Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 13:23

"And he that was sown upon the good ground, this is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; who verily beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." — Matthew 13:23 (ASV)

He who hears the word and understands it — The process is not merely an intellectual one. He takes it in and discerns its meaning. The phrases in the other Gospels express the same thing: to hear the word and receive it (Mark), and to hear and retain it in an honest and good heart (Luke). Even here, however, there are different degrees of the holiness that is symbolized by “bearing fruit”—some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty—varying according to people's capacities and opportunities.

It is permissible to fill up the outline sketch of interpretation that formed the first lesson in this method in the great Master’s school.

1. It may seem strange at first that the disciples were not told who in the work of the kingdom corresponded to “the Sower” of the parable. The interpretation is given in the parable of the Tares (the Sower of the good seed is the Son of Man). In part, this was the one point on which the disciples were not likely to misunderstand Him. But we may also believe this explanation was not given because, although the parable was primarily true of Him and His work, He intended for them to learn wisdom from it for their own work. True, they were reaping what they had not sown (John 4:38), yet they too were, in turn, to be sowers as well as reapers.
2. It is obviously an important lesson of the parable that it teaches us to recognize the possible existence of “an honest and good heart” (the first word meaning “noble” or “generous,” rather than “honest” in our modern sense) before the preaching of the word. Such characters were to be found in those living under the Law, or without the Law (Romans 2:14), and it was the preacher's work to look for them and win them to something yet higher. What made the ground good is a question the parable was perhaps meant to suggest but does not answer. Theologians may speak of “prevenient grace.” The language of John 4:37-38 leads us to think of the work of the Light that lighteth every man. Here also the law holds good that to him that hath shall more be given.
3. It is in the nature of such a parable that it represents the phenomena of the spiritual life only partially. It brings before us four classes of hearers and seems to assume that their characters are fixed and incapable of change, issuing in results that might have been foreseen. If so, then the work of the “word” thus preached would seem to be limited to order and progress, and the idea of “conversion”—the change of character—would be almost excluded.

We must therefore supplement the parable in its practical application. The soil can be improved; the wayside, the stony places, and the thorny ground can become like the good ground. It is the work of every preacher and teacher to prepare the soil as well as to sow the seed. In the words of an old prophet, which might almost seem to have suggested the parable itself, they are to break up the fallow ground and sow not among thorns (Jeremiah 4:3).