Epistle: Galatians 1:11–19
Gospel: Luke 8:5–15
Sunday: The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
The Word Revealed and Received
Saint Paul insists that the Gospel he preached was not invented by human beings or received as merely human instruction. Jesus Christ revealed it to him. In the Gospel reading, Christ describes that same word as seed scattered generously upon the earth. Together, the readings show both sides of divine revelation: God gives the word, and the human heart must receive, guard, and bear fruit from it.
The seed is living and good, but not every hearing becomes fruitful. A heart may be hardened, shallow, or crowded. Even a joyful beginning does not guarantee endurance. Yet Christ does not tell the parable to make us classify other people as different kinds of soil. He calls each hearer to listen: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
The Epistle
Galatians 1:11–19
11 But I make known to you, brothers, concerning the Good News which was preached by me, that it is not according to man.
12 For I didn’t receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ.
13 For you have heard of my way of living in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the assembly of God and ravaged it.
14 I advanced in the Jews’ religion beyond many of my own age among my countrymen, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.
15 But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through his grace,
16 to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I didn’t immediately confer with flesh and blood,
17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia. Then I returned to Damascus.
18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Peter, and stayed with him fifteen days.
19 But of the other apostles I saw no one except James, the Lord’s brother.
Not According to Man
Teachers had entered the Galatian churches and challenged Paul’s Gospel and apostolic authority. They treated him as though he carried a secondhand, incomplete message that needed their correction. Paul answers that the Gospel is “not according to man.” Its origin is not speculation, cultural preference, or a religious system devised to please an audience. It came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
This does not mean that Christian faith is private or independent of the Church. Paul will soon describe meeting Peter and James, and elsewhere he carefully preserves and hands on what the Church received (1 Corinthians 11:23; 15:3). His point is that neither his commission nor the substance of his preaching originated in human approval. The risen Christ confronted him, called him, and overturned the direction of his life.
Saint John Chrysostom, the fourth-century Archbishop of Constantinople and renowned preacher, points to the suddenness of Paul’s conversion. A man so fiercely committed to opposing the Church would not have reversed his life so completely through ordinary persuasion. Chrysostom writes that Paul’s conversion “would not have been so sudden, had it not been by Divine revelation.”1
When Zeal Must Be Converted
Paul had not been apathetic before meeting Christ. He had been intensely religious, advancing beyond many of his contemporaries and showing extraordinary zeal for the traditions of his fathers. His problem was not a lack of conviction but zeal directed against the truth. He persecuted the Church in the belief that he was defending God.
This is a sobering warning. Sincerity, energy, and inherited tradition can be good, but none of them makes us infallible. Zeal must itself be converted. We must allow Christ to correct not only our behavior but also our confident judgments about what faithfulness requires.
Paul does not hide his former violence. He includes it as evidence of grace. The persecutor became the preacher; the man who tried to ravage the Church was sent to build it among the Gentiles. God did not merely give Paul better information. He revealed His Son “in” him, transforming the apostle into a living witness to the message he proclaimed.
Called Through Grace
Looking back, Paul sees that God’s purpose preceded his awareness of it: God had set him apart from his mother’s womb and called him through grace. This language recalls the call of the prophet Jeremiah:
4 Now Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, 5 “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you. I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
—Jeremiah 1:4–5
Paul does not claim that his persecution was God’s will. Rather, grace proved able to reclaim even the years he had misused. God’s call was deeper than Paul’s rebellion and redirected his gifts toward their true purpose.
After his call, Paul went into Arabia and returned to Damascus. Only after three years did he visit Peter, remaining with him for fifteen days and also seeing James, the Lord’s brother. Chrysostom sees humility in this visit: Paul did not go because his Gospel lacked Christ’s authority, but because he honored Peter and valued communion with those who had walked with the Lord.2 Divine revelation did not make fellowship unnecessary.
The Gospel
Luke 8:5–15
5 “The farmer went out to sow his seed. As he sowed, some fell along the road, and it was trampled under foot, and the birds of the sky devoured it.
6 Some seed fell on the rock, and as soon as it grew, it withered away, because it had no moisture.
7 Some fell amid the thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it.
8 Some fell into the good ground and grew and produced one hundred times as much fruit.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
9 Then his disciples asked him, “What does this parable mean?”
10 He said, “To you it is given to know the mysteries of God’s Kingdom, but to the rest it is given in parables, that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’
11 “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
12 Those along the road are those who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart, that they may not believe and be saved.
