Jeremy L. Berg

“…Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 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. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.” (Mark 4:3-8, 13-20)

Parables are not so much designed to inform but to provoke us and prod us into a place of healthy discomfort.  This place of discomfort is God’s way of giving us a “reality check”, to see where we’re at in relationship to God and the Kingdom.  This parable throws a net over us all, and we’ve no place to run and hide. Each one of us fits somewhere into this story of 4 soils.  The big, eye-opening question is: WHO ARE YOU in this parable?

Chances are we all fit into one of the four categories better than the others.  Here they are:

A. ROADRUNNER FAITH: The first category of people never really hear. Satan immediately snatches it away before the Word can sink down roots and grow into something.

1. Satan doesn’t want you to hear & accept God’s Word
2. Satan distracts us
3. Satan makes us doubt God
4. Satan clouds our understanding with lies

B. ROCKY FAITH: The second category of people have a shallow, feelings-based faith that comes and goes with the seasons.  Think of a powerful weekend retreat, emotionally riveting worship concert or potentially life-changing summer missions trip where you became “on fire for God” and experienced one of those infamous “mountain top” experiences.  Yet, when the feelings fade away, what is left?

I tell my students often that our feelings are notoriously unreliable and often misleading.  Jeremiah declared, “The heart is deceitful above all things.  Who can ever really understand it?”  There is a world of difference between temporary fleeting feelings and rock-solid, deep convictions.  Elsewhere Jesus tells us that he is looking for followers who build their faith on a firm foundation and not in the sinking sand.

I should mention another brand of rocky faith folk: those who have a “fair weather faith.”  Such folks love God when life’s all fine and dandy, and the faith seems to be working in their favor.  Such fair weather folk see the Christian faith as a means to one’s own ends.  “When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.”

C. WEEDY FAITH: While the rocky faith folks succumb to the snares of their own doubt and inward lies of the heart, he weedy faith crowd get shipwrecked by the outward circumstances of life.  They have good soil but sin & temptation break in from the outside and wreak havoc on their faith. The image Jesus uses is of invasive weeds and thorns choking the good plants in one’s inner garden.  The question therefore is: What thorns or sins are choking your faith? Jesus breaks it down into three subcategories:

1. Cares of this life – busyness, worry & stress, distractions, misplaced priorities
2. Lured away by money traps – dependence on wealth, love of money, drive for treasures of earth rather than bounty of heaven
3. Desires for other things – popularity, acceptance, comfort & security, self-lordship, etc.

D. RICH FAITH: But, alas, the Word of the Kingdom does find good soil by the grace of God.  When it does find good soil it produces a strong, robust, healthy faith that bears much Kingdom fruit.  But this is a gift of God’s sovereign will and happens in that mysterious interplay between the faithful SOWER who proclaims the WORD (Seed) of the Kingdom which has a supernatural power and potent life of it’s own, finding a well-cultivated home in good SOIL!

So, which soil best describes your faith at the moment?