Luke chapter 8

vs 1

Jesus continues on his tour, going from place to place. Notice that the focus of what he's doing is preaching the gospel of the kingdom.

vs 2

We also get to see that, along with the 12, there was a bunch of women with him. Unlike the twelve, who were called, these women were following as a result of the healing of exorcisms they received.

vs 3

It says who they are, so I won't repeat it, although notice that Suzanna is named but without qualification, so obviously she was fairly well known in Christian circles. Probably a leader. Oh no! Probably even an apostle. Blasphemy!

What these women were doing at the time, according to Luke, was funding Jesus and the twelve on their trip. I'm sure you could rely on hospitality for a fair bit of looking after, but when there's 13 guys as well as the women travelling around, they're going to need looking after.

vs 4

So this wasn't a one off parable, it got repeated. I guess you could read this as meaning that it was at the one time when people from towns were coming to him - I think, though, that it sounds more like every town he went to, when the people came out to him, he'd tell this parable. Anyway, he told this parable.

vs 5-8

I won't really bother going into this. Sufficed to say that this guy's method of seed-sowing is the generous method. When you're poor and don't have much seed, you plant it a whole lot more carefully. So this is a liberal sowing of seed. I'll also point out that Jesus wants people to hear this parable, and says so.

vs 9

Good on them for asking. Imagine all the crazy crap we'd have come up with if he didn't tell us.

vs 10

Jesus answer is quite odd. Why would he want people not to understand? Well, he does want people to understand. I mean, he doesn't hide it from the disciples. So you can assume he's not just being difficult. So what's the difference between his disciples (not just the twelve, remember) and other people? Well, the difference would seem to be that they're not really seeking to learn about the kingdom of God from Jesus. So he doesn't teach them about it. Those who want to learn, learn. Those who just want to hear a talk for entertainment value (and yes, there were heaps - what else was there to do back then?) got their farmyard story. And they too got to hear about the kingdom of God, but in such a way that they weren't going to understand unless they asked.

vs 11

And so now, the parable. The seed is the word of God. Not the Bible. Certainly not the New Testament. Certainly Jesus. Certainly the gospel. And I don't mean the "Jesus died for your sins so believe in him and go to heaven with God". That's not the gospel, that's a bunch of meaningless magic words. The gospel of the time of Jesus was a summary of the OT, plus the words of Jesus. It's a big message. It's a complex message. It explains to us God (his existance, character, nature, purpose), everything else (it's creation, purpose, history), God's relationship with everything else (especially people), the reality of sin and its consequences, truths about the spiritual realm, and then possibly salvation at the end, and some eschatology. That's a fairly concise summary, which is probably still incomplete.

Anyway, that's the seed.