Matthew 13:8

_AND WHEN HE SOWED, SOME SEEDS FELL BY THE WAY SIDE, AND THE FOWLS CAME AND DEVOURED THEM UP:_ No JFB commentary on these verses....

1-23 Jesus entered into a boat that he might be the less pressed, and be the better heard by the people. By this he teaches us in the outward circumstances of worship not to covet that which is stately, but to make the best of the conveniences God in his providence allots to us. Christ taught in parables. Thereby the things of God were made more plain and easy to those willing to be taught, and at the same time more difficult and obscure to those who were willingly ignorant. The parable of the sower is plain. The seed sown is the word of God. The sower is our Lord Jesus Christ, by himself, or by his ministers. Preaching to a multitude is sowing the corn; we know not where it will light. Some sort of ground, though we take ever so much pains with it, brings forth no fruit to purpose, while the good soil brings forth plentifully. So it is with the hearts of men, whose different characters...

Verse Matthew 13:8. _GOOD GROUND_] Where the earth was deep, the field well ploughed, and the brambles and weeds all removed. See more on Matthew 13:18, c., and see on Luke 8:15. _SOME A HUNDRED-FOLD._] For the elucidation of this text, I beg leave to introduce the following experiment. In 1816 I sowed, for a third crop, a field with oats, at Millbrook, in Lancashire the grains weighed, on an average, 3/4 of a grain each. One grain produced _three stalks_ with _three ears_: the largest had 68 _grains_ in it, the second 26, and the third 25. Whole number of grains 119, which together weighed

IN PARABLES - The word “parable” is derived from a Greek word signifying “to compare together,” and denotes a similitude taken from a natural object to illustrate a spiritual or moral subject. It is a narrative of some fictitious or real event, in order to illustrate more clearly some truth that the speaker wished to communicate. In early ages it was much used. Pagan writers, as Aesop, often employed it. In the time of Christ it was in common use. The prophets had used it, and Christ employed it often in teaching his disciples. It is not necessary to suppose that the narratives were strictly true. The main thing - “the inculcation of spiritual truth” - was gained equally, whether it was true or was only a supposed case. Nor was there any dishonesty in this. It was well understood no person was deceived. The speaker was not “understood” to affirm the thing “literally narrated,” but only t...

EXPOSITION A few remarks by way of introduction to the characteristic portion of this chapter (Matthew 13:1). (1) We have here a collection of the Lord's parables, all spoken, as it would appear, at an early period in his ministry, descriptive of the principles of the kingdom of heaven as they make themselves felt in history, and of the way in which those who are brought into contact with the kingdom ought to act. As the chapter stands, it consists of three chief parts, which probably roughly correspond to three stages of development in its composition. (A) Matthew 13:1, also in Mark and Luke, except some characteristic enlargements in verses 10-17. The section contains the parable of the sower and its interpretation, together with a statemen

BUT OTHERS FELL INTO GOOD GROUND,.... Not beaten and trodden by the feet of men, nor stony, nor thorny, but well broke up, manured, and tilled; which designs good, honest hearted hearers who become so by the Spirit and grace of God; who with a spiritual understanding, experience, savour, and relish, what they hear; see Matthew 13:23 AND BROUGHT FORTH FRUIT, SOME AN HUNDRED FOLD, SOME SIXTY FOLD, SOME THIRTY FOLD: some seeds produced an hundred, others sixty, and others thirty. The first of these especially was a large increase, but what was sometimes had, and which Isaac received in Gerar, in the land of the Philistines, Genesis 26:12 and is what Pliny says g of Byzacium, a country of the Lybiphoenicians, that it yielded an hundred fold to its husbandmen; and of such frui

Matthew 13:1. _The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side. And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat, and the whole multitude stood on the shore._ He had thus a little breathing space between him and the people a better opportunity for his being both heard and seen. A noble instance of open-air preaching. And if our climate would permit, what a blessing it would be if we could turn out of these houses and sit in a boat or stand on the sea-shore. Matthew 13:3. And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow; And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forth

II. THE REJECTED KINGDOM AND THE REJECTED KING. CHAPTER S 13-28. 1. The King at the Seaside. The Mysteries of the Kingdom. CHAPTER 13 1. The King at the Seaside. (Matthew 13:1 .) 2. The Parable of the Sower. (Matthew 13:3 .) 3. The Question of the Disciples and His Answer. (Matthew 13:10 .) 4. The Parable of the Sower Explained. (Matthew 13:18 .) 5. The Parable of the Good Seed and the Tares. (Matthew 13:24 .) 6. The Parable of the Mustard Seed....

PARABLE OF THE SOWER (Mark 4:1 *, Luke 8:4). MATTHEW 13:10. THE USE OF PARABLES (Mark 4:10 *, Luke 8:9 f.)....

III. GOOD SEED IN GOOD SOIL. 8. BUT OTHER FELL IN GOOD GROUND. The goodness of this last soil consists in its qualities being precisely the reverse of the other three soils: from its softness and tenderness, receiving and cherishing the seed; from its depth, allowing it to take firm root, and not quickly losing its moisture; and from its cleanness, giving its whole vigor and sap to the plant.--_ J. F. and B._ SOME THIRTY, SOME SIXTY, SOME. HUNDRED. Thirty-fold is now really. first-rate crop, even for such plains as Esdraelon, just below Nazareth. But in the time of Christ there might be realized, in favorable circumstances,. hundred-fold. Intelligent gentlemen (in the plain of Esdraelon) maintain that they have themselves reaped more than an hundred-fold. Moreover, the different kinds of fertility may be ascribed to different kinds of grain: barley yields more than wheat; and white ma...