Parable of the Growing Seed

Text and Placement

This parable appears in Mark 4:26–29 and is absent from Matthew and Luke. Within the collection of parables in Mark 4, it follows the Parable of the Sower and the Parable of the Lamp, and precedes the Parable of the Mustard Seed.

Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a man who casts seed into the ground. The sower sleeps and rises night and day, and meanwhile the seed springs and grows up; "he knoweth not how" (Mark 4:27). "For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear" (Mark 4:28). When the fruit is brought forth, "immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come" (Mark 4:29).

Background and Vocabulary

The parable draws on the everyday reality of grain farming in Palestine, in which the farmer, once he has sown, cannot intervene in the process of growth before the harvest. The phrase "of herself" in verse 28 translates the Greek automatē, meaning "by itself" or "without human hands." It shares its root with the English word "automatic." In English the parable is also commonly called the Parable of the Seed Growing Secretly.

Significance in the Whole of Scripture

It is widely held that verse 29, "he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come," echoes Joel 3:13: "Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe." In the Old Testament prophets, harvest served as a symbol of the day when God intervenes in history. Many interpreters therefore read the parable's closing scene as a reference to the Last Judgment or to the consummation of the kingdom of God. In teaching that the kingdom of God has now begun in a hidden way but will surely reach its fulfillment, the parable forms a pair with the Parable of the Mustard Seed that immediately follows.

Interpretation and Points of Debate

• Who is the sower? Some interpreters identify the sower with Jesus himself; others see the disciples or evangelists who proclaim the word. Some point out that the phrase "he knoweth not how" does not fit an identification of the sower with God.
• Emphasis: Interpreters in the Reformed tradition, which stresses the sovereignty of God, emphasize that growth is the work of God rather than of human effort. Other interpreters note that sowing the seed and putting in the sickle are human tasks, and so they also find in the parable human responsibility and faithful waiting.
• Gradual growth or certain outcome? Some read the stages from blade to ear to full grain as depicting the gradual expansion of the kingdom of God. Others hold that the central point is not the process of growth but the certainty that the harvest will come. This difference is sometimes tied to differing understandings of eschatology and the millennium.
• Distinguishing text from application: Many sermons apply the parable to personal sanctification or to child-rearing. Because the subject the text directly addresses is the kingdom of God, however, such applications are best understood as extensions drawn from the text.

In the Korean Church

The parable is frequently cited in sermons that encourage work whose fruit is not immediately visible, such as evangelism, church planting, and Sunday school ministry. In such contexts it is often read together with 1 Corinthians 3:6–7: "I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase."