Matthew 13:1-23 So Jesus tells a story about a sower And people did not understand. And Jesus tells his disciples that its a secret only meant for them. It was all prophesied to be this way. Those who have, more will be given. Those who dont, then what they have will be taken away. Another harsh statement! Why would he do this? Is it because he is trying to trick them? No! Because it seems clear to those who are seeking Him. They get it! But wait, is its only clear to them because He explains it to them. He then says that he speaks in parables so that in seeing they wont see and in hearing, they wont hear. Was he being mean? No! It was prophesied that these people wouldnt understand because of their hard hearts. So what do I get from this? I see a people who were looking for Messiah to be something other than what they saw in Jesus and for that reason they had no frame of reference to the words he was saying. It must have seemed like gibberish to them. But to those who had no real expectations, he was understood. Truth is, the Seekers never stop seeking! They keep pursuing and inquiring to gain understanding. But that is not what the people did who didnt understand. They should have asked questions. But they didnt. They just began to make judgements. The parables Jesus tells make perfect since when you know what he is talking about. Lets face it! We understand most of the parables we read. We understand many of them without his explanation simply because we already know where he is coming from. They are no longer a mystery or a secret to us. The Kingdom of which he spoke about in these parables had many facets to it. Describing the Kingdom in parables was a great way to make since out of the many ways the kingdom was to be defined. But to someone who was set in their ways about what the new kingdom the Messiah would bring would look like, this was nothing more than some cute stories with not much depth to them. Thats my take after my first read and before diving into dictionaries, commentaries, lexicons and the like.
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 04:35:56 +0000