We not only come and hear – we must do what Christ says – that is how a foundation is properly laid in our lives.
By far the simplest way of explaining this is to give you an example. Zacchaeus.You all know the story of the short man who had a job that made him hated by the people of his town.He was a tax-collector for the Romans who were the occupying force in Israel.Zacchaeus collected tolls and taxes from the people of his town and paid them over to the Romans.He took a large percentage of what he raised.He was regarded as a rich, money-grubbing traitor.This isolation and guilt stirred him to seek Jesus.
He came to Jesus – he took the trouble to get into a position where he could best see and hear him – he climbed a tree to give himself some altitude seeing he was so short.He came and Jesus noticed (no one genuinely coming to Christ is overlooked). Jesus went home to Zacchaeus’s house and there he spoke man to man to him. Zacchaeus heard Christ’s word – he listened intently and believed.
Not only did he hear – Zacchaeus did what Jesus said.He understood what it meant to live for God’s Kingdom and follow Christ, so he immediately set about putting right the wrong he had been doing.He switched from dishonest and money-grubbing, to honest and generous.Because he was ready to DO what a place in the Kingdom of God taught.
You want a foundation dug deep and strongly anchored to Christ?Then not only must you come to him, not only must you hear his word – but you must do what he says.
Your way of life must change.
Micah 6.8“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness,and to walk humbly with your God?”
You have to DO that.You won’t be doing it on your own.Christ will be in you and his Spirit will strengthen you to do it.But DO IT you must!
He has TOLD you, O man or woman or youth what is good.
He has TOLD you, what the Lord requires of you.
He has TOLD you to do justice.
He has TOLD you to love kindness.
He has TOLD you to walk humbly WITH your God – not contrary to him – not in ways that disgust him – not in ways that undermind his word and his work – but WITH him.
You and him together in partnership.Just like a house anchored to a foundation – your life the house – Christ the foundation.
Nick and I and the Holy Spirit have been telling you what Christ told us:
If you are to have a foundation that ensures your life is forever safe in God – then you must dig deep and lay a foundation on the ROCK – and the Rock is Christ.
The person building his or her life on Christ must pay attention to what Christ says.Nick so rightly pointed out that when we speak of the word we must think Christ, because “In the beginning was the word and the word with God and the Word was God!”Hearing his words means listening to Christ. Listening to Christ is paying attention to what the Bible reveals about him.
You will have no foundation in your life if you are not paying attention to his word.When Jesus told this parable of the foundations, he was warning people who were not taking in what he was teaching them.They were wowed by miracles and intrigued by his stories, but they were not drinking it down into their lives.They sipping without guzzling. Guzzle.Digging a foundation that lasts means you are guzzling down the word of Christ.
It is not enough for the word to fall on your ears – that is happening this morning and yet there will be someone here who has ears but is not hearing.The seed is falling on a hard path and before I finish this sentence the enemy has already pecked it off their consciousness and it has put down no root.
You must be good soil which has been loosened to receive the seed of God’s Word and let it take deep root in your life.
You need to employ the word YES!When you hear God speak to you, say YES.And by that YES, mean “I accept what you are telling me and I want that to be true in me in every way you intend, Lord”.Remember what the Lord said to people who were part of a very superficial uncommitted Christian tradition (so uncommitted that the Lord likened them to lukewarm tea – neither hot nor cold – something to be spat from his mouth! He said: “Listen, I stand at the door knocking.If any person hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and we will eat together.” That’s what it means to hear his words.Say YES.Hear the knock, throw open the door, receive Christ into your life.Eat and drink and fellowship with him.
So, digging a foundation means:
Coming to Christ.
Hearing his word – paying attention – guzzling down the water of life.
Some strong, simple statements come out of this parable:
Your life is a house and its foundation will be tested by storms.
Dig deep!
Anchor your foundation to rock!
How do you build your life onto a foundation of rock? According to Jesus, you must COME, HEAR and DO.‘Everyone who comes to me and hears my wor
Getting a proper foundation is coming to Christ. It is hearing his words. It is doing what he says.
