Bible Odyssey article on the Sower parable (forthcoming)

I have been asked to do an article on the parable of the Sower for the Society of Biblical Literature's Bible Odyssey web site. You should check out the site; it's a very helpful "public scholarship" resource.

The parable of the Sower article will go into the Biblical passages section.

Even in this brief article, reception history of the parables was helpful, because I cite John Chrysostom's insights. 

Here are just two (draft) sentences for the article:

As John Chrysostom notes (Homily 46, On Matthew), Jesus often uses nature to illustrate his message, because nature follows a set course: sowers sow, crops appear, and the harvest follows. Agricultural metaphors are not just understandable and vivid for first-century hearers; they also imply that the same inevitability applies to Jesus’s message about the kingdom: although there are examples of failure, the harvest is assured. 

I'll post a link when the article goes live. It is tentatively scheduled for early July.