“But some seeds fell on fertile soil and produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted. Anyone who is willing to hear should listen and understand!â€Â Matthew 13:8
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The good soil has none of the faults of the rest of the field. It is loose and thus unlike the path, deep and thus unlike the rocky bit, clean and thus unlike the thorny infestation.
Jesus interprets this in one word: understands. While others received the Word, and it had some growth in them, the distinction here is surely of a moral nature.
Biblical usage of “understanding†regards the action of the whole moral and spiritual nature, not purely the intellectual process. It involves the grasp of the truth with the whole being, the complete reception of the Word of the kingdom not merely into the intellect but into the central self that is the undivided fountain from which flow the issues of life. Only he who has housed the Word deep in his inmost soul “understands it.â€Â ‘
Alexander MacLaren In His Presence, June 26th, Emerald Books, 1998.