The Kingdom of God is like if a man throws seed into the ground, and sleeps, and rises night and day; and how the seed sprouts and grows, he does not know, for the earth of its own accord produces first greenery, then an ear, then a full grain in the ear. When the fruit is ripe, he immediately sends a sickle, because the harvest has come.

This parable has always been considered one of the most difficult for an interpreter. Who should be understood by a person who throws seed into the ground? In the opinion of Anthony, Archbishop of Volhynia and Zhytomyr, here the sower is understood not as God, but as a Christian who plants a good seed (the teaching of Christ or feats of piety) both in his heart and in his social life; he cannot follow the further growth of the grace-filled life in himself and in others, just as a resting farmer does not follow the gradual growth of a sown field, but the Lord, invisibly affirming virtue in his heart and in his social life, like the sun and rain that raise the grain growing in the field, then suddenly, unexpectedly for the workers, reveals the grace-filled fruits of their labors and gives a bountiful harvest of God.

In interpreting the Lord's parables, it must always be borne in mind that, in teaching with parables, Jesus Christ did not take imaginary examples, but from the everyday life of His listeners, and He did so (according to the explanation of John Chrysostom) in order to make His words more expressive, to clothe the truth in a living image, to imprint it more deeply in the memory and, as it were, to present it to the eyes. Therefore, in parables one should look for similarities or similarities only in general, and not in particulars, not in each word taken separately. In addition, each parable must be understood in connection with others of the same kind and with the general spirit of Christ's teaching.

In His sermons and parables, Jesus Christ very precisely distinguishes the Kingdom of Heaven from the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of Heaven He calls the Kingdom of God which is reserved exclusively for the righteous and will begin after the final Judgment of the human race. And He calls the Kingdom of God the Kingdom of those who believe in Him and do the will of the Heavenly Father Who sent Him, founded by Him on earth. The Kingdom of God prepares the people who enter it for the Kingdom of Heaven; it began with the coming of Christ, who threw the word of God into the hearts of people, just as a farmer throws seed into the ground; and it will end when the time of harvest comes, when the fruit that has grown from the sown word of God is fully ripe. This fruit will ripen when all mankind inhabiting the earth unites into one community of believers, into one flock of the One Shepherd; when all mankind will become one field in which good seeds are sown (the growth of tares together with wheat will not break the unity of the field, just as the presence of Judas in it did not break the unity of Christ's little flock). Then the Kingdom of Heaven will begin. The visible participation of Jesus Christ in the Kingdom of God is expressed in His founding of this Kingdom and in the sending of reapers when the fruit ripens. Although His invisible leadership of this Kingdom is now undoubted for all who believe in Him, the Apostles at that time did not yet have such faith in Him. They had to give a clear example from everyday life to explain how the Kingdom of God begins and ends here on earth. The best example was the same sowing, which has already been mentioned. A man who threw seed into the ground he had prepared for it did all that was required of him; although, if he wishes, he watches over the growth of what he sows, and protects it from unfavorable external influences, yet, because of the power hidden in the seed, the earth of its own accord produces first greenery, then an ear, then a full grain in the ear. In the same way, the word of God, sown by Jesus Christ and falling on favorable soil, as a result of the grace-filled power contained in it, regenerates man; and if neither thorns nor tares choke it, it grows and bears fruit even without the further assistance of Him who sowed.

On the basis of what has been said, we can assume that in this parable the Sower is Christ Himself, the seed is the word of God brought by Him to earth, and the plant growing from the seed is the Kingdom of God. The main idea of the parable is the action of the power of the word of God, uniting people into one Kingdom of God. The rest of the parts of the parable should not be taken into account when interpreting it, since they do not have a special independent meaning (for example: and how the seed sprouts and grows, he does not know) and are given only to clearly confirm the correctness of the main idea.

The Parables of the Treasure Hidden in the Field, the Pearl Seeker, and the Seine

Continuing to test the Apostles whether they could understand His thoughts hidden in the parables, the Lord told them two parables about seekers of the truth, that is, the truth of God. A man accidentally found a treasure buried in a field; And when he found it, he was so glad that he went and sold all that he had, and bought that field. And another sought good pearls, and when he found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it (Matt. 13:46).

