Luke 8.1-21 Study Guide

A Parable on Parables

An Orderly Account:

Encountering Jesus in the Gospel of Luke

Luke 8:1-21

The Text

Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God….

Introduction:

Jesus constantly told stories called parables. Today we’re looking at the parable of the Sower. It’s always the first parable in the gospels, and most importantly: it’s a parable that teaches us how to understand parables.

In other words, this is a parable on parables. It’s the master key, the parable that unlocks all the others. In Mark 4:13, after Jesus gives the same parable, he says to his disciples:

 “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?”

This is a warning: if you fail to understand this parable, you won’t understand the rest. Or, positively, if you want to understand the ministry of Jesus Christ, the message he brings, and the gospel he embodies, you must understand this parable.

1. What the Parable Does for Us
2. What the Parable Reveals to Us
3. How the Parable Can Be Lived Out by Us

1. What the Parable Does for Us

You may have heard that a parable is “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.” That’s true, but there’s a little more to it. The Welsh theologian C.H. Dodd said this:

[A] parable is a metaphor…

drawn from nature or common life,

arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness,

and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application

to tease it into active thought.[1]

In other words, there’s a truth you need to wrestle with, and if Jesus stated it outright, you’d dismiss it; you’d set up all your defenses. So, instead of coming through the front door, he goes around to the back window. He disarms you to get you to think more deeply than you’re prone to think.

The two parables in Luke 8 (the Sower & the Lamp) share the same message. Here it is:

“Listen well so you don’t miss the kingdom.”

Simple. 8 words. Efficient. But Jesus knows, that if he gives us that truth directly, our attention spans will move on to something else in a snap. If, however, he tells us a story about a man planting a crop, and different soils, and rocks, and birds, and scorching Sun and wind, we’ll slow down and consider his message far more deeply.

We’re always looking at the world through our own lens, and Jesus wants us to examine the lens itself. Parables suspend our normal shallow thought process. They allow us to look at ourselves rather than throughourselves.

We think we know who God is and how he acts, who we are and what we are doing. Parables say, “You don’t understand God or yourself as much as you think. You have built up your own defenses, you have your own blind spots, and you must be taken out of yourself in order to see yourself; in order to see God!”

If direct communication is like swallowing a pill, parables are like sucking on a cough drop. You can’t gulp it down and get the intended effect.

Here’s what this means: in order for the parables of Christ to have their intended effect, you have to slow down. Engage your imagination. Think them out. Find yourself in the story. Don’t rush. Meditate and marinate. And this is totally the opposite of what our digital culture trains us to do.

You can’t doom-scroll the parables of Christ. Do you know what doomscrolling is? It’s when you lay in bed with your phone and you scroll from post to post to post, from video, to video, to video. It’s a 7 second attention span. Nothing sinks in. Nothing goes deep into your heart, and therefore you’re training your heart to be shallow, distracted, and trivial.

Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t occasionally veg out and laugh at some funny videos with your kids. We do that in my house. But—if we are going to encounter the real Jesus Christ—the Son of God incarnate, if his Word is going to go deep into our heart—the parables are essential. They train us to reject superficiality, and move us toward deep, penetrating insight. Friend, you have to slow down long enough for the Word of Christ to reach the bottom of your soul.

That’s what the parable does for us. Let’s see what the parable reveals to us.

2. What the Parable Reveals to Us

Jesus spoke around 45 different parables in the gospels. Many of the parables concern the kingdom of God.

So, you see in our passage, verse 1:

Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.

Notice again, in verse 9:

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,

Both parables, the Sower and the Lampstand, share the same message: many people will hear of the kingdom and miss it entirely.

The seed of the kingdom is scattered, and three-quarters of the seed is eaten, dried up, and choked out.

The message of the kingdom is like a lamp which some see and put it on a lampstand, while others hide the light under a jar.

So, what is the kingdom he’s talking about? A little background:

Throughout the Bible, God imposes covenants on kingdoms and governs those kingdoms through covenant.

God is King over all creation. And how does he govern all creation? Through two covenants: one made with Adam in the garden (Hos. 6:7; Gen. 2), and another made with Noah after the flood (Gen. 9).

God governed the kingdom of Israel from Genesis 12 to the coming of Christ, through three covenants: Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic.

And when the Son of God, Jesus Christ, came, He preached that God’s kingdom was coming into the world. In the gospels, the Jews are constantly disappointed because they anticipated a restoration of the former glory of the Mosaic Covenant, of the kingdom of Israel.

When Jesus drew giant crowds, preaching that the kingdom had come, and performed signs and miracles of power—what did everyone expect? This will be the restoration of the kingdom of Israel.

But the kingdom Christ proclaimed was not the restoration of old covenant Israel. He came to establish a new kingdom: the kingdom of Christ; established by the New Covenant.

