Mar 4:21-26 | Clarke | STEP | Verse 21 Is a candle - put under a bushel! - The design of my preaching is to enlighten men; my parables not being designed to hide the truth, but to make it more manifest.

Mark 4:21-26

Verse 21

Is a candle - put under a bushel! - The design of my preaching is to enlighten men; my parables not being designed to hide the truth, but to make it more manifest. Verse 22

For there is nothing hid, etc. - Probably our Lord means, that all that had hitherto been secret, relative to the salvation of a lost world, or only obscurely pointed out by types and sacrifices, shall now be uncovered and made plain by the everlasting Gospel. See on Mat 5:15 (note); Mat 10:26 (note). Verse 24

And unto you that hear shall more be given - This clause is wanting in DG, Coptic, and four copies of the Itala; and in others, where it is extant, it is variously written. Griesbach has left it out of the text, and supposes it to be a gloss, Whosoever hath, to him shall be given. Verse 25

He that hath - See on Mat 13:12 (note). Verse 26

So is the kingdom of God - This parable is mentioned only by Mark, a proof that Mark did not abridge Matthew. Whitby supposes it to refer to the good ground spoken of before, and paraphrases is thus: - "What I have said of the seed sown upon good ground, may be illustrated by this parable. The doctrine of the kingdom, received in a good and honest heart, is like seed sown by a man in his ground, properly prepared to receive it; for when he hath sown it, he sleeps and wakes day after day, and, looking on it, he sees it spring and grow up through the virtue of the earth in which it is sown, though he knows not how it doth so; and when he finds it ripe, he reaps it, and so receives the benefit of the sown seed. So is it here: the seed sown in the good and honest heart brings forth fruit with patience; and this fruit daily increaseth, though we know not how the Word and Spirit work that increase; and then Christ the husbandman, at the time of the harvest, gathers in this good seed into the kingdom of heaven." I see no necessity of inquiring how Christ may be said to sleep and rise night and day; Christ being like to this husbandman only in sowing and reaping the seed.