Parables - trying to work out my ideas

[spirit_led]

So tomorrow I am preaching on the parable of the sower in Matthew (13:1-23). The experts tell me that parables are supposed to be subversive and difficult to understand. They got that part right

Comments

[blue_shadows9]

Could this parable have been directed at the disciples specifically, and in a very limited way? As in, "Just sow the seeds, guys, and don't be too disheartened when the message doesn't take root. It's not your fault." Seems to me the parable doesn't even touch on the deeper issues there of whose fault it actually is when people don't convert to Christianity. I mean, you might as well ask why there's suffering in the world, or why some people are jerks, or why Saddam Hussein was ever allowed to live, or why God made a world where we are constantly threatened with hurricanes and tornadoes and earthquakes. Maybe there's some other part of the bible that talks about that, and this parable simply doesn't cover it.

I have my own answers to those questions, of course, but you aren't going to want to hear those.