Now this is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God.
Parallel translations
- WEB Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
- KJV Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
- NKJV “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
- NASB “Now this is the parable: the seed is the word of God.
- NLT “This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is God’s word.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Jesus interprets the seed as the word of God. The whole parable concerns how people respond to His message.
Overview
Jesus gives the key to the parable: the seed is the word of God, the message of the Kingdom He proclaims. The differing soils, then, are differing hearts that receive that word. This frames the parable as a searching account of how the Gospel is heard and received.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- 1 Pet 1:23–25For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
- Matt 13:19When anyone hears the message of the kingdom but does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path.
- Mark 4:14–20The farmer sows the word.
- Jas 1:21Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and every expression of evil, and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save your souls.
- 1 Cor 3:9–12For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.
- 1 Cor 3:6–7I planted the seed and Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.
- Isa 8:20To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Luke shows Jesus the Savior for all — outsiders, the poor, the nations — the one who, on the Emmaus road, opened all the Scriptures to show they were about himself.
How Luke 8:11 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.