Principles Behind the Parables: Mark 4:10-13

Mark 4:1-2, 10-13

The Principles Behind the Parables

It is nearly universally accepted that Jesus is one of history’s greatest teachers. Even those who do not share the Christian view of Him that He is God incarnate and the Savior of humanity would not deny His effectiveness as a communicator. Personally, I agree with C. S. Lewis, who said that Jesus has not left this option of judging Him to be only a good teacher open to us. If He was not who He claimed to be in His teaching, then we should label Him as a lunatic or a demoniac, and stop with any nonsense of Him being a good teacher. But humanity as a whole throughout the last 2,000 years has been enamored by Him to such a degree that no one wants to dismiss Him so abruptly. It is much safer for those who deny His claims of Deity and His offer of salvation to just say, “He was a good teacher.” And certainly much of the intrigue about His teaching stems from His use of parables.

So appealing are these parables that they have infected our vocabulary and our entire way of thinking. We regularly hear non-Christian people talk about things like “a good Samaritan,” “a prodigal son, ” “a city on a hill,” “faith of a mustard seed,” or “a pearl of great price.” These all stem from the parables of Jesus, and their universal place in thought and speech demonstrate their sticking-power. Jesus was not the first to use the parable as a form of teaching. We find parables in the Old Testament, and in ancient literature from outside the Judeo-Christian tradition. But few of those parables have invaded culture the way the parables of Jesus have. He may not have been the originator of the form, but He was certainly the master of it.

Unfortunately, many in our own day have misunderstood this method of Jesus’ teaching. Many assume that Jesus’ parables are nothing more than quaint stories. So, they say, effective teaching and preaching today must be done with creative storytelling. Gone are the days, we hear, when people desire to hear didactic expositions of biblical instruction and systematic theology. After all, this is the 21^st Century, and people’s attention spans aren’t what they used to be. So, the effective preacher and teacher will work hard to hone the craft of storytelling so as to capture the imagination of his audience as Jesus did. And books and conferences abound calling for an end to the dispensing of propositional truth for a newer, or more ancient perhaps, method of telling stories. After all, you can remember stories you heard from childhood better than you recall last Sunday’s sermon, don’t you? Please, don’t raise your hands.

I suggest to you that in all this modern rhetoric about storytelling misses the point. They point to Jesus as an accommodating storyteller, and attribute the greatness of His teaching to this simple fact. But, the fact that so many who laud His greatness in teaching do not know Him and do not believe the underlying truth of the stories He told indicates that they might remember the characters and events of the stories, but they have missed the point of His stories, and in fact, they have missed the reason for His telling of these parabolic stories. In using parables, Jesus was not putting the cookies on the bottom shelf, but rather challenging the minds of His hearers to reach to a higher shelf where true nourishment for their souls could be found.

C. H. Dodd defined a parable as, “a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought” (emphasis mine).[1] Certainly not everything Jesus ever said was in the form of parables, but much of his public teaching was. And the reactions of those who heard His parables indicate to us that not many got the point. In our passage today, even His own followers had questions about the parables. Mark does not state what those questions were. Fortunately, we have other gospel accounts to shed light on their questions.

In parallel contexts, Matthew 13:10 indicates that they were asking about the reason for His parables. “Why do you speak to them in parables?” Luke 8:10 indicates that they were asking about the meaning of His parables. “His disciples began questioning Him as to what this parable meant.” We may draw from this that the disciples did not understand the parables, and if they didn’t get it, then why on earth would Jesus expect other people to get it?

Well, their questions are like ours, and like those swirling around the debate between storytelling and exposition in our own day. And I would suggest that before we abandon exposition and propositional truth-telling in exchange for new creative parables in an effort to be more like Jesus, the master teacher, then first we must understand a few important principles behind His parables.

I. The Audience of Jesus’ Parables

In verse 11 of our text, Jesus puts his hearers into two distinct groups. The first is “you,” a plural pronoun whose antecedent is found in verse 10: His followers along with the twelve. We will call them the “insiders.” These were the ones who had come to Jesus, seen His miraculous power and heard His authoritative teaching, and in faith, believed in Him and chosen to follow Him.

They represent one group of hearers. The second group, Jesus calls “those who are outside.” We will call these the “outsiders.” They too had come to Jesus, seen His miraculous power, and heard His authoritative teaching, but in unbelief, they rejected His claims and refused to follow Him.

We were introduced to this dichotomy of insiders and outsiders in the previous chapter of Mark — Chapter 3.There we saw that the insiders were those who were gathered around Jesus, sitting at His feet, listening to His word, and committed to doing the will of His Father. The outsiders were those who could not get to Him. They weren’t prevented because of the size of the crowd, but because of their erroneous conception of Jesus. The outsiders were those scribes who had concluded He was demonic, and even His own family who had concluded He was a lunatic.

The insiders and the outsiders heard the same parables, but the insiders got something else. They got an explanation. They got additional information to help them decipher the meaning behind the story. If the parables are so self-explanatory as some would have us believe, why was this necessary? Were the disciples just extraordinarily dense, or were the parables ambiguous and somewhat difficult to understand?

