Mar 4:8 And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred
There four key symbols as work in this parable: the ground, the birds, the sun, and the weeds. The ground and the sun represent the two opposites of the earth and heaven. Both are required for the plant to survive. The birds are adversity. The weeds are delusion and desire.
The ground is a key element in all four sections of this parable. The ground of the wayside is too bare and hard, allowing the birds to see the seeds and eat them. The rocky ground doesn't have enough depth, so the spouts don't have enough root to prevent them from being dried up. The ground with thorns is too crowded, too much competition with the thorns prevent the plants from bearing fruit. The "beautiful" ground in this verse is free of any of these defects. (Note: in The Art of War, Sun Tzu also defined four types of ground, mountains, river, marshes, and plateaus, where the first three all have defects and the last is the one without these defects.)
Though I have described the ground elsewhere as symbolic of the emotional realm, a more accurate description for this particular Greek word (gê), would be for the whole temporal world, the dominant feature of which is society, our social relationships.
As a symbol of heaven, the sun represents not the spirit, but the universe, here, specifically, the power of the universe. Light is always symbolic of knowledge, but the focus is heat, which is physical.
"Good" is from kalos (kalos), which means "beautiful," "good," "of fine quality," "noble," and "honorable." It is most often translated as "good" juxtaposed with "evil" in the New Testament, but the two ideas are closer to "wonderful" and "worthless," "noble" and "base."
"Earth" (in both cases) is from gê (ge), which means "the element of earth," "land (country)," "arable land," "the ground," and "the world" as the opposite of the sky.
"Fruit" is from karpos (karpos), which means "fruit," "the fruits of the earth," "seed," "offspring," "returns for profit," and "reward."
There four key symbols as work in this parable: the ground, the birds, the sun, and the weeds. The ground and the sun represent the two opposites of the earth and heaven. Both are required for the plant to survive. The birds are adversity. The weeds are delusion and desire.
The ground is a key element in all four sections of this parable. The ground of the wayside is too bare and hard, allowing the birds to see the seeds and eat them. The rocky ground doesn't have enough depth, so the spouts don't have enough root to prevent them from being dried up. The ground with thorns is too crowded, too much competition with the thorns prevent the plants from bearing fruit. The "beautiful" ground in this verse is free of any of these defects. (Note: in The Art of War, Sun Tzu also defined four types of ground, mountains, river, marshes, and plateaus, where the first three all have defects and the last is the one without these defects.)
Though I have described the ground elsewhere as symbolic of the emotional realm, a more accurate description for this particular Greek word (gê), would be for the whole temporal world, the dominant feature of which is society, our social relationships.
As a symbol of heaven, the sun represents not the spirit, but the universe, here, specifically, the power of the universe. Light is always symbolic of knowledge, but the focus is heat, which is physical.
"Good" is from kalos (kalos), which means "beautiful," "good," "of fine quality," "noble," and "honorable." It is most often translated as "good" juxtaposed with "evil" in the New Testament, but the two ideas are closer to "wonderful" and "worthless," "noble" and "base."
"Earth" (in both cases) is from gê (ge), which means "the element of earth," "land (country)," "arable land," "the ground," and "the world" as the opposite of the sky.
"Fruit" is from karpos (karpos), which means "fruit," "the fruits of the earth," "seed," "offspring," "returns for profit," and "reward."
posted by Gary Gagliardi at 11:35 AM
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