Jesus Teaches about Soil, Seeds, Bread, and Pearls
Simple stories to help us understand spiritual truths
Jesus often told stories called parables. In the parables, Jesus compared common, everyday things to important truths about His gospel. To understand parables, His followers had to listen carefully and think deeply about their meaning. The parables helped them learn about the kingdom of God.
In one parable, a man went into a field to plant some seeds. He scattered many seeds across the field. The seeds fell on different types of ground.
Some seeds landed on a hard dirt path, where they could never grow. Birds came and ate the seeds that landed there.
Some seeds landed in rocky soil. The seeds sprouted up fast, but the roots couldn’t grow because of the rocks. When it got hot, the plants died.
Some seeds fell on soil full of thorny weeds. Because of the thorny weeds, the seeds couldn’t grow.
Other seeds landed on good ground. They became strong, healthy plants. They grew a lot of fruit.
To help His disciples understand, Jesus explained what His parable meant. The seeds are like the word of God. The different types of soil are like people’s hearts and the different ways they react to hearing God’s word. The good soil is like people who hear God’s word, understand it, and obey Him.
To teach about how the kingdom of God would grow, Jesus told about a mustard seed. It is very small, but it grows into a tree where birds can live.
Jesus also said that the kingdom of God is like leaven or yeast that a woman used when making bread. It only takes a little bit of leaven to make the whole loaf rise.
Jesus told another story about a man who bought pearls. He found one that was very beautiful and valuable. He sold everything he had so he could buy the pearl. Jesus told this story to teach that the blessings of the gospel are so valuable that we should do everything we can to receive them.