Mark 4 Verses 1 to 20 Seeds of Faith The Remarkable Journey Continues Lesson 1 April 6, 2025 Class Presentation Notes AAAAA

Background Scriptures:

• James 1:19–24 (NASB95)

19 This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger;

20 for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.

21Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.

22 But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.

23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror;

24 for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.

Main Idea:

• The Spiritual impact of the Word is not based on the content of the message; it depends on how the Word is heard and received.

Study Aim:

• To understand that the only way to know for certain if you are a fruitful hearer of the Word is if you are planting God’s Word in others.

Create Interest:

• A “Parable” is a transliteration of the Greek parabolē, “comparison. The truth to be taught is compared to something in nature or a common-life experience. A parable usually expresses a single important truth, though occasionally a subordinate feature expands its total meaning (cf. 4:3–9, 13–20; 12:1–12). A parable draws its hearers to take part in a situation, evaluate it, and apply its truth to themselves. Jesus shared 35 parables in His teaching…I have listed them with their Biblical locations in an attached file for your information. Mark chose the sower and the soils focus today, the mustard seed parable and the wicked vine growers as his only three to share.

Lesson in Historical Context:

• This passage begins a longer section, dealing with the parables, that runs through 4:34. Careful reading shows, however, that the passage is not only about parables but also about the necessity for the Twelve to understand the parables and their difficulty in doing so. Note that this parable is given an explanation in 4:13–20, something not done for most of the parables in the Gospels. Though Mark says (4:34) that Jesus explained other parables to the disciples, this one is the only parable for which Mark records an explanation. This, plus the fact that this parable heads the list here, suggests that it has special significance and is perhaps the chief representative parable for Mark.

• We will be able to discuss in more detail the meaning of the parable when we look at the explanation given in 4:13–20. Here we need only make some preliminary observations, for this passage really must be studied together with 4:10–20.

• Jesus began to explain why, if he is indeed the Messiah, there is resistance to his ministry. The resistance might be taken as evidence that Jesus isn’t the Messiah or that God isn’t fully in control. Jesus’ point is that the resistance to his ministry is part of God’s sovereign plan.

o The parable of the soils explains that it is God’s plan to allow individuals to actualize their disposition by how they respond to the word (4:1–9, 13–21).

o Nestled between the parable and its interpretation is Jesus’ explanation of God’s purpose in the parables: to keep outsiders from seeing the spiritual truths he is teaching (4:10–12). In other words, it is God’s intention for certain hearers to remain in a hardened condition. The why of that is a matter of prayer for each individual.

• The opposition to Christ’s ministry is part of God’s sovereign plan.

Bible Study:

Mark 4:1–2 (NASB95) Parable of the Sower and Seed and Soils

1 He began to teach again by the sea. And such a very large crowd gathered to Him that He got into a boat in the sea and sat down; and the whole crowd was by the sea on the land.

2 And He was teaching them many things in parables, and was saying to them in His teaching,

• Vs. 1: In order to address the entire multitude, Jesus put some space between Himself and the pressing mob by getting into a boat—likely a small fishing vessel—which was pushed just offshore. In typical rabbinic style, the Lord sat down to teach. Doing so also provided Him with stability due to the rocking of the boat. According to Matthew 13:2, the crowd listened while standing on the beach.

• We do well to note that Jesus was prepared to use new methods and to take religious preaching and teaching out of its conventional setting in the synagogue into the open air and among the crowds of ordinary men and women. Though more, I am sure, I found four reasons that will help us in our sharing with others

• Vs. 2: Why did Jesus choose this method? And why did it become so characteristic of him that he is known forever as the master of the parable?

o First and foremost, Jesus chose the parabolic method simply to make people listen. He was not now dealing with an assembly of people in a synagogue who were more or less bound to remain there until the end of the service. He was dealing with a crowd in the open air who were quite free to walk away at any time. Therefore, the first essential was to interest them. Unless their interest was aroused ,they would simply drift away

o Second, when Jesus used the parabolic method he was using something with which Jewish teachers and audiences were entirely familiar and could understand from the Old Testament.

o Third, when Jesus used the parabolic method of teaching he was making the abstract idea concrete. Most people think in pictures. There is a sense in which every word must become flesh; every idea must be actualized in a person.

 When the New Testament talks about faith it takes the example of Abraham so that the idea of faith becomes flesh in the person of Abraham. Jesus was a wise teacher.

 He knew that it was useless to expect simple minds to cope with abstract ideas; and so he put the abstract ideas into concrete stories; he showed them in action; he made them into persons, so that men might grasp and understand them.

o Fourth, the great virtue of the parable is that it compels a person to think for himself. The worst way to help a child is to do his work for him. It does help greatly to give him the necessary help to do it for himself. That is what Jesus was aiming at. Truth has always a double impact when it is a personal discovery.

o Jesus did not wish to save men the mental sweat of thinking; he wished to make them think. And to lay that responsibility on them.

• He presented them with truth which, if they would make the right effort in the right frame of mind, they could discover for themselves and therefore possess it in a way that made it really and truly theirs.

Mark 4:3–20 (NASB95)

3 “Listen to this! Behold, the sower went out to sow;

4 as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up.