13 Those on the rock are they who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; but these have no root. They believe for a while, then fall away in time of temptation.
14 What fell among the thorns, these are those who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life; and they bring no fruit to maturity.
15 Those in the good ground, these are those who with an honest and good heart, having heard the word, hold it tightly, and produce fruit with perseverance.
The Sower and His Seed
The parable begins with generosity. The farmer scatters seed across the field, including places where an experienced farmer would expect little growth. Christ proclaims the word openly, offering life even to hearts that appear unready.
Saint Cyril of Alexandria, the fifth-century bishop and theologian who defended the Church’s confession of Christ as truly God and truly man, identifies the sower with Christ Himself: “He verily is the Sower of all that is good, and we are His husbandry: and by Him and from Him is the whole harvest of spiritual fruits.”3 The Gospel is not our achievement. The seed comes from Christ, and the life within it is His gift.
Yet the same seed produces different results according to its reception. The difference is not in the quality of the word. It lies in what happens after the word is heard.
Four Ways of Hearing
The hardened path hears but does not admit the word. Constant traffic has pressed the soil flat; the seed remains exposed and is taken away. A heart can likewise become resistant through repeated refusal, cynicism, resentment, or inattentiveness. Cyril urges such hearers to “open your mind, receive the sacred seed, be like productive and well-tilled soil.”4
The rocky ground receives the word with joy but has no depth. When testing comes, enthusiasm withers. Christ does not condemn joy; He warns that emotion without roots cannot sustain discipleship. Roots grow through prayer, worship, repentance, study, obedience, and life within the Church—the quiet practices by which truth moves from momentary inspiration into the depths of the person.
The thorny ground allows the seed to grow, but competing growth chokes it. Christ names cares, riches, and pleasures. Poverty does not eliminate anxiety, and wealth does not automatically destroy faith; the danger is a heart so occupied by fear, acquisition, and distraction that the word never reaches maturity. Many good beginnings are lost not through open rejection but through overcrowding.
The good ground hears, holds the word tightly, and bears fruit “with perseverance.” Fruit does not appear instantly. The patient heart returns to the word, protects it, and continues obeying when results are slow. Perseverance is not glamorous, but it is where revelation becomes a life.
Seeing, Hearing, and Turning
Christ’s words about seeing without seeing and hearing without understanding echo Isaiah’s commission:
9 “You hear indeed, but don’t understand. You see indeed, but don’t perceive.” 10 Make the heart of this people fat. Make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed.
—Isaiah 6:9–10
Isaiah was sent to a people whose long resistance had made them unable to receive the warning plainly spoken to them. Jesus’ parables similarly reveal and judge. To disciples who draw near and ask, the parable opens the mysteries of the Kingdom. To those determined not to hear, it remains only a story. The concealment is not arbitrary; it exposes the hearer’s response.
This warning is meant to awaken rather than paralyze us. The disciples do not understand at first, but they ask. Their willingness to remain with Christ and seek understanding is itself a form of good hearing. We need not pretend immediate comprehension. We must keep drawing near.
Christ Formed in the Hearer
Paul’s life shows the parable in motion. The word confronted soil that appeared violently hostile, yet grace broke through. The persecutor heard Christ, received His call, and bore fruit among the nations. No heart should therefore be declared beyond cultivation.
The two readings also protect us from opposite errors. Paul reminds us that the Gospel is revealed by Christ and cannot be redesigned to suit the hearer. The parable reminds us that correct words alone do not guarantee fruit. The revealed Gospel must be received with an honest heart, rooted deeply, cleared of choking rivals, and held through testing.
We cannot create the seed or give it life. We can ask God to soften what has become hard, deepen what is shallow, and uproot what crowds His word. Then hearing becomes obedience, obedience becomes perseverance, and perseverance bears the fruit of Christ formed within us.
“Those in the good ground, these are those who with an honest and good heart, having heard the word, hold it tightly, and produce fruit with perseverance.”
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB).
1 St. John Chrysostom, Homily 1 on Galatians.
2 Ibid.
3 St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, Sermon 41.
4 Ibid.