Matthew 13 opens with Jesus teaching from a boat because the crowd on the shore was too big, in 13:1–2. He told the parable of the sower. By the wayside, birds eat the seed. On stony ground, it springs up fast and withers because it has no root. Among thorns, it gets choked. On good ground, it bears fruit, “some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.” Then He explained it, in 13:18–23. The wayside hearer doesn’t understand, and the wicked one snatches the word away. The stony hearer receives it with joy but quits when persecution comes. The thorny hearer lets worldly cares and riches choke it. The good-ground hearer hears, understands and bears fruit. Luke adds that good ground is “an honest and good heart.” It keeps the word and bears fruit “with patience,” in Luke 8:15.
This parable fits fourteen- to sixteen-year-olds almost too well. Stony ground is the spiritual high from youth camp or FSY that fades in two weeks because nothing was rooted. Thorns usually aren’t evil things. They’re practices, jobs, homework, worry about the future and endless scrolling that leave no room to breathe. Roots are the quiet daily habits nobody posts about. Personal prayer, scripture study, seminary, the sacrament. Notice, too, that good ground doesn’t all produce the same amount. The Lord isn’t asking every youth to be a hundredfold overnight.
The chapter keeps going with short parables of the kingdom. Wheat and tares grow together until the harvest, in 13:24–30 and 36–43. A tiny mustard seed becomes a tree. Leaven works through the whole loaf. There’s treasure hidden in a field, a pearl of great price, and a net full of every kind of fish. Doctrine and Covenants 86:1–7 explains the tares as a latter-day parable, with the wheat gathered first. A tare was a weed that looked like wheat until it was fully grown. In October 2022, Elder Neil L. Andersen used this parable to speak to members who don’t feel like strong, mature wheat. He reminded them to be patient with themselves.
Luke 13 adds two tender pictures. A fig tree has produced nothing for three years, and the owner wants it cut down. The dresser of the vineyard pleads for one more year to dig around it and fertilize it, in Luke 13:6–9. And Jesus heals a woman who’d been bent over for eighteen years and “could in no wise lift up herself,” in 13:11–13. Both point to a Savior who works patiently with people who aren’t yet where they want to be.
