The Shepherd Staff

In the “Parable of the Soils” (Luke 8:4-18), a farmer is shown planting a crop by casting his seed upon the ground.  This seed falls upon four different kinds of soil:  hardened, rocky, thorn-infested, and good.  The hardened soil prevented the seed from taking root.  The rocky soil was too shallow to hold moisture.  The thorn-infested soil choked the crop from growing.  But the good soil provided the fertility that seed needs to take root and flourish.  Only one kind of soil could produce a crop.  The other three could not.

Jesus then explained the meaning of this parable:  The seed is the Word of God.  The sower represents the one who rightly explains God’s Word to others.  The four “soils” represent four different kinds of hearts responding to God’s Word in four different ways.  Of these four hearts, three bear no fruit (i.e., they do not respond in true faith and obedience).  Only the fourth – “an honest and good heart” – holds fast the Word and bears fruit with perseverance.

Most certainly, the sower can refer to today’s preachers and teachers explaining God’s Word to their audiences.  In this particular setting, however, Jesus is probably referring to Himself as “the Sower,” the seed referring to the presentation of Himself as Israel’s long-awaited Messiah, and the four soils as being the Jewish nation’s different responses (mostly rejection) to His offer.

After the parable is finished, Jesus then challenges the hearer / reader with a caution:

• So take care how you listen; for whoever has, to him more shall be given;

• and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has shall be taken away from him.  (Luke 8:18)

It is the context that helps us understand this verse:

• For whoever has a living faith that motivates him to respond to God’s Word in faith and obedience, to him more understanding shall be given;

• and whoever does not have a living faith that motivates him to respond to God’s Word in faith and obedience, even what understanding he thinks he has shall be taken away from him.

Dear friends, God’s Truth is a stewardship with which you and I have been entrusted:

If we respond to God’s Word with faith and obedience, we will be blessed with an increased capacity to understand and apply even more of God’s Word.  Why?  Because we have shown ourselves to be wise and faithful stewards of the Truth we possess.  The Lord can trust us with more.

But if we have no intention of doing anything with the Truth we know, our capacity to understand God’s Word gradually decreases.  We become “dull of hearing” (Hebrews 5:11).  Why?  Because we have proven ourselves to be foolish, unfaithful stewards of the Truth we know.  We cannot be trusted with more.

This dulled sensitivity to Truth is the worst condition in which an individual can find himself.  It is worse than cancer.  It is worse than paralysis.  It is worse than prison.  It is worse than the loss of a loved one.  All of these involve the physical body and the emotions.  And as grievous as these conditions would be, they are, nevertheless, temporal in nature.  But the inability to understand the Scriptures affects the soul; and the soul is eternal.  If a person cannot understand the Scriptures, then he cannot believe them.  And if he cannot believe God’s Word, he cannot obey God’s Word.  It is, in fact, the most dangerous of situations.

• If he is lost, he will remain lost.  How can one be saved if he does not understand the Gospel?

• If he is saved, his own spiritual growth will be stunted,

• His life will be a detriment to the reputation of God,

• His personal witness to a lost world will not present a clear picture of the Savior they need to know,

• His local church will suffer from his immaturity,

• And he will suffer eternal loss of reward at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

That is why the Lord Jesus added this warning:

So take care how you listen.  (Luke 8:18)

Bible study is risky business.  It demands a response.  It will produce either a joyous reward or a grievous loss depending on whether we are doers of God’s Word or mere hearers.  What we learn, we are responsible for.  So, the bottom-line question we should all be asking ourselves is

What am I doing with the Truth I already know?

Am I responding to It in faith and obedience?

There is coming a day when we will be ushered into the presence of Christ Jesus.  This will be one of the subjects of that conversation.  If we give ourselves to this pursuit, we can look forward to seeing the smile on our Master’s face and hearing these longed-for words:

“Well done, good and faithful servant!”

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Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever.  Amen.   (Jude 1:24-25)