Matthew 13

Posted on Jan 18, 2017 in Bible (NT) in a Year |

Wednesday
Jesus does a lot of wonderful teaching in this one chapter and shares many good parables and insights.
As I read through the story of the four soils, it occurred to me that even after 2000 years, people are no different. I’ll be you’ve run into every single type of person described in this parable. But I often hear this message focusing on the negative side, the three types of people who “don’t get it” versus the very real fact that there are many who do and they produce a good harvest. I think Jesus is trying to tell his disciples to not get too discouraged when you run into people who will reject you, because they rejected Jesus, too. His angels will come at the end and separate the good from the evil. Our job is not to be the Savior, our task is to be the “sower” we can’t make people believe – we can only keep planting the seeds.

I heard a message one time from a farmer who said (talking about this passage of scripture), part of the problem we face as Christians in sharing the good news, is we forget to take care of the “soil” first. You know before you plant you have to work the soil. Maybe that is why some “seeds” refuse to grow in some people. We need to be better at preparing people to hear to the message of salvation.

So Jesus continues through today’s reading to encourage his disciples (and us) to keep spreading the gospel and there will be rewards and we will see it land on good soil.

One other thing, remember when we started reading Matthew I mentioned that he wanted to make sure that his reader made the connection between the prophecy surrounding the Messiah and how Jesus fulfilled them. Today is another one of those prophecies. Found in Psalm 78:2, “I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.” Did you ever wonder why Jesus used so many parables? Well, here’s why, it was prophesied.

Blessings on the day

Pastor Kathy