Words'nTone

Often referred to as the Parable of the Soils, this story is frequently turned into a metaphor for human psychological attitudes, exploiting the text to get people to change.  This is somewhat understandable, for the word-count favors the soils, so getting soils to change is a reasonable outcome.  Most critical commentary review ancient Palestine plowing methods, usually to show plowing was done after sowing.  Making correspondences to farming can be useful, but it can also obscure the subversive nature of the parable.  Plowing is noticeably absent in the parable.  The soil is passive—it is what it is: shallow, rocky, weed/thorn infested, or good.  Like the first follow-up parable (vv 26-29) where the man does nothing but cast seed upon the soil, growth happens without the aid of the Sower.  The parable does not rhetorically ask, “What kind of soil are you?” nor is there an implied command, “Soil, be more receptive—change!” In fact, the Isaiah referent implies the soil cannot change (Mk 4:11-12).  We are, however, to imagine that the seed is sown without regard to where it lands; nothing else is done.  We are moved away from human intervention to manipulate a harvest to a picture of a Sower who sows despite the outward realities of the conditions where the seed lands.  He sows indiscriminately, lavishly, almost carelessly.  All the while, the listeners/readers become aware that some seed will be wasted and yet there will be a good harvest.  In a retelling of the parable a century after Mark’s Gospel, Justin Martyr exhorts Christians to sow every corner “in hopes that good soil might somewhere be found.”

The imagery of increasing harvest
Among the prophets, harvest imagery is stock language for God restoring His remnant, as a metaphor for the in-breaking of His dominion, and in texts of judgment and eschatological promise.[1] The imagery links the parable to the inauguration of the Kingdom of God and provides an image of continuous growth.  There are not six fields (three poor; three good), but four areas where seed falls with six different results—“a crescendo of momentum,” an obvious progression: No germination (v 4; v 15), some growth, but lacking root quickly withers (vv 5-6; vv 16-17), growth, but no fruit (v 7; vv 18-19), and then three escalating harvests of 30-, 60-, and 100-fold (v 8; v 20).  The unsuccessful seed are described with the aorist as to what is done to them (eaten by birds, scorched by the sun, choked by weeds) or what they failed to do (gave no fruit).  Whereas, the seed that falls in good soil are the subject of an active sentence, with imperfect verbs (ἐδίδου, yielded; ἔφερεν, produced) and present participles denoting continuous growth (ἀναβαίνοντα and αὐξανόμενα).  The harvest imagery supports a realized eschatology, giving the sense of the reality of the Kingdom as it rolls out and increases.

The harvest motif is continued by New Testament authors writing about the Church’s growth.  In Acts, Luke pairs up λόγος (word) and αὐξάνω (increase) to indicate the Gospel’s geo-demographic expansion from Jerusalem to the Gentile world (ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ ηὔξανεν, the increase of the word, Ac 6:7; 12:24; 19:20).  Paul utilizes αὐξάνω (increase) in the context of Church-growth (Ep 2:21; 4:15; Col 1:10; 2:19).[2] Paul also picks up the Mark 4 imagery to explain his own ministry where God causes the growth (αὐξάνω, 1 Co 3:6-7).

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[1] Cf. Ps 126:6; Isa 9:3; 17:5; 27; 55:10-13; 60:21; 65:21-22; 66:20; Jer 2:3; 31:27-28; Hos 2:9; 6:11; Isa 16:9; 17:11; 18:5-6; 24:13; Jer 5:17, 24; 8:20; 12:13; 48:32; 50:16; 51:32-34; Joel 1:11; 3:13 (cf. 4:29); Amos 4:7.  A number of these texts reflect the language of the Exodus stipulations; e.g., the language in Jer 5 is very similar to Isa 1-5, where God’s indictment of His people/rulers reflects social neglect of the poor.

[2] Paul uses both αὐξάνω and καρποφορέω to indicate that the word of truth, the Gospel had expanded into the Colossae region (Col 1:5b-6); also cf. 1 Pe 2:2; 2 Pe 3:18.

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