SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/19/2022 9:22 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Parable: The Sower”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
13:3b-9
Message of the verses: “saying,
"Behold, the sower went out to sow; 4 and as he sowed, some seeds
fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. 5 “And others fell
upon the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they
sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. 6 “But when the sun had risen,
they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. 7 “And
others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. 8 “And
others fell on the good soil, and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some
sixty, and some thirty. 9 “He who has ears, let him hear.’”
It
is entirely possible that as Jesus was telling this parable that the people
could look around and see this very thing happening, seeing a man sowing
seed. If they did not see this they
certainly knew that just what the Lord was talking about, as this would have
been very familiar to them. A man would
have his seed bag slung over his shoulder as he went out to sow was a common
and vivid image. The man would walk up
and down the furrows of his field as he sowed seed while walking. He would repeatedly reach into his seed bag
for a handful of seed to cast on either side as he walked.
Jesus
speaks of various kinds of ground that the seed would fall on and this was
familiar to those listening to Him. Things
were much different than they are today as machines that tractors pull plant
seeds, however when this happened in our Lord’s day while on earth it was done
as we have talked about and so the seed would fall on different places as some
would fall on the road, some fall beside the road as this kind of broadcasting
of the seeds was certainly not as precise as it is today. John MacArthur writes “Galilee region, was
crisscrossed with fields, and read here refers primarily to the narrow paths
that separated one field from another.
Farmers used the paths to walk between the fields, and travelers walked
on them as they went from one part of the country to another. It was along such a road through a grain
field that Jesus and His disciples were traveling one Sabbath as they picked
grain to eat (Matt. 12:1).”
As
we think about this description we can imagine that the soil that was on and
beside the road would not have been tilled, but would have been packed down
hard by the walking, and this prevented any seeds that happened to fall on it
from penetrating and taking root. Not it
was because those seeds were exposed and easily accessible that the birds came
and ate them up as soon as the farmer got a ways away from them. The seed that was not eaten by the birds would
have been walked on or “trampled under foot” as Luke explains in Luke 8:5. We can imagine that the birds would have been
following the farmers as they were broadcasting their seeds.
Now
we want to look at the second type of ground on which some of the seed would
have fallen, and Jesus refers to it as rocky places, where they did not have
much soul. Rocky does not actually refer
to loose rocks, because the farmer would always remove all rocks, sticks, and
other such objects from his field before he began to plant the seeds. This rather refers to underlying beds of soil
rock deeper than the plow reached, and they were mostly limestone, which did
not have much soil that was covering the rocks.
The seeds that would fall on this type of ground would immediately…spring
up, because they had no depth of soil.
Now when seeds begin to germinate, its roots could not penetrate the
rock that was just below the surface of the soil and so the little plant would
instead start to spring up above the ground much faster than they normally
would as they would first of all go deeper into the soil so that they would
have a good foundation so when winds blew that they would have a good root
system in order to not fall down like those that fell in the rocky soil.
Lord
willing we will talk more about this type of soil as we begin our next SD.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Now as I compare this type of soil to me and
to what I learn from the Word of God I realize that my knowledge of God’s word,
the deeper I know about it will take me through troubled times when they come.
My Steps of Faith For Today: I trust that
the Lord will continue to teach me as I study His Word each and every day.
3/19/2022 9:53 AM
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