Why Parables?

We opened up this series in Matthew 11-13 on September 8 with a message titled “Come, Thou Unexpected Jesus.” And one of the significant themes throughout these chapters has been the unexpected nature of Jesus and His ministry and the way His ministry was recieved.

Nobody expected the Messiah to show up and His messenger to be thrown in prison. Nobody expected the Messiah to face so much opposition. Nobody expected Pharisees to be the villains and not the good guys. Nobody expected Jesus to pronounce judgement on Jewish cities and say what He did about God’s sovereign choice and leave His mom and brothers standing outside like we saw him do last week.

We’ve seen this fall that Jesus challenges expectations. Jesus challenges our expectations. At least, He’s supposed to. If Jesus hasn’t challenged any of your expectations at all, it’s worth asking if you’ve been listening to him closely enough.

Today we get to one of the most challenging and unexpected portions of this whole section of Matthew, which is the Parables. And that might sound strange because if you’ve read the Bible before, if you’ve spent time in church before, the parables might be some of the most familiar and expected parts of Matthew, maybe only second to the Sermon on the Mount. This is some territory we finally recognize.

But it was not that way for Jesus’ first hearers. Up until this point, when He taught His hearers, He taught them plainly with straightforward words. He taught about God, He taught about Scripture, He taught about what we were to do. He was a teacher.

And all of a sudden, one day he sits down to teach the crowds, and he starts talking about agriculture and agronomy. What in the world? This would have been like turning on the news at night, and instead of giving the daily report the newscaster opens up a children’s book and reads you a story.

Now, we don’t want to overstate things here. Parables were not completely strange to the crowds listening to Jesus. They knew about these stories with point, because the rabbis used parables often enough. But what was surprising was hearing these things from Jesus’ mouth. Up until this point, he didn’t teach like the rabbis did. He taught clearly and plainly. And now, parables?

1. Why Parables? (v. 10)

We see how utterly bewildering this was by the disciples reaction in verse 10: “Then the disciples came and said to him, ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?”’” (Matthew 13:10).

Good question! Where did this come from? What’s happening here? And in verses 11-17, Jesus answers their question. And that’s what our time today is going to focus on.

It’s important to see that, in the way the passage is written, Matthew doesn’t begin with verse 11. He begins with the parable, inviting us into the unfolding story as it happened, letting us experience the disciple’s confusion and questions before we heard Jesus’ explanation.

But in terms of preaching this passage, we couldn’t really preach the parable itself in verses 1-9 without jumping to the explanation of the parable in verses 18-23. And it would be really hard to do either without answering the question from verse 10, which is “Why parables?”

So that’s what we’re going to focus on today. Having registered the confusion and unexpectedness of this seemingly random story about soils and seeds, we’re going to jump into verse 11, and come back next week to consider the parable itself and it’s interpretation.

So, why parables? Why does Jesus speak to them in parables?

2. Giving and Taking (v. 11-13a)

The basic answer Jesus gives comes in verse 11, where he says “And he answered them, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given’” (Matthew 13:11). Everything else He says in these verses will basically be explaining this statement in verse 11. So we really need to pay attention to it.

To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. And we want to get at the meaning of this verse and the verses that follow by asking three basic questions.

a. Who? (v. 11)

First, we want to ask, who are “you” and “them”? That’s a key question. Who are the people who have had the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom given to them, and who are those to whom it hasn’t been given?

The first part of the answer is easy. It was his disciples who came and asked him this question.

Remember that the root of the word “disciple” comes from the word for “learn.” A disciple is a learner of Jesus. Matthew 10:25 said “It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher.” Disciples are students of Jesus.

And in the world of Jesus’ day, being a disciple of a teacher didn’t mean showing up for class. Being a disciple meant that you were committed to that particular teacher, following them around where they went, not just taking in information but learning them as a person.

Which is why, on that very same day according to verse 1, Jesus had stretched out his hand towards his disciples, and said, “here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (12:49-50). A disciple is a student or learner of Jesus who is actually doing the will of God by following Jesus’ teaching.

