Series: All!
Scripture: Matthew 13:1-23 (Main); Acts 1:6-8, Matt 1-23, Acts 28:28
Title: “Why Did Jesus Teach with Parables?” (Darien Gabriel)
Main source of commentary: David Platt
Bottom line: Jesus taught in parables to reveal to some and to conceal from others the good news that the kingdom of God is near.
Discussion questions for group and personal study.
Reflect and Discuss
1. How did Jesus' parables both reveal and conceal truth?
2. Explain how the kingdom can be both present and future.
3. How would you sum up the parable of the Sower in one or two sentences? How might the parable of the Sower help us avoid being manipulative in our preaching, teaching, and evangelizing?
4. What are some signs that the cares and riches of the world are choking out saving faith as the Bible describes it?
5. How is persevering faith different from works-righteousness?
6. What would you say to someone whose only evidence of salvation was a momentary decision?
7. What encouragement might come to persecuted believers from the parables of the Mustard Seed and Yeast?
8. What do the parables of the Weeds and the Net have to teach us about the final judgment? Why is it sometimes difficult to discern who is and who is not part of the kingdom?
9. How could you use the parables of the Treasure and the Pearl of Great Price to respond to someone who said, "I want to follow Jesus, but I don't want to make drastic changes in my life"?
10. What wrong conceptions of the kingdom has Matthew 13 corrected for you?
Final Questions (optional or in place of above)
What is God saying to you right now?
What are you going to do about it?
Find our sermons, podcasts, discussion questions and notes at https://www.gracetoday.net/podcast
Intro
https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/17704/day/196?segment=0
Soften Your Heart and Harden Your Feet
A twenty-one-year-old music college student took the cheapest ship she could find, calling at the greatest number of countries, and prayed to know where to disembark. She arrived in Hong Kong in 1966 and came to a place called the Walled City. It was a small, densely populated, lawless area controlled neither by China nor Hong Kong. It was a high-rise slum for drug addicts, gangs and prostitutes. She wrote:
I loved this dark place. I hated what was happening in it but I wanted to be nowhere else. It was almost as if I could already see another city in its place and that city was ablaze with light. It was my dream. There was no more crying, no more death or pain. The sick were healed, addicts set free, the hungry filled. There were families for orphans, homes for the homeless, and new dignity for those who had lived in shame. I had no idea of how to bring this about but with ‘visionary zeal’ imagined introducing the Walled City people to the one who could change it all: Jesus.
Jackie Pullinger has spent over half a century working with prostitutes, heroin addicts and gang members. I remember so well a talk she gave some years ago. She began by saying, ‘God wants us to have soft hearts and hard feet. The trouble with so many of us is that we have hard hearts and soft feet.’
Jackie is a glowing example of this; going without sleep, food and comfort to serve others. God wants us to have soft hearts – hearts of love and compassion. But if we are to make any difference to the world, this will lead to hard feet as we travel along tough paths and face challenges.
Context:
Where he was:
“We have a tendency to think that parables were merely illustrations Jesus employed to help make His points. There is a sense in which that is true, but it is a vast over-simplification of the actual function of parables. The word parable is made up of a prefix, para, and a root, the verb ballō. Para means “alongside.” A paralegal is someone who comes alongside a lawyer to provide legal help. A parachurch ministry comes alongside the church to aid it in its mission. Baleo means “to throw or hurl.” So literally, a parable is something that is thrown alongside of something else. In the case of Jesus, a parable was an illustration or a restatement of a truth that He “threw in” with His teaching.”
In reference to Isaiah 6:1-8…
“God was sending Isaiah as a prophet of judgment, because God had had enough of people who did not want to hear or see the truth”
“…He was explaining to Isaiah that He had kept for Himself a remnant, “a tenth,” from which He would raise up His people again. But Isaiah’s mission was to the rest, to clog their ears and blind their eyes.”
“So, in answer to the disciples’ question, Jesus explained that He used parables both to reveal and to conceal. To those who had “ears to hear,” the parables were words of life. To those whose hearts were hardened and who could not hear so as to understand, the parables were indecipherable stories, impenetrable mysteries. The first of them was the parable of the sower.”
Excerpt From
Matthew - An Expositional Commentary
R.C. Sproul
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=0
This material may be protected by copyright.
Excerpt From
Matthew - An Expositional Commentary
R.C. Sproul
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=0
This material may be protected by copyright.
““Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”
Matthew 7:21-23 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/mat.7.21-23.NIV
Bottom line:
Q. What do I want you to know?
A. That the condition of your heart determines whether you receive mercy or judgment.
Q. Why?
A. Because it’s a measure of your level of trust of the Lord.
Q. What do I want you to do?
A. Humble yourself and repent and believe the good news.
Q. Why?
A. Because your quality of life depends on it—here and now, and hereafter.
Bottom line: Jesus taught in parables to reveal to some and to conceal from others the good news that the kingdom of God is near.
Context: Jesus is talking to the crowd and the religious leaders intent on discrediting him. He continues to show them portraits of himself through his direct teachings. He’ll move to parables in the next chapter making his truths less obvious to some and even incomprehensible to others.
Outline (David Platt’s outline)
I. Four Questions
A. What is a parable?
1. A practical story
2. Often framed as a metaphor
3. Illustrates a spiritual truth
B. How do we understand parables? 3 Principles
1. Listen from the hearer's perspective.
Put yourself in their shoes.
