The Michael Bay of the Gospels

We've been reading the Gospel of Mark in cell meeting lately. Mark is like the Michael Bay* of the Gospel writers, all action, quick cuts, and immediacy.

Verse 13 through 20 are where Jesus explains his parable of the sower:

¹³Then Jesus said to them, "Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? ¹⁴The farmer sows the word. ¹⁵Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. ¹⁶Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. ¹⁷But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. ¹⁸Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; ¹⁹but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. ²⁰Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown."

Lots of my brothers and sisters in Christ like to blame Satan for the things that go wrong in he world. I prefer to avoid such talk. I'm not too "modern" to buy into the idea that evil spirits exist and want to fuck me up. But I don't like giving credit to the Devil for two reasons:

1. God is infinitely more powerful than any evil spirit. So while spirits may have some power over my life, they are ultimately non-issues. I prefer to treat them that way.
2. I don't have a reliable way to differentiate among acts of the Adversary, self-inflicted problems, and unaccountable crap in life. So I don't try.

Tonight I found some Biblical reinforcement for reason #2.

Sometimes Satan eats the word. Sometimes things outside your control do you in. Sometimes you're weak and shallow and you kill yourself. And sometimes your soil is ready to take the seed in.




*Also like a Michael Bay joint, sometimes it's a little disjointed.