Parable of the Sower

Apr 23, 2023 | by Pastor Josh Tate | series: Parables

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When I was a boy, my dad introduced me and my brothers to Old Time Radio programs. The era of Old Time Radio was long gone by the time I was born in 1978, but a few times a year my dad would get us cassette tapes featuring shows like George Burns and Gracie Allen, The Jack Benny Program, Edgard Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, The Great Gildersleeve and many others. I remember particularly liking a radio adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic “The Birds.” We listened to these cassettes every night when we went to bed, and, boy, we wore those tapes out! We listened to them so many times that even to this day I can still quote some portions word for word.

One day my dad introduced a new tape to us featuring “The Pineapple Story” by a missionary named Otto Koning. I remember thinking when my Dad gave it to us that a missionary talk wouldn’t be very good, at least not as good as Jack Benny, and certainly not as funny. I was wrong though. The Pineapple story quickly became one of my favorites. It is a true story and also very, very, very funny. Not only was his story engaging, interesting and riotously funny, but it was also convicting. With wonderful humility, honesty and rich humor Koning told a story, and that story conveyed a powerful truth that he learned on the mission field. I think because the lesson came packaged in an engaging story it stuck in mind with greater permanence and force than most sermons I had heard. That’s the power of storytelling.

Story-telling has always been a powerful tool for conveying truth, and Jesus was a master storyteller. Today we dive into a new sermon series in which we’ll be exploring some of Jesus’ parables. We’ll start with a parable contained in three of the four Gospel accounts (Matthew 13:1-23, Mark 4:1-20, and Luke 8:1-15), the Parable of the Sower.