And when much people were gathered together, and were come to Him out of every city, He spake by a parable: A sower went out to sow. Luke 8:4,5
The supply teacher showed up at our classroom door to fill in for our science teacher who was sick. But unlike other supply teachers, who usually briefly introduced themselves and sat at the desk to quietly babysit us for the period, this supply teacher came armed with some supplies. Under his arm he carried a large red ball, and in his hand he carried a measuring tape. He was a short, little man and wore glasses that were far too large for his face. And he wore a wide blue tie with yellow dots. One of the older boys at the back laughed out loud at the man’s appearance. The supply teacher grinned right back at the boy and said, ‘Come here, partner, you and I are going to teach the class a little lesson.’ The boy shuffled forward uncertainly, but the teacher just smiled and nodded in a friendly way, and handed the red ball to him. He passed him the tape measure and asked him to measure the distance around the ball. The boy did so, and the teacher wrote the measurement on the chalkboard. He dismissed his volunteer and asked for another. A girl came forward, and the teacher asked her to pull a lever on the side of the ball. She did so, and the ball separated in two. The teacher asked her to measure the distance across the middle of the ball. She did so, and he wrote the measurement on the board. He then helped a third student through dividing the circumference of that ball by its diameter, and none of us ever forgot the value of π. He was a good teacher. But not as good as the Teacher in our text!
The Lord Jesus was about to present the parable of the sower. It was just a short, simple story, and we all know it well. I have heard many sermons about that parable, and so have you. And yet, none of those sermons has been similar, let alone identical. This little story told by the greatest Teacher ever, took only a few minutes to relate. I am sure that Jesus acted out the sweeping arm movements of a sower broadcasting grain as He told the account. In those few minutes, He provided a vast treasure of resources that men have been unable to exhaust. And that was just one parable; Jesus told many others during His ministry. And every day, his disciples listened to His teaching and His explanations and His exhortations, for some three years. What a vast range of education they received! The same education is available to us today.
There are different accounts in the different Gospels of the life and teaching of the Lord Jesus. And all of them are available to us, preserved and delivered to us in our Bibles. The people who listened to the Lord Jesus that day had a great privilege; they could listen and watch as He taught them. But we have an even greater privilege. We can read, and reread His teaching, and we can enjoy the help of the Holy Spirit to unfold to us the meaning of what we read.
The Lord Jesus has lessons to teach us today. But we won’t learn them unless we read them. – Jim MacIntosh