Take one parable for example: In Matthew 13:33, Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven (the rhyme is unintentional, because in Greek, heaven and leaven don’t come close to rhyming), which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened." Is the meaning of this parable transparent upon first hearing? Some of you will say it is perfectly clear because you have studied the Scriptures to some degree in the past, and you know about leaven spreading, and all that. But, put yourselves into the shoes of Jesus’ original audience. Put their ears on. Is it clear? Most of us would say, if we were honest, “No, what in the world is He talking about?” And that is exactly the way Jesus’ hearers, even the insiders, responded. So, for them, Jesus gave further explanation when they were alone.

The outsiders just got the story, and no explanation. They were left to make of it whatever they could. And if those who believed in Him had a hard time making sense of the parables, we need not wonder if the outsiders got it. But they were given no explanations, no further information. Just a story. Jesus says in v11, “Those who are outside get everything in parables.” The Gospel According to Matthew says, “All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, and He did not speak to them without a parable.”

So who was the audience of the parables? The insiders and the outsiders. These are the only two people in the world today. Those who are inside with Christ by faith and those who are outside because of unbelief. Each group heard the parables, but only those inside were given the explanation to make sure they understood. Why is that? The answer is found in another Principle.

II. The Purpose of Jesus’ Parables

Why did Jesus teach in parables? Was it to make the truth easier to swallow? Was it to make the lesson more memorable? And why did He only explain it to the insiders, rather than to the outsiders also? Weren’t the outsiders the ones who needed the explanation more? Jesus answers the question for us.

In explaining why the outsiders get everything in parables, Jesus quotes from Isaiah 6:9-10.

“While seeing, they may see and not perceive, and while hearing they may hear and not understand, otherwise they might return and be forgiven.”

Mark offers a condensed version of the quotation, but it is sufficient to point us there. In that passage, Isaiah responds to the call of God to go and preach God’s word to a people whom God knew beforehand would reject the message. And when Isaiah asks, “How long, O Lord?” he is told to proclaim it until judgment falls, but he is comforted to know that there will be a believing remnant who will be like a stump when a great tree is felled. Isaiah is told that this stump will be like a holy seed from which new growth will occur.

Like Isaiah, Jesus came into the world to proclaim God’s truth to a people who would not receive it. It is written in John 1:11 that Jesus came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But He kept proclaiming, knowing that there would be those who did receive Him, and from those, the Kingdom of God would be established. John says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God.” These are the insiders and the outsiders. And the parables of Jesus became a sifter of His hearers, some of whom received God’s truth and others of whom rejected it.

Remember Dodd’s definition of parables we cited earlier: they leave the mind in sufficient doubt about their precise application to tease the mind into active thought. Some who heard the parables found their interests provoked enough to mine for the truth of what was being said. Others didn’t. Though they saw Jesus’ miracles, they didn’t perceive the truth of what they signified. Though they heard His parables, they didn’t understand their deeper meaning about Christ and His Kingdom. Their eyes and ears were closed to truth, and as a result their hearts were as hard as desert road, preventing the seed of God’s word from penetrating and producing faith in their hearts.

Remember, that is the context of this passage – it occurs in between the parable of the soils and the explanation of that parable. That is why Jesus says in essence in v13, “If you don’t get the parable of the soils, you can’t get any of the rest of them.” The parable of the soils is the key to all the parables. Some get it and some don’t. Some get it, but they don’t let the truth go deep enough into their hearts to produce enduring faith. Some get it, but it gets choked out because of the worries of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and their desire for other things. These outsiders are the ones to whom Jesus was referring when He spoke about the seed falling beside the road. The insiders are the ones represented by the good soil, where the seed is able to sink in deeply and produce a fruitful harvest of faith.

“Jesus told parables to sift the crowd, separating out the hard-hearted from those who had the heart to understand.”[2] He was content to let them walk away. He never chased them down. By veiling the truth in a parable, He was mercifully protecting the hard-hearted from the guilt of rejecting the plainly spoken truth of God. But those who endured the sifting demonstrated that their hearts were ready to receive truth and respond in faith and action.

Why did “the insiders” endure the sifting? Jesus tells us in verse 11: “To you has been given the mystery of the Kingdom of God.” It was not because of some quality in them, but because of a gift they were given. It was because of the grace of God. Why is it that some of you have responded to the Gospel of Christ while so many others you know have heard it and not responded? R. C. Sproul writes, “Did we exercise faith in Christ because we are more intelligent than they are? … Did we respond to the gospel positively because we are better or more virtuous than our friends? We all know the answers to these questions. I cannot adequately explain why I came to faith in Christ and some of my friends did not. I can only look to the glory of God’s grace toward me, a grace I did not deserve then and do not deserve now.”[3] It wasn’t because somehow, within myself, I ascertained God’s truth while others did not. No, it wasn’t because I got it, but because He gave it to me.