So that’s the “you” in verse 11. Knowing the mysteries of the kingdom had been given to the disciples.

Who is “them?” And that answer is found in verse 2: “Great crowds gathered about him…and the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables…” (vv. 2-3)

The crowds of curious onlookers, who had some fascination with Jesus, but had not yet committed to being His disciples. The crowds who said, “Can this be the Son of David?” (12:23) but left it at that.

Earlier on in Matthew’s gospel the line between the crowds and the disciples was a little blurry. Back in Matthew 5, we read that “Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him” (Matthew 5:1). And when I preached on that passage, I wasn’t convinced that, at that point, there was too big of a divide between the crowds and the disciples.

But as time has gone on, we’ve seen too many sad clues that most of the crowds in Jesus’ day weren’t responding well to him. When Jesus said in 11:16, “To what shall I compare this generation?” he was indicating that the majority of the people alive at his time, in that generation, were responding to him poorly. When he called out woe upon Bethsaida and Capernaum, he was again making it clear that the majority of the crowds who listened to Him and watched His miracles did not respond in faith and as a result would be judged worse than Sodom and Gomorrah at the final judgement.

It was an “evil and adulterous generation” that sought a sign from Jesus, and the last state of that “evil generation” would be worse than the first.

So don’t think that Jesus had conflict with the Pharisees, and the rest of the people were basically neutral. Not at all. And in fact the conflict with the Pharisees made it even more urgent that the people choose who they were going to believe. When the crowds wondered if Jesus is the Son of David, and the Pharisees declared His power came from Satan, the people had to choose who to believe. They didn’t have the luxury of musing and wondering forever. Didn’t Jesus say, there in chapter 12, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” (Matthew 12:30)?

So Jesus is not impressed with the crowds the way we might be. If we went out and sat beside the sea and great crowds gathered about us and stood on the beach to hear us speak, we’d probably get really excited and take some pictures and go home and tell everyone about the great things that God was doing.

But Jesus sees through all of that. He sees that these crowds were a part of that evil generation, lining up to listen to Jesus, but refusing to believe what they heard. Eager to see more signs, but refusing to believe what the signs were pointing towards. Wondering whether Jesus is the Messiah, but refusing to actually become His disciples and do God’s will.

And so, to them it has not been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. There’s a similar idea here to what we heard back in chapter 11: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children… no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matthew 11:25, 28).

Jesus is the one who gives and hides knowledge of Himself and of the kingdom. And so, He’s given His disciples this knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom. And He has not given this knowledge to the crowds.

b. Why? (v. 12)

And why is that? Why have these secrets been given to the disciples but not to the crowds?

The answer to that question begins with a principle that Jesus explains in verse 12. “For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away” (Matthew 13:12).

Verse 12 explains an idea that shows up in a few passages in the New Testament. We think about the parable of the talents, where the servant with just one talent has it taken away and given to the one who had many.

In this case, Jesus is saying that those who have embraced Him and the kingdom that is dawning will be given even more insight. They will be given the mysteries of the kingdom so that they can understand even better what they have believed and entered into.

But for those who reject the kingdom, like the crowds, even what little knowledge they have will be taken away.

This is really challenging, isn’t it? We might think that Jesus is so nice that, as long as the crowds keep showing up, he’s going to keep giving them chance after chance after chance. He’s going to keep explaining things clearly day after day after day.

But that’s not what Jesus does. There comes a point where someone must either embrace or reject Jesus. If they do not embrace Him, they have rejected Him. And from that point on God does not promise to keep sending the truth their direction. In fact, from that point He purposes to remove what little understanding of the truth they have.

That’s challenging and unexpected but that’s what Jesus is telling us. Jesus is not going to keep on casting pearls before swine. He is going to remove the knowledge of the kingdom from those who have rejected Him, even while He continues to give more to the disciples who have embraced Him.

c. How? (v. 13a)

And how is He going to do that? How is He going to, at the same time, give truth to some while hiding it from others?

The answer is parables. Verse 13: “This is why I speak to them in parables.”

