Mark 4:1,2 - He taught them many things

4:1

“Again Jesus began to teach by the lake”. Yet again we have Mark’s emphasis on Jesus’ teaching, the fact that He taught, and what He taught. Jesus sat on a boat in order to teach the multitudes. This enabled His words to carry further, so everyone could hear. There were no sound systems in those days!

4:2

Jesus taught in parables. “Parable” can mean a comparison with a situation, or an analogy. We often have fixed ideas, and a direct challenge to those ideas will sometimes just make us defensive, whereas an indirect approach may make us more likely to think, and to be more open to a different way of thinking. This first parable is one of the best known and usually goes under the name of “the parable of the sower”. However, it is actually more about the seed and the condition of the soil that receives the seed.