The Four Soils

In the Gospels, Jesus tells the Parable of the Sower.  In this parable, the seed or Word of God, falls on four different types of soils or hearts.  One is hard packed, one is shallow soil, one is thorny, and the last is good soil.

The first soil represents a hardened heart, the second soil represents a shallow, live for the moment type person, the third, a real busy person, and the last represents those that hold the Word of God in their hearts.

For the person with a hard heart, Satan wants to keep the Word of God as far away as possible.  He does this by eliminating the Bible from public life.  The Bible and prayer has been taken out of the public school systems, the so called “fairness doctrine” as it applies to radio, removing Christian symbols from the public square, and the frowning on, to put it mildly, of proclaiming Christianity anywhere.   If such a person does not hear the Word of God, he has little or no chance to come to God.  And that is just in this country.

The shallow soil takes the Word of God eagerly at first.  Then, when hardships arise, it gets uprooted and blown away.  While Satan sends the hardships and God permits them, it is the job of mature Christians to aid and protect these new Christians until the Word can get a firm root in their heart.  It is also a Christians job to discourage (a gently as possible) flitting around from one new thing to another.  In other words, to keep them interested in the Word of God until it roots firmly in their heart.  This may not be an easy task.  In fact, it is almost guaranteed to be most difficult. The hardest part may be to encourage them without compromising yourself or diluting and sugar coating what it means to be a Christian.

The thorny soil.  Or should it be said, THE THORNY SOIL.  The thorny soil in many ways can be hardest to handle.  These are the ones with legitimate cares, worries, and issues.  The ones with a sick grandmother, an alcoholic brother, the single parent.  Never forget that these are real problems to them.  It is the Christians duty to meet people where they are at, to show them that they are loved and have support.  If that means taking church to them, then that means taking church to them.  It is not only or even primarily the job of the ministers, pastors, and church leaders.  It is the duty of every Christian to do this.  Do not leave it up the leadership.  If they are doing their job, they are busy enough.  Of course one of the most important things to remember is to do everything in love and prayer.

That leaves the good soil.  You might think everything is hunky dory.  That turns out not to be the case.  If you have the good soil in your heart, you must keep constant vigilance over it.  Prevent weeds from taking root in you heart.  That means being careful of the types of things you let into your heart.  In other words, guard your heart.  Keep such things as would destroy or even damage your testimony out of it.  This can also mean not letting in those things that while permitted, may cause another Christian to stumble. 

It is my belief that if Christians act as Christians, a lot of the ills of this world would be alleviated.