focus on the narrative strategy of the parables and on the narrative content of the text allows him to see contextual significance in the reference at 4:1-2 to the importance of teaching in parables (1983, p. 87). His view is that the set of parables that begins with the sower and the seed "represents the first explicit elaboration in Mark of the message of the Kingdom of God which Jesus announced (1:14-15)." Accordingly, says Williamson, "the teaching of 4:1-34 and the preaching of 1:14-15 . . . interpret each other" (1983, p. 87).
Williamson's interpretation of Kingdom, message, preaching, and teaching all in terms of one another in relation to the parables in Mark emphasizes the symbolic implications of the text as context. Anderson (1976, pp. 126-7) emphasizes less textual content per se than the social dynamics of the first-century Christian community that may have informed construction of the narrative. He cites theories that that the stories were meant as allegories and for popular consumption, that "they belong to conflict situations in Jesus' ministry," and that various interpretations of the parables themselves gave rise to "various strains of thought" in emergent Christianity.
Social and cultural aspects of early-Christian text seem fruitful ground as it were for explaining both the context of the sower-and-seed parable and the content of the text itself. In other words, context provides clues to the content of the first Christian gospel. That is important not least because "Christianity has never been a monolithic movement" (Eberts, 1997, p. 305). Eberts continues:
The Twelve of Galilee, under Peter, went to Galilee and beyond, to the village culture existing there. The Brethren, under James, addressed . . . "Hebrews"--Jews who spoke Aramaic . . . used Hebrew in their synagogues, and tended to isolate themselves from the prevailing Greek society. The Hellenists, led by Stephen and Philip, di rected their mission to ...