Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
Parallel Translations
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Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
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The similitude is this. The seede is the worde of God.
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The parable is this, The seede is the worde of God.
Cross-references (7)
Passages linked to Luke 8:11 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Peter 1:23-25 having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which lives and remains forever. For, “All flesh is like grass, and all of man’s glory like the flower in the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls; but the Lord’s word endures forever.” This is the word of Good News which was preached to you.
- Matthew 13:19 When anyone hears the word of the Kingdom, and doesn’t understand it, the evil one comes, and snatches away that which has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown by the roadside.
- Mark 4:14-20 The farmer sows the word. The ones by the road are the ones where the word is sown; and when they have heard, immediately Satan comes, and takes away the word which has been sown in them. These in the same way are those who are sown on the rocky places, who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with joy. They have no root in themselves, but are short-lived. When oppression or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they stumble. Others are those who are sown among the thorns. These are those who have heard the word, and the cares of this age, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. Those which were sown on the good ground are those who hear the word, and accept it, and bear fruit, some thirty times, some sixty times, and some one hundred times.”
- James 1:21 Therefore, putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with humility the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
- Isaiah 8:20 Turn to the law and to the covenant! If they don’t speak according to this word, surely there is no morning for them.
- 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.
- 1 Corinthians 3:9-12 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s farming, God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds on it. But let each man be careful how he builds on it. For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ. But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or stubble,
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (9 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 5 A sower went out to sow his seed:…
5 A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.
6 And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture.
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7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it.
8 And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
9 And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be?
10 And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.
11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
Ver. 11. See Mat 13:18.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Here the Saviour applies himself to interpret and explain…
Here the Saviour applies himself to interpret and explain the foregoing parable to his disciples; he tells them, The seed is the word; the sower is the preacher; the soil or ground, is the heart and soul of man: some hearers he compares to the highway ground, in which the seed lies uncovered for want of the harrow of meditation; others to stony ground, in which the word has no root; no root in their understanding, no root in their memeories, in their wills, or in their affections, but they are instantly offended, either at the depth and profoundness of the word, or at the sancitity and strictness of the word, or else at the plainness and simplicity of it.
Again, some hearers our Lord compares to thorny ground. Worldly desires and inordinate cares for the things of this life choke the word, as thorns overshadow the corn, draw away the heart of the earth from it, hinder the influence of the sun from cherishing it; the like ill effects have worldy affections and desires in the soul of man, rendering the seed of the word unfruitful.
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But the good Christian hears the word attentively, keeps it retentively, believes it stedfastly, applies it particularly, practises it universally, and brings forth fruit perseveringly.
Learn hence, 1. That no hearers are in Christ’s account good hearers of the word, but such as bring forth fruit answerable to their hearing.
2. That a person may be a good hearer of the word in Christ’s account, if he brings forth the best fruit he can, though not in so great a proportion as others do; as some ground brings forth thirty, some sixty, some an hundredfold: in like manner do all the sincere hearers of the word; they all bring forth fruit, though not all alike; all in sincerity, though not all equally, and none to perfection.
Learn, 3. That it is not sufficient that we do at present believe, approve and practise the truth delivered to us, or that we are afffected with the word, and receive it with some kind of joy, delight, and pleasure; unless we persist and persevere in obedience to all its precepts, and continue to bring forth fruit with patience.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Now the parable is this, &c. "Or this is…
Now the parable is this, &c. "Or this is the sense of the parable", as the Arabic version renders it: "the seed is the word of God", the Gospel, as preached by Christ, his apostles, and faithful ministers, which has God for its author, is concerning the grace of God, and is what he blesses, and makes effectual to answer any good purpose.
Now the parable is this, &c. "Or this is the sense of the parable", as the Arabic version renders it: "the seed is the word of God", the Gospel, as preached by Christ, his apostles, and faithful ministers, which has God for its author, is concerning the grace of God, and is what he blesses, and makes effectual to answer any good purpose.
