Chapter 4, on parables, and chapter 13, on eschatology, are the only two chapters in Mark devoted entirely to Jesus’s teaching. The parable of the sower (4:1–20) is another A-B-A sandwich construction, in which Jesus’s teaching on the mystery of the kingdom of God (4:10–12) divides the parable of the sower (4:1–9) and its explanation (4:13–20).

The parable discourse takes place in the now familiar context of Jesus’s teaching alongside the northwest quadrant of the Sea of Galilee. Jewish rabbis did not typically teach in parables, but parables were the preferred form of Jesus’s public teaching; the first three Gospels, in fact, contain some sixty of his parables. The word “parable” means something placed alongside something else as a means of clarification. Jesus employs ordinary experien…