Mark 4:21 - Meaning and Application

The lessons our Savior teaches here, through parables and picture language, are these. First, good people should remember their duty to do good. As in the earlier parable, they must bear fruit. God expects us to return his gifts with gratitude and to use well what he has put in us. For this reason Jesus asks, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket or under a bed? No, it is set on a lampstand” (Mark 4:21).

The apostles were chosen to receive the gospel, not for themselves alone, but for the good of others, so they could pass it on. All Christians, having received God’s gift, must minister that same gift to others. Gifts and graces make a person like a lamp, the Lord’s lamp (Proverbs 20:27), lit by the Father of lights. Even the best of people are only lamps, small lights compared with the Sun of Righteousness. A lamp gives light only a short distance, for a short time, and it burns down little by little.

Many who have been lit like lamps hide themselves under a bed or a basket. They do not show grace in their own lives, and they do not share grace with others. They may have wealth and do no good with it. They may have limbs and senses, skill and learning, and yet no one benefits from them. They may have spiritual gifts, but they do not use them. Like a candle kept in an urn, they burn only for themselves.

Those who have been lit like lamps should place themselves on a lampstand. They should use every chance to do good, as people made for God’s glory and for the service of the communities they belong to. We are not born for ourselves. The reason is that nothing is hidden except to be revealed, and nothing is kept secret except to come to light (Mark 4:22). No treasure of gifts and graces is given to anyone meant to stay private. The gospel was not given to the apostles so they could hide it, but so it could spread through the whole world. Christ explained the parables to his disciples in private, but he did this so they could serve the public better. They were taught so that they could teach. In general, the Spirit’s gifts are given to each person for the good of others, not just for personal use.

It also matters greatly for those who hear the gospel to pay attention to what they hear, because their well-being or ruin depends on it. Jesus repeats his earlier warning: “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear” (Mark 4:23). We should give the gospel a fair hearing, but that is not enough. He adds, “Be careful what you hear” (Mark 4:24). We should think carefully about what we hear. Hearing does us no good unless we also consider it. Those who teach others must pay close attention to the things of God themselves, so they can deliver the message accurately. We must also be careful about what we hear by testing everything, so we can hold on to what is good. We must stay alert and guard ourselves against being misled.

This warning is strengthened by three truths. First, as we deal with God, so God will deal with us. “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” If we serve him faithfully, he will deal faithfully with us. With the upright, he shows himself upright. Second, as we use the gifts and abilities entrusted to us, those gifts will grow. If we use the knowledge we already have for God’s glory and for the good of others, it will clearly increase, like money in business that grows by being put to work. “To you who hear, more will be given” (Mark 4:25). If the disciples pass on to the church what they have received from the Lord, they will be led deeper into the Lord’s secret purposes. Gifts and graces grow by use, and God promises to bless diligent hands. Third, if we do not use what we have, we lose it. “From the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away” (Mark 4:25). If someone buries a talent, that is the same as breaking trust, and it brings loss. Gifts and graces decay when they are left unused.

The good seed of the gospel, whether sown in the world or in the heart, slowly produces wonderful results, but quietly, without noise (Mark 4:26 and following). That is how the kingdom of God works, and how the gospel works when it is sown and received like seed in good soil. It will come up. Even if it seems lost and buried under the soil, it will force its way through. Once Christ’s word has the place it should have in a soul, it will show itself, just as wisdom from above shows itself in a good life. After a field is planted with grain, how quickly its surface changes. How fresh and pleasant it looks when it is covered with green growth.

The farmer cannot fully explain how the seed comes up. This is one of nature’s mysteries. It “springs up and grows, though he does not know how” (Mark 4:27). He can see that it has grown, but he cannot explain the process or the cause of its growth. In the same way, we cannot fully explain how the Spirit, working through the word, changes the heart. We know the result, but not the full manner of it, just as with the wind. We hear its sound, but cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes. Truly, “great is the mystery of godliness” (1 Timothy 3:16), how God revealed in the flesh came to be believed in the world.

