GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 4:7
An Overgrown Building
About halfway between Ava and Route 13, on the south side of Route 4 in southern Illinois, there stands a structure made of concrete blocks in the middle of a field. The walls have openings for doors and windows, but they were never installed. There’s no roof, not even a driveway leading to the building, at least not now. The field around the building has been cleared of large trees, but it is now overgrown with shrubbery, all the way up to the sides of the building. Inside, briars and other vines have grown up the walls. The building produces nothing.
As Jesus told the parable about the farmer who was planting seed, he said, “And other seeds fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them, and they did not produce fruit.” (Mark 4:7) In this picture, the seeds and the thorns grew together. The thorns, however, overgrew the seed sprouts and choked them. The word that Mark and the other Gospel writers used in this parable for “choke” is an intensive word that is used only five times in the New Testament and could be rendered “strangle.” The picture here is that of warfare between seed sprouts and weed sprouts, and the weeds won—they strangled the seed.
In the field along Route 4, there appears to be warfare between the sprouts and vines and the concrete-block building, and the weeds and vines won. Jesus’ picture is that of a believer in whom the Gospel (the seed) and the thorns battle for dominance, and the thorns win. The seed sprout is still there, but it is fruitless. The seed sprout takes up ground, uses the soil’s nutrients, absorbs the sunlight and moisture, but there is no fruit. A parable as applicable today as it was when Jesus spoke it.
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