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Jesus began teaching again by the sea. So many people came to hear him
that he got into a boat and sat there offshore while the crowd listened from
land.
He was teaching them using many parables.
“Listen!” he said.
“A sower went out to sow.
As he was sowing, some seeds fell on the path.
The wild birds came and ate them.
Other seeds fell on rocky ground where
there was not much soil. Immediately they sprouted, but because the soil was
not deep,
when the sun came up they dried out because they did not have
roots, and they withered.
Other seeds fell among thorns. The thorns grew up
fast and choked out the sprouting seeds so that they produced nothing.
Other
seeds fell on good ground where they sprouted and grew, producing a harvest
of thirty, sixty, and a hundred times what was planted.
Whoever has ears,
listen
to what I am saying.”
When he was alone, his twelve disciples and the others with him asked
him about the parables.
“The revealed secret of the Kingdom of God has been given to you to understand,” he said to them. “All those on the outside get everything in parables,
so that even though they see, they do not perceive, and even though they hear, they do not understand; otherwise they would repent and be forgiven.”
He said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? If you do not, how
are you going to understand all the other parables?
The sower sows the Gospel-word.
Those on the path where the Gospel-word is sown hear it,
but immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown
in them.
Those on the rocky ground hear the Gospel-word, and immediately
they accept it with joy.
But because they have no roots, they survive for a
while until trouble or persecution comes because of the Gospel-word, and
then they quickly fall away.
Others sown among the thorns hear the
Gospel-word,
but the concerns of this age,
the temptation of wealth, and
other desires choke the growth of the word, and it becomes unproductive.
But those sown on good soil hear the Gospel-word, accept it, and bear fruit — producing thirty, sixty, and a hundred times what was first sown.”
And he was saying to them, “No one puts a lamp under a bucket or
beneath a bed, do they? No, they put a lamp up on a lampstand.
All that is
hidden will be revealed, and all that is secret will come to light.
Whoever has ears to hear, listen!”
He said to them, “Pay attention to what you listen
to. What you use to measure will be used to measure to you, and more.
To
whoever already has, more will be given, but whoever does not have will
have what little they have taken away from them.”
“The Kingdom of God is like a man who sows seed on the soil,” Jesus
explained.
“He goes to bed and gets up, day after day, and the seeds sprout
and grow, although he does not know how.
The soil produces a harvest
automatically. First there is a shoot, then the heads of grain, and then the
heads of grain ripen.
When the grain is ripe, he immediately reaps it with a
sickle, because the harvest has come.”
“What shall we compare the Kingdom of God to? What parable shall we
use?” he asked.
“It is like a mustard seed, the tiniest of seeds.
But when
planted it grows larger than other plants. It has big branches so that birds can
nest in its shade.”
Jesus used many parables like this when he spoke the Gospel-word to
them, as much as they were able to understand.
He always used parables
when he spoke publicly, but in private he explained everything to his own
disciples.
In the evening of that same day, he said to his disciples, “Let us cross
over to the other side of the lake.”
Leaving the crowds behind, the disciples
got into the boat in which Jesus was sitting. Other boats went with them too.
A fierce gale began to blow, and the waves crashed over the boat, filling it
with water.
Jesus was asleep in the stern, his head on a pillow. The disciples
woke him up and said, “Teacher, do you not care that we are going to
drown?”
Jesus woke up and commanded the wind to be calm and said to the
sea, “Be peaceful and still.” The wind stopped and the water became
completely calm.
“Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” he
asked them.
They were terrified and asked each other, “So who is this that
even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Mark