Luke 8:13-14

Luke 8:13-14

[13] They on  the rock  are they, which,  when  they hear,  receive  the word  with  joy;  and  these  have  no  root,  which  for  a while  believe,  and  in  time  of temptation  fall away.  [14] And  that which fell  among  thorns  they,  which, when they have heard,  go forth,  and  are choked  with  cares  and  riches  and  pleasures  of this life,  and  no  fruit to perfection. 

What does Luke 8:13-14 Mean?

Contextual Meaning

In both of these cases there was some initial faith in Jesus and later a turning away from Him in unbelief. Notice that Jesus did not mention if they were saved or lost. That was not His point. The point is how they responded to the word of God. Some of them may have been saved and others lost. Jesus did not say they lost their salvation. That is impossible (cf. Romans 8:31-39). He said they turned away in unbelief.
In Jesus" day some of His hearers believed on Him ( John 8:31) yet were still unsaved ( John 8:44). Similarly today some people respond to the gospel superficially by accepting it, but then turn from it in unbelief. In Jesus" day others genuinely believed on Him and then stopped believing (e.g, John the Baptist). Jesus used the phrase "fall away" (Gr. skandalizomai) of John the Baptist in Luke 7:23. He used a different Greek word here ( Luke 8:13, aphisteme) but only because he preferred it, not because it has a different meaning. [1] Today true believers sometimes stop believing because of information they receive that convinces them their former faith was wrong (e.g, youths who abandon their faith in college). Luke"s treatment of this passage shows his concern for apostasy (i.e, departure from the truth) under persecution.
Those of us who have grown up in "Christian" countries sometimes fail to appreciate the fact that genuine Christians have renounced their faith in Jesus under severe persecution (e.g, Peter). We may tend to think that people who do this were never genuine believers. That may be true in some cases. However we need to remember that for every Christian martyr who died refusing to renounce his faith there were other believers who escaped death by renouncing it. To say that their behavior showed that they never truly believed is naive and unbiblical (cf. Luke 19:11-27; 2 Timothy 2:12-13; 2 Timothy 4:10 a).
The people in view in Luke 8:13 stop believing because of adversity, but those in Luke 8:14 do so because of distractions (cf. Matthew 6:19-34; Luke 11:34-36; Luke 12:22-32; Luke 16:13). Notice that Jesus said that these "believers" ( Luke 8:13) produce no mature fruit (cf. John 15:2). In the light of this statement we need to examine the idea that every true believer produces fruit and that if there is no fruit the person must be lost. Fruit is what appears on the outside that other people see. It is what normally, but not always, manifests life on the inside. It is possible for a fruit tree to produce no fruit and still be a fruit tree. Most fruit trees bear no fruit for the first few years after their planting, some stop bearing fruit after a while, and others never bear fruit. Today the testimony of many Christians would lead onlookers to conclude that they are not believers because they do not produce much external evidence of the divine life within them. However, Jesus allowed for the possibility of true believers bearing no mature fruit because they allow the distractions of the world to divert them from God"s Word (cf. John 15:2). Luke alone mentioned the pleasures of this life, which were a special problem for his Greek readers.