5 “Other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil.

6 “And after the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.

7 “Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop.

8 “Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”

9 And He was saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

10 As soon as He was alone, His followers, along with the twelve, began asking Him about the parables.

11 And He was saying to them, “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables,

12 so that WHILE SEEING, THEY MAY SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE, AND WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR AND NOT UNDERSTAND, OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT RETURN AND BE FORGIVEN.”

Explanation

13 And He *said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables?

14 “The sower sows the word.

15 “These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them.

16 “In a similar way these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy;

17 and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away.

18 “And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word,

19 but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

20 “And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”

• This parable helped the disciples understand why Jesus was not impressed by the large crowds that followed Him. He knew that most of them would never produce fruit from changed lives, because the Word He was teaching them was like seed falling into poor soil.

• The feature of the parable which provides the key to its understanding is the act of sowing. This element is essential to the comparison being developed: the Kingdom of God breaks into the world even as seed which is sown upon the ground.

o In the details about the soils there is reflection on the diversity of response to the proclamation of the Word of God, but this is not the primary consideration.

o The central point concerns the coming of the Kingdom of God. God is in the center of the action.

• The seed represents God’s Word (Luke 8:11) and the sower is the servant of God who shares that Word with others (see 1 Cor. 3:5–9).

o 1 Corinthians 3:5–9 (NASB95)

5 What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one.

6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.

7 So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.

8 Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

• The human heart is like soil: it must be prepared to receive the seed before that seed can take root and produce a harvest.

o Like seed, the Word is alive and able to produce spiritual fruit, but the seed must be planted and cultivated before that harvest will come.

o The seed was a proper and powerful symbol of the Word of God springing into life. Within every seed there is almost infinite potential for life! God’s Word is the seed par excellence! The sower is, of course, Christ and anyone else who puts forth God’s Word, whether in preaching or in personal exchange.

o The soil represents the varying condition of human hearts on which the seed is tossed

• As in that day, so today, there are four kinds of hearts and they respond to God’s message in four different ways. But first note:

o The kingdom of God, through the preaching of the gospel, will break into this world like seed being sown by a farmer. It will fall in various places, receive various responses, but eventually experience a tremendous harvest.

o Vs. 3: The parable begins with a challenge for Jesus’ hearers to pay careful attention. A spiritually alert heart and hungry mind are needed to understand what He is teaching. The message of the parable for Christians is clear: we must sow the seed of the gospel that others might hear and respond. Responses will vary, but that is not our concern. Our assignment is to sow and sow generously, even promiscuously! God is responsible for the harvest (1 Cor 3:5–9).

Now back to the heart……………………………

o The hard heart (Mark 4:4, 15) resists the Word of God and makes it easy for Satan (the birds) to snatch it away.

 Soil becomes hard when too many feet tread on it. Those who recklessly “open their hearts” to all kinds of people and influences are in danger of developing hard hearts.

 They hear the Word, and it doesn’t penetrate at all. “That’s for the birds,” they say. And the birds come and pluck it away.

Proverbs 4:23 (NASB95)

23Watch over your heart with all diligence,

For from it flow the springs of life.

 Hard hearts must be “plowed up” before they can receive the seed, and this can be a painful experience (Jer. 4:3; Hosea 10:12).

Jeremiah 4:3 (NASB95) For thus says the LORD to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, “Break up your fallow ground, And do not sow among thorns.

Hosea 10:12 (NASB95) Sow with a view to righteousness, reap in accordance with kindness; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the LORD

Until He comes to rain righteousness on you.

o The shallow heart (vv. 5–6, 16–17). This heart is like thin soil on a rock, very typical to Palestine. Since there is no depth, whatever is planted cannot last because it has no roots.

 This represents the “emotional hearer” who joyfully accepts God’s Word but does not really understand the price that must be paid to become a genuine Christian. There may be great enthusiasm for several days or weeks; but when persecution and difficulties begin, enthusiasm wanes and the joy disappears. It is easy for fallen human nature to counterfeit “religious feelings” and give a professed Christian a feeling of false confidence.

o The crowded heart (vv. 7, 18–19). This heart pictures the person who receives the Word but does not truly repent and remove the “weeds” out of his or her heart. This hearer has too many different kinds of “seeds” growing in the soil—worldly cares, a desire for riches, a lust for things—and the good seed of the Word has no room in which to grow.

 To change the image, this person wants to walk the “broad way” and the “narrow way” at the same time and it cannot be done.

Matthew 7:13–14 (NASB95)

13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.

14 “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

o The fruitful heart (vv. 8, 20). This heart pictures the true believer, because fruit—a changed life—is the evidence of true salvation

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NASB95)

17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. (How can you know this is true?..Read on!)

Galatians 5:19–23 (NASB95)

19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality,

20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions,

21envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

23gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

• The first three hearts produced no fruit, so we conclude that they belong to persons who have never been born again.

o Not all true believers are equally as productive; but from every genuine Christian’s life, there will be some evidence of spiritual fruit.