The kingdom Jesus established was upside down and inside out to the kingdom the people anticipated. Instead of a nation, Christ’s kingdom is “not of this world.” (John 18:36) The citizens of Jesus’s kingdom are not ethnic descendants of a patriarch, rather they are born of the Spirit from above (John 3:36) They are born not of Abraham’s body, but his belief.

It’s not a kingdom of worldly power, but of humility and self-denial. The members of Christ’s kingdom know that the way up is the way down. Whoever loses their life will find it. (Matt. 16:25) The way to be rich is to be generous. The way to have power is to serve others, strength come through suffering. The first is last. (Matt. 19:30) The way to true freedom is to make yourself a slave.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst. (Matt. 5:3-5) Love your enemies. (Matt. 5:4) Turn the other cheek. (Matt. 5:38-42) Deny yourself. (Luke 9:23) Take up your cross. (Matt. 16:24)

Jesus taught that the good news, the gospel of the kingdom is that the king came from heaven, and he would triumph by being tortured and killed for the sins of his people.

What a crazy, stupid message! And this, Jesus says, is why Israel missed it. It’s why most people miss it today. Some of you, even now hear the message of this kingdom and the devil is already convincing you this kingdom is a joke. Others of you hear and want to believe, but you have not truly considered the costliness of living in this kingdom; that to live in this kingdom is to be despised by the world, and when it gets hard, you’ll walk away. Some of you are so distracted, you’re choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and the seed of this message which you have heard is already withering. You see the light, but you’re putting it under a jar, and even that light you have will be taken from you.

The parables reveal the kingdom—but they also reveal our hearts. They reveal how distant we are from this kingdom. We want to find our life, not lose it; to gain power, not serve. We want our enemies suffering, not reconciled.

Which means the parables don’t just reveal how unlike the kingdom we are. They reveal how unlike the king we are.

So, how can we ever hope to live this parable out?

3. How the Parable Can Be Lived Out by Us

You know, I’m always telling you there are two ways to read the Bible. Either you read the Bible as if it’s primarily about you or you read the Bible as if it’s primarily about Jesus. The same is true with the parables.

If you read this passage as if it’s about you, it will give you a fine list of things to do. Listen to God’s Word. Hold onto it. Bear Fruit with patience. Shine the light. Be careful how you hear. Obey God.

If my only goal in this sermon is to increase your listening skills, I could give you all kinds of techniques. Books to read, skills to develop. I could teach you how to have a daily quiet time. I could give you a class on hermeneutics and Bible interpretation. You could become a master of reading and obeying the Bible—and who would your redeemer be? Yourself.

If the parables are only about things we must do, then we must become our own saviors. But if the parables are primarily about Christ himself, then our eyes are opened to the truth. You see, Christ is not only the Sower, as the incarnate Son, he’s also the only into whom the seed of God’s Word has gone to the depths and taken root.

He’s the only one who upon hearing the Word, held fast to it, who did not turn from it to the right hand or the left. He’s the only one who meditated on it day and night and who bore fruit with patience. Friend, Jesus Christ is the only man who received the light of God’s truth and put it on a lampstand, who refused to hide it, even when it cost him his life.

He lost his life, and took it back up in resurrection. He was rich yet became poor. Being powerful, he took the form of a servant. Though he was first, he became last, and without losing his greatness, he took upon himself obscurity. The king came, loved his enemies, blessed them. He loved and blessed you even as on the cross he prayed for your forgiveness.

Saint Augustine spend the first thirty years of his life chasing pleasure, philosophy and self-mastery. He was living as his own redeemer, and it was wrecking him. As he sat in a garden, weeping over the brokenness of his life, he heard a child singing “Tolle Lege,” “Take up and read.” He opened a Bible that was close by and his eyes fell on Romans 13:14:

“But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” And in that moment, Augustine was converted. The years of exhausting effort were over, and years of bearing fruit with patience began.

When you know that’s what Jesus did for you—if the gospel of the kingdom is true: that the King loved his enemies, paid their ransom, and welcomes them in by grace, the seed goes to the bottom of your heart and flourishes into a fruitful tree.

When his Word is preached, you’ll hear it with gladness. You’ll open and read it daily. You’ll hold onto it even through the deepest suffering and pain. Even when it’s costly. You won’t run past it. You’ll slow down, internalize it, welcome it. His Word will become like a lamp that you put on a stand in the very center of your life, so that it can shine and illuminate everything else. You’ll desire to see all your life in the light of Christ.

Conclusion

This week, slow down as you read the Word. Hear the voice of Christ speaking to you, revealing his ways and his kingdom. Believe in him and follow him in fruit bearing obedience.

[1] The Parables of the Kingdom. C.H. Dodd