Matt 13:10 Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”
What a great question !!!!!
The Parables of Jesus, is an interesting subject, as they cover a variety of responses to the Kingdom of God is like…….
Firstly we should ask !! What is a Parable ? : (parabola- to throw alongside), to bring alongside..
The Parables were stories, and indications of what the kingdom is like, they are an invitation to experience the kingdom. They are mysteries, within a riddle, within a poem within an enigma.
The idea of a parable is to pique ones curiosity about the kingdom. Often people are not ready to hear about the kingdom of God, their hearts are hardened, their minds are dull, their ears are not open to it, their eyes are spiritually blind. Hence, in response to God; Isaiah said “Here I am send me”, God sent Isaiah out to prophecy and preach his precursor was:- say to the people….
Isa 6:9“‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’10 Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”. ( Matt 13 Parable of the Sower)
The same admonishment is given by Paul to Timothy
2 Tim 4:3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
The point is although they preached, the people closed their eyes and blocked their ears, and in Matt 13 in the KJV it says “their hearts were waxed gross”; they not only would not see or listen but had hardened their hearts – “waxed gross”, analogy of candle wax dripping layer upon layer on the heart of men causing this thick layer of wax to harden and block their hearts
Sadly it was true for Isaiah; and thousands of years later for Timothy, and so it is thousands of years later with us, however we are commissioned to continue against all odds to preach the good news of the Kingdom, that they may see, that they may hear and their hearts will be softened, that man would come to salvation.
All parables are intended to illicit a response from the hearers. Sometimes they don’t always seem to make common sense.
- Leave the 99 to go after the 1
- We’ve always told the story about the prodigal son, it’s really a story about a father and 2 sons
The parables are meant to bring transformation not just information, and are not used to teach doctrine, yet they will illustrate and illuminate existing doctrine.
As “the Bridge” our hearts are to see peoples lives transformed, we pray for God to send in those seeking salvation, and a savior :- When people come seeking, that they will find “ the Pearl of Great Price”, whether they are the prodigal sons, the lost coin or the lost sheep.
We want to open 2014 with a revelation the bridge, that the Good Samaritan built between cultures; The importance of Kingdom first by the “Rich Young Ruler”, the preparedness of “the Wise and Foolish Virgins”, the needed grace for “the Unmerciful Servant”. Oh ! How we need the encouragement of faith in “the Mustard Seed”, and the great revelation of eschatology of “the Wheat and Tares”. The great work of being productive in the Kingdom by the “Ten Minas” and the depth of the need to be hearers and doers of the word by “the Sower”
Jesus in response to John 13:1o, declares; Matt 13:11 “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.
Come earnestly seeking, the kingdom of God, walk with us into this adventure of the Parables.