LIV.
THE FIRST GREAT GROUP OF PARABLES.
(Beside the Sea of Galilee.)
Subdivision C.
PARABLE OF THE SEED GROWING ITSELF.
^bMARK IV. 26-29.

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      ^b26 And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed upon the earth;   27 and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring up and grow, he knoweth not how. [In the kingdom of grace, as well as in the kingdom of nature, we are laborers together with God. As preachers, teachers, or friends we sow the seed of the kingdom and God brings it to perfection (I. Cor. iii. 6-9). The seed here spoken of, being wheat or barley, needed no cultivation, and hence the planter let it alone, and did not know how it grew, whether fast or slow, or even whether it grew at all.]   28 The earth beareth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.   29 But when the fruit is ripe, straightway he putteth forth the sickle, because the harvest is come. [Truth, spoken, lies hidden in the human breast, and we do not see its earliest stages of its development, but as it proceeds toward perfection, it becomes step by step more visible. In both fields the sower has little to do with the field between the time of sowing and reaping. In the spiritual field, however, it is well to keep sowing until the grain shows signs of sprouting.]

[FFG 336]