Storms come to test your life. Storms are the troubles and trials which come to test where your trust lies.
If you are laying a secure and proper foundation in your life, you will be
Coming to Christ. (Verse 47)
Coming to Christ means that you ‘believe he exists and that he rewards those who seriously seek him.’
Hebrews 11.6. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
To come to God means you believe that he exists and that means…
That you believe that this universe and this world are not random or accidental.You believe that it is a made world and a made universe - that design is evidence of a Designer – God.
It means that you believe that events are not random, and they are NOT altogether under the control of men and women.You believe that events and their consequences have meaning and a reason purposed by God.
You believe that the sense of what is right or wrong has been instilled in people by God who made them.
You accept the written testimony of the apostles who recorded the information about the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.
It means that you believe that although he was crucified by people who were rejecting him, he was also raised to life and was seen by many (including 500 persons on one occasion).
You believe that God has made himself knowable and understood by entering the world in a human life - and that God is in Christ reconciling people to himself.
Coming to Christ means that you believe that God is very pleased with all that his Son has done and that he is also pleased with everyone who is obedient to his Son.
You believe that God plans to bless and reward everyone who comes to Christ.
You are coming to Christ because you believe he is willing and able to forgive and bless YOU.
You believe that blessing begins with a place in God’s family and never ends because that blessing includes an endless life in a new heaven and earth – an existence so magnificent that “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2.9)
This is what coming to Christ means.You believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.Who are the fools who will turn their backs on a reward like that - just so they can play around with the fading and perishing things available in a life that is itself wearing thin – a life that will one day rip apart to reveal God’s judgment, not reward.
It goes without saying, of course, that coming to Christ involves talking to him!You are not coming to Christ just by attending church or reading the Bible – though those are both essential activities.You must use words.You have to put into words what you know about yourself and what you believe about him. Hosea 14.2
Take words with you and return to the LORD.Say to him: "Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips.
This conversation with Christ – this prayer – is not ‘a prayer’ it is ‘prayer’.It is not some set words you use; it is you telling Christ in a heartfelt, open way about your need of him.
Much of that conversation will be confession.You will be telling him how far short of him you fall and how ashamed you are of your self and your life.This conversation will be repentance.You will be telling him that you are ready to give up any life except the one he has prepared for you to live.This conversation will include affirmation – you will affirm and confirm to him that you believe that he exists and that you deeply desire whatever good things he has prepared for you.
So that was the first of the three things that are needed when you dig a deep foundation for your life:You must come to Christ.
A rich man had a manager who he employed to look after his interests.
He receives reports that his manager is wasting his resources – which presumably means spending them on himself with no concern for preserving or growing his employer’s wealth.
He calls the manager to a meeting and tells him to present a final set of accounts because he is shortly to be fired.
The manager had to quickly work out a plan for his future, because he realized he was about to lose everything.He was not cut out for manual labour and ruled out begging.
He worked out a plan that would win him friends who would support him when he lost his job.This plan involved contacting all his master’s debtors and offering a chance for them to settle their debts at a largely reduced rate if they did it instantly.(He had to work quickly before the word got out that he was no longer manager.)
When he presented the final accounts to the rich man it came to light what he had done, which was to use the resources at his disposal (in this case his employer’s) to win friends before his control of those resources was taken away from him.
His employer complimented his dishonest ex-manager for his cleverness.
Jesus adds an observation about the way the world does business.He says (v8b) that the sons of this world are shrewder in dealing with their own people than the sons of light. He emphasizes the difference between the people of this world and people of the kingdom (sons of light).This comment is vital to understanding the parable.This is not a parable about how to be sharp in your business dealings!
People of the kingdom (Christians) are not supposed to be the same as the dishonest manager – we aren’t being encouraged to be deceitful or to buy friendship with money.But the gist of the parable is that if even the ‘sons of this world’ can see that it is wise to use material things to ensure you have friends and a future, then how much more should the ‘sons of light’ be showing the way by using money and material resources to establish a brotherhood which lasts for eternity.In other words the best use of money is to spend it in such a way that trustful, caring, everlasting relationship are built up. This is at the heart of the meaning of the parable.
