Read­ing Time: 3 minutes

Introduction  

Gran­ted today, the use of par­ables in daily speeches is gradu­ally dimin­ish­ing, how­ever, every cul­ture and espe­cially the eld­erly men and women under­stand the import­ance of par­ables in speeches and con­ver­sa­tions. In his teach­ings, Jesus made use of vari­ous com­mu­nic­a­tion tech­niques among which are par­ables. The poten­tial of par­able for com­mu­nic­a­tion is enorm­ous since it cre­ates a com­par­is­on or story based on every­day exper­i­ences. How­ever, that story itself is cap­able of many mean­ings, and the mod­ern read­er has as much dif­fi­culty inter­pret­ing it as did the ancient hear­ers. Respond­ing to his dis­ciples’ inter­rog­a­tion, Jesus gave the oper­at­ing prin­ciple of par­able thus “unto you it is giv­en to know the mys­ter­ies of the king­dom of God: but to oth­ers in par­ables; that see­ing they might not see, and hear­ing they might not under­stand” (Luke 8:10, KJV).

Why parables?

The dis­ciples could not under­stand why Jesus kept speak­ing to the people in par­ables. Hence, they went to him and inquired “why do you speak to them in par­ables?” Jesus answered “to you it has been giv­en to know the secrets of the king­dom of heav­en, but to them it has not been giv­en. For who­ever has will be giv­en more, and will have an abund­ance. But who­ever does not have, even what he or she has will be taken from him or her. For this reas­on, I speak to them in par­ables. Although they see they do not see, and although they hear they do not hear nor do they under­stand.” (Matt 13:11–13). This is why Jesus used par­ables to address the people. From his reply, we dis­cov­er there are two reas­ons Jesus speak to the people in par­ables. First, the secrets of the king­dom have been giv­en to them, not to the people. Secondly, any­one who has will receive more, and he or she who has not, even what the per­son has will be taken away and be giv­en to anoth­er per­son. This is why he speaks to them in par­ables. The con­clu­sion that they see without see­ing, and hear without hear­ing nor under­stand, is the con­sequence of their unwill­ing­ness to receive the mes­sage of the king­dom. What they should see they do not see, and what they should under­stand, they do not under­stand because they claim to be wise and intel­li­gent. In Mat­thew 11:25–26 (last Sunday), Jesus said “I thank you, Fath­er, Lord of heav­en and earth, because

Conclusion        

In Mat­thew 13:15, Jesus made a very touch­ing state­ment. Accord­ing to him, “the heart of this people has become dull; they are hard of hear­ing, and they have shut their eyes, so that they would not see with their eyes and hear with their ears and under­stand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” Today, these words are addressed to us. The heart becom­ing dull means our hearts have become imper­vi­ous, insens­it­ive and arid. Hence, we are not able to under­stand the things of God. We hear everything except that which we are sup­posed to hear as chil­dren and ser­vants of God. We see every oth­er thing except the right things as Chris­ti­ans and as mature and respons­ible adults. Instead of under­stand­ing with our hearts, we prefer to under­stand with our heads. What we have today is not pure Christians/Christianity, but pagan Christians/Christianity. As seed sown by the Sower, where exactly have we fallen? Where have you fallen? By the path­ways? On the rocky paths? On thorns? Or on the rich and good soil? What is your reac­tion to the word of God? We must be sin­cere and answer indi­vidu­ally. The ques­tion is not where you would like to fall. But where in this very moment do you find your­self? The prob­lem is not read­ing, hear­ing and reflect­ing on the word of God and the teach­ings of Jesus. The real prob­lem is what we do with those words and those teach­ings. Let each per­son be his or her own judge. Have a suc­cess­ful week! Sha­lom!     

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