The parable of the sower (part 2)

In part one we began to look at the parable of the sower. We established the significance of not sowing the “field” of our hearts with two kings of seed. Another condition that needed to be met before seed could be sown was that the seed itself had to be ceremonially clean – that is it could not be defiled by any dead thing. In Leviticus 11:37-38 God said that if seed came into contact with water and then afterward came into contact with the carcass of an animal, it was unclean and could not be used. The significance of the seed coming into contact with water first was that once it did it would begin to germinate – the first step of which involved the hard, protective outer shell or hull coming off. Once the hull integrity had been compromised, the seed was susceptible to infection and defilement, just as our bodies are when our skin has been broken or punctured in some way.

The spiritual implications of this principle are powerful. All too often something is passed off as the pure “seed” of God’s word even though it has been defiled by the “carcass” of the flesh. It happens like this: God gives someone His “seed” in the form of some revelation about His word, but not long after that seed begins to germinate in that person’s heart, it comes into contact with their own thoughts, interpretation and understanding and, as a result, the seed becomes defiled. (Proverbs 3:5, 16:25, 2 Peter 1:20) Seed that is defiled in this way will always result in a corrupt crop, and this defilement is perpetuated as the fruit of that crop continues to reproduce “after its kind.” (Genesis 1:11-12)

There is another passage that gives us still more insight into this principle. The first chapter of Daniel focuses on the lives of Daniel and three of his friends who had been taken captive in their youth and were being trained up serve in the court of the king of Babylon. Daniel 1:5 tells us that Daniel and his friends were given “a daily ration from the king's choice food and from the wine which he drank.” But in Daniel 1:8 we are told that, “Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine.”

It is quite possible that the king’s food and wine was somehow made ceremonially unclean through some type of idolatrous ceremonies. If so we can easily see why Daniel chose to act as he did – especially in light of Paul’s words in 1^st Corinthians 10:20-21: “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God; and I do not want you to become sharers in demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.”

Regardless of whether the king’s “choice food” had been defiled through some kind of idolatrous ceremony, this story teaches us a powerful principle. A king’s “choice food” consisted of fine flour, fattened livestock and the choice wine. (1 Kings 4:22-23) As a result of his refusal to defile himself by eating the king’s “choice food,” Daniel asked that he and his friends be given “vegetables to eat and water to drink.” (Daniel 1:12) The word translated, “vegetables” in this verse comes from a verb that means, “to sow seed.” Literally Daniel and his friend’s diet consisted of things “sown from seed” – in other words, it was food that had not been processed in any way, whether by grinding and sifting (like the kings “fine flour” – a word that literally means “stripped” - like today’s pastry flours are “stripped” of almost all their nutrients) or through digestion (by the kings “fattened” livestock.)

The spiritual significance of this is enormous. Many Christians today are eating the spiritual equivalence of the “choice food” than Daniel and his friends refused – food that has been processed in one or more ways by the hand of man. But Daniel 1:15-20 tells us that if we, like Daniel, choose to eat only things that have grown directly from the pure seed of God’s word, then we will be better off for it in every way, as well as more effective in the service of the King!