Faith Develops in a Believer’s Heart
Two types of fictional stories found in the Bible are parables and allegories. From a literary standpoint, a parable can be seen as a simile which is expanded into a whole story, whereas an allegory could be considered to be an extended metaphor (Ferdon, 2009). One of the primary differences between a parable and an allegory is that while the interpretation of a parable should focus on the intended response of the audience, each individual element of an allegory requires a separate interpretation because it represents something or someone else (Fee & Stuart, 1993). Throughout the Gospels, Jesus regularly taught in parables. According to Virkler (1981), a parable “uses a common event of natural life to emphasize or clarify an important spiritual truth” (p. 163).
The parable of the growing seed is one of the shortest, and possibly least examined of the parables because it consists of only four verses. It is found in just one of the Gospels, Mark 4:26-29 (NIV), where Jesus said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” The fact that this parable is so short in length does not make it any less important or worthy of study.
The characteristics of the specific audience who initially heard the parable should have a significant impact on the way the parable is interpreted. In the case of the parable of the growing seed, Jesus was teaching to a large crowd that was collected by a body of water, most likely the Sea of Galilee. According to Mark 4:1, “The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water's edge.” Unlike many of Jesus’s other parables, this particular one was not taught in an intimate setting to a small group of believers, but rather to a large number of people who were probably at various stages in their spiritual development.
The parable of the growing seed actually falls in the middle of a section containing four parables. Jesus’s teachings in this section begin with the parable of the sower, followed by the lamp on a stand which immediately precedes the parable of the growing seed. After the parable of the growing seed, Jesus tells the parable of the mustard seed. Subsequent to telling these four parables, the Gospel writer relates the story of Jesus calming the storm. These five incidents should be understood together as a series of related stories rather than as independent or disjointed narratives. The longest and most detailed of the parables in this section is that of the sower, which indicates that when the audience heard the remaining three, they would still have had the parable of the sower on their minds. Jesus explains the parable of the sower immediately after telling it. In His own words, it relates to how people respond to hearing the Word of God. In verse 40, after calming the storm, Jesus asks His disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” The parable of the growing seed is located between these two stories which clearly relate to faith. Therefore, the modern exegete should approach the interpretation of the parable of the growing seed from this perspective.
What Jesus is referring to in this parable is what occurs after the Holy Spirit has planted the seed of faith in a person’s heart. Once faith has taken root, it continues to grow and develop over time, just as a plant does. While the daily or sometimes even weekly growth can be imperceptible from a human perspective, the long-term result is apparent. The development of a plant can be observed at various stages, the same as with someone’s spiritual growth. The lives of individual Christians can bear different fruit because they are at various points of their walk with the Lord. The Holy Spirit harvests the fruit that the faith of believers bears, but the specific fruit will vary based on the believer’s level of spiritual maturity.
The middle two verses of this parable also seems to bear witness to the fact that faith does not come from human effort, but by the power of the Holy Spirit. A farmer does not really know how or why his crops grow; he just knows that they do because he sees the evidence when harvest time arrives. In the first part of verse 28 where Jesus said, “All by itself the soil produces grain,” indicates that the growth of the seed into a head of wheat is not because of anything that was done by the farmer who planted the wheat. This statement would come as a surprise to the agricultural community who would assert that the fact that a seed sprouted and grew was the result of the labors of the farmer, who prepared the field, planted the seed, watered it, spread fertilizer and generally tended the crop. The catch of this parable is that Jesus contradicted what His listeners would assume to be true in order to make a theological statement about the nature of faith and spiritual growth.
In the second temple period in Israel, the rabbis and teachers of the Law expounded upon the importance of adhering to a particular set of rules that went beyond the original Law of Moses. There were specific duties and responsibilities that faithful Jews were compelled to obey and there was a different set of activities that they were instructed to avoid. For Jews who lived during the time of Jesus, it was normal for a rabbi to teach a set of instructions for his followers to obey in order to earn favor with God. When Jesus taught that faith could grow and bear fruit in the life of a believer without the person being required to do anything, it was highly unusual and set His teachings apart.
While many modern Christians view conversion as a one-time occurrence or that faith is something a person does once a week, what Jesus taught was an entirely different concept. The parable of the growing seed clearly demonstrates that faith is a process rather than an event. The intended response to the parable of the growing seed is to recognize that faith takes time to develop to maturity and that spiritual growth comes only as the result of the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer.
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References
Fee, G. and Stewart, D. (1993). How to read the Bible for all it’s worth, 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Ferdon, G. (2009). The nature of parables and allegories: Fundamental differences as figures of speech and unique principles of interpretation. Regent University School of Education.
Kaiser, W. and Silva, M. (1994). An introduction to biblical hermeneutics: The search for meaning. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Virkler, H. A. (1981). Hermeneutics: Principles and Processes of Biblical Interpretation. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
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