Jesus left the house (which one we are not sure). He went to the Sea of Galilee and great crowds gathered around him. He began to teach in parables. What followed was the famed parable of the sower.

Most of us think we know the point of the parable. After all, Jesus himself explained its meaning (Matthew 13:18-23). But did he? In its present form, the parable is about our response to the seed (the word of God) which has been sown among us. But was this really Jesus' point? The consensus among most New Testament scholars is that this was not Jesus' point, that the explanation of the parable in verses 18-23 was not part of the original parable!

The general consensus among these scholars is that if you study the parable, it is not about us, not about what kind of soil we are, but about Jesu…