerned with prices, with possibilities, with schemings... what&nbsp;<em>ought</em>&nbsp;to be the surpassingly dominating aspect of our life, the Son of God and His Truth, takes a poor second place. The connection between the desire for riches and the devil (our nature) is powerful. The devil is a deceiver. And 'riches' is also a deceiver (Mt. 13:22). That we know for sure. The desire for material things, for the false security of bank balances, the excuse that we are allowing ourselves to be so preoccupied for the sake of our families, the idea that we are only human beings and so God will let us be dominated by these worries... all this is the deception of the flesh. God&nbsp;<em>does</em>&nbsp;remember that we are dust, and yes, of course we&nbsp;<em>must</em>&nbsp;provide for our own, some thought (but not&nbsp;<em>anxious</em>&nbsp;thought) must be given to tomorrow (Mt. 6:25,31,34). But these facts must never make us push God's Truth into&nbsp;<em>second</em>&nbsp;place. The lilies of the field are fed and dressed by God without anxiously worrying about it. Israel on their wilderness journey were miraculously provided with food&nbsp;<em>and clothing,</em>&nbsp;surely to prefigure God's basic material care of His spiritual Israel of later years. David, all his life long, never saw the seed of the righteous begging bread (Ps. 37:25).</p>
<p><em>Choke the word</em>- Paul had thought deeply about the parables. He doesn't just half-quote them in an offhand way. For example, Mt. 13:22 says that riches choke a man's response to the word. 1 Tim. 6:9 warns that those who&nbsp;<em>want to be rich</em>&nbsp;are choked by their&nbsp;<em>desire&nbsp;</em>for riches. Likewise Paul saw the rich man of Mt. 19:23 as actually one who&nbsp;<em>wanted</em>&nbsp;to be rich (= 1 Tim. 6:9,10). So Paul had thought through the parable. He saw that possession of riches alone wouldn't choke a man; he saw that the Lord was using &quot;riches&quot; as meaning 'the desire for riches'. And because &quot;riches&quot; are relative and subjective, this must be right. And therefore the Spirit was able to use Paul's deductions. My point is that the Spirit&nbsp;<em>could</em>&nbsp;have used just anyone to write (e.g.) 1 Tim. 6:9. But it was no accident that God chose to use a man with a fine knowledge and appreciation of His Son to be His pen-man.</p>
<p><em>And he becomes unfruitful-</em>&nbsp;The types of ground represent the hearts of various categories of people. We expect to read that&nbsp;<em>the seed</em>&nbsp;becomes unfruitful. But the seed never does, it never of itself loses its power and life. The seed of the word, of Jesus who is&nbsp;<em>the</em>&nbsp;seed, becomes the person. The word is to be made flesh in us as it was to perfection in the Lord (Jn. 1:14). See on 13:6&nbsp;<em>withered</em>. The word becoming unfruitful in Mt. 13:22 is matched by it yielding &quot;no fruit&quot; (Mk. 4:7) and no fruit being perfected in Lk. 8:14. The conclusion from this is that spiritual fruit which is developed but does not remain is not really fruit at all. There is the constant temptation for us to recognize just a bit of apparent 'growth' within us, and feel satisfied with it- rather than taking on board the concept of the word having a fullness of effect upon every part of our lives. Given the lesson of the thorns, there is no doubt that one must watch their friends even within the ecclesia. &quot;Thorns and snares are in the way of the forward: he that doth keep (the Hebrew for &quot;keep&quot; is often used in Proverbs about keeping the word) his soul shall be far from them&quot; (Prov. 22:5). The language of thorns must connect with the curse upon Eden; the ecclesia, the paradise of God, must always have its thorns in order to spiritually exercise Adam, the spiritual gardener. As our brother's keeper, we need to be aware that after conversion, a whole gamut of new temptations face the convert.&nbsp;<em>After</em>&nbsp;he has heard the word, he is choked with the cares, riches and pleasures (Lk. 8:14). Yet these things existed before he heard the word; the point is that they became new temptations after his response to the word. A concerted effort to understand, with Biblical guidance, the pressures upon new converts might help save a few more of the many which are being lost.</p>
<p>Thorns were symbolic of false teachers in the Old Testament ecclesia (Ez. 2:6; Is. 33:12-14). It is a repeated theme that thorns are devoured by fire (Ex. 22:6; Ps. 118:12; Ecc. 7:6; Is. 10:17), looking ahead to the destruction of all false elements of the ecclesia. The thorns easily equate with the tares of the next parable, which represent false teachers (primarily the Judaist infiltrators of the first century ecclesia). It would seem from this that some members of the ecclesia are never right with God, but exist purely for the spiritual trial of others; although it cannot be over-emphasized that it is quite wrong to attempt to label individuals as this 'thorn' element. Thus Jesus pointed out that grapes (the true Israel) and thorns can be apparently similar (Mt. 7:16), but &quot;Ye shall know them by their&nbsp;<em>fruits</em>&quot;. The thorns of the sower parable and those they influenced were &quot;unfruitful&quot;. However, seeing that &quot;the thorns sprang up&nbsp;<em>with it</em>&quot; (Lk. 8:7), there was some genuine spiritual growth, matched by the appearance of this among the thorns too. Heb. 6:8 likewise speaks of the thorns as believers who grew up within the ecclesia. This indicates the dual-mindedness of those who only partially commit themselves to the word; knowledge like this should play an active part in our self-examination. Because the thorns outwardly look like true believers, having an outward appearance of spiritual growth even more zealous and strong than that of the plants which they choke, it is impossible to personally identify the &quot;thorns&quot;; but there can be no doubt that, according to the parable, they&nbsp;<em>must</em>&nbsp;be present among the ecclesia. The seed &quot;fell&nbsp;<em>among</em>&nbsp;thorns&quot; (Mt. 13:7), showing that this thorn category were already within the ecclesia when the person who was to be choked was converted. We have shown that Biblically the thorns are false teachers; yet Jesus interprets them as &quot;the care (Gk. 'divisions'- the double mindedness of serving two masters) of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches&quot; (Mt.13:22). The conclusion to be drawn is that the false teachers are responsible for the new convert being choked by these things. Mk. 4:19 says that these lusts enter into the convert's heart. Therefore the thorns must influence the person's thinking, so that he follows after these things until &quot;he becometh unfruitful&quot;. The Greek for &quot;choked&quot; is from a root meaning 'association, companionship'. Marshall's Interlinear renders the Greek text of Lk. 8:7 in keeping with this idea: &quot;Growing up with the thorns choked it&quot;. Thus it is through close association with the thorn element already in the ecclesia, that the new convert who enters it is corrupted. We each have to ask 'What type of ground are we as an ecclesia? Do&nbsp;<em>I&nbsp;</em>have thorn elements to me...?'</p>