After the seed is sown, the farmer does nothing to make it sprout. He sleeps and rises, night and day. He goes to bed at night and gets up in the morning, and may hardly think about the grain he planted. He may turn to his other business or his pleasures. Yet the earth produces fruit by itself, through the ordinary course of nature and the power of the God of nature. In the same way, when the word of grace is received by faith, it becomes a work of grace in the heart, and the preachers do not make it happen. The Spirit of God carries it on while they sleep and cannot work, or while they are busy with other things (Job 33:15-16). The prophets do not live forever, but the word they preached keeps working even after they are in their graves (Zechariah 1:5-6). The dew that brings the seed up does not wait for people, and does not depend on human strength (Micah 5:7).

It also grows little by little: first the blade, then the ear, and then the full grain in the ear (Mark 4:28). Once it has come up, it keeps going forward. Nature follows its course, and grace does too. Christ’s work, both in the world and in the heart, is a growing work. Even if the beginning is small, the end will become much greater.

Though you do not sow the full body that will come, only bare grain, God gives each seed its own body. At first it is only a tender sprout, which frost may nip or a foot may crush, yet it grows into the ear and then into full grain in the ear. Nature does nothing in sudden leaps. God carries on his work quietly and without fuss, but surely and without fail.

The work of grace also comes to its full form at last (Mark 4:29). “When the fruit is brought forth,” that is, when it is ripe and ready to be gathered into the owner’s hand, then he puts in the sickle. This means, first, that Christ now accepts the service done to him by an honest heart and a good motive. As the gospel bears fruit and works in the soul, Christ gathers honor to himself from it (John 4:35). It also means that he will reward such work with eternal life. When those who truly receive the gospel have finished their course, harvest time comes, and they are gathered like wheat into God’s barn (Matthew 13:30), like a sheaf of grain in its season.

The work of grace is small at first, but great in the end (Mark 4:30-32). “What can I compare the kingdom of God to, as it is now being set up by the Messiah? How can I help you understand how it grows?” Christ speaks as one choosing the best picture to explain it. He does not reach for the sun or moon, but takes a picture from the earth, saying it is like a mustard seed. He had already compared it to seed sown, and now to that seed, to show two things.

First, the beginnings of the gospel kingdom would be very small, like one of the least seeds. When a Christian church was first planted on earth for God, it met in one room, and the number of believers was only one hundred and twenty (Acts 1:15). In the same way, when Israel went down into Egypt, they were only seventy people. So it is in the soul. The work of grace begins as a day of small things, like a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand. Never were such great things carried out by such a small and weak group, like the discipling of the nations through the apostles, or such glory brought about from such unlikely beginnings. “Who has given me these?”

Second, its full growth will be very great. When it grows up, it becomes greater than all the herbs. The gospel kingdom in the world will spread to the farthest nations and continue to the last ages of time. The church has sent out great branches, strong ones, wide-spreading ones, and fruitful ones. Grace in the soul already brings great results while it is still growing, but what will it be when it is made perfect in heaven? The difference between a mustard seed and a large tree is nothing compared with the difference between a new believer on earth and a glorified saint in heaven. See John 12:24.

After these parables, the historian ends with this general account of Christ’s preaching, that he spoke the word to them with many such parables (Mark 4:33). This likely points us back to the fuller account of similar parables in Matthew 13. He spoke in parables as they were able to hear them. He took his comparisons from things familiar to them and within their reach, and he used plain words that suited their understanding. He did not, for the moment, unlock the full meaning of the parables, but his way of speaking was easy enough for them to remember later and find useful.

For the time being, he did not speak to them without a parable (Mark 4:34). The glory of the Lord was covered with a cloud, and God speaks to us in human language so that, even if we do not understand at first, we may understand by degrees. Even the disciples later understood sayings of Christ that they had not grasped at first. He explained these parables to them when they were alone. We may wish we had that explanation as we do for the parable of the sower, but it was not as necessary here. When the church became larger, that growth would itself explain these parables to us, without anything more.