| “And brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty” (Matthew 13:8). |
| “And bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred” (Mark 4:20). |
| “And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold” (Luke 8:8). |
| Here is something interesting for all of us to think about. It may be a little hard to understand, but the Bible is full of lovely meditations like this. The parable of the sower is given to us three times in the Bible — in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Yet the fruit from the good ground is described in three different ways. In Matthew it starts with “an hundredfold” and goes down to thirty. In Mark it starts with “thirtyfold,” and goes up to one hundred. In Luke it is all “an hundredfold.” Why is this? |
| I would suggest that each gospel gives us a different view of the way the gospel is presented. In Matthew, we realize that everything that God has ever committed to man has failed; man has been a failure right from the beginning. Adam and Eve broke the one commandment God gave them, Noah got drunk shortly after he came out of the ark, the nation of Israel turned away from the Lord and worshiped idols, just to name a few examples. |
| Man has been no better under the gospel. The church started out well, but very quickly bad doctrine and bad practices came in, and now, outwardly, the church is in ruins. We can be thankful that the gospel still goes out, but it is only producing “thirtyfold” in comparison to the beginning. |
| However, Mark’s gospel is about Christ as the perfect Servant, and service for the Lord is individual. At every period in man’s history, as many of the people turned away from the Lord, the faithfulness of individuals became more noticeable. Before he built the ark, Noah was faithful even when all others were not; Abraham was faithful when many others were not: Josiah the king of Judah was very faithful, even though he had an ungodly father and grandfather. |
| So it is today. If the church is in ruins outwardly, individuals who are faithful to the Lord are more noticeable, and God values them. They are often the ones who produce one hundredfold, and this ought to be a real encouragement to you and me! |
| Finally, in Luke it says simply, “an hundredfold.” In one sense, in the Lord’s hands, everything is one hundredfold. When the Lord presents His church to Himself in a coming day, she will be seen in all His perfection, not having “spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing” (Ephesians 5:27). This is how we appear before God as a result of the work of Christ on the cross, and the Spirit of God in Luke calls this “an hundredfold.” How encouraging this is! None of us are perfect Christians as to the fruit we produce, but we are all before God in the perfection of Christ Himself, because He has cleansed us from all sin. |