The mystery of the Kingdom is Jesus Christ. A mystery, in the biblical sense, is not some inscrutable and esoteric secret, but rather something that was hidden in days past that can’t be grasped by human wisdom, but is revealed to us by God Himself. The mystery of all the ages is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was there all along, but it was hidden in types and shadows, in prophecies and poems. But in Christ, the mystery was unveiled. He is the embodiment of God God’s Kingdom, and His words and His works point us to that reality if we have the faith to receive it. But that faith comes to us as the result of God’s gracious seed-planting in our lives. When He does, the seed is able to grow and thrive in good soil. Good soil is found where God has graciously plowed us and prepared us to see the pictures, to hear the parables, and then to inquire, to dig deeper into His truth. And when we inquire of Him, He will answer us and move us beyond pictures and parables into the deeper mystery – the mystery of the gospel of salvation in Christ. But if our hearts are hard and our eyes and ears are shut to God’s truth, then we will never turn to Him in faith and repentance, and never find that mystery. The tragedy is not that we go on in ignorance, when wisdom is offered us, but rather that we remain in our sins when forgiveness is offered us. We remain outside His kingdom, when He has graciously offered us entrance through the door of faith.

So if today, you find yourself an outsider to God’s truth, inquire of Him, for He has promised us in His word that if we will call out to Him, He will answer us and will tell us great and mighty things which we do not know (Jer 33:3). It may well be the case that this day, God is graciously sowing the seed of His truth on your heart. Our prayer would be that the soil would receive it and allow it to spring up in faith that you may enter in and be one of His insiders to whom this mystery is given.

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[1] C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (New York: Scribners, 1961), 5.

[2] Michael Simpson, Permission Evangelism (Colorado Springs: NexGen, 2003), 54.

[3] R. C. Sproul, Grace Unknown: The Heart Of Reformed Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997), 151.

The Sower, The Seed, and The Soil: Mark 4:1-9, 13-20

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A week ago, Bill and I were traveling back from a wonderful weekend conference in Philadelphia, and planned our return so that we might visit Capitol Hill Baptist Church, where Mark Dever is the pastor. After worship, we walked down Capitol Hill to the National Gallery of Art, where we had lunch in the subterranean Cascade Café. Following lunch, I suggested to Bill that we walk around the Gallery and see some of the timeless pieces of art on display there. As we entered one room of the gallery, I couldn’t help chuckling, for there, a delightfully pleasant and diminutive little lady was teaching a group of children about the paintings on display. This particular one was Mary Cassat’s piece from the late nineteenth century entitled, “The Boating Party.” The painting depicts a man, woman and small child in a boat. The lady said to the children, “What do you see in this painting?” And they were calling out, “A man rowing a boat!” “A baby on her mother’s lap!” She said, “How would you feel if you were in this boat?” And the children said, “Sleepy!” and “Calm!” and “Scared!” She said to them, “What sounds would you hear if you were in this boat?” And they said, “Wind blowing!” and “Waves crashing” and “The baby crying!” Now, the baby is not crying in the picture, but that is what one of the kids said. And they made the noises that they thought they might hear. On and on this went, and I was chuckling. Now what is so funny about this? I was laughing because it seemed like many Sunday School classes and Bible studies I have attended over the years.

In these classes, a passage or portion of a passage is read, and then the leader says to the class, “Now tell me, John, what does the passage mean to you?” And John says something in response. “OK, that is interesting. Now Mary, what does the passage mean to you?” And she says something altogether different. “Wow, thanks Mary, that was really interesting. Now who else wants to say what it means to them?” And on and on it goes. And no matter how ridiculous a person’s answer to the questions may be, the leader never says, “Well, I think you misunderstood that passage,” but always, “OK, that’s interesting.” And everyone leaves thinking that the Bible can mean whatever you want it to mean.

In the first part of the passage we read today, Jesus tells a story about a sower who went out to sow seed. But Jesus does not say, “Now class, tell me what this story means to you.” Instead, in the latter part of the passage, Jesus tells us what it means to Him, and whatever it means to Him is what it really means. Now Jesus doesn’t always explain the parables – at least we don’t have record of any other explanations except this one. And not everyone hears the explanation, here only the disciples do. But this explanation is sufficient to tell us that the message of the Bible is not up to us to determine for ourselves, but rather it is dependent on what God intends for His word to mean. We cannot apply the word to our own lives until we understand the Word as God has spoken it.

The first word of the parable we have read today is Listen. The last word of the parable is hear. The parable itself seems on the surface to be nothing more than a lesson in agriculture – How to Sow Seed for a Harvest. Or perhaps a negative lesson – Why The Harvest Fails. But in the explanation, He tells us that the meaning is something far deeper and far more significant. It has to do with hearing and listening, and responding to the Word of God. While all these are interrelated, they are distinct. One can hear without listening, and one can listen without responding. And there are differing levels of commitment in our responses to the Word. So, let us Listen, and let us hear, and let us respond to the Word of God set forth in this parable and its explanation, that the seed of God’s word might produce a bountiful harvest in our lives.

