thorns

• some seed fell among

151:1.2“A sower went forth to sow, and it came to pass as he sowed that some seed fell by the way­side to be trod­den un­der­foot and de­voured by the birds of heaven. Other seed fell upon the rocky places where there was lit­tle earth, and im­me­di­ately it sprang up be­cause there was no depth to the soil, but as soon as the sun shone, it with­ered be­cause it had no root whereby to se­cure mois­ture. Other seed fell among the thorns, and as the thorns grew up, it was choked so that it yielded no grain. Still other seed fell upon good ground and, grow­ing, yielded, some thir­ty­fold, some six­ty­fold, and some a hun­dred­fold.” And when he had fin­ished speak­ing this para­ble, he said to the mul­ti­tude, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

• some seed fell among

151:2.2Af­ter a mo­ment of si­lence, Pe­ter said: “Mas­ter, we have talked much con­cern­ing the para­ble, and this is the in­ter­pre­ta­tion I have de­cided upon: The sower is the gospel preacher; the seed is the word of God. The seed which fell by the way­side rep­re­sents those who do not un­der­stand the gospel teach­ing. The birds which snatched away the seed that fell upon the hard­ened ground rep­re­sent Sa­tan, or the evil one, who steals away that which has been sown in the hearts of these ig­no­rant ones. The seed which fell upon the rocky places, and which sprang up so sud­denly, rep­re­sents those su­per­fi­cial and un­think­ing per­sons who, when they hear the glad tid­ings, re­ceive the mes­sage with joy; but be­cause the truth has no real root in their deeper un­der­stand­ing, their de­vo­tion is short-lived in the face of tribu­la­tion and per­se­cu­tion. When trou­ble comes, these be­liev­ers stum­ble; they fall away when tempted. The seed which fell among thorns rep­re­sents those who hear the word will­ingly, but who al­low the cares of the world and the de­ceit­ful­ness of riches to choke the word of truth so that it be­comes un­fruit­ful. Now the seed which fell on good ground and sprang up to bear, some thirty, some sixty, and some a hun­dred­fold, rep­re­sents those who, when they have heard the truth, re­ceive it with vary­ing de­grees of ap­pre­ci­a­tion—ow­ing to their dif­fer­ing in­tel­lec­tual en­dow­ments—and hence man­i­fest these vary­ing de­grees of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence.”

• crown of t. placed on Jesus’ head

185:6.2Pi­late would make one last ap­peal to their pity. Be­ing afraid to defy the clamor of this mis­led mob who cried for the blood of Je­sus, he or­dered the Jew­ish guards and the Ro­man sol­diers to take Je­sus and scourge him. This was in it­self an un­just and il­le­gal pro­ce­dure since the Ro­man law pro­vided that only those con­demned to die by cru­ci­fix­ion should be thus sub­jected to scourg­ing. The guards took Je­sus into the open court­yard of the prae­to­rium for this or­deal. Though his en­e­mies did not wit­ness this scourg­ing, Pi­late did, and be­fore they had fin­ished this wicked abuse, he di­rected the scourg­ers to de­sist and in­di­cated that Je­sus should be brought to him. Be­fore the scourg­ers laid their knot­ted whips upon Je­sus as he was bound to the whip­ping post, they again put upon him the pur­ple robe, and plait­ing a crown of thorns, they placed it upon his brow. And when they had put a reed in his hand as a mock scepter, they knelt be­fore him and mocked him, say­ing, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they spit upon him and struck him in the face with their hands. And one of them, be­fore they re­turned him to Pi­late, took the reed from his hand and struck him upon the head.

• crown of t. placed on Jesus’ head

185:6.4There stood Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, clothed in an old pur­ple royal robe with a crown of thorns pierc­ing his kindly brow. His face was blood­stained and his form bowed down with suf­fer­ing and grief. But noth­ing can ap­peal to the un­feel­ing hearts of those who are vic­tims of in­tense emo­tional ha­tred and slaves to re­li­gious prej­u­dice. This sight sent a mighty shud­der through the realms of a vast uni­verse, but it did not touch the hearts of those who had set their minds to ef­fect the de­struc­tion of Je­sus.