When Jesus used the Parable of the Sower to teach his listeners about the necessity of their having a good and receptive heart for hearing the message about the kingdom of God, he was speaking to an agrarian society who well understood what happened when seeds were sown on bad unproductive land. Since many of us live in cities today, is this message dated? Should we try to update it?
It seems like it should be an easy task to just devise two different modern analogies, one for the message of the kingdom of God and one for the hearts and lives of people while maintaining all the subtle inferences contained in the parable. Maybe you can help me, as I am not having much luck.
What could be used in place of the seed? Does Jesus use it because he knows a seed will always produce its own kind and he wants us to know that God’s message does the same?
Or does he use seeds because they alone cannot produce a crop? Without soil and water, the seed will lie dormant for years. It still maintains the what it needs to sprout when the conditions are right, but it won’t until they are. Is the word of God the same in that Bibles sitting on shelves do not produce Christians, but as soon as the word is planted in good hearts and nurtured, Christians are born?
What could we use in place of the ground? Jesus describes four types of soil conditions in the parable, so we need three analogies for conditions that impede or defeat the purposes of the sower and one for the good soil that produces a harvest.
Surely, there must be something in our daily lives that would work as well as this agrarian parable. Could we somehow work in computers, video games, TV, movies, or other digital age devices? We could talk about how these items act like rocky soil or thorns, but what about the good soil? At this point, I confess failure. Nothing seems to act like seed in good soil.
If you can help solve this problem, please let me know. However, I think it may be easier to teach the modern person about seeds and soil. Just grab a cup, fill it with dirt, plant a seed and water it. Then you can see it grow, although it will take a few days to sprout.
It seems like it should be an easy task to just devise two different modern analogies, one for the message of the kingdom of God and one for the hearts and lives of people while maintaining all the subtle inferences contained in the parable. Maybe you can help me, as I am not having much luck.
What could be used in place of the seed? Does Jesus use it because he knows a seed will always produce its own kind and he wants us to know that God’s message does the same?
Or does he use seeds because they alone cannot produce a crop? Without soil and water, the seed will lie dormant for years. It still maintains the what it needs to sprout when the conditions are right, but it won’t until they are. Is the word of God the same in that Bibles sitting on shelves do not produce Christians, but as soon as the word is planted in good hearts and nurtured, Christians are born?
What could we use in place of the ground? Jesus describes four types of soil conditions in the parable, so we need three analogies for conditions that impede or defeat the purposes of the sower and one for the good soil that produces a harvest.
Surely, there must be something in our daily lives that would work as well as this agrarian parable. Could we somehow work in computers, video games, TV, movies, or other digital age devices? We could talk about how these items act like rocky soil or thorns, but what about the good soil? At this point, I confess failure. Nothing seems to act like seed in good soil.
If you can help solve this problem, please let me know. However, I think it may be easier to teach the modern person about seeds and soil. Just grab a cup, fill it with dirt, plant a seed and water it. Then you can see it grow, although it will take a few days to sprout.