Jesus clarifies this (v9) by teaching his disciples that the best use of material things (‘unrighteous wealth’) is to spend it on making friends who will welcome you into the eternal homes of the kingdom of God.Jesus gives two negative reasons why this is the best use of money:
Because it is unrighteous wealth – i.e. money is not a measure of righteousness – having more of it is not evidence that you are being rewarded for being a righteous person. We each need the gift of righteousness – and money cannot buy it.Righteousness is a standing with God and ensures a place in his kingdom, grounded entirely on Christ.The Beatles rightly sang ‘Can’t buy me love’ in their very first bit hit.You can’t buy righteousness any more than you can buy love. Money can never make you the person you need to be in order to be welcomed into the ‘eternal dwellings’.It is unrighteous wealth.It is not that money is bad in itself.It is nothing.Money is actually just a promise that you can exchange it for ‘stuff’ of the value stamped on it.Having more of it is not a sign that God regards you as better than someone else.Money can be a curse, it can be an opportunity or it can be a distraction.But it can’t produce or buy what makes you acceptable to God.It is the world’s currency and the way to convert it into kingdom currency is to use it to serve Kingdom priorities.
Because it is not a matter of if money will fail but when it fails. Its temporariness and its unreliable nature urge us to invest it in what can last – i.e. the unending relationships we enjoy as brothers and sisters in God’s family in the eternal kingdom.This parable aims to clarify the priorities of the kingdom in a graphic manner.If we love the Father, we will love his children and we will expend ourselves and use all our resources for the extension of and the good of God’s family.Money and the love of it, must never be allowed to be our motivation and rule our lives.
Jesus then mines some more learning from this parable.He says that the person who faithfully (that is, honestly, wisely and reliably) handles small matters acts the same way in major matters; and the person who is dishonest in small matters acts with the same dishonesty in major matters. This is true of money.If you are unfaithful in the use of money – which is not a measure of righteousness – why would God entrust that which is truly valuable to you?He is hardly likely to give you a personal stake in his kingdom if you have been unfaithful with the opportunities he lent you.
You must treat money as something to be expended in God’s service.Like everything else, money must bend its knee and confess that Christ is Lord!Our lives must not be controlled by and used up in the pursuit of money.Money must never be our master. For example, the person who says, “We can’t afford to get married yet, so we are just living together.”That person is serving money.The desire for money and a flash wedding has put what God expects marriage to be in second place.Money is sitting on God’s throne in that person’s life. Here’s another example:“I know my company represents some really destructive, godless attitudes – but I can’t afford to quit the company because I am on a good salary.”Money is sitting on God’s throne in that person’s life.
Summary of what the parable means:
Its main point is:
Even unbelievers recognise that money is best spent on having friends and a future in life.
How much more should believers invest whatever material possessions they have in making friends (brothers and sisters) with whom they will share the eternal kingdom?
In other words, it is not consistent with God’s kingdom, to waste your life building personal wealth and spending it in a way that suggests you think life in this world is permanent.
Sub-points are:
Kingdom people have different values to the people of the world.
We must use even the small opportunities we have to promote God’s kingdom.
There is a direct link between how we use money, time and personal energy and the opportunities Christ gives us to do something big with our lives that will have eternal fallout.
Money presents itself as a god to be served – we must dethrone its influence in our lives.
In all the gathering, earning, using and spending of material resources we do in our lives, we must try to connect these directly to Kingdom objectives.Jesus has neatly summarized these objectives as making eternal friends.It seems that all our resources should be gospel-directed.In other words we should be able to explain how these things and our use of them promotes the good news by which people may connect with Jesus Christ and become our brothers and sisters forever.
Never forget who your resources really belong to.We are held to account.
