We should listen to Jesus

Matthew 13:1–9

Jesus told a parable. It was about a farmer. Many people listened to Jesus. He wanted them to believe what he taught.

Here, Matthew started something that was new in his book. He gave an account of Jesus’ parables. When Jesus taught before this time, he used some little parables. (Read Matthew 5:13; 6:26-30; 7:24-27 and 9:16-17.) But now parables were important. They were Jesus’ main way to teach the people.

There was another change in Jesus’ work here. It was an important change. The religious rulers had made a final decision about Jesus. It was this. Jesus was from the devil (Matthew 12:24). Jesus knew what this meant. They would never receive him. (Read Matthew 21:31–32.) They had chosen not to accept him. So the time had come to leave them. (Read Matthew 12:15.) Some people would hear him gladly. He was ready to go to them now. (Read Matthew 12:16–21.)

This explained something. Jesus changed the place where he taught. It had been the synagogue. Now he went to the beach (Matthew 13:1). He also used a different method to teach. It would benefit the people who wanted to obey him. But it would make it harder for those who refused to accept him. (Read the explanation of Matthew 13:10–17 below.)

There was a large crowd of people. So Jesus found a suitable place to speak to them (Matthew 13:2). Then he began to tell the story. Maybe a farmer was working on one of the hills near there. Certainly, the hearers would know exactly what Jesus was talking about.

In ancient Israel, the fields were long and narrow. There was a path for the public between each field. Because people used the path so much, it became very hard. The farmer scattered the seed by hand. So it was natural that some seed would fall on the path. The seed might be very good seed. But it could never grow when it fell there.

Most of the hilly areas in Israel were rocky. The soil was not very deep. Hard rock was just under the surface. So there was not much water in the soil. A seed would begin to grow in this kind of soil. But, without water, it would soon die. A good farmer would not throw seed where there were weeds. But, weeds always seem to grow more quickly than good seed. So the strong weeds would soon kill the good seed. The farmer would plough after he had scattered the seed. This was usual at that time. This made it harder for the good seed to grow.

But there was the seed that fell into good soil. It produced a harvest. Jesus gave different sizes of the crop. The sizes that he gave were 100, 60 or 30. In the ancient country called Israel, the size of 10 would be good. But Jesus might not be referring to the whole crop. He might be referring to the grains that each seed produced. If so, farmers might expect these higher numbers. But the numbers were not important. Jesus was teaching about growth in spiritual matters. And all spiritual growth should make people glad.

Questions

• Think of the different kinds of soil that are in this parable. Do any of them describe what you are like? In what ways are you like them?
• Write your own parable. Make it fit with modern times. But show the same truths as Jesus did. How do these truths affect us today?
• Think about the farmer, the seed, the soil and the harvest. What can we learn from them? Apply these things to yourself first. Next, apply them to the people who are in your church. Then apply them to people who are not in the church. How does this parable help us to understand non-Christians better?