Daily Bible Reading 6th 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.
Jesus' interpretation of the parable - which, of course, is definitive for us - indicates the various reactions to the sowing of the word of the gospel in men's hearts. The seed that fell by the wayside is snatched away by the devil. The implications here are considerable: for one thing, when sown, it lay on ground made hard by the tramping of many feet and that no ploughshare ever touched, and was therefore easy prey for the birds of the air. For another thing, as Matthew indicates in his version, in the words 'understandeth it not' (Matthew 13:19), the reason the devil can snatch away the seed of the word is that he blinds the minds of them that believe not, making them unreceptive to the truth (cf 2 Corinthians 4:4). This is always one factor in the work of the gospel. The seed that fell on rock (stony ground) refers, not to stubborn resistance to the truth, but to a superficial reception of it, which gives it no chance to take root. One thinks of the crowds in Jerusalem who, one week cried 'Hosanna to the Son of David', and the next 'Crucify Him'. The implication in the word 'withered' in 6 is significant: Matthew explicitly mentions the scorching by the sun as causing the withering; and since the sun always rises on growing grain, the meaning is that tribulation or persecution is an inevitable part of experience. The growth has got to be something that will withstand this. And for this, the seed must have deep soil to grow in. The thorns are the cares and riches and pleasures of this world which grow up around the growing seed, and choke it, taking up the room that the seed requires for true development. This is perhaps the saddest part of the parable: the seed has been rooted in an adequate depth of soil, and has been growing apace, but the 'other things', the competing interests bring about a division of allegiance that proves fatal. To change the metaphor, having a foot in both worlds will never do in the Christian life. Christ's command is to forsake all to follow Him.