Note:
This parable was heard by the Pharisees.They are those who were wasting the Master’s wealth (not just material things but also: Scriptures, Temple, pastoral opportunities to serve the people).This wasting of what was not theirs, was seen in their love of comfort, luxury and respect .Inherent in this parable is an invitation to the Pharisees to come to their senses and invest their master’s wealth in making friends for eternity.They lived as sons of this world and needed to become like the disciples, ‘sons of light’.
The parable was a warning to the disciples not to fall into the Pharisees’ ways.(The church always needs this warning, because churches are tempted to waste their Employer's resources).
Jesus illustrates the meaning of his teaching about hiding the truth inside parables so that those on the outside cannot ‘get’ them.And to do it he uses a ‘mini-parable’.
A person lights a lamp and brings it to an interior room needing light. When he brings it in, he does not put it under a basket or a bed.He puts it on the lampstand, where it can light the entire room. End of story! Jesus tells this little domestic story in the form of a rhetorical question.The unspoken answer to the question is that it would be ridiculous to bring light into a room and then hide it under something, so that it cannot fulfill its purpose. Light is for illuminating, not for hiding.
What does that mean?
Jesus has just prior to this taught three things that relate to this little parable:
That the disciples have had the secret of the kingdom revealed to them.
That those secrets are concealed in the parables and Jesus draws them out and explains them so the disciples can understand them.
The secrets remain hidden in the parables to those ‘outsiders’ who are rejecting God’s Son.
So what further light does the little lamp parable bring to this teaching?
Jesus gives the meaning to the lamp parable in verse 22.(You can tell, because he says “For”, meaning, here is the literal connection with the parable.)He expresses the meaning twice:
None of the hidden things are meant to stay that way.
The things that are secret are that way so that they can be brought to light.
This begs the question: Why, if they are meant to be brought into the open, are the secret things that Jesus was teaching about the kingdom hidden?
Evidently, Jesus was carefully managing the revelation of the secrets of his kingdom, so that they would have their fullest and best effect.His strategy of concealing them from some people for a time was so that at the right time they would be powerfully revealed.
Here’s a simple illustration.One of our staff had a special event in her life and our DP decided it would be nice to present her with some flowers at our staff dinner.The flowers arrived during the school day and just a few of us knew that.They were concealed in the sickbay so that the teacher and most other staff were unaware of them.Then, at the staff dinner, we brought out the flowers and I had to give a little speech and hand them over and make a fuss of the teacher.What was hidden (the bunch of flowers) was only hidden for a time and only hidden so that it could be revealed at the best possible time.
Here is another illustration:
In World War 2 when the Allies were going to invade Europe to take back France from the Germans and end the war, the timing and planning for the invasion was secret information that was only completely known by a few. All sorts of training and planning went on undercover to make sure that the army, navy and airforce were all up to their job when the invasion happened. The reason for keeping it secret was so that it could be revealed at the proper time with a powerful impact.The secrecy was SO THAT it would be revealed – not just secrecy for the sake of not letting on.
Jesus didn’t want his disciples (or us) to think that his teaching was some secret knowledge for just a few people.There were two reasons why he was keeping his truth bound up within his group of disciples (Is 8.16 Bind up the testimony, seal the teaching among my disciples.).
His word needed to first be worked deeply into the minds and lives of his disciples so they would be ready for the explosion of his kingdom.
The enemy was working hard to derail Jesus’ mission by getting people to misunderstand Jesus’ ministry and prematurely make him king on their terms.
Application:
Christ first embeds his word in our lives so that it produces a change of heart and character, before he ‘goes public’ with it.The word must be hidden in our hearts first.It must be understood and work its changes. (Psalm 119.11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.).Christ teaches his Church so that we are equipped to DO SOMETHING.
However, it cannot remain hidden for ever.We may not conceal the true source of our wisdom, purpose and love. Jesus told this little parable so that his disciples did not become withdrawn and lacking vision.He wanted them to anticipate the grand reveal of his kingdom.It came at Pentecost.
