The Parable of the Four Soils? What the heck? Didn’t Yeshua/Jesus Himself call it the Parable of the Sower? Why are you renaming the parable? Are you some kind of heretic?
Nope, just wanting to teach it from the perspective of the soil, namely the soil of our own minds and hearts. I will also be doing a teaching on the “rules of the parable” in ancient Judaism based on a very good book that I have been reading.
Transcript, not very thoroughly edited so please excuse the mistakes:
*************
Hi, this is Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where we explore Scripture in its original historical context and talk about how God is communicating His expectations to us as His image-bearers—Because, after all, if all this information doesn’t bring us closer to God’s character, it’s just useless brain candy..
You can catch my blogs at www.theancient bridge.com and my children’s context teachings at contextforkids.com. Past broadcasts of Character in Context can be found both on youtube and on my podcast channel—characterincontext.podbean.com. I also have two youtube channels where you can watch my video teachings for adults and kids, which can be accessed through my websites, as can my books and my family curriculum series.
And remember my weekly disclaimer—scholars are an important part of the Kingdom, but the Kingdom is bigger than scholarship. We need all sorts of servants, and we need to give them the respect they are owed according to the area in which they have expertise—anyone who is functioning in their calling, becoming conformed to the image of God as we see in Messiah, and devoting their life to God is worthy of our respect, whether we agree with them 100% on this and that or not.
Today I want to talk about parables in general and also about one in particular. I’ve been studying Jewish parables from the Hebrew Scriptures through the Middle Ages for some time now and it is funny how our modern expectations and handling of this literary form often do not line up with the reality of how they were handed down and why. And of course, we have to pay close attention to what they meant and how they were meant to be received by the original audience. We don’t communicate this way, as a rule, and so we are often ignorant of the rules of the parable and the ways in which the original audience would and would not have taken them seriously. In other words—what would they take out of a parable as important and what would they leave as unimportant.
An important thing to remember is that we are all scientists in our way of thinking, compared to ancient people. We look at a parable and we want every part of it to be accurate and vital. Because it is in the Bible, we want to develop doctrinal positions about God from every jot and tittle, but I will be showing you how that can be disastrous in some cases. Now, we are very fortunate in that Yeshua’s/Jesus’s parables make a lot more sense than a great many parables within Judaistic writings. Oftentimes, in the Gemara and other writings, a parable will be presented that has zero do to with what it is illustrating. And that isn’t from me, that’s from modern Jewish commentators who are scratching their heads. So, for the past I don’t know how many months I have been working my way through the excellent Carta book Parables of the Sages: Jewish Wisdom from Jesus to Rav Ashi by R. Steven Notley and Ze’ev Safrai. Of course, if you are familiar with the Jerusalem Perspective, you know these names. Notley is a distinguished professor of NT and Christian Origins, and Safrai, apart from being the son of the legendary scholar Shmuel Safrai, is a professor of Land of Israel studies at Bar Elan.
You know, it often surprises people to learn how many protestants and Jews have been working together for many decades in order to explore and uncover first century Judaism and the origins of Christianity. The Jerusalem Perspective Online is an excellent place to check out some of the responsible studies in this area both past and ongoing by some truly great modern scholars.
Now bear with me while I get the boring academic stuff out of the way before we can have some fun.
The Hebrew term for parable is mashal—but this is problematic because the meaning isn’t limited to what we would consider to be parables. Mashal is where we get the word Mishlei—and of course, Mishlei Shlomo is the Hebrew name for the Book of Proverbs in the Bible—which is a collection of wisdom sayings. Mashal can mean, besides parable, a true saying or prophecy—and in later rabbinic use, it came to mean metaphor. Did I mention that ancient Hebrew doesn’t have a whole lot of words and meaning has to be determined from context? This is why I dislike Strong’s concordance, where people are sometimes led to believe that one can look through a list of possibilities and choose whichever English word they want to translate the Hebrew. It doesn’t work like that. There is actually a translation on the market where the “translator” says he used Strongs and the Holy Spirit to guide his translation—not speaking a word of Hebrew or Greek.
We are all more familiar with the Greek word parabole (pah-rah-bo-lay), translated parable, which is more clearly defined, so we will stick with that.
- A parable is a story concerned with teaching a moral, usually one that is spelled out.
- Parables describe a vague reality or pseudo-reality, without oftentimes being at all realistic. King parables are notorious for being unrealistic.
- The moral often has zero to do with the parable itself, a fact which is ignored by the audience, who are expected to be entertained by the story itself, which in turn makes them amenable to accepting the moral even if it has nothing to do with the story.
- The same parable can be used by two different teachers to say completely opposite things.
