<p>13:19- see on 13:38.</p>
<p><em>When anyone hears the word of the kingdom-&nbsp;</em>&ldquo;The word&rdquo;, the &ldquo;word of the Kingdom&rdquo;, &ldquo;the Gospel&rdquo;, &ldquo;the word of God&rdquo; are all parallel expressions throughout the Gospels. The records of the parable of the sower speak of both &ldquo;the word of God&rdquo; (Lk. 8:11-15) and &ldquo;the word of the Kingdom&rdquo; (Mt. 13:19). The word / Gospel of God refers to the message which is&nbsp;<em>about</em>&nbsp;God, just as the &ldquo;word of the Kingdom&rdquo; means the word which&nbsp;<em>is about</em> the Kingdom, rather than suggesting that the word is one and the same as the Kingdom. &quot;The seed is the word of God&quot; (Lk.8:11), i.e. the word of the Gospel of the Kingdom (Mt.13:19). The parable gives the impression that the ground was in a certain condition when the seed was first sown; there seems no hint at the possibility of changing the ground, although we will see later that there is a sense in which this is possible. The stony ground, for example, is in that state as soon as the seed lands upon it. It seems that Jesus is showing us how God looks down upon the preaching of the Gospel to various people, seeing that He speaks about things which are future as if they are already (Rom. 4:17). He knows the type of ground which each of us will ultimately be. Therefore, as far as God is concerned, we are good ground, or whatever, at the time of our first encounter with the Gospel, even if we are initially stony or thistle-filled. The seed is the word (Lk. 8:11); and &quot;the word&quot; doesn't necessarily mean the whole Bible (although the whole Bible is of course inspired). The phrase specifically means the word of the power of the Gospel, by which we were ushered into spiritual being. And&nbsp;<em>this&nbsp;</em>is what brings forth fruit, through our 'patient' and continued response to it. We were born again, &quot;not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God... and this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you&quot; (1 Pet. 1:23,25). Time and again the New Testament uses &quot;the word of God&quot; or &quot;the word of the Lord (Jesus)&quot; as shorthand for the preaching of the basic Gospel.&nbsp;<em>This</em>&nbsp;is the seed, this is the source of new life, this is what can lead to new character and behaviour in us. James speaks of being &quot;doers of the word&quot; (1:22,25), using the same word as in the parable of the sower, there translated 'to bring forth fruit'. Note that &quot;the word of God&quot; in the NT often refers specifically to the Gospel. James foresaw the possibility of hearing the word of the Gospel but not doing it, not bringing forth what those basic doctrines imply. He foresees how we can admire it as a vain man seeing his reflection in a mirror. We are not to be &quot;forgetful hearers&quot; of the word of the basics, the &quot;implanted word&quot; (1:21 RV- another reference to the sower parable). We aren't to learn the Gospel and then forget those doctrines. We are to be doers of them.</p>
<p><em>And understands it not</em>- The Lord has just made clear that not understanding Him is a conscious, wilful intellectual act; and people shut their eyes so that they will not understand, lest it demand too much from them personally (:15). The wayside category are not, therefore, merely predestined not to understand. It's not that they were just in the wrong place, exposed to the wrong teachings and religious culture, and therefore they did not understand. For anyone who hears the word or seed of Christ, refusal to understand it is a conscious choice. It may not appear like that, but the Lord has said in :15 that it is. By 'understanding', the Lord means the understanding which brings forth fruit. He is here redefining 'understanding the word', making it refer to something fruitful in practice. He spoke against a religious culture in which spirituality was seen in terms of being a microscopic student of the Old Testament and word by word, verse by verse, coming to the right theological interpretation. Many of us were raised in a similar environment. And the Lord here is redefining 'understanding the word' away from the sense of 'correct exposition' towards 'responding faithfully in practice, bringing forth fruit'. The bad ground, therefore, involved an element of choice to be like that. We showed on :4 that there were 'wayside' persons who&nbsp;<em>did</em>&nbsp;respond; our location in terms of culture, environment, psychology etc. is&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;an inevitable barrier to responding to the word which we hear. This proves that sin, in its various manifestations as a 'devil', can be resisted through an understanding of the word.