Again, Jesus told them: If you have ears to hear – then LISTEN.He called listening “paying attention to what you hear”.We have to give our attention to Christ’s word. Take it in – take in a big measure of it – take it in often.Because the measure you use in taking in his Word will determine what you receive. If you have are receiving a lot, you will receive heaps more.But if you are taking in very little – even that little you have will evaporate into nothing so you retain nothing.
Proper listening is to give close attention, have a strong willingness to be taught and to make use of what you receive.If those conditions are present, then what you hear will do you good. The more attention, the deeper the willingness, the greater the determination to do what the word says – the more of Christ’s Word you will receive. And with his word comes his fellowship and help.
Jesus then showed this disciples the importance of the parable of the sower
Jesus told the disciples that if they didn’t ‘get’ this parable, they wouldn’t ‘get’ any of them (v13).That is because the parable of the sower explains WHY some people don’t hear Christ’s message in a way that makes them insiders in God’s kingdom.Here are the reasons:
Some people have lives that have been so filled up and preoccupied with self-centred and world-centred ideas that there is no longer any openness towards God. Their hearts are trampled hard.They are no longer touched or stirred by God’s word.Evil influences quickly come and peck it up – they remain unmoved.
Some people have hearts and minds that believe anything and never think deeply about things.They are shallow, not realizing that following Christ will mean a total change of their way of life.They think God is just going to add some happy thoughts to their lives just they way they are.As soon as trouble comes, or there is a price to pay for following Christ, their faith shrivels up and dies.
Some people have lives that want to try to fit faith in Christ alongside a worldly lifestyle.They want a Christian compartment in their lives.But the ways and demands of this world and the results of their worldly living simply choke out their faith and kill it of.
Some people have lives that have been fully prepared by some digging and ploughing which many not have been very pleasant – but who are now eager to be implanted with the word of Christ.They are not just thinking how to have a ‘nice life’ but have had their eyes opened to see have fully satisfying it is to have a productive life – one that reproduces the goodness of Christ over and over again.A life that feeds other lives.A life lived under God’s rule – a life in the kingdom of God.
The parable encourages us to repent of hardness, repent of shallow attention to spiritual things, repent of preoccupation with worldly things and to take in the word of God – so that our lives can start producing the goodness that maximizes Christ’s glory.
In Conclusion
Jesus intends to teach us.If you are a disciple of Jesus you will be teachable and fully committed to learning from his word. This parable of the sower shows that the secret of God’s Kingdom is planted in our lives through the Word of Christ – we must pay close attention to what we have heard in case we fall away!
Parables always have a central truth that they shed light on.In this parable, the central truth is that God intends to grow his goodness in the lives o people by putting out his word into all kinds of people.But only some hearts are willing and ready to receive it.Pay attention to the condition of your heart, repent of what stops the word of God from growing there - be willing to receive it. James 1.21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
Parables give understandings about the kingdom of God.Their over-arching theme is always about how God rules and orders events and people in a way that puts Christ as Lord.We know we are understanding God’s Word when it brings us face to face with Jesus Christ, because becoming an ‘insider’ is to become a friend of Jesus.He said to his disciples, John 15.12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.14 You are my friends if you do what I command you.15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.Are you an insider like this – or an outsider who hears the words but has no sense o what they mean?
It is a very serious and troubling thing if we are making no sense out of Jesus’ parables – it probably means we have put ourselves amongst the disobedient rebels for whom the parables deliberately hide what might save us - if only our hearts were softer.
The parable of the sower is the benchmark parable which we have to understand if we are going to understand the rest, because it is the simplest parable and the one that gives us a way to classify and understand our OWN hearts.
Where Jesus taught has a strong connection to how he taught.Jesus often taught in synagogues (a kind of local church building) – but he mainly taught out in the mainstream of life where people were living.In this case, he taught on the shoreline of the lake where people came to work as fishermen and where people came to buy fish and other produce.Jesus mixed in with the mainstream of life.On this day, there was such a big crowd he sat in a boat and had it pushed slightly off shore so his voice would carry to the crowd.Jesus was sending a message that his gospel was about the whole of life – not just a religious component.And because parables are true to life illustrations and stories, it made them all the richer when he used them ‘out in the field’ so to speak.