Now it is vitally important for us to see that the seed is the Word of God. Jesus tells us that plainly in v14. Now I would like for you to all know what this Word is, and hopefully you already do. I happened to drop in at a church several months ago and noticed on their publications the phrase, “Seeking God’s Truth.” Here at Immanuel, we are not seeking His truth. We have found it, and we are proclaiming it. When Jesus prayed in John 17:17, He prayed that the Father might sanctify His people according to the Truth, and then He said, “Thy Word is Truth.” The Word of God is Truth. But what is the Word of God? Where can we find it? In Isaiah 55, God says that His Word goes forth from His mouth. Jesus quoted Deuteronomy in His temptations, saying, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” So the Word of God is that which comes from His mouth. In 2 Timothy 3:16, the Apostle Paul says, “All Scripture is inspired by God.” The Greek word he uses there is theopneustas, which the NIV translates literally, saying, “God-breathed.” The breath of God that proceeds from His mouth carrying His very Word is found in the Scriptures! And not just in some Scripture, as if to say that the Bible contains the Word of God, for Paul says all Scripture, a Greek word being used pasagrafe, which is to say “every part of the whole.” No, the Bible does not merely contain the Word of God, it IS the Word of God. And when you are involved in the task of proclaiming it, publishing it, or otherwise distributing that Word of God, then you are sowing seed into the soil of those who hear you.

Jesus was doing this very thing in the passage. Earlier, in Mark 3:9, Jesus was faced with another crowd, and had a boat prepared as a means of escaping them. Here, the boat becomes a means of engaging them. This boat became a floating pulpit for Him. We can’t know precisely the location where this event took place, but there is a place just south of Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee where the land gently slopes down to a bay forming a natural amphitheater. This has come to be known as the “Bay of Parables,” and assumed to be the location, for scientists conducted studies and determined that a human voice could effortlessly reach thousands of hearers on the shore. But Jesus knew they would not all listen, they would not all hear, and they would not all respond in the same way.

In the four parts of this parable, Jesus explains that the four soils represent four different groups of people, all of whom are said to “hear the word.” They have that much in common. However, each one hears and responds to the word differently.

We begin by looking at …

I. The Stolen Seed (vv4, 15)

As the sower goes out to sow, so wide and so broadly is he casting his seed that some of it falls beside the road. Here on this hardened path, there is no soil present so the seed cannot take root. It lays there to become food for the birds which come and take it away. If you want to see this in action, go out to the street where you live and dump a pile of seeds on the road. Soon, birds will swarm in and feast on that seed and it will be gone before you know it.

Jesus says some people hear the word in this way. So hardened is their heart that the seed of His word cannot take root—indeed there is nothing there for the Word to root in. And no sooner is it heard but that Satan comes and immediately takes away the word. They hear the word, but their hearts are so hard that it can never sink in, and they soon forget whatever it was that they heard.

Satan knows the power of God’s Word. He knows that it is powerful to produce faith, as Paul says in Romans 10:17. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. He knows that the Word is powerful to save, as Romans 1:16 says, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation.” So, if Satan can keep the individual satisfied in their hard-heartedness, satisfied that they have done their duty to be at church or to have “heard” the word in some way, and he can steal that word away immediately lest it slip through some crack in the concrete of their heart and mind, then he is able to keep them in his bondage.

So this scene is a warning to those hard-hearted hearers of the Word. Break up that pavement that guards your heart, lest the Word of God which you hear become only a feast for Satan who continues to deceive you and keep you separated from God. The more you hear the word, and do not allow it to take root in your life, the harder the path to your heart will become, and in the end, you will perish eternally, your life having become nothing more than a serving table for Satan. What a terrible epitaph that would be. But such is the tragedy of the stolen seed from the hard-hearted hearer.

II. The Scorched Seed (vv4-6, 16-17)

As the sower sows the seed, Jesus says some of it fell on rocky ground. On this rocky ground, there is soil, but not to a sufficient depth to stabilize the sprout once it begins to grow. And notice, that the growth is immediate. Because the soil is shallow, the seed is able to quickly get the water and sunlight it needs to sprout. But because the roots are unable to go deep into the soil, it becomes scorched and withered by the heat of the sun.

In His explanation of this parable, Jesus points out that the individuals represented by the rocky soil have heard the word, and immediately, they received it with joy. What a delight it is for us to see someone respond so enthusiastically to the Word of God! But how often have you been disappointed to see such a person begin to fall away from following Christ in a relatively short amount of time? Jesus uses the same word immediately to describe their falling away as He uses to describe their reception of the Word. I have seen it very often. Why does this happen? Why does a person who seems to delight themselves in God so soon fall away? Sometimes they offer us reasons – someone treated them badly, their circumstances in life are so difficult that they can’t make any real commitments, etc. Sometimes we never hear from them, but offer excuses up for them, and often we look at externals as if the person were a victim of someone else’s actions. But Jesus says that the problem is not outside of the individual, it is inside.