The parables are a way that He gives the secrets of the kingdom to some, but not others. The parables are a way He gives more to the one who has, but takes away from the one who has none.

The parables, in other words, have a dual function. On the one hand, the parables were designed to hide and obscure truth. We need to wrestle with that. You may have heard people describe the parables as helpful stories, drawn from real life, designed to connect with the common people to help them understand the truth they would have otherwise missed.

And some people have used the parables as a reason for why pastors like me should stop preaching like this and tell stories instead. Jesus told stories! Get with the program!

People who talk this way have seriously misunderstood the point of the parables. Because the parables were not designed to reveal truth to the crowds. The parables were designed to hide their meaning from those who did not believe. They were designed to send them home uncertain of what He meant. The parables, in other words, were an act of judgement on their unbelief. What little they had had been taken from them.

And yet, at the same time, the parables do give more to those who already have, like verse 12 says. But, as we’re going to see next week, the main way that happens is by Jesus meeting with His disciples and telling them the meaning of the parables. Without that, they would have been just as lost as the crowds.

So the parables don’t explain things—they parables need themselves to be explained. And without that explanation, which the crowds did not get, the parables were a method of hiding and obscuring the truth from those who had decided not to believe.

3. Seeing and Not Seeing (v. 13b)

In a sense, though, the parables don’t really change the situation too drastically. The people hadn’t really understood what Jesus had said when He did speak plainly. They hadn’t grasped the real meaning of His plain statements and plain speaking. When they heard him, they didn’t really hear. When they saw Him, they didn’t really see.

Isn’t that what Jesus says in the rest of verse 13? “This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand” (Matthew 13:13).

The parables are given in response to their hearing-but-not-hearing, but at the same time, the parables ensure that this situation continues. As the people listen to the parables, they will continue to see but not see, hear but not hear, and fail to understand. That’s what Mark highlights in Mark 4:12, where Jesus says, “For those outside everything is in parables, so that ‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.’”

Some people think there’s a contradiction here between Mark and Matthew. Matthew says that Jesus uses parables because the people see but don’t see. Mark says that Jesus uses parables so that the people will see but don’t see.

But I don’t think there’s a contradiction here. It’s very possible that Jesus said both of these things, and Matthew and Mark are reporting the different sense of what He said. And we know that both of these things are true. God often judges people by giving them over to the sin that they already want.

Pharaoh doesn’t want to let God’s people go, and God judges him by hardening or strengthening his heart so that he kept on being stubborn despite the ten plagues. In Romans 1, people don’t want to worship God, so God gives them over to all kinds of wicked and harmful desires.

And this would be our default were it not for God’s grace. Remember verse 11 says, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom.” The knowledge of God is a gift of sovereign grace, as much the work of God as His initial act of calling light out of darkness.

That’s why 2 Corinthians 4:6 says, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Spiritual sight that overcomes our blindness and hardness of heart is a gift of God’s powerful grace. Without it, we remain blind and deaf.

What’s also important to see is that this problem that of spiritual blindness and deafness is not a new problem unique to Jesus’ audience. The fact that people are not understanding Him, not believing Him, hearing without hearing, does not mean that He is a failure or a bad communicator.

This problem of spiritual blindness and deafness is an ancient problem. In fact, these words that Jesus uses here in verse 13 are drawn from Isaiah chapter 13. And in verses 14-15 Jesus makes this connection very clear by directly quoting from Isaiah chapter 6.

“Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: ‘“You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.” For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.’” (Matthew 13:14–15).

These words are drawn from Isaiah chapter 6, which comes after five chapters full of heart-breaking reports about the hard-hearted rebellion of the people. Then Isaiah sees a vision of the Lord and is given His commission to go and speak for God to the people. And right away he’s given these words that Jesus quotes from here. He’s told that the people aren’t going to listen to him, and in fact his words are only going to harden their hearts even more.

And immediately after hearing this, Isaiah asks a question. Isaiah 6:11: “Then I said, ‘How long, O Lord?” And he said: ‘Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land’” (Isaiah 6:11–12).