The parables of the treasure hidden in the field and of the pearls have a great resemblance to each other; both speak of the acquisition of the truth and the way to the Kingdom of Heaven (that is, of Christ, since He is the truth and the way), with the only difference that the first parable speaks of the sudden, unexpected finding of a treasure, and the second of the finding of a pearl of great price after a long search for generally good pearls. An example of those who suddenly find a treasure that was hidden from them can be the pagans, who for the first time heard the preaching of the Apostles about Jesus Christ and came to know through this that the fulfillment of the will of God proclaimed by Him is the only means for entering the Kingdom of Heaven prepared for the righteous. Enlightened by the preaching of the Apostles, many of them abandoned everything that had previously bound them to earthly life, and at such a price acquired for themselves the greatest treasure in Christ. Jesus likened such listeners of the word of God to a man who, while cultivating someone else's land, accidentally found a treasure buried in it; in order to possess this treasure, it was necessary to buy the field of that; And so, he sells everything he had and buys it, and with it the treasure he found (in those days when people could not consider themselves completely safe, many rich people buried some of their treasures in the ground). An example of those who sought the truth and found it only in the teaching of Christ is St. Justin the Philosopher: in his work "Conversation with Tryphon the Jew" he says that, while still a pagan, he studied all the philosophical systems of that time and was especially fond of the teaching of Plato, but all his knowledge did not give him an answer to the questions that interested him about God, about the soul, its immortality, and so on. until an elder (according to tradition, St. Polycarp) told him about Jesus Christ and the prophets who foretold his coming; having studied the prophecies and the Gospel in consequence of this, he found only in them the only true and useful philosophy. The same seeker of good pearls was Tatian, a disciple of Justin the Philosopher, who found a pearl of great price in the Gospel, and many others.

The fourth parable Jesus spoke to His disciples is the parable of the net that was cast into the sea and caught fish of all kinds. It speaks of the time when the preaching of the Gospel will spread throughout the world, when the Church founded by Christ will contain (seize) all the peoples of the earth; then they will pull the net ashore, collect the good in vessels, and throw the bad away. Then the angels will come out, and separate the wicked from among the righteous, and cast them into the fiery furnace: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Explanation of the meaning of the words: fiery furnace, fiery Gehenna, outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth

Presenting to His listeners the future of sinners, Jesus Christ said that the sinners condemned by Him at the end of the world would be cast into the fiery furnace, where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Should the words "fiery furnace" be taken literally, or should we consider that the punishment that awaits sinners is only likened to torment in a fiery furnace? It seems to us that these words could be understood literally only if Jesus Christ had always expressed Himself in this way about the future that awaits sinners; however, it is known that on other occasions He expressed Himself somewhat differently: thus, in the Sermon on the Mount He compared the torments of sinners to being in the valley (Gehenna) of fire (Matt. 5:29); after that, speaking of the fate that would befall the Jews, He said that they would be cast out into outer darkness: and there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and many would come from the east and the west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt. 8:11-12). The burning in the fiery furnace was known to Jesus' listeners from the books of the Old Testament: thus, Judah, the son of Jacob, condemned his daughter-in-law Tamar to be burned (Gen. 38:24); David threw the inhabitants of the city of Rabbah, whom he had conquered, into the kilns (2 Samuel 12:31); Nebuchadnezzar ordered to throw into the fiery furnace Ananias, Mishael, and Azariah, who did not bow down to the golden image (Dan. 3:21). In general, among the peoples of the East, burning alive was one of the usual methods of capital punishment, and such a punishment was the most terrible and painful. That is why Jesus Christ, speaking of the terrible punishment of sinners in the future eternal life and wishing to visualize to His listeners their fate, pointed to the execution in the fiery furnace as a kind of semblance of what awaits them if they do not repent and are not reborn to a new life. Later, answering the Sadducees' question about the resurrection, Jesus likened to spirits, angels, people who will be resurrected for the Last Judgment, and at the same time explained that the bodies of the resurrected will not be the same sensual bodies as we are clothed with during our earthly life (Luke 20:27-36), and from this we can conclude that the sufferings of the condemned will be spiritual rather than sensual and bodily.

After finishing the conversation with the disciples with parables, Jesus asked them, "Have you understood all this?" And when he was convinced from their answer that they now understood Him, he called them scribes, not those Jewish scribes who, together with the Pharisees, formed a party hostile to Him, but scribes who had been taught the Kingdom of Heaven. The Jewish scribes knew only the old, Old Testament prophecy about the coming of the Messiah, and even then they did not understand it; but the scribe, who has been taught by the preaching of Christ, who knows both the old prophecy and the new teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven, will use both, and just as a housekeeper brings out of his treasury not only the new, but also the old, according to need, so they, preaching, will use not only His teaching, but also the Old Testament prophecies about Him.

1 The mention of patience, of effort, overthrows the Protestant heresy that faith in itself produces in a person a spirit of zeal without any struggle or effort.