QUESTIONS FOR HEAVEN – WHY ARE SOME “SOILS” SOFT AND PROSPEROUS
WHEN OTHERS ARE FULL OF WEEDS AND ROCKS AND HARD PLACES?
1. Thorns and weeds and sharp places in the heart?
2. Gravel in the heart?
3. Calluses on the heart?
Home Group Discussion Questions: Read Mark 4:1-21.
Have you ever planted a garden? What did you find most rewarding about the job? What was
most challenging? When do you have the most trouble with “weeds” in your garden? How do
you deal with weeds – pulling, poisoning or pretending they are not there?
Thinking about our lives: We all want to be “good soil,” but most of us have some hard places,
some rocky places and some thorns that have grown up in our lives.
Mark 4:15 – Jesus says that “some people are like seed along the pathway, where the word is
sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.”
How does the soil along the “pathway” become hardened?
What are some experiences in life that cause people to become “hardened” toward God, God’s
word and the church?
What can we do to help soften that soil?
What are some “trampled on” places in your life? What can you do to start softening those
areas? How can your Home Group and the church help in that process?
Mark 4:16-17 – Jesus says that some people are “like seed sown on rocky places, who hear the
word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time.
When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.”
What are the “rocky places”? How are the “rocks” in this parable different from the “pathway”
and the “thorns” or weeds?
When Jesus says these people have “no root” what does he really mean? Put this in your own
words.
What do you mean when you say that someone is “shallow”? Is Jesus talking about “shallow”
believers?
What is the difference between “troubles” and “persecution”?
What are some “troubles” that threaten to crowd the seed of God’s word out of your life?
What are some “persecutions” that threaten your ability to grow in your faith and that limit your
productivity as a Christian?
Can we get the troubles and persecutions altogether out of our lives?
If not, how do we grow deeper and healthier “root systems” that let the seed grow and bear fruit
regardless of trouble and persecution?
How can Home Group and your church help you build a deeper root system?
Mark 4:18-19 – Jesus says that some people are “like seed sown among thorns, who hear the
word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things
come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.”
What are the “thorns” in this parable?
Where do the thorns come from?
Which thorns are most troublesome in your life?
How do “worries,” “deceitful wealth” and “desires for other things” choke the word pout of
hearts?
What are some evidences that you might see in the life of a Christian that the seed has been
“choked” in his/her life?
How can Home Group and church help us battle these thorns?
Mark 4:20 – Jesus says that “others, are like seed sown on good soil, who hear the word,
accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”
What is the real difference between the “good soil” and the other soils? Are there no “trampled”
places, “rocky” places or thorns in the good soil? See Romans 3:23 and Romans 8:28.
What is the “crop” that God wants to grow in your life?
What is one thing that you can start doing today to soften and enrich the soil of your heart for
God’s purposes, and to start “producing a crop” for God? Will you commit to that one thing
every day for the next week?