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Luke 8:12
luk 8:12
luk 8:12
luk 8:12Those by the wayside are they that hear,.... The word of God, though only by accident, and very carelessly, and without understanding what they hear:
then cometh the devil; signified by the fowls of the air:
and taketh away the word out of their hearts, or memories; that little of it, which is retained there, and diverts their minds from it by other objects; so that they quite forget what they have heard;
lest they should believe, and be saved: this clause is only in Luke; and with it may be compared Co2 4:4 for with true faith in Christ the sum and substance of the word salvation is connected; and Satan being an enemy to the salvation of souls, does all he can to hinder their faith in him.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 11. It has been granted you to grasp these…
11. It has been granted you to grasp these mysteries unveiled; to the rest it has been only given to grasp them under the veil of parables.
that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand] These words are difficult, and (without dwelling on the fact that the particle ἵνα loses in later Greek some of its final force) must not be pressed with unreasonable and extravagant literalism to mean that the express object of teaching by parables was to conceal the message of the kingdom from all but the disciples. This would have been to put the kindled lamp under a couch or a bushel. On the contrary they were addressed to the multitudes, and deeply impressed them, as they have impressed the world in all ages, and have had the effect, not of darkening truth but of bringing it into brighter light. The varying phrase of St Matthew, “because seeing they see not, &c.,” will help us to understand it. Our Lord wished and meant the multitudes to hearken and understand, and this method awoke their interest and deepened their attention; but the resultant profit depended solely on the degree of their faithfulness. The Parables resembled the Pillar of Fire, which was to others a Pillar of Cloud. If they listened with mere intellectual curiosity or hardened prejudice they would only carry away the parable itself, or some complete misapplication of its least essential details; to get at its real meaning required self-examination and earnest thought. Hence parables had a blinding and hardening effect on the false and the proud and the wilful, just as prophecy had in old days (Isa_6:9-10, quoted in this connexion in Mat_13:14, comp. Act_28:26-27; Rom_11:8). But the Prophecy and the Parable did not create the hardness or stolidity, but only educed it when it existed—as all misused blessings and privileges do. It was only unwillingness to see which was punished by incapacity of seeing. The natural punishment of spiritual perversity is spiritual blindness.
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Nothing can be better than the profound remark of Lord Bacon, that “a Parable has a double use; it tends to vail, and it tends to illustrate a truth; in the latter case it seems designed to teach, in the former to conceal.”
“Though truths in manhood darkly join,
Deep seated in our mystic frame,
We yield all blessing to the name
Of Him who made them current coin.
For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers,
Where truth in closest words shall fail,
When truth embodied in a tale
Shall enter in at lowly doors.”
11. The seed is the word of God] We have the same metaphor in Col_1:5-6; 1Co_3:6; and a similar one in Jas_1:21, “the engrafted word;” 2Es_9:31; 2Es_9:33, “Behold, I sow my law in you, and it shall bring fruit in you...yet they that received it perished, because they kept not the thing that was sown in them.”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (11) The seed is the word of God.—This takes…
(11) The seed is the word of God.—This takes the place in St. Luke’s interpretation of “the word of the kingdom” in St. Matthew. The “word of God” is obviously to be taken in its widest sense, as including every form by which a revelation from God is conveyed to the mind of man.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 11-15. The Lord"s interpretation of the parable of…
Vers. 11-15. The Lord"s interpretation of the parable of the sower.
The seed is the Word of God. It was his own sad experience the Master was relating. The picture was of things, too, which had already happened in the case of many of his own true servants, the prophets. It mirrored, too, the many future failures and the few future successes of the listening disciples; it warned them not to be deluded by appearances, not to be discouraged by apparent failure. The Word, of course, in the first instance is his own teaching; it comprehends, however, any preaching or teaching, whether of prophet of the past or minister of the future, winch tries faithfully to copy his own.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain The seed is the Word of God
Luk_8:11
The seed is the Word of God
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The seed
I.