1st c. Jews vs. 21st c. Americans.
What would they hear? How would they respond? How would they feel?
2. Look for the main point. Usually 1–2 or 3 max.
3. Let the truth change your perception. I.e. Let it change the way you think about something through story.
C. Why do we have parables?
1. Jesus was revealing truth to those who were believing the mysterious (secrets)--this was evidence of God's mercy.
Why do we have parables?
“Because the secrets of the kingdom of heaven have been given to you to know, but it has not been given to them.”
Secrets or mysteries in the OT revealed in the NT.
What’s not secret: God would send the Messiah to usher in a kingdom.
Secret: What kind of Messiah God would send, how that Messiah would conquer
Not through political struggle (political scheming)
Not through brute force (military)
but through sacrificial love (cross)
Therefore, for those who were trusting that Jesus was promised King/Messiah, the parables helped them understand what kind of king he was and what kind of kingdom he was ushering in.
HEARING/BELIEVING WAS EVIDENCE OF GOD’S GRACE AND MERCY.
2. Jesus was concealing truth from those who were denying the obvious-this was evidence of God's judgment.
JESUS WAS CONCEALING THE OBVIOUS
Despite the many miracles (not to mention the signs).
Despite the many teachings.
NOT HEARING/BELIEVING WAS EVIDENCE OF GOD’S JUDGMENT.
3. 2 Purposes based on 2 kinds of audiences
First 4 parables told to the crowds.
Last 4 parables told to the disciples.
D. What is the kingdom of heaven?
1. The redemptive rule or reign of God in Christ
2. A present reality: The King is here, and His kingdom is advancing.
3. A future realization: The King is coming back, and His kingdom will one day be complete.
Acts 1:6-8 “Then they gathered around him and asked him, ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’”
II. Eight Parables
A. The parable of the Sower (aka Soils) (13:1-9, 18-23)
The sower is the son of man and the seed is the message of salvation (aka good news of the kingdom).
The soil is the human heart.
Some in Jesus’ day rejected/rebelled.
Others casually responded to him.
The problem of rejection is not the seed nor the sower but the human heart.
Jesus points to 4 different heart-responses to the message of salvation:
Pathway/Packed soil = hard heart = seed sits on top and never enters the soil; birds eat. This is a lack of understanding prevents reception of the message. No fruit.
Rocky/Hard-pan soil = shallow/superficial heart = seed hits the soil, takes root and sprouts but due to the layer of rock beneath, the roots can’t go deep. When the sun comes out the plant withers. This is how a person falls away when the troubles of life test their faith. It withers. No fruit.
George Whitefield, 18th c. Evangelist during the first great awakening when asked how many were saved at one of his sermons would say, “We’ll see in a few years.”
Emma - we waited years after she professed Christ as VBS (4 yrs old) to see the fruit over time.
Good soil surrounded by thorn bushes = distracted/divided heart = The person falls away after hearing and responding due to the deceitfulness of wealth and worries in this life. Result is, once again, no fruit.
Good soil = Fruitful heart -
Hears the word
Understands the word
Believes the word
Obeys the word bearing fruit that will last (John 15:16). 30, 60 & 100X.
LOL
Listen to the word.
Obey the word. (Bearing fruit)
Leading others to listen to and obey the word. (Bearing fruit)
B. The parables of the Weeds and the Net
C. The parables of the Mustard Seed and Yeast
D. The parables of the Treasure and the Pearl
E. The parable of the Homeowner
II. Two Primary Applications
A. Humbly and joyfully receive the message of the kingdom.
B. Confidently and urgently spread the message of the kingdom.
C. The Lord’s supper is where we
Look back at when we received the message.
Look up to the one who gave us a message worth hearing.
Look ahead to sharing this message with others until he returns.
Conclusion:
Bottom line: Jesus taught in parables to reveal to some and to conceal from others the good news that the kingdom of God is near.
Who is Lord of Your Life?
Polycarp (AD70–156) was a bishop during a time of bitter attack against the Christians. At the age of eighty-six, he was arrested for no other crime than being a Christian. All he had to do to avoid torture and death was to proclaim, ‘Caesar is Lord.’
Polycarp responded, ‘Eighty-six years I have served Christ, and he never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?’ For Polycarp, the fact that ‘Jesus is Lord’ meant that he could not say, ‘Caesar is Lord.’ Steadfast in his stand for Christ, Polycarp refused to compromise his beliefs and was burnt alive at the stake on 22 February AD156.
How is your heart? Is it tender towards God or have you allowed it to be hard towards God? Are you feet hard from kingdom work or tender from taking care of yourself?
What is God saying to you? What are you going to do about it?
Pray
References/Bibliography:
“Preaching the Word” Commentary, Douglas Sean O’Donnell, Edited by Kent Hughes
“Matthew” by RC Sproul
“CSB Christ Chronological,” Holman
“The Bible Knowledge Commentary” by Walvoord, Zuck (BKC)
“The Bible Exposition Commentary” by Warren Wiersbe (BEC)
“Exalting Jesus in Matthew” by David Platt (CCE)
Outline Bible, D Willmington
NIV Study Bible (NIVSB)
ESV Study Bible
Read More