A couple weeks ago I wrote “The Parable of the Four Soils” where I discussed the four types of soils—hearts of man—in which the seeds—the Word of God—were spread. One of the great things about the Parable of the Sower is that Jesus explained what it meant. Unlike many other scriptures, we don’t have to wonder in confusion about what it means. There is no need to spend time debating over its broad points, when Jesus states them quite clearly. Here is a summary:

So I was extremely surprised when I saw the title of this article: “The Parable of the Seeds : Red Pill Edition.” It was—and still is—rather shocking. Honestly, it may be the worst article on Sigma Frame that I’ve ever read. If my pastor preached something like this, I’d probably leave the church and never return. It’s that bad.

On the other hand, it is also one of the best examples I have ever seen of how mysticism leads one into error. In this is is highly instructive.

Let’s shine a light on it.

In the article scripture has been freely reimagined and reemployed to say something that the original did not say, utilizing a truly terrible analogy to further a Red Pill ideology. But consider that after Jesus gave this parable, he then interpreted it explicitly. It’s not really subject to speculation about what it means or how it applies (but pressing it into service for a completely unrelated topic reminds me of the leftist Tim Keller approach).

Such an alteration of scripture, I suppose, is the fruit of ungrounded mysticism. Why am I surprised? But it’s not just that scripture was changed, it’s that the interpretation provided by Jesus was simply case aside:

No, “the devil” is not figurative language for “one of several circumstances.” The devil is Satan.

I guess we are not taking the devil seriously now, putting Satan in scare quotes. This sentence reads like something Satan would write if he wanted you to question whether he even existed.

I guess Jesus couldn’t possibly have meant that the Devil stops some people from accepting the Word of God by taking away the message and replacing it with something else, like mysticism. No, Jesus must have meant it as something else rather than what he actually said.

But there is a key exegetical error here. In Jesus’ parable, there are four kinds of soils—hearts of man—but only one kind of seed. There is no “first type of seed.” As Jesus explained, all the seeds are the same: the message about the kingdom. There isn’t a first, second, third, or fourth type of seed, because the seed is constant. The differences are in the soils, in the hearts of the men to whom the seed—the Word of God—is presented.

See how the four soils are given one seed?

For a teacher of English, this mistake reflects very poor reading comprehension (in addition to agricultural ignorance). Jack @ Sigma Frame should not be teaching scripture if such basic “exegesis” is beyond his ability.

This isn’t difficult. Jesus himself explained what the seed was. I mean this without hostility or hatred, but Jack @ Sigma Frame is represented by the first soil:

The writer at Sigma Frame heard the message—literally the Parable of the Sower—and did not understand it. Satan has so snatched it away from him that even he—an English language teacher—cannot tell that there was only one type of seed and four types of soil!

I’ve spent the last few weeks shouting out a warning about the mysticism of Radix Fidem. Mysticism says that there are many different messages: that there is no such thing as objective truth that can be apprehended. It explicitly rejects the one message of scripture as the sole Word of God. It rejects the validity of the mind, which then leads to subjective “truth.” You are seeing the fruit here. Such is the teaching of Satan, who snatches away the true message and replaces it with his own “truths.”

There can be no understanding—no knowledge—from those who have rejected the mind that God gave them. Those who reject the mind for pure mysticism will always be those whose hearts are in the first soil, for they will never have understanding and knowledge of the message. They will worship a false Christ who they are certain is the real one. They may even be granted vast physical and spiritual powers by mystical means, but they will be worth precisely nothing, for they do not understand the Word of God. As Jesus taught, even if they do great miracles, including successfully casting out actual demons, they are still rejected.

The writer at Sigma Frame should be following the instructions given to those who lack understanding and presume to instruct others in their erroneous ways:

This obviously false teaching is cause for disturbance. Given that he does not correct his exegetical errors, he should be silent, forbidden to teach, and forbidden from exercising authority over the men who are permitted to do these things. He should remain in complete subjection to those who are teaching the Word of God.

Of course, he is not subject to the authority of Christ’s church. No one can do anything about his errors. If he leaves his post up on his own free will, that should tell you everything you need to know.

This is the first reason for what “The Devil” of the so-called “first type of seed” is supposed to be. It’s not Satan.

What Jack says about the “first” seed is what Jesus said about the second soil. With the first soil, the people do not understand what they hear. The seed just lays there on the rock without sprouting. It is present, but without any comprehension. The seed can’t have soured because the gospel message can never sour. And neither can their reaction to the message have soured, because they never understood it to begin with: they never received it. It was snatched away from them before they could.