THE TRUTH TAUGHT, THE SEED SOWN BY JESUS CHRIST, THE GREAT SOWER.
1. The necessity of repentance.
2. The forgiving love and power of God.
3. The necessity of holiness; of obedience, submission, trust, unselfishness, and brotherly love.
4. Christ enjoined fidelity, and warned of judgment to come.
5. Christ taught the necessity of His death for our redemption; proclaimed Himself the one Mediator between God and man; declared our dependence upon Him for all spiritual life and strength; promised His Spirit to lead us into all truth, and His grace to enable us to endure to the end.
II. THE APPROPRIATENESS OF THE ANALOGY BETWEEN THE SEED AND THE TRUTH.
1. Both contain the principle of life.
2. The development of the life in each depends upon conditions. The seed must be sown in congenial soil, and duly watered and nurtured; the truth must be received into an honest and good heart. (A. F. Joscelyne, B. A.)
Missionary sermon
I. WHAT IS THE SEED TO BE SOWN? The Word of God.
II. THE SOIL UPON WHICH THIS SEEN IS TO BE CAST. The field is the world.
III. THE MANNER OR SPIRIT IN WHICH THE SEED IS TO BE SOWN.
1. With much prayer.
2. In simple faith upon Gods promises.
3. In entire dependence upon the influences of the Holy Ghost.
4. In a spirit of love to Christ and the souls of men.
5. Not sparingly, but bountifully. (J. Hatchard, A. M.)
Use the Bible
Never were there so many Bibles in the world. The seed of eternal life is in our days plenteously sown. Why, then, has the crop failed so shamefully? The failure of a crop must be owing to one or more of these four causes. Either
(1) the seed must be bad; or
(2) the season must be bad; or
(3) the land must be bad; or
(4) the tillage must be bad.
Now the failure of a crop of holiness cannot be owing to the first of these causes, for the seed is as good as ever. Nor is the failure owing to any peculiarly bad season. The influence of the Holy Ghost still falls, like mild showers, gently and plentifully on mens hearts, to soften and fit them for receiving the Word of God. The Sun of Righteousness still shines in the heavens, and from His golden throne, when the good wheat has sprung up and come to ear, He pours down warmth enough to ripen it and bring it to perfection. Nor again is the failure of the seed due to the badness of the soil. Bad enough it is, to be sure, naturally; but we know how much the very worst soil may be bettered by care and labour. Mans heart is not worse than it was formerly. The scantiness of the crop, then, is owing to nothing but badness of tillage. (A. W. Hare.)
The seed gives life by means of death
Just so is it with all truth, and superlatively so is it with the Truth. How often does the discoverer reap his first harvest in derision and loss! How often does the pioneer of some beneficent enterprise lay its foundation in his own wealth, health, and peace I How often does the patriot pay the penalty of living a purer and nobler life than his self-seeking contemporaries! Above all, what a countless army of men, valiant for the faith and truth upon the earth, have had to water the seed of Christs gospel by their blood and tears! How often in this and that land, and in none more than in our own, have those gospel institutions, which are Gods Tree of Life for the world, had to grow up like a weeping willow and suck their first nutriment from the graves of their martyr-slain! The blood of Scotlands proto-martyr, the noble Patrick Hamilton, and the memory of his dying prayer, How long, O Lord, shall darkness cover this realm? fomented the young Reformation life over a comparatively silent germinating period of more than twenty years. Knox, and with him Scotland, kindled at the pile of George Wishart. Andrew Melville caught the falling mantle of Knox. And as with the martyrs under Popery in that century, so with those under the black prelacy of the next. When Richard Cameron fell on Airds Moss--as if in answer to his own prayer as the action began, Lord, spare the green and take the ripe!--all the more strenuously strove Cargill, till he, too, in the year following, sealed the truth with his blood. And more followed, and yet more, through that last and worst decade of the pitiless storm known, as by emphasis, the killing time. Through those terrible years Peden dragged out a living death, and, as he thought of Cameron now at rest, often exclaimed, O to be with Richie! Young Renwick, too, caught up the torn flag, nobly saying, They are but standard-bearers that have fallen; the Master lives. Thus one after another, on blood-drenched scaffold or on blood-soaked field, fell the precious seed-grain to rise in harvests manifold, till just at the darkest hour before the dawn, Renwicks martyrdom closed the red roll in 1688, the very year of the Revolution, and the seed so long sown in tears was reaped in joy. Marvel not at this. He who is at once the sower and the seed had Himself to die that we might live. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