- Parables cannot be used to develop specific doctrines because they are generally not realistically describing situations but instead teaching through metaphor. And sometimes very questionable metaphors by modern standards.
- Parables rely on hyperbole, exaggeration—often saying something that isn’t true, and recognized by the audience as untrue, in order to make a point
So, we have these rules that this literary form lived by. This can seriously offend modern sensibilities because we believe that truth needs to be accurate and that every little thing needs to line up either with reality or our limited perception of it. That is a very modern idea. This is why we are such notorious nitpickers and why so many nitpickers fall away from the faith once they see stuff in the Bible that doesn’t line up with how modern authors would write history or tell stories, where there is fiction and non-fiction and nothing in between. In the ancient world, there was a lot “in between.” We think that our way is best, and we judge ancient inspired authors based on our preconceived notions about what makes a document true. I think that sometimes we forget who came first. We can’t change the rules and then expect dead folks to live by them. We have to understand how they thought, and how God lovingly communicated to people who thought that way.
So, we all understand about how parables teach moral truths without necessarily telling us a true story. No one probably expects that there was really a boy who cried wolf and got eaten after repeatedly lying to his fellow villagers. We like the story and tell it not because it happened, or because it is very realistic, but because it communicates the truth that when we repeatedly lie, people stop believing us and won’t believe us when it is important. No one takes the parable and makes a specific law about lying about wolf attacks—that was a specific of the story and we would do harm to it by making narrow legislation about it or confining the wisdom to that fictional scenario. We take away the larger truth without thinking too hard about how realistic it is or about whether or not it really happened. It is irrelevant. It is the truth of the importance of credibility which is what we take away, and the dangers of not being credible. I mean, the truth is that no one but the truly gullible would have believed the little brat after the first time.
In that light, it is easier to understand that parables don’t describe historical situations but largely fictional ones. They can be wildly fantastical, and utterly ridiculous, just as long as they drive a point home. I mean, what landowner would send his son to go and collect grapes after all his servants have been killed? None, No one. But that wasn’t the point. A wise human would never do such a thing and actually would have legally had the tenants evicted. We all know this. So did the audience of the Parable of the Workers of the Vineyard. We suspend our disbelief in order to get to the message of a God who would send His Prophets and then His own Son in order to seek fruit from His people. That the parable would never happen in real life is irrelevant.
Morals in parables are often overtly spelled out, which is a good thing because they are often so fantastical (and especially in Rabbinic writings) and have nothing to do with the situation at hand that if they weren’t spelled out, we would have no idea what they were trying to communicate.
A word of caution against taking parables literally—let’s look at one from Tosefta Parah 1:1
R. Simeon said: The sin-offering, to what may it be compared? To an advocate who enters to seek favor (from a judge). When the advocate has found favor, the gift (bribe) is brought in.
Now, in context, this parable was told in order to disparage the Roman legal system, but out of context, it sounds like God is corruptly demanding bribes through the sacrificial system. Taken to extremes, one could say that the rich are in a better position to seek out pardons for their sins without repenting. This is a great example of how we can’t get literal with parables—and I will show that to be the case with the parable of the sower in a bit here. Taken literally, it is very insulting to Yeshua, so we have to look beyond the literal and into the intention as they would have viewed it at the time.
Like Aggadah (legendary materials), parables were not used to develop beliefs or doctrines about things. For example, Yeshua could tell the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus without his original audience developing doctrines about heaven and hell based on them. The original audience saw the attack against the high priestly family of Annas and Caiaphus presented in an entertaining and fantastic way, filled with contemporary apocalyptic metaphors centering on the Jerusalem landscape—not as a teaching about heaven, hell, and purgatory.
Finally, let’s talk about exaggeration in parables, aka hyperbole. It was perfectly allowable to tell what we would label “lies” in order to make a point. Case in point, the parable of the mustard seed. No one in that era thought the mustard seed was the smallest seed of all. Orchid tubers were a delicacy in that time and those seeds were much smaller, however, it was a common expression to say that the mustard seed was the smallest of all seeds as a preface to a common type of teaching. Sometimes people take this expression out of Yeshua’s mouth (which was also common to other ancient Jewish sages) as proof of the illegitimacy of the Word, completely ignoring the cultural context of the saying. No, Yeshua didn’t believe that it was the smallest of all seeds, and his audience really didn’t care. What they cared about was what He was expressing—namely, something very small. By the way, have you ever heard of “eye of newt?” That was the ancient name for mustard seed. Come on, you didn’t think that witches were gathering real newt eyeballs, did you? Okay, so I did.
