Luke 8:11-15 - On types of soil

8:11,12

The seed is the word of God. The seed is good. People are always trying to change the seed in order to get “better results”, but the seed is good, it us who need changing! We then get an explanation of the various responses. The stony ground represents those where the devil takes the word away from their hearts. Remember that in the Bible “heart” includes mind and emotions, not just emotions. There are various ways in which the devil does this. He can use past hurts to make someone resistant to the gospel, or he can use wrong ideas, such as “science disproves God” to stop someone hearing. Note that because the devil does this it does not mean we are powerless. We may have been hurt by events in the past (or the present) but we do not have to let this harden our hearts. With intellectual barriers we can look carefully at issues and see that Christianity actually makes far more sense than any other worldview.

8:13-15

Some initially receive the word with joy, but it takes no root. There is no depth to their belief. Note that in John’s gospel there are references to people who “believed” but it was clear that they did not have “saving faith”. So there can be an initially positive response, but because there is no depth when difficulties are encountered they quickly fall away. We should seek in our own lives to have an ever deeper appreciation of the gospel, and we should seek to give others a deeper appreciation of what God has done as well.

Others here the word but the  the worries and distractions of life stop the word bearing fruit. We need to “seek first the kingdom of God”. The gospel is not an add-on to our lives, Jesus is our life. Again, we need to ensure that this becomes true in our own lives, and to seek to help others to do the same.

Just as ensuring a good natural harvest requires consistent careful work, so it is with a spiritual harvest. “A noble and good heart”. Our evangelical theology often finds it difficult to think that condition of our heart makes any difference to the effect of the word of God in our lives, ie our response to the gospel (this especially upsets Calvinists). However, we should note that the Bible seems to have no such problem, so neither should we. It is better to be of good character than bad! So yet again we should do what we can to ensure that we have “a noble and good heart”. Paul urges us to think on whatever is “right, pure, lovely or admirable” (Phil 4:8). So we should encourage ourselves and others to feed our hearts and minds aright.