He says that they have no firm root in themselves. Because the soil of their hearts is so shallow, it cannot sustain true spiritual growth. When affliction and persecution arises, and Jesus promises us that both will arise, the faith of this individual withers and fades away. Notice that He does not just indicate that the person experiences hardships. Every human being will experience hardships. We are all prone to sickness and suffering. Jesus is speaking here of a particular variety of affliction and persecution. He says that they are afflicted and persecuted because of the Word. The Word makes demands on us. And those demands are not always comfortable to bear. There may be a life-change that God’s Word calls us to make. There may be a difficult and unpopular stance we are called to take, and persecution will arise because we have stood unwavering on the Word. But when a person is unwilling to endure those afflictions and persecutions that come our way because of God’s Word, Jesus applies a frightening label to this individual – He says they are temporary.

This raises the question of what we believe concerning the permanence of salvation, the doctrine of eternal security, or as it is commonly called, the notion of “Once Saved, Always Saved.” Here I believe that our little cherished Baptist phrase has done a great disservice to many individuals, many churches, and the witness of Christ in the community. Let me say without hesitation or apology that I believe the Bible teaches that once a person is genuinely saved, He or she is saved forever. Their salvation is permanent; they are eternally secure. Scriptures I would point to which teach this are: Let’s use our Bibles here. Turn to…

John 10:27-29

Romans 8:1, 29-39

But, I am also not reluctant or ashamed to say that the Bible plainly teaches that not every who claims to be saved genuinely is saved. Again, turning in our Bibles, look at …

Matthew 7:21-23

1 Jn 2:19

2 Cor 13:5

So, while I would say that on the surface, I agree with, “Once saved, always saved,” I would deny that all who call themselves saved have ever been saved. The grand mark of saving faith is perseverance in that faith, not momentary episodes of temporary enthusiasm. In other words, if it is temporary, then it is not authentic, for authentic saving faith is permanent.

How do you respond to the Word? If you hear it and receive it immediately with joy, it is no sure sign that you are genuinely converted. The evidence of your salvation will be demonstrated in how you endure the afflictions and persecutions that come your way in this life because of the Word. But if those things scorch the seed of God’s Word in the shallow soil of your heart, and you fall away, then you demonstrate that you were never converted in the first place. So, we must cultivate the soil of our hearts as we do our gardens. No one plants a garden without first going to great effort to rid the soil of rocks that will prevent the seed from rooting deeply into the ground. It is grueling effort of plowing and shoveling and repeating over and over again until there is sufficient depth of soil to receive the seed and produce the harvest. So we must be with our hearts. We must strive to keep ourselves sensitive to the Word of God, and strong in the midst of tribulation, relying on God’s grace and power to work through us for endurance, lest we bear that shameful label of temporary.

III. The Strangled Seed (vv7, 18-19)

As the sower was sowing his seed, some of it fell among thorns. Though the seed may sprout and grow, it will not produce fruit. There will be no external demonstration of the vitality of the plant. Because the weeds and thorns are able to grow faster and higher than the cultivated crops they soon overshadowed and choked out the seed. Anyone who has ever dealt with weeds in their gardens or flower beds knows that we must always be on guard against weeds. I wish we could find a market for kudzu. I have driven past places where the kudzu has not only taken over the fields, but the barns, the cars, and everything else in its path. You aren’t going to get anything to grow there, because the kudzu will choke it out.

Jesus explains that this kind of thorny ground represents those who hear the word, but there is no indication of any response on their part. Perhaps they received the word, perhaps they didn’t. It’s so hard to tell, because there isn’t any fruit being produced in the person’s life. They are virtually indistinguishable from the unsaved person’s life. They might call themselves a Christian, and I suppose only God knows if they really are. But there is no manifestation of God working in and through them. Why does this happen? Because the thorns strangle the seed of God’s word and prevent it from producing fruit in that person’s life.

What are the thorns? Jesus identifies a triumvirate of thorny seed stranglers in verse 19: the worries of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and desires for other things. These things demand our earnest attention here, for our Lord says that these three things are able to strangle out the growth of the Word of God in our lives and prevent us from bearing fruit for Him. There may be green leaves that indicate some presence of life in the seedling, but there will be no fruit. That fruit, Paul says in Galatians 5:22-23, that indicates the fullness of the Spirit in us is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Where the Spirit of God is bringing growth to the Word of God in our lives, this will be the fruit we bear. But God has sovereignly determined that where we allow ourselves to be consumed by these thorny seed-stranglers, He will not compete. He doesn’t have to. So infinitely greater is He than anything we encounter in this life, He will allow us to learn our lesson the hard way.

The worries of this world will do it. One cannot live in this life without facing stressors, but danger arises when those stressors begin to distract us from the one thing that is important – our walk with God. When that happens, the worries of this world have strangled the seed of God’s word.