The people’s blindness would carry them all the way into exile, far away from their homes and their land. And we know that this happened, as they people refused to listen to the prophets and were eventually carried off to Babylon.

But according to Jesus, that’s not the end of the line. According to Jesus, Isaiah’s words were a prophecy ultimately fulfilled in Jesus’ day. See, the exile didn’t really change anything, and it never really ended. 700 years later, back in their own land, the people’s hearts are as hard as ever.

Their rebellion has simply changed forms. They’re not worshipping idols any more—instead they’re trying to prove how good they are through self-righteous rule-keeping. It looks better on the outside, but it’s the same basic problem. Just like in Isaiah’s day, they’re not listening to God. Just like in Isaiah’s day, a messenger from God speaks and their blindness only increases. Just like in Isaiah’s day, the threat of judgement and exile still hangs over their heads.

And perhaps we see a final fulfillment of this in AD 70 when the Romans came and destroyed the temple and left unbelieving Israelites without a safe place to call their own from that point forward.

4. True Blessing (vv. 16-17)

But that’s not the whole picture. Many children of Israel did believe. Thousands came to trust in Christ after He ascended and poured out His Spirit. And right there, that day, Jesus spoke these words to a group of disciples who did believe in Him and many of whom would go on to die for Him.

And so, he says in verse 16, “But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it” (Matthew 13:16–17).

Notice what Jesus is not saying. He is not saying, “Blessed are your eyeballs for seeing my physical form, and blessed are your ear drums for receiving the sound of my voice.” The crowds did that. No, blessed are the disciples because they are truly seeing who Jesus actually is, and they are truly hearing what He’s actually saying.

They are truly blessed, truly happy, because God has gifted them true knowledge of Christ.

5. For Us

And that’s a blessing that’s extended to us through Matthew’s gospel. Through these written words we have access to the words of Christ and we can hear Him speaking, as it were. We even get the explanation given to His disciples in the coming weeks.

And the Holy Spirit, working through this word, can open our eyes to truly see Christ and open our ears to truly understand what He’s saying. According to the book of Hebrews, Jesus the great prophet is still speaking through His living and active word (Heb 4:12, 12:25).

And if your eyes have been opened to see Jesus, and your ears opened to hear him, know that you are blessed indeed. You have what many prophets and righteous people longed for. No matter what will be under your tree this Christmas, you’ve already been given the greatest gift in history, no exaggeration.

So enjoy that gift.

But also hear the warning. The warning of not taking lightly the words of Jesus. The warning that just showing up and listening out of curiosity, like those people standing on the beach, may not be what Jesus is actually interested in. The warning of treating church like Facebook, just a tool to satisfy our curiosity. The warning that Jesus expressed in Luke 8:18: “Take care then how you hear, for to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.’”

If you have a Bible in your hands, you have the words of God. If you come here on Sunday, you hear from men—and I can say this, because it wasn’t me the past two weeks—who have worked so hard to faithfully and accurately help you understand what God is saying to us in His word.

Take care how you hear. It is a profound thing to have this much access to the Word of God, and this much effort being expended on your behalf to help you understand what it means.

Those who do not pay attention to what God is saying to them may find that they get what they wish for. Those who don’t want to hang on to their opinions without challenge may get what they wish for. Those who want God to leave them alone may get what they wish for. “From the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.’”

If you do feel like an outsider to the words of Jesus this morning, nothing needs to keep you there. The same Jesus who said these words also said, “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden.” The invitation is open. So come to Him today. Ask Him to open your heart to His word and His message of salvation.

Today’s passage is a call for all of us us to cherish the Words of God. To listen to them, and to pray for God to keep on humbling us before His word, to keep on opening our eyes and ears to see and hear what He’s saying to us.

That’s why we’re going to end with the song “Speak, O Lord.” This is a song we’ve sung before the sermon, but we sing it here in response to this passage asking God to speak through His word as we go out into our weeks. I hope and pray that many days this week will include you opening up the Bible to read and meditate on God’s word on your own and with your family and may the words of this song be your prayer each time: “Speak, O Lord. Your servant is listening.”