Mark 4:26-29 - How the seed grows

4:26

Quite a few of Jesus’ parables were agriculture based, that is because many of the people He spoke to would be familiar with that context. We should also note something else. The way the world works, the way nature works, reflects something of the way God’s kingdom works. Obviously we need to be careful in taking this too far, but the world was created by God so it is not surprising that we can learn some things from it. So here he liken the kingdom of God to a man scattering seed upon the ground.

4:27

The man knows that he has to scatter the seed on the ground, otherwise the harvest will be precisely zero, but he also has very limited knowledge or even input into how the seed grows. Yet the seed does grow. Likewise when we sow the seed of the word, whether it be in evangelism or in preaching to the church, we know that we have to spread the word, but we also need to know that we do not know exactly how it will grow. We do not know everything that is going on in the lives of the people who we speak to, we do not know every other interaction they will have the kingdom of God, we don’t know everything else that God is doing in their lives. Indeed, it is very dangerous if we ever seek to be in total control, for then we will seek to manipulate, we  will become controlling, or we may become neurotic, always fearful that we have never done enough, nor done it well enough. We need to recognise our limits, the limits we are meant to have, and that we are part of God’s plan, but only part. When we properly recognise our limits we be much more effective, for we will be letting God do His part!

4:28,29

It is sometimes said that the parables had only one point. That is generally true, and we must certainly avoid over interpreting a parable, but here there is something of a second lesson. First we have a more graphic description of the development of the plant. Think of all the amazing changes that take place in the seed developing from a little seed into a fully grown plant, and we did nothing to directly cause these developments. But then there is a reference to the harvest coming, and this seems to be a kind of subsidiary point. It is also one that features in many of Jesus’ parables. There is a final day, a day of judgement, a day of harvesting.