Vitality of latent seeds
Much interesting information has been furnished lately upon the vitality of buried seeds. It is astonishing how long many of them retain their germinating powers although lying so deep in the earth as to be beyond the reach of atmospheric influences. This is so--e.g., with the seeds of gorse. A piece of land in Northamptonshire was converted from a furze fox-cover to pasture, a state in which it remained for thirty years or more; it was then deeply cultivated, and the following season a crop of gorse sprung up over the whole field. A gardener, in order to plant some rhododendrons last spring, turned over a quantity of peat soil, the bottom portion being brought to the surface. That bed is now covered with a thick crop of seedling foxgloves, the seed of which must have been lying there in a state of complete dormancy for probably half a century. In the same manner do seeds of truth often lie in the hearts of men. The sower forgets that he has scattered them, or mourns that they have not sprung up. The harvest may come, however, after many years have rolled away, for the seed contains the germ of a God-given life. Those who scatter the Word of God ought never to despair of results. (Christian Journal.)
Sowing the seed of the Word
Billy Dawson, that great natural orator, had a wonderful sermon on the Sower and the Seed. With every stroke of the hand in imitation of the act of sowing, the speaker would drop some blessed passage of Scripture. The Methodist chapel in one of the midland counties not being big enough, the use of the Particular Baptist Chapel was secured. The minister of the chapel was upon the platform. Dawson gave this sowing speech, and went along the platform scattering the seed and giving one passage of Scripture after another: God so loved the world; Come unto Me, all ye that labour; then there came another handful; If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. There, its out, he said, and you can do what you like. When remonstrated with for this breach of ministerial propriety he said, I did not think about the chapel, nor the parson! I thought about the seed. (Handbook to Scripture Doctrines.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Jesus begins to explain the meaning of the parable of the soils to his disciples.
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The seed is the word of God
"The seed is the message from God"
The ones along the path are those
"The seeds that fell along the path are those." Jesus tells what happens to the seeds as it relates to people. AT: "The seeds that fell along the path represent people" or "In the parable, the seeds that fell along the path represent people" (See: Metonymy)
are those who
Jesus speaks of the seeds showing something about people as if the seeds were the people. AT: "show what happens to people who" (See: Metonymy)
the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts
Here "hearts is a metonym for people's minds or inner beings. AT: "the devil comes and takes away the message of God from their inner thoughts" (See: Metonymy)
takes away
In the parable this was a metaphor of a bird snatching away the seeds. Try to use words in your language that keep that image. (See: Metaphor)
so they may not believe and be saved. The
Since this is the devil's purpose, it can be translated as: AT: "because the devil thinks, 'They must not believe and they must not be saved,' The" or "so it will not be that they believe and God saves them. The" (See: Active or Passive)
The ones on the rock are those
"The seeds that fell on the rocky soil are those." Jesus tells what happens to the seeds as it relates to people. AT: "The seeds that fell on the rocky soil represent people" or "In the parable the seeds that fell on the rocky soil represent people" (See: Metonymy)
the rock
"the rocky soil"
in a time of testing
"when they experience hardship"
they fall away
This idiom means "they stop believing" or "they stop following Jesus" (See: Idiom)
translationWords
parable
word of God
Satan
heart
believe
save
joy
test
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 8:11 The seed is God’s word: This refers to…
8:11 The seed is God’s word: This refers to Jesus’ preaching of the Good News of the Kingdom.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.