7. What do the seed and the different types of soil represent?

⁷ Notice that Jesus does not say that different types of seed are being used. Rather, he speaks of one type of seed that lands on different types of soil, each of which produces a different result. The first type of soil is hard, or packed down; the second is shallow; the third is overgrown with thorns; and the fourth is fine, or good, soil that produces well. (Luke 8:8) What is the seed? It is the Kingdom message found in God’s Word. (Matt. 13:19) What do the different types of soil represent? People with differing heart conditions.​—Read Luke 8:12, 15.

The Responsibility of Those Who Hear the Word

10. What determines whether an individual who hears the word resembles fine soil or not?

¹⁰ What of the ones hearing the word? Is their response predetermined? No. Whether they resemble fine soil or not is up to them. Indeed, a person’s heart condition can change for good or for bad. (Rom. 6:17) In his illustration, Jesus said that “as soon as [some] have heard” the word, Satan comes and takes it away. But this does not have to happen. At James 4:7, Christians are encouraged to “oppose the Devil,” and then he will flee from them. Jesus describes others as accepting the word initially with joy but then being stumbled because of having “no root in themselves.” But servants of God are admonished to “be rooted and established on the foundation” so that they may be able to grasp mentally “what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge.”​—Eph. 3:17-19; Col. 2:6, 7.

11. How can one avoid allowing anxieties and riches to choke the word?

¹¹ Others who heard the word are described as allowing “the anxieties of this system of things and the deceptive power of riches” to make inroads and choke the word. (1 Tim. 6:9, 10) How can they avoid this? The apostle Paul answers: “Let your manner of life be free of the love of money, while you are content with the present things. For he has said: ‘I will by no means leave you nor by any means forsake you.’”​—Heb. 13:5.

12. Why do those represented by the fine soil bear fruit in different amounts?

¹² Finally, Jesus says that those sown on the fine soil “bear fruit thirtyfold and sixty and a hundred.” Even though some who respond to the word have a good heart condition and bear fruit, what they are able to do in proclaiming the good news varies according to their circumstances. For example, advanced age or enfeebling illness may limit the share that some have in the preaching work. (Compare Mark 12:43, 44.) Again, the sower may have little or no control over this, but he rejoices when he sees that Jehovah has made it grow.​—Read Psalm 126:5, 6.