<p>4:13 <i>And he said to them: Do you not understand this parable? And how will you understand all the parables?</i>- Not understanding was characteristic of those sown by the wayside, according to the interpretation we have in Matthew 13. We can therefore imagine a note of deep concern in the Lord's voice at this point. For 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 (Mt. 13:15). 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 Mt. 13:15 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 Mt. 13:4 that there were 'wayside' persons who&nbsp;<i>did</i>&nbsp;respond; our location in terms of culture, environment, psychology etc. is&nbsp;<i>not</i>&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;<i>When</i>&nbsp;there was no understanding of the word,&nbsp;<i>then</i>&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;, the Jewish satan. In his justification of confusing the Jews through the sower parable, the Lord twice lamented that they did not&nbsp;<i>understand&nbsp;</i>(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;<i>understand</i>&nbsp;(Mt. 13:19). By contrast, those on the good ground&nbsp;<i>did</i>&nbsp;understand (Mt. 13:23). Those who heard the word &quot;and immediately with joy receives 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). And the Lord was concerned that the disciples were in the same category.</p>