This week on Things Unseen, our theme is Take Heed, Take Care, How You Hear.

Yesterday I mentioned the hearers' grid that William Perkins, the great early English preacher

theologian employed in thinking about the different

kinds of hearers who listened to him.

But a greater than William Perkins also had a hearer's grid, didn't he?

And you're familiar with it, I'm sure.

It's the parable of the sewer.

Jesus' story about the farmer, the seed, and the soils. It's told

in each of the first three Gospels. And Jesus hints that it's really the parable of parables.

Remember how he says in Mark 4, verse 13, that if the disciples didn't understand this parable,

they'd never understand the other ones. It's as if he's't understand this parable, they'd never understand the other ones.

It's as if he's saying, this parable is the key. If you can't follow it and apply it,

then it's clear that you're not yet hearing properly. Well, you know the parable. It portrays

a commonplace scene in rural Palestine in the day

of our Lord Jesus. It's seed-sewing time. Farmer goes out into his field with his basket

of seed and he starts sewing. The same farmer, the same quality of seed. But the results vary

considerably. And as Jesus explains, this is a picture of the

word of God being so on, by himself, of course, in his preaching and then in the preaching of his

disciples. Same preachers, same word preached. But there are significant differences in what happens next.

And these differences are all related to the condition of the soil, into which the same quality

of seed has been sown.

That is, on the spiritual condition of those of us who hear the Word of God.

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