Sayings don’t have to be true in order for us to know what is being communicated:
The customer is always right.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Nothing is impossible.
It all happens for a reason.
God never gives you more than you can bear.
Whenever we call something natural and mean healthy. As a chemist, I can tell you a ton of stuff that is 100% natural and will kill you dead really quick.
We only use 10% of our brains.
Okay, that last one is in fact probably true for some people, but anyway.
Parables are often culturally oriented. Whereas we see the camel going through the eye of the needle in Yeshua’s parables and in the Jerusalem Talmud, in the Babylonian Talmud we see elephants going through the eye of a needle (which was not a gate in Jerusalem). So careful attention must be paid to where a story originates in order to avoid hauling it into modern and often completely geographically unrealistic places. For example, when we think of green pastures, we think of modern lawns or the farmer’s fields in western lands, and not the rock landscapes where shepherds walked their flocks through what we would consider almost barren landscapes seeking out tufts of grass. Our idea of green pastures is exponentially more lush than David’s.
All that being said, I can tell you the scholarly consensus that Yeshua’s parables actually set the gold standard for being relevant, reasonable, and understandable compared to those normally found in Jewish writings. In other words, after one hears them, no one is really tempted to say, “Excuse me, what?” Okay, well some are not clear until they are explained, but when they are, at least they are pertinent to the situation.
All this because I want to talk about what is called the Parable of the Sower, which I recently realized is a terrible name for it. Why? Let’s read it.
Matt 13
Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
18 “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: 19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. 20 The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 22 The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. 23 But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
Did you know that there are forty parables attributed to Yeshua in the Gospels? This one appears in all three of the Synoptics, meaning Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Now, IF this parable was to be taken at face value, we are obviously dealing with the most incompetent sower in the world here. But the parable isn’t actually about the sower, it is about four different types of soil. I mean, think about it, what sort of ridiculous farmer would scatter seeds on hard-packed pathways, on rocks, and in areas where the thorns haven’t even been cleared away? If we were going to take this parable as realistic, we would have to say, “Well dang, this guy needs some farming lessons.” But the farmer is just an illustration and we aren’t supposed to actually give the lunacy of the situation much thought. As I said, the parable isn’t about the farmer but about the four different kinds of soil that the seed of the word falls into.
And remember also, that this parable isn’t about evangelism—because it is being spoken to a Jewish crowd—as were all the parables. Sometimes we forget that very important fact. That we can take the parable and apply it in other ways is not relevant to how the original audience was meant to receive it.
Here is also where I am going to point out that although in the parable of the tares, the sower is the Son of Man, we can’t carry that over to this parable because in the parable of the tares the seed is people—not the Word as here. Two different agricultural parables, same exact chapter—but two entirely different scenarios. The sower actually goes unidentified in the parable of the sower. Now, that being said, from the intro in Luke 8, it can be argued that Yeshua is talking about himself, but it is unnecessary because the parable is generally applicable to any teacher of the Word. I only brought all that up in order to point out how we can sometimes cross-contaminate one parable with another—the seed isn’t always the Word and the sower isn’t always the Son of Man—sometimes an enemy plays the part of a sower. Parables often must be handled as individual stories, but not always.
So, we have four different types of soil and I am going to suggest that each one of us is composed of all four different types. Or am I the only one who is resistant sometimes when God tried to talk reason to me about something? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
So, we read something in the word, and sometimes our paradigms don’t even allow us to see what it right in front of us. It’s like a sower throwing seed down and it bounces right back up, only to be snatched by a bird-like it never even happened. For years, years and years, I would read the verses about not eating unclean foods—because I read the Bible front to back over and over again so I wasn’t skipping over anything. There were some things I just didn’t see. The soil in those areas was impenetrable, but years later, when God opened my eyes, the soil became very receptive and I just started to obey without question. It’s amazing how the holy 2×4 of discipline functions as a workable plow. Not that I was being disciplined, because I was not aware that I was even remotely not following the commandments in that area. I just needed to be prepared, was all, and then ambushed by the Holy Spirit when I was least expecting it and before my defenses went up.
How about the rocky path? When I think about rocks, I think about obstacles. Now, not everyone has obstacles, and really that is why we need communities around us—to lessen the effect of obstacles. I was really fortunate when I was first saved in that I landed in a pretty good place within a very religious community. But there were others in my community that didn’t have it so well. The small town (15,000 population) in which I came to faith was 77% Mormon, and if I had come from a Mormon family I would have encountered obstacles that are really hard to understand by people who haven’t lived in “Zion” which is what Mormons call the heart of Mormon country—mostly Idaho and Utah. Although I personally met with little resistance (mostly with shock from the people around me, actually), I knew people who were faithful Mormons who suddenly found themselves in an encounter with the Living God and were overflowing with joy—until their families began trying to take their kids away, and their spouses divorced them, and I even know one lady whose own parents tried to have her committed. To call it a nightmare wouldn’t be doing it justice. People who converted to Christianity sometimes got fired from their jobs, oftentimes from local companies run by fellow ward members—and even family members. It would be hard to retain that initial joy, and to not turn back under those conditions.
