This morning as I read God’s word, the theme of Hearing God’s Word just everywhere. Here some the points that I gather:
All hears, but few bears fruit.
Was reading from Mark 4:1-20 where Jesus spoke in Parables and explained the meaning of the parable. There are 4 group of hearers. Everybody does hear. Some even receive it joyfully at once. But only few bears fruit at the end. Why is it so?
Hence it’s not a simplistic matter of hearing vs not hearing. It’s not even the comparison between accepting vs rejecting. What I think Jesus getting at is the fruitfulness as result of that hearing.
The good soil is differentiated with these verbs: welcome and bear. To welcome somebody or something has deeper involvement than simply accept or receive. It takes great effort to welcome. And to bear is definitely a very loaded word which indicate not only great effort, sacrifice, but also long endurance, with the eyes set on the outcome of that long bearing. It is a hard labor (though could be accepted joyfully).
