Matthew 13:7

Thorns. Gr. akantha, “thorn,” or, “brier”; akantha is also used in referring to any prickly plant, such as the “thistle.” Luke defines the “thorns” of the Christian life as the “cares and riches and pleasures of this life” (see Luke 8:14; cf. Matt. 13:22).

In thorny ground the tender plants did not wither as rapidly as they did in the stony ground. Similarly, the experience of thorny-ground Christians progresses further than that of the stony-ground hearers. They make what appears to be a real start, and apparently they experience justification and the new birth. But they soon become “weary in well doing” (Gal. 6:9) and do not “go on unto perfection” (Heb. 6:1). Absorbed by the pleasures of this world and in the pursuit of its attractions, they neglect to weed out from the life those tendencies and traits of character that respond to temptation. They are like the person who had been freed from demon possession only to be repossessed by seven evil spirits (see on Matt. 12:43-45). Many of the things that attract the thorny-ground hearers and absorb their attention may not, in and of themselves, be harmful. But such persons become so absorbed in this world that they have no time to prepare for the next.

Thorns sprung up. The thorns made it impossible for the wheat to mature (see Luke 8:14). In the same way secular interests prevent the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22, 23) from reaching maturity. Religion is relegated to the subordinate position of being only one interest among many. For lack of cultivation it withers and eventually dies. That which the thorny-ground hearers lack is a moral transformation (COL 50). To them, justification is the sum and substance of religion, and they fail to realize that the Christian life consists essentially in the process known as sanctification — the process by which evil traits and tendencies are replaced by the perfect life-pattern of Jesus Christ (see on Gal. 2:20).