Mar 4:4 And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up.

There are several messages about the nature of reality inherent in this parable that are easily overlooked.

First, the sower does not control where the seed falls. It goes were it will. Since the seed in "the word," logos, we can say simply that information spreads through society, reaching whoever it happens to reach.

Second, the message is that all "ground" is not created equal. This means that every person is not equally capable of accepting a message. In the case of the ground on the "path," it has been trampled down so that it has no cover. This allows the birds to see the seeds. .

Notice that there is no sense of blame here. Is it the ground's fault that it has been trampled down? There is no sense of that in the parable. This is consistent with most of Christ's messages regarding what goes wrong in people's lives. We are not evil. We are burdened. We miss the mark rather than sin.

Nor is there any maliciousness in the birds that eat the seed. Christ consistently uses birds as symbolic of the natural world acting as part of God's plan. Christ brands them here as our "adversaries," but do they really portray the common religious idea of Satan? No, they are the adversity that is part of nature. These birds are from heaven. The word translated as "air" here is the same word that is translated as "heaven" throughout the Gospels. Christ labels them this way to make it clear that the challenge they represent is not in opposition to God, but part of the way that God has made the world.

The term "devour" used here is one that Christ always uses to mean the complete consumption of something so that there is nothing left. So the sense is that, for some people, not only is the opportunity missed but that nothing at all is gained from it.

"Shall fall" in both cases is from piptô (pipto), which means "to fall," "to fall down," "to be cast down," and "to fall upon." It also means "to descend to a prostrate position," as one does when worshiping.

"Way side" is from hodos, which means literally "the way" or "the road" but which is used symbolically to mean "a way of doing things" or "a philosophy of life." It is interesting that a term joining a path with philosophy exists in all languages with which I am familiar.

"Fowls" is from the Greek, peteinos, (peteinos) which means "fully-fledged," "able to fly" or "winged." In the form used, peteinon, it refers to any winged thing. There was clearly a conscious choice here not to use the Greek word for bird, which is ornis, or, in the diminutive, ornithion. All the English words referring to birds coming from Greek begin with this "ornith" prefix, incluidng ornithology, the study of birds.

"Sky" is from the Greek ouranos (ouranos), which means "heaven as in the vault of the sky," "heaven as the seat of the gods," "the sky," "the universe," and "the climate."

"Devour" is from katesthiô (katesthio), which means "to eat up" and "to devour." It is a term applied to animals of prey. It also means "to corrode" or "to be gnawed."