Growing a plant takes time and effort. Growing a plant requires care and patience. Growing a plant requires a principle and an investment. Idleness does not give fruit to plants. Likewise, faith alone does not produce spiritual transformation in individuals. The parables in the Gospels of Mark and Luke explicitly state that individuals must nurture and invest in their faith in God in order to fully accept Him. Jesus uses the imagery of fallen seeds to describe the successes and failures of individuals who treat God's words in different ways: some good and some bad. In the parable of the sower in the Gospels of Luke and Mark, four different kinds of seeds are described: those that fall to the ground, those that fall on the rock, those that fall among the thorns, and those that fall into the earth. . Each type of seed allegorizes a specific type of individual. The seeds that fall to the ground represent stubborn and closed-minded individuals who refuse God's words, because "satan immediately comes and takes away the word that was sown in them" (Mark 4:15). The seeds falling on the rock represent the superficially spiritual but superficial hearers, for “when tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, immediately they fall” (Mark 4:17). The seeds falling into the thorns represent individuals whose words are lost among choices such as "the cares of the world, the enjoyment of riches, and the desire of other things" (Mark 4:19). Finally, the seeds that fall into the ground represent the few individuals who are fully immersed in God's world, understanding it from beginning to end. Among the four kinds of seeds, only "those which were sown on good soil are those... which bear fruit, thirty times and sixty times and...... middle of paper ...... is then an extension of the rebuke Jesus gives to the leader of the synagogue and those around him. In this Gospel, Jesus is depicted as a teacher or parent. Scolding the synagogue leader for saying the wrong things is like yelling at the children for making a mistake. Jesus' behavior and characteristics change from Gospel to Gospel, but He preaches the same idea over and over again to all His listeners, that coming closer to God requires both faith and effort. From the two parables that Jesus tells his two disciples and the skeptics, it is clear that faith alone will not enable the individual to learn the truth of God. The individual must exert effort in the faith, growing and maturing it until his life is spiritually transformed, the act of becoming fully converted into a Christian. Works Cited New Testament Bible, King James Version