Christians are called to live and explain their new lives out in the mainstream of life. People should be able to encounter a Christ-driven life as they go about their daily lives and they should receive a clear answer when they ask Christians for the reason for the hope they possess.
Jesus taught many things in parables.
He didn’t just use parables, but he certainly taught a lot of material through them.It follows then that we must learn to understand his parables because they contain a rich mine of good teaching for us. We need to give time and thinking and prayer to understanding what Christ taught.
Mark gives an example of Jesus teaching by using a parable: the story of the sower and the different grounds his seed landed on. Jesus regarded this as a critical parable to understand.In fact, he said that if you don’t understand this parable, you won’t understand any of them (v13).This parable -because it teaches about how people respond to Christ’s teaching - is a kind of benchmark for understanding all parables.
Jesus told the parable and the elements of the story are these:
-a farmer sowing grain seeds on his land
-four different sorts of ground on which the seed falls
-birds, rocks and weeds which interfere with the seeds
-the sun
This was a very familiar scene for the people.All these elements were part of their everyday lives. Actually, even city-dwellers like us have no trouble grasping the context for this illustration.Parables don’t require specialist knowledge or learning to understand the bits that make up the story.They are deceptively simple.
The story simply describes what happens when the farmer scatters the seed freely and widely over some ground when he wants to grow a crop of wheat or barley.There is plenty of seed, so it isn’t planted one seed at a time – it is cast widely and freely.Of course he intends it to land where it will grow well, but some of the seed reaches other places.Some drops onto the path at the edge of the field and because the ground is packed down hard from the trampling of feet, it sits up for the birds who are following the farmer to peck up immediately.Other seed falls on very shallow soil that is just covering a layer of rock or limestone. The seed there grows pretty quickly and most of it comes up as leaf because there is no depth for roots to go downwards.The sun soon dries out the soil, parches the plant and it shrivels and dies.Some seed lands on uncleared soil where there are thorns.The thorns compete with the grain and choke the young plants so they produce no grain.And of course much seed landed on good soil and it produced 30, 60 or 100 times over.
Jesus then added a troubling statement.
Jesus put out the story and left it ‘hanging in the air’ for people to process in their thinking.He then added: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” That sounds like: “If you are not deaf – then pay attention.”Presumably he did not think that there were a lot of physically deaf people in the crowd, so what could he mean?He could be referring to those willing to listen or those able to hear what he was teaching. And from the discussion he had with his disciples shortly afterwards, it seems that he meant both. Not everyone is willing and able to process parables.
Not everyone who hears the parable are willing to hear what it means and furthermore, some who hear it and might think they have ‘got it’ are not even able to understand it. This is troubling because it suggests that people are not as free as they might think to take or leave what Jesus taught.It should trouble us, too.What if you are not able to ‘get’ what Jesus is teaching?
The inner circle had lots of questions to ask
Later on, when Jesus was back at the house with his disciples they were full of questions about the parables. Notice the difference: those who were receiving the parables urgently wanted to get the meaning clear! These disciples urged Jesus to show them what the parables meant in case any of his advice dropped to the ground. Other people just wandered away bemused, or took a moral lesson out of a parable, or, if they were Pharisees, ridiculed, criticized and complained about the parables.The sure sign someone is ‘getting’ Christ’s parable is that they want to know more - the story has created an itch that they can’t stop scratching. This parable about the sower and other parables that he told that day had stirred the disciples’ thinking and inflamed their interest.They were burning with questions about the meaning of the parables and the issues raised by them.That is a sure sign that Jesus is disclosing his message to you: You are hungry to find out more – you are full of questions – you can’t keep away from the Bible and from books and on-line stuff that explains it.
