Why do you speak to the people in parables?
There's a side of Jesus that I think a lot of people either forget or miss entirely. It's weird.
Ask a Christian what the purpose of Jesus's parables was, and they'll probably tell you something like, they're little allegories to illustrate spiritual truths for people to understand. But Jesus actually specifically explained in Scripture the purpose of parables, and it's nothing like that:
Matthew 13:10-17 New International Version (NIV)
10 The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”
11 He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12 Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 13 This is why I speak to them in parables:
“Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand.
14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
15 For this people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’
16 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17 For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.
What do my Christian friends make of this?
1 comment:
I understand it as a Socratic technique. Rather than telling people exactly what he thinks, Jesus in the synoptic gospels at least puts things in parables so people have to figure out what he means. We argue, we discuss, we make points and counterpoints, and in the process we work toward understanding him and end up reinforcing his lessons.
If he just told us what he thought, we'd argue over whether he was right and be done with it. But by engendering discussion, we still discuss him and his teachings close to 2,000 years later, all over the world and in different languages.
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