I have been reading in the book of Luke this past week. As I was reading I found myself wondering about so many different verses and their meanings that I started making a list of things to go back and research so I could understand better. One of those things was in verse 18 of chapter 8. But before I go there I have to tell you what happened Sunday on my way to before-service prayer.

I was leading prayer this past Sunday. So as I was getting ready I was asking God what He wanted us to cover in our prayer time. The scripture came to mind about the seed falling on soil and the thorns, or cares of this world, growing up and choking out the word. I felt like God said so many people want a thriving relationship with Me, but the cares of this world keep choking it out. I shared that with the prayer team. They agreed with the feeling of needing to pray over that and we prayed.

Monday morning I was reading in Luke, and low and behold I read chapter 8 which has the parable of the seed tucked into it in verses 5-15. Since the Lord had just been speaking to me about that, I read it slowly a couple of times. The seed in this parable falls onto 3 types of soil and some seed that never even makes it to the soil. The Bible calls that the seed that fell on the road and was trampled on. The soil types are rocky soil where the seed sprouts but can’t grow well because it cannot take root due to the rock. Then there’s the seed that falls on soil with thorns. It grows but becomes choked out by cares and riches and pleasures of life. It does not bear mature fruit, but it does seem to grow some kinds of fruit. Then the last is seed that falls on good soil where it takes root, doesn’t have to compete for nutrients, and it grows and produces fruit.

This is a familiar parable to most of us. The disciples ask Jesus to explain this to them a little more clearly and in verses 11-15 you get the explanation of the soil and the growth of the seed or lack there of. MacLarens Expositions of the Holy Scriptures explains this parable in a wonderful way that makes it clear and easy to understand. The seed sown among the thorns, as Jesus puts it in verse 7, isn’t seed that the sower sowed into a weed-filled field. Rather it looked like good ground, but the ground keeper seemed to have taken short cuts. He cut down the weeds or thorns but didn’t do the hard work of pulling them up before planting. And when the good seed and the weeds both began to grow the farmer let them grow together, skipping the hard work of weed pulling.

I get this. I love to grow a garden, but I HATE to pull weeds. It’s a lot of work, hurts your back, and sometimes you end up pulling up a plant you wanted to grow just to get the stinking weed. It’s often a daily chore and I don’t want to water and weed daily, but I do want the benefit of the vegetable or flowers or fruit in the end. I have found myself taking short cuts in this process. I have even found myself just letting the weeds grow among my plants, to be dealt with at a later day. A good farmer I am not. A patience person I am not either. A daily routine task person – nope not me either. So I really get this. And in the world of my back yard garden, it’s ok. I am not trying to grow enough food to fully feed my family for the year. It’s just something fun, and if it works, bonus! And if it doesn’t, no harm no foul.

But reading verse 14 of Luke 8 tells a different story. Spiritually speaking this is important because if we don’t deal with the weeds (or cares, riches and pleasure of life as Jesus words it) we won’t become mature Christians. We won’t produce mature fruit. We are under ripe and good for nothing. Harsh I know but true. The word “cares” in this verse can be translated “worries” or “anxieties”. You know those feelings of overwhelmingness and the long list of what if’s that we are supposed to cast upon the Lord. Well, left to themselves they will choke out our relationship with God. And the riches and pleasures of this life lead us to depend on ourselves and not God, making idols out of our abilities and making us like the Israelites of the Old Testament.

As true and hard as these verses are, the one that really got me was in verse 18. It reads “So pay attention to how you listen. For whoever has, to him more will be given. And whoever does not have even what he supposes he has will be taken away.” How you listen. Is there more than one way to listen. The word how in this sentence is an adverb; an interrogative particle of manner; in what way?; also as exclamation, how much!

In the Jewish culture to hear is to obey. They go hand in hand. If you don’t obey what was spoken then you didn’t hear to start with. Which is what I think is really happening in parable of the sower, and what the second half of verse 18 is saying. If you don’t listen well or with the intent to obey then you are the one who does not have, but what he thinks he has is taken from him.

MacLaren explains what we are to do with the word and the thorns: “for in every one of us there are the necessary anxieties of life, and every one of us knows that there is real and substantial good to a part of our being, in the possession of a share of this world’s wealth, without which no man can live, and all of us carry natures to which the delights of sense do legitimately and necessarily appeal.

So the soil for the growth of the thorns is always in us all. But what then? Are these things so powerful in our hearts as that they become hindrances to our Christian life? That is the question. The cares and the occupation of mind with, and desire for, the wealth and the pleasures are of God’s appointment. He did not make them thorns, but you and I make them thorns; and the question for us is, has our Christianity driven out the undue regard to this life, regarded in these three aspects – undue in measure or in any other respect, by which they are converted into hindrances that mar our Christian life? Dear brethren, it is not enough to say, ‘I have received the word into my heart.’ There is another question besides that – Has the word received into your heart cast out the thorns? Or are they and the seed growing there side by side? “

What a thought to ponder. What a place to stop and hear what God is saying. It is not wrong to have wealth, or to love your husband and kids, and be concerned for their well-being. But are we letting the word of God affect us in our habits of life. Do I pray when my kids are facing hard situations or simple worry and fret for them? Am I truly trusting God to keep them safe and lead them into the fullness of their personal relationship with Him? Or am I trying to make their walk with the Lord happen in the way I think best and in my own time table. Do I really believe that God will provide for me and my needs, or do I hold too tightly to my paycheck, planning for the worst?

This concept with hearing and obeying carries into how we read the scriptures too. Just a few chapters over from chapter 8, we find an expert in the law asking Jesus about eternal life in Luke 10:25-28. The man asks, “What should I do to gain eternal life?” Jesus answers him with this question, “What has been written in the Torah? How do you read it?” There it is again. The word how. Such a weird word to use in both of these situations. Or is it? Jesus isn’t asking the man do you know what the law says, but do you know how to apply it? It’s the same thing as in pay attention to how you hear. Pay attention to how you read. Are reading looking for loop holes, or ways to justify your actions or cause? Or are you allowing the Living Word of God to penetrate your heart and change you for the better. Are you listening to God and reading His word with the intention of allowing God to change your motives, your desires, your attitude? Or to check off doing devotions on some list in your head making you a good person?

So as you read your Bible and listen to your pastors, parents and other people of authority in your life, and of course Jesus speaking truth over you, pay attention to how you listen to them. Don’t justify or harden yourselves. Listen with the intention to obey, and read with the intention to see the invitation to walk with Jesus – not just follow the rules.

Quote taken from Expositions Of Holy Scripture, Alexander MacLaren, https://biblehub.com/commentaries/maclaren/luke/8.htm, accessed on 8/29/23