Faith & Love: A One Year Bible Reading Plan - Part 3Sample

The Book of Mark prefers giving a ‘boots on the ground’ perspective of Jesus’ three-year ministry, focusing more on His actions than teachings. But here, Mark goes out of his way to capture the incredible power of Jesus’ weighty words. Words that revive broken hearts toward a revelation of God’s fatherly love for us, an understanding of self-love founded on Jesus’ sacrificial death, and a new way of loving others through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Here, Jesus speaks in the form of a parable. Parables were a combination of stories, proverbs, riddles, and one-liners meant to grab the hearer’s attention, communicate in plain language, and teach deeper truths about the nature of God and His kingdom.

Galilean farmers would typically carry a leather bag tied around their waist, sow seed, and then plough the ground. Jesus says the human heart is like soil, while His message is like seed that’s able to produce life-change. The Sower originally was Jesus, who came teaching the radical message of God’s loving Kingdom and seeking a harvest.

Today, anyone who shares God’s life-giving message with others is sowing the seed. Like seed, the Good News of Jesus can produce much fruit when cultivated. However, the devil snatches the seed from resistant hearts; surface-level religiosity produces a temporary response in shallow hearts; and obsession with the here-and-now smothers the growth in overcrowded hearts. The good ground represents the prepared heart that receives Jesus’ message of transforming love.

As we go about our work and play from Monday to Friday, take heart that every conversation and interaction has the potential to sow seeds of God’s Kingdom. We are not called to make people respond; we are called to pray for those around us, share Jesus’ Good News with them, show them God’s reviving love through practical kindness, and allow the Holy Spirit to transform the soil of their hearts.