Rather, it is the second soil where one received the message and then later turned away from it because of the truth of the message. They were soured against the message that they had originally received with joy because they didn’t like what the message was. The message itself was the reason for its rejection. Oh, yes, they understood it indeed, but they didn’t like what it had to say.

So bad is this reimagining, that he couldn’t even get the soils straight! And this isn’t that hard. Jesus said that the second soil was those who received but later fell away (“soured”). It is, literally, unbelief, just as scripture attests.

This is the second reason for what “The Devil” of the so-called “first type of seed” is supposed to be. It’s still not Satan.

Did Jesus say any of this? No he did not. He said that the devil—Satan—prevented them from receiving and understanding the Word. Nowhere does Jesus say that they have no power to choose or follow through. Nor did Christ say they made any decision at all regarding the message. They heard the message, but they didn’t receive the message. They lacked understanding of the message.

To this end, Jesus explained why he spoke in parables. It’s not very complicated:

That’s why he spoke in Parables. That’s why the first soil exists. It is those men who heard without understanding, and saw without perception. It is those with hearts of stone. It’s not about how many sins they committed, nor their power to choose or decide. It’s about their hard hearts.

How do we know they had hard hearts? They did not have knowledge of the message. If they had even a little bit of knowledge, what they had was taken away. Oh, these Jews had their mystical Hebrew traditions, but they were worth nothing then, just as they are worth nothing now. They did not know or understand the message. It never entered their minds (“understand with their hearts”).

Hard hearts are the fruit of being “heart-led.”

This is, perhaps, the greatest argument that Sigma Frame has ever made against mysticism and Radix Fidem.

This is the third and final reason given for what “The Devil” of the so-called “first type of seed” is supposed to be. And, finally, it’s not Satan. It’s might be anything but definitely not Satan.

I’m sorry, what? Denied Christian fellowship? Not accepted by other Christians? I’ve heard this one before:

Jack’s words sound almost identical to those of the Naked Pastor. In so doing, the methodology of the LGBTQ leftist is revealed to be identical to that of the ungrounded mystic.

Now notice what Jesus says about the second soil: people rejected the Word of God because of the Word of God. It’s those pesky verses again! The Word of God is being sent, and the people either receive it—believe—or they don’t—unbelief. Placing the blame on other Christians for not being welcoming enough is not at all what Christ said in his parables.

Let’s emphasize this. Each Christian is responsible for his own response to the message. He cannot blame other Christians for not being inviting or giving fellowship (e.g. for not affirming their sexual sin or their heresy). Jesus did not excuse the hard hearts of men for not receiving, understanding, and standing firm in the message because of whatever their peers did. They should have received the message and stood strong despite what others may or may not have done.

This Red Pill Parable stinks.

When I wrote my original piece, I wrote this:

Mysticism which is not grounded in scripture is demonic. It leads to the case where the message is not understood and rejected. It is, literally, snatched away by Satan. What is left is a lack of understanding.

Now, given how bad Jack’s understanding of the message is, we are not surprised at how ridiculous the rest of his analogy is:

This absurdity requires no commentary.

But now we can see why the bad analogy involving “types of seeds” rather than “types of soils” was employed. The article goes on to describe 3 types of seeds devoured by birds, 2 types of seeds that fell on rocky soil, 3 types of seeds choked out by brambles, and many types of red pill seeds—expressed and implied—that are supposed to have fallen on fertile soil.

The imagery of the Parable is being employed to facilitate Jack’s ideological goals. It’s a bad analogy, but who cares!

How amazing is it that the Red Pill is now analogized with the gospel message! Never before have I seen this made so explicit. Regular readers here often accuse Red Pill writers of this—directly and indirectly—in the comments, but now it has been made so much more explicit. Maybe instead of calling the Red Pill teachers Saints, we should be calling them Messiahs.

The article is riddled in personal ideologies. Scripture is merely a tool used to promote those ideologies. It has nothing to do with God. It’s an abominable use of scripture to achieve non-biblical ideological goals. It’s the kind of thing that I’m used to seeing from apostates, not from those who clam to be traditionalist Christians. This is a clear example of what a few years of mysticism will do to a Christian. Don’t go down that path to ruin.

After two days—[and a month later]—since it was posted, the article has only two comments and exactly one like: from Catacomb Resident.