Jesus told the disciples that they were privileged.Something had been given to them that was not available to those who Jesus calls ‘outsiders’.To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those on the outside everything is in parables.
Jesus is saying that his sayings remain just ‘stories’ to those on the outside – the meaning remains frozen inside the parable - but to his disciples the ‘secret of the kingdom of God’ has been drawn out and presented to their understanding. This is the work of the Holy Spirit.He is the teacher who extracts the meaning from all Scripture, including parables, and makes Christ known to you.The secret of the kingdom of God is given not taken.
Jesus says that his parables contain the ‘secret of the kingdom of God’ but not everyone gets it.Most everyone can understand what the story is saying and even extract a moral or an ethical lesson from the parable.However, Jesus is saying that there is much more in his parables – something he calls the ‘secret of the kingdom of God’ – and that this insight is given, not extracted.
This helps to explain Jesus’ comment at the end of his parable of the sower (“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”).Obviously, he means that some people have not got ears that can hear the proper inner meaning of the parables. These people Jesus calls ‘outsiders.’
This is troubling.It ought to at the very least cause us to stop and ask the question, “Do I have ears to hear?Am I hearing and perceiving what Christ intends me to from his parables? Am I missing something here?Is this why some people seem genuinely switched on by the Bible and to me it just seems dry and meaningless?”
While the parables are revealing helpful things to insiders, they are deliberately hiding them from outsiders. The latter group may see what the parables are talking about and hear what they are saying but they neither perceive nor understand the true meaning of the parable. The parables are part of Christ’s sifting and separating process and have the unavoidable effect of placing hearers in two great categories – those on the inside and those on the outside of all the benefits that being a willing member of God’s Kingdom provides.
Jesus quotes from Isaiah to show what effect his parables are having on those who have rebelled against God:
for those outside everything is in parables so that
they may indeed see and not perceive,
and may indeed hear and not understand,
lest they should turn and be forgiven.
God gave this message to Isaiah for Israel because they had repeatedly refused to pay attention to his word and his warnings and his calls to repent.From that point on they would hear God’s message but instead of enlightening them, it would make them deafer and blinder to the truth that could save them.Is there a more troubling judgment than this - that we should be people who have heard God’s message so much and failed to act on it so often, that now God is using his message to put us to sleep so that we will never repent and find forgiveness?Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. Heb 3,4.
He modeled the truth by the way he lived and how he responded to all kinds of situations.He answered questions.He explained Old Testament passages.He explained circumstances and events that happened around him.He deliberately did something (such as a healing) and then explained what it meant.He gave extended sermons. And he told stories with a very precise meaning: Parables.
It is this last teaching method that we are going to concern ourselves with over the next couple of months.
What is a parable?First and foremost, it is a verbal illustration or story.The word parable comes from a word meaning to ‘place alongside’.(Notice para from which we get parallel).A parable is an illustration that is set alongside a message to shed more light on it – to make it vivid and memorable by comparing it to everyday things. However, as we will see shortly, Jesus used parables to make things very clear to some and less clear to others.
A parable is an extended illustration, so that it is a story or almost a story.Jesus used similes and metaphors that were not exactly parables.When Jesus said, “I am the vine” he was using a metaphor, not a parable. When Jesus said, “This generation is like children playing at the market” he was using a simile not a parable.Parables go beyond this to become at the very least an extended simile or metaphor – more of a story – but a particular type of story.They are not fantasy stories or fairy tales – they are true to life or describe things seen in nature – usually something the original hearers could observe from daily life.Parables are straight-forward stories that shed light on a particular truth.However, the spiritual application of that truth is not always perceived by the hearers which we will look at later on.
One effect of a parable is to cause the message to ‘hang in the air’ for a time, forcing the hearer to think it through and make connections.
For example, if Jesus had simply said, some people hear my message and ignore it – that would have had much less impact than the parable of the sower throwing out seeds and some lands on a path, but it can’t take root because the path is too hard and the birds come and eat it up.The parable adds richness, challenge and fullness of meaning that you don’t get by simply stating a truth.