&nbsp;<em>When</em>&nbsp;there was no understanding of the word,&nbsp;<em>then</em>&nbsp;the devil came. Likewise 1 Jn. 5:18-20 teaches that those who are born again by a true understanding of the word are not even touched by the &quot;wicked one&quot;. Mere knowledge of the word will not necessarily stop the spiritual temptations; the word must be hid in the heart to stop sin (Ps.119:11); not just left on the surface of the soil. Those on the good ground both hear&nbsp;<em>and</em>&nbsp;understand it (Mt.13:23), corresponding in the first instance to those who heard the parables and understood them. There is no doubt that a degree of intellectual effort is required to understand the word, not least the parables. The Jews generally did not &quot;hear with their ears&quot;- they did not respond or recognize the basic message of the word, let alone go on to understand it.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In his justification of confusing the Jews through the sower parable, Jesus twice lamented that they did not&nbsp;<em>understand&nbsp;</em>(Mt. 13:13,14). He was basically saying that the Jews were the bad ground in the parable; the fowls snatched away the seed because they did not&nbsp;<em>understand</em>&nbsp;(Mt. 13:19). By contrast, those on the good ground&nbsp;<em>did</em>&nbsp;understand (Mt. 13:23). Those who heard the word &quot;and anon with joy receiveth it&quot; only to later fall away (Mt. 13:20,21) approximate to the Jews who initially rejoiced at the word of Christ preached by John and later Jesus himself (Jn. 5:35). &quot;The care of this world&quot; (Mt. 13:22) must primarily refer to the Jewish world.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>Then comes the evil one</em>- Note that the parable was spoken the same day as the discourses of chapter 12- see 13:1. The entire context of the parable and the preceding chapter is that it was the Jewish world system which hindered people from further responding to the seed / word about Jesus which they had first heard from John the Baptist. As I showed at length in&nbsp;<em>The Real Devil</em>, the Jewish system is frequently described as the 'satan' or adversary of the early church. By 'the wicked one', the Lord's audience would've understood 'satan'; and the Lord is redefining their view of 'satan' as being not so much the Gentiles or some cosmic being, as their own religious elders and system.<br />
<br />
<em>And snatches away-&nbsp;</em>The same word had recently been used by the Lord in Mt. 11:12 about how the violent take away the Kingdom. I suggested in the commentary there that this is possible to understand as referring to the Jewish leaders stopping people entering the Kingdom of Jesus. In this case, &quot;the wicked one&quot; is again identified as the Jews. The word is also used about the wolf 'catching away' the sheep (Jn. 10:12)- and in the same passage in John 10, it is the wolf who kills Jesus in His mortal combat with him in order to save the rest of the sheep. Clearly the wolf there refers to the Jewish leaders who ravaged the flock, indeed John 10 is full of reference to Ezekiel 34, which speaks of Israel's priesthood as responsible for the scattering of the sheep. Mt. 13:19 describes the evil one taking away the word out of&nbsp;our heart. However can we resist that evil one? Paul had his eye on this question in 2 Thess. 3:1,3, where he speaks of the word being&nbsp;<em>with them</em>, and also of the&nbsp;Lord keeping them from the evil one. Paul knew that the Lord (Jesus) will help us in keeping the word in our hearts, if we allow him to; he saw that the power of God is greater than our low nature. &nbsp;</p>
<p><em>That which was sown in his heart-</em>&nbsp;Clearly the types of ground represent types of heart or mind. In addition to the elements of unreality in the parables, there are other features which shout out for our attention. Often details are omitted which we would expect to see merely as part of the story. For example, the parable of the ten girls says nothing at all about the bride; the bridegroom alone is focused upon, along with the bridesmaids. Where&rsquo;s the bride in the story? Surely the point is that in the story, the bridesmaids are treated as the bride; this is the wonder of the whole thing, that we as mere bridesmaids are in fact the bride herself. Another example would be the way in which the sower&rsquo;s presence is not really explained. No reference is made to the importance of rain or ploughing in making the seed grow. The preacher is unimportant; we are mere voices, as was John the Baptist. But it is the type of ground we are which is so all important; and the type of ground refers to the type of heart we have (Mt. 13:19). The state of the human heart is what is so crucial. Yet another example is in the way that there is no explanation for exactly why the tenants of the vineyard so hate the owner and kill His Son. This teaches of the irrational hatred the Jews had towards the Father and Son. And why would the owner send His Son, when so clearly the other servants had been abused? Why not just use force against them? Here again we see reflected the inevitable grace of the Father in sending the Son to be the Saviour of the Jewish world.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>This is he that was sown by the way side</em>- The person is put for the seed. Because according to a person's attitude to the word of Christ, so he is.</p>