And the deceitfulness of riches will do it just as quickly. Here me carefully here. The Bible does not say that money is the root of all evil. There are many great and wonderful things that can be done with money, and much of the work of God’s Kingdom involves our careful management of money. But the Bible does say in 1 Timothy 6:10 that “the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” It is so deceitful. We are so easily led astray by it. So we must always be on guard against the persistent temptation to elevate the accumulation of riches over the demonstration of righteousness. Many will awake to find that their pursuit of the American dream has actually been a nightmare of the most severe consequences.

Desires for other things can also strangle the fruit-bearing growth of the Word of God in our lives. You should know that God has so wired us that we will only find true satisfaction of our desires in Him alone. Augustine said, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until we rest in Thee.” Everything in this world which we desire for ourselves has a built-in disappointment factor. Have you noticed that? Whether it is a possession, a relationship, an activity, or anything else, have you ever set your sights on something and said, “Ah, if only I could have that,” “If only I could be with that person,” “If only I could do this thing or that, then I would have it made!” And God forbid that we should lay ahold of that thing, that it should be actualized in our experience, what will we always find? It does not satisfy. It never can. God has created you so that the only thing that will satisfy the deepest longings of your heart is Him.

C. S. Lewis said in The Weight of Glory, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” But we aren’t pleased. There is always that sneaking suspicion that we need just a little more. The world parades these objects like bait before our eyes, promising us fulfillment and satisfaction if only we will take a bite. But be warned – there is a hook in that bait! It will not deliver—it cannot. Over every fountain that promises satisfaction in this life, we should mark the words of Jesus which He spoke to the woman at the well in John 4:13-14: “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

Do you want contentment and satisfaction in this life? You can have it, but it is not found in anything this life affords. It is found only in God, whom you can only know through Jesus Christ. And following hard after other desires, being consumed by the worries of this world, and being deceived by riches will only thwart that satisfaction as it strangles the seed of God’s word in your life and prevents you from bearing fruit for Him. Your life will be qualitatively no different from the average pagan around you. So we must search the soil of our hearts and look for the presence of these thorny weeds, and where we find them we must pull them up from the roots. We must fight against them with all the effort the grace of God will supply. We must pray, we must make it a matter of utter desperation and pray as if our life depends on it, that God would guard us from these seed-strangling snares and allow His word to abide in us richly to bear that fruit that marks us as His disciples.

IV. The Successful Seed (v8, 20)

As the sower sows his seed, some of it falls on good soil, and that seed which falls on good soil will produce a harvest, thirty, sixty, a hundred-fold. No farmer in that day would have experienced results of this measure with the best seed in the best of soils. He would have counted himself immeasurably blessed to see a ten-fold increase. But this seed is far superior to any garden variety seed. This seed is the matchless Word of God. And Jesus says that where it comes to rest in good soil, that seed will be accepted and there will be a bountiful crop of spiritual fruit in our lives.

So, how do you hear the Word of God? You have heard it today. What response will there be in your life to it? Will it lie fallow on the hard ground of your hard-heart, and there be stolen away by Satan as a bird plucks seed from the road? Will you respond immediately with joyful enthusiasm, only to fall away just as quickly because your faith in that Word is temporary? Will you hear it and allow it to take root, only to have its fruit strangled out of your life by worry, by the love of money, and by the desire for the bait that this world dangles before your eyes? And in so doing, will you allow your life to appear as if Christ makes no difference whatsoever? Or will you allow it to sink its roots deeply into your heart, and with persevering faith, see the Holy Spirit producing fruit of righteousness in you as you live for Christ and serve Him?

Perhaps today, the seed of this word falls on the soil of your heart, and it is calling you to salvation in Christ. Every human being stands separated because of our sin from the God who made us and loves us. But God has come to rescue us in the person of Jesus Christ, and promises that whoever will turn from sin and trust that Christ has died in your place and ever lives to save you will receive forgiveness and eternal life. Now what will become of that seed in your life?

Maybe you are a sower of this seed. You are sharing Christ and proclaiming God’s word regularly, but you aren’t seeing any harvest. Maybe you aren’t, but you know you should be. Well, be encouraged, brothers and sisters. It may be that only ¼ of the seed we sow will produce fruit. But God will judge the hearer for his response. Your task is to sow, and if you keep doing it, there will be a harvest.

Or it could be that today, this seed is cracking open in your heart to convict you of a persistent habit of soil inspection in others without examining your own. You know, this time we’ve spent today isn’t really about you and me. It is about you and God. And it isn’t about one who isn’t here. Don’t worry what someone who doesn’t hear this word would do with it. You have heard it. The seed has been sown into your life. What kind of soil will it find there?

Reading Over My Shoulder: Bock, The Missing Gospels

Following are some quotes and paraphrases from Darrell Bock, The Missing Gospels:

Karen King: “The variety of phenomena classified as ‘Gnostic’ simply will not support a single, monolithic definition, and in fact, none of the primary materials fits the standard typological definition.”

Gnostic texts reflect a set of religious ideas within the same family of concerns.