• Each of the three fruitless hearts is influenced by a different enemy:

o the hard heart—the devil himself snatches the seed;

o the shallow heart—the flesh counterfeits religious feelings;

o the crowded heart—the things of the world smother the growth and prevent a harvest.

 These are the three great enemies of the Christian: the world, the flesh, and the devil (Eph. 2:1–3).

So here we are in 2025, just a small number of God’s years since the folks by the Sea of Galilee heard this message…What do we make of it?

2 Peter 3:8–9 (NASB95)

8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.

9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NASB95) God Set Eternity in the Heart of Man

11 He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.

Deuteronomy 7:9 (NASB95)

9 “Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments;

Now with the Bible’s insight on God’s timing we can move on………………

• The codes, the images in Jesus’ dream-like stories, are often taken from his biblical background. A sower sowing seed is not just a familiar picture from everyday farming life.

o It’s a picture of God sowing Israel again in her own land after the long years of exile; of God restoring the fortunes of his people, making the family farm fruitful again after the thorns and thistles have had it their own way for too long.

o There is even a hint of the restoration of the garden of Eden. ‘The grass withers’, said the prophet Isaiah, ‘and the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever’ (40:8). Or again (Isaiah 55:10–11), God’s word will be like rain or snow, producing good harvests.

o This is a story about the word that produces fruit, even though grass withers and flowers fade.

• The problem—and this seems to be the main reason Jesus taught in parables—is that Jesus’ vision of how God was sowing his word was, as we would say today, politically incorrect. People were expecting a great moment of renewal. They believed that Israel would be rescued lock, stock and barrel; God’s kingdom would explode onto the world stage in a blaze of glory. No, declares Jesus: it’s more like a farmer sowing seed, much of which apparently goes to waste because the soil isn’t fit for it, can’t sustain it.

• For those who understand the dream language, the code, this was and is bad news. It isn’t just a comment on the way in which people in general sometimes listen to preachers and sometimes don’t.

o It’s a specific comment, a political cartoon, on what was happening as Jesus himself was announcing and inaugurating God’s kingdom.

• As we’ve already seen, some people were getting on board, while others were standing aloof. Now we see other reactions as well. Discuss

o Some hear and forget;

o Some are enthusiastic but short-term;

o Some have too much else in their minds and hearts.

o Some who are fruitful, very fruitful indeed (any farmer would be delighted with a hundredfold yield);

o Jesus is giving a coded warning that belonging to the kingdom isn’t automatic. The kingdom is coming all right, but not in the way they have imagined.

• Jesus knew that many would never listen, but He also knew something else: if He just kept sowing the seed, some would bear fruit. Some soil would be fertile, craving for the truth of life and eternity. Therefore, they would “hear … receive … and bring forth fruit” (v. 20).

o This is the reason Jesus continued on.

 He kept sowing, never giving in to discouragement—sowing that some might be saved and bear fruit.

 Jesus expects His followers to do the same, to continue no matter the discouragement or opposition.

• Everything Jesus did created a division within the Israel of his day. The parables not only explain this but are themselves part of the process.

o They work, they function, as a sharply focused version of Jesus’ entire ministry.

o Hence the comment in the middle. Jesus is not only telling them the dream, but giving them the interpretation. He is not only sketching the cartoon, but explaining the code. But those outside, who are fascinated by the story and the picture, can’t understand it.

• Why not? Doesn’t Jesus want everybody to get the message? Yes and no. What he is saying is such dynamite that it can’t be said straightforwardly, out on the street.

o Any kingdom-movement was dangerous enough (if Herod, or the Roman authorities, heard about it, they’d be worried);

o If word got out that Jesus’ kingdom-vision was radically unlike what most people wanted and expected, the ordinary people would be furious too.

o It was doubly dangerous. Put the cartoon into plain prose and somebody might sue.

• It’s a ‘mystery’ (verse 11): not just a puzzle, but a divine secret which Jesus is revealing.

o But as with all divine revelation, you can only understand it if you believe, if you trust.

• For us today, the parable says a lot about how the message of Jesus worked among his hearers, and about what that message was (the dramatic and subversive renewal of Israel and the world).

o But it also challenges our own preaching of the kingdom.

o Is what we’re saying so subversive, so unexpected, that we would be well advised to clothe it in dream language, or in code?

• Perhaps we should look introspectively and consider our FAITH…Forsaking All I Trust Him………

o Faith is more than assent to truth, or consent to duty; it is also a commitment and an acceptance from the heart.

• Soak on that thought and allow the Holy Spirit to guide you forward.

Where does this story take place? (4:1)

How did Jesus start to teach the crowds? (4:2)

When did Jesus use parables instead of saying directly what He meant? (4:2)

How did those closest to Jesus respond to the parable He told? (4:10)

In what way did Jesus limit His explanation of the parable? (4:11–12)

What did Jesus want us to understand about God from this parable? (4:14–20)

What are some obstacles that prevent people from accepting the gospel or hanging on to their faith? (4:15–19)

What happens to those who hear the truth about Christ and accept it? (4:20)

Why do you think Jesus explained the “secret” only to his disciples and not to the crowds in general?

How can you make sure that the worries of life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the other desires of the world will not choke the life out of your Christian Walk?