Please read the passage before the commentary.
In is explanation of the parable from Matthew 13:1-9. In the parable as told in Matthew the seed sown is the word of God. In today’s passage the seed is the one who hears the word of the kingdom. This perhaps points to a post-resurrection explanation. Simon Peter, for instance in the passion of Jesus denied Jesus, but changed his mind and believed in Jesus. He was at one time a person who had heard but who fell away during persecution. Many others had heard the word but did not last long.
The early believers in Christ could easily have used this parable as a way of explaining why some people had not accepted Christ.
The word would bring for fruit, thirty, sixty or a hundred fold. Is this reality or fantasy? Gerhard Lohfunk, in his book The Forty Parables of Jesus (pages 65-72), speaks of tillering, a process of one grain splitting into side shoots or twins formed from one stalk. Thirty would make a good quantity, and perhaps the tillering of three plants would give us the thirty, the sixty, or the hundred-fold mentioned in this passage.
God’s word is at work, whether the recipient is rocky ground, thin soiled, or persecuted away. Nothing can stop the progress of God’s word.
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