Daily Bible Reading 5th July 2026 // Luke 8:4-15
4 And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable: 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. 6 And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. 8 And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
9 And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, 10 he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand’. 11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. 12 The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away. 14 And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. 15 As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.
It is clear that in three of the four instances mentioned in the parable, the ultimate purpose of the sowing was not realised and fulfilled. Only the fourth part of the seed bore fruit. This in itself teaches an important lesson: it indicates that there is such a thing as failure in gospel work, in this sense, that there are those that will not respond to the word of the gospel. And we need not necessarily assume that when our witness has not prevailed it is because of some defect or failure in us. Some scholars indeed believe that there is an autobiographical note in the parable, and that Christ is speaking of his own ministry, in Galilee, as well as that of His followers, and describing it to us in these words. We should remember that there were places where He could do no mighty work because of men's unbelief. And there was no defect in His ministry. The fault lay elsewhere. For another thing, we see that though the harvest in the end is great, it is only in the end that it is so; and in the meanwhile, there seems to be so much failure and ineffectiveness. This is something to remember when we tend to become discouraged at the seeming insignificance of the work of the gospel. The ransomed Church of God will be a great multitude which no man can number: the roll of God's elect will be made up, as planned, never fear, and His purposes will all be fulfilled. Furthermore - and this also is evident in the parable - persistent lack of success in the work of the gospel is finally followed by a great and mighty harvest. So much work done with bright hopes turns out to be seed falling by the wayside or on stony ground or among thorns; and it is understandable that discouragement should tend to come. But Christ's words promise a harvest in due season, and this is the best and sufficient incentive to continue in the faithful work. We may well interpret Paul's attitude in Iconium (Acts 14:2, 3) as an instance of this. When much of his preaching seemed to fall on deaf ears, we read, 'Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord' - and in the end, the harvest came!