There is no single, “magical” trait that guarantees a Gnostic presence.

The issue is not which one thing counts, but what does the whole work reflect.

Gnostic works share a common general outlook on the world that we can describe and define.

Hans-Josef Klauck: “We have no literary testimonies to a developed gnosis that can be dated indubitably to the first century CE or even earlier. The unambiguous attestation of gnosis by means of quotations by non-gnostic authors of the original documents begins, at the earliest, at the start of the second century CE; this fact would speak in favor of the Church history hypothesis [i.e. that the church belief was first and the alternative of Gnosticism followed—DB].”

Thoughts on Middle Knowledge and Divine Inspiration

I get many questions regarding my view on Middle Knowledge (MK). Admittedly, mine is a somewhat unique view, for I do not hold to the libertarian view of human freedom that most MK folks hold. I believe that holding to that particular variety of MK underestimates the extent of our own depravity and the effectiveness of the Holy Spirit acting upon a human agent. So, I hold to a view of freedom that is much more similar (though not exact) to the classical Reformed view. I would label it "soft compatibilism." My view is more akin to the view of Terrance Tiessen which he labels, "MK Calvinism" in his excellent book Providence and Prayer.

At the PCRT this weekend, D. A. Carson mentioned in his excellent treatment of Matthew 11 that God has "contingent knowledge," and then said without elaboration that this was not equivalent to MK, and someone could question him about the distinction in the Q&A time. I did just that. I was disappointed that the question was not given to Carson as I directed it, but to R.C. Sproul. I was even further disappointed when Sproul caricatured MK with a straw-man argument that equated it with Open Theism. He dismissed the view curtly by alluding to Turretin (whom I have read thoroughly on the subject of MK), who said, (paraphrasing Turretin, but quoting Sproul exactly) "God knows all contingencies, but knows nothing contingently." Thankfully, Carson elaborated, and took issue only with the position of William Lane Craig on the idea of libertarian freedom, for if one grants libertarian freedom, one forces God's knowledge to be contingent on human activity. He paraphrased Jonathan Edwards, saying something to the effect that human beings are held accountable by God because we do what we want to do. While that sounds awfully libertarian, knowing Edwards, it was to be understood in a compatibilist sense.

Let me refer to Craig here on explaining precisely what MK involves. I am quoting extensively, paraphrasing where I see fit to condense, from Craig's article in Philosophia Christi (the journal of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, Series 2, Volume 1, Number 1, 1999, pp 45-82), entitled "Men Moved By the Holy Spirit Spoke From God (2 Peter 1:21): A Middle Knowledge Perspective on Biblical Inspiration."

God's counterfactual knowledge involves His knowledge of what some creature would freely do, were he placed in a specific set of circumstances. "If God has such knowledge explanitorily prior (*as opposed to chronologically prior -- we do not want to assign chronological progression to the divine deliberations of God; the ordering is logical, or explanitory, rather than in a sense of time*JRR) to His creative decree then such knowledge is what theologians have called MK."

"The doctrine of MK proposes to furnish an analysis of divine knowledge in terms of three logical moments. Although whatever God knows, He has known from eternity, so that there is no temporal succession in God's knowledge, nonetheless, there does exist a sort of logical succession in God's knowledge in that His knowledge of certain propositions is conditionally or explanitorily prior to His knowledge of certain other propositions."

"In the first, unconditioned moment God knows all possibilia, not only all individual essences, but also all possible worlds. Molina calls such knowledge 'natural knowledge' because the content of such knowledge is essential to God and in no way depends on the free decisions of his will. By means of His natural knowledge, then, God has knowledge of every contingent state of affairs which could possible obtain and of what the exemplification of the individual essence of any free creature could freely choose to do in any such state of affiars that should be actual."

"In the second moment, God possesses knowledge of certain true counterfactual propositions, including counterfactuals of creaturely freedom. That is to say, He knows what contingent states of affairs would obtain if certain antecedent states of affairs were to obtain; whereas by His natural knowledge God knew what any free creature could do in any set of circumstances, now in this second moment God knows what any free creature would do in any set of circumstances."... "God thus knows that were He to actualize certain states of affairs, then certain other contingent states of affairs would obtain. Molina calls this counterfactual knowledge 'MK' because it stands in between the first and third moment in divine knowledge. ... Such knowledge does not depend on any decision of the divine will; God does not determine which counterfactuals of creaturely freedom are true or false."

I will interject an illustration here to differentiate between natural and MK. God knows, by virtue of His natural knowledge, that if Fred is looking at a dessert menu, Fred could choose apple pie, chocolate cake, or ice cream. By this knowledge, God also knows that there are certain scenarios where Fred would never see a dessert menu, and would not have that choice to make. By virtue of MK, He knows that Fred will choose apple pie if he is indeed faced with a dessert menu.