Okay, well that is obviously way beyond what the overwhelming majority of us would ever have to cope with, thank God. But we all know what it is like to be excited about getting a revelation from God and figuring that everyone in the world is ready to hear it and if they don’t accept it when we tell them it’s because they are rebellious antinomians who hate God and love evil. Forgetting, of course, that this tactic wouldn’t have worked with us either. Also forgetting that no one is truly lawless unless they are purposefully breaking like all the commandments. In our heart of hearts, we see that we needed to have things revealed to us, and blindness removed—that simply hearing and seeing isn’t the same thing as understanding and perceiving. Now, the people who are discouraged might not fall away per se, but they might stop walking in this new truth in love and humility—tainting it and destroying that truth for others. In a very real way, we can walk away from the word of truth simply through our attitudes. The joy we received the truth with, if we don’t handle it properly, can sour us if we do not continue in joy.
How about the seeds tossed among thorns? You might say, “Oh there is nothing in this world that is worth more to me than God’s word.” UH huh. So how fruitful are you? One hundredfold? Not me! The parable talks about worries and wealth—so really this concerns a focus on our wants and desires. How about pornography? How about gluttony? How about our consumerist lifestyle where we buy whatever our hearts desire while investing little to nothing in the Kingdom? Do we expect other people to foot the bill for our and other’s spiritual and physical needs, while we spend our own money on ourselves? Do we go on vacations while those who serve us are struggling to make ends meet? These things keep us from being fruitful—the stuff we want, the stuff we feel we have a right to.
And yes, I mentioned pornography. Becoming a believer, in and of itself, doesn’t eradicate a person’s desire to cater to their basest sexual desires—and I say that as someone who was addicted to pornography from the age of eight to the age of thirty-three when God delivered me. It was an obsession for me, and here I was trying to become obsessed with God’s love and what He wanted for me. I did give up the actual materials, the magazines, and videos, as soon as I got saved, but for years I toyed around with a fantasy life in my head. It sapped fruitfulness out of me because I was serving it. After I gave that up, lo and behold, I became an online video game addict. Again, it was eating up my time and diverting my loyalties. It filled a need I had for adult companionship in a very shallow and entertaining way. Finally, I gave up my video games and started studying Biblical history—sometimes we have to work with our weaknesses and direct them along a more fruitful path. But the point is, these things were my “worries and deceitfulness of wealth.” They kept me distracted and entertained and busy—doing nothing of any eternal importance. I wasn’t bearing much fruit at all because all my effort was directed elsewhere—and it doesn’t have to be those things. Could have been television, playing Farmville, spending all day on social media instead of just the time I need to minister to others, reading novels, gluttony, obsessing about politics or whatever. And I am not saying that those things are necessarily to the level of choking out our growth, but they can be. Are we bearing fruit for the Kingdom, or are we just busy? Are we maturing and becoming more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, generous, trustworthy, gentle and self-controlled? Changes in those areas is growing fruit in keeping with repentance. Remember that John the Baptist told a group of seriously law-abiding Jews to produce fruit in keeping with repentance so he wasn’t telling them to keep the sabbaths, feasts, eat kosher or wear the tassels. He was telling them to produce the kind of fruit that manifests in being able to do the weightier matters of the Law—doing justice and righteousness for the oppressed, the orphan, widowed, foreigner, wrongfully imprisoned, poor, and sick. The intangibles of the Law that aren’t spelled out in detail and thus must spring from a changed heart and life.
When the word hits the good soil, it takes root. I am betting we all have some areas with great soil—just like we have areas with bad, bad soil. Our mistake comes when we assume that since we are believers that we are that good, unadulterated soil. But the sower was walking and seeding his plot of land, and all those conditions existed there. There were pathways, and rocks that hadn’t been uprooted—some were huge and some were small, there were stubborn thorns that had to be fought year after year until they just gave up and died (hopefully, unlike Paul’s thorn in the flesh), and there was also good soil. Where there is good soil, we produce in those areas—but the goal, of course, is to rehabilitate the thorny ground, and the rocky ground, and the pathways. We dare not spend too much time admiring our very small crop when there is so much ground to be conquered.
