Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible recap.

Jesus loves a good parable. It's one of its favorite teaching tools. A parable is a short

story that usually has one main point or idea, though occasionally more, and it's often

generalized, meaning there are no specific people or places listed just broad facts.

Today when we meet up with Jesus by the Sea of Galilee, he's got a lot of parables

for us. We'll only cover the main one today and tomorrow we'll talk about the others.

This is a parable about the gospel. Jesus compares it to a seed. The seed of the gospel is spread

all around and it falls on lots of different types of soil, for, to be exact. So this is

often called the parable of the sower or the parable of the four soils. The soils represent

four different ways the gospel can be received.

The bad news is, three out of the four soils don't receive the gospel very well. We'll

look at why in a second, but the good news is the one soil that does produces lots of

fruit from the seed. In fact, it's up to a 100-fold increase.

The first soil is the path, but the birds come and devour the seed. Jesus compares this

to anyone who hears the gospel but doesn't really understand it. Then the enemy comes

and snatches it away. Jesus says it's not important for people to just hear the gospel,

but for people to understand it. Otherwise, the enemy will come along like a bird and snatch

it up before it takes root. The second soil is the rocky ground. There's not a lot of

soil there and what exists isn't very deep. Jesus compares this to the people who respond

to the gospel quickly and with joy, but as soon as tough times come, that plant can't

take the heat and it whithers. Those who follow Christ are promised trials, and if someone

claims to have faith but isn't rooted deeply, persecution will wilt them. Persecution

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