"Intervening between the second and third moments of divine knowledge stands God's free decree to actualize a world known by Him to be realizable on the basis of His MK. ... By a free decision, God decrees to actualize one of those worlds known to Him through His MK. According to Molina, this decision is the result of a complete and unlimited deliberation by means of which God considers and weighs every possible circumstance and its ramifications and decides to settle on the particular world He desires. Hence, logically prior, if not chronologically prior, to God's creation of the world is the divine deliberation concerning which world to actualize."

"In the third and final moment God possess knowledge of all remaining propositions that are in fact true in the actual world. Such knowledge is denominated 'free knowledge' by Molina because it is logically posterior to the decision of the divine will to actualize a world. ... He could have decreed to actualize a different world. Had He done so, the content of His free knowledge would be different."

This has "profound implications for divine providence," for by virtue of His MK, God is able to "exercise providential control of free creatures without abridging the free exercise of their wills." He is able to decree certain circumstances to exist which will involve certain free creatures, thus bringing about indirectly the events which He desired and foreknew, but He does so through the decisions and actions of those free creatures.

Before jumping to oppose this doctrine from a Reformed position, consider how even such a stalwart Calvinist as B. B. Warfield applies this very line of logic to the doctrine of divine inspiration of Scripture (cited more fully in Craig's article): "There is to be considered ... the preparation of the material which forms the subject-matter of these books: in a scared history, say, for example, to be narrated; or in a religious experience which may serve as a norm for record; or in a logical elaboration of the contents of revelation whcih may be placed at the service of God's people; or in the progressive revelation of Divine truth itself, supplying their culminating contents. And there is the preparation of the men to write these books to be considered, a preparation physical, intellectual, spiritual, which must have attended them throughout their whole lives, and, indeed, must have had its beginning in their remote ancestors, and the effect of which was to bring the right men to the right places at the right times, with the right endowments, impulses, and acquirements, to write just the books which were designed for them. ... If God wished to give His people a series of letters like Paul's He prepared a Paul to write them, and the Paul He brought to the task was a Paul who spontaneously would write just such letters."

However, God is not "extraordinarily lucky that He finds Himself in a world in which the writers of Scripture just happen to freely respond to their circumstances (including the promptings of his Spirit) in just the right ways as to produce the Bible. This is incompatible with a robust view of divine providence." Certainly other individuals have written and said things that were irrefutably true at other times, other places, and for other purposes, and we do not consider their utterances as Scripture. For instance, suppose I write down the statement, "At 4:52 PM on Tuesday, May 1, 2007, I am seated at my desk typing these very words." This statement is just as true as John 3:16. However, there is a qualitative difference. My writing is not inspired by God and is not Scripture. Craig says, "What distinguishes a writing as Scripture is God's intent that that writing be His gracious word to mankind." So, he goes on to say, "Infallibility is insufficient to make a human utterance into the Word of God." It is Scripture, "because God in His providence prepared such a book to be His Word to us."

In conclusion, Craig states, "Because God knew the relevant counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, He was able to decree a world containing just those circumstances and persons such that the authors of Scripture would freely compose their respective writings, whcih God intended to be His gracious Word to us. In the providence of God, the Bible is thus both the Word of God and the word of man."

My disagreement with Craig's commitment to libertarian freedom would require nothing more than some minor tweaking of anything he has stated in this lengthy article, the surface of which I have merely scratched in these citations (I commend to the reader the entire article, and to those with a penchant for philosophical thought, a subscription to Philosophia Christi). Immediately, the usefulness of just such an article becomes evident when one surveys the writings of the most respected evangelical theologians on the subject of inspiration. Neither the major monographs on the subject nor the systematic theologies want to delve into the means of inspiration, and offer little in terms of a definition. They typically merely state what inspiration is NOT, and then offer a slogan like, "The Bible is God's divinely inspired Word, penned by human writers, but not in such a way as would require us to hold to a mechanical dictation theory of inspiration." This does not help us in defending the doctrine against its detractors. It merely asserts what inspiration is NOT. Even when some writers (e.g. Warfield) do go further, their statements sound awfully close to MK, though their most ardent supporters would want to reject that label with all vehemence. Only a view that allows for MK can be positively stated to touch on the means of inspiration that removes dictation and good fortune from consideration.

I have had three aims in this post. First, to elucidate exactly what MK is. Second, to demonstrate that it is espoused by even those who refuse to admit it. Third, to demonstrate that it is the only viable explanation we have for this subject of the inspiration of Scripture, not to mention a host of other theological issues. I hope I have done so, and the reader who has endured to the end of this lengthy post may be the judge. Feel free to comment and let's dialog as iron sharpening iron to further clarify our statements.

God's Word for Single Christians

John Piper has made available his sermon from April 29, entitled "Single in Christ: A Name Better Than Sons and Daughters." Listen, watch, or read it here. I believe it will be of encouragement to all those in God's family who are single and somehow feel as if they are missing out on God's richest blessings. No one would want to slight the indescribable blessing that marriage and child-rearing is, yet God's Word has promised equally wonderful blessings to those who are married to Him alone. I post this here with hopes that it will encourage those who are single and frequently read the blog.