The Purpose and Meaning of Parables (Mt 13:10-17)
10 Then the disciples came and asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” 11 He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. 12 For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 13 The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ 14 With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:
‘You will indeed listen, but never understand,
and you will indeed look, but never perceive.
15 For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart and turn—
and I would heal them.’ [Isa. 6:9-10]
16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. 17 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.
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Parables are designed to reveal the Gospel to those prepared and able to hear while hiding it from those who are not (v. 11). Why would Jesus want to keep hidden these kingdom teachings? Because “from everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded” (Lk 12:48). Receiving the teachings of the Kingdom requires obedience. The parables are therefore a means of protecting those who are not yet prepared to travel the difficult path of the Kingdom of God.
But why hide these truths as if they are secret or esoteric knowledge? What Jesus tells us is that they are hidden, not because they are secret as much as they are perilous. Jesus (quoting Isaiah) tells the sad story of people that “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand” (v. 13). Isaiah goes on to say that these people’s hearts are dull and their ears hard of hearing. In other words, parables are also a means of hiding a truth from those who are not interested in the kingdom (or reject it outright). For this second group they are not so much a merciful veiling of the truth as they are a judgment upon those that “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand” (v. 13).
Paul says the revelation of the Gospel of God comes as righteousness to those who are prepared to hear (that is, those who hear and obey to enter into right relationship to God), while that very same message is perceived as wrath for those who hear and are unwilling to accept it (Rom 1:17, 18). (I have written an excursis on the meaning of righteousness and wrath in Romans 1, for those interested in the subject.) So it is that God, as a consequence of his mercy, veils his living message so that the truth of the Gospel does not utterly alienate (and ultimately condemn) those not yet ready to gladly hear and receive.
Given the facts that God hides these truths from some people but puts the burden of obedience on those to whom he reveals these truths, receiving these words from God may seem more trouble than the teachings are worth. What if I don’t live up to God’s expectations? What if I’m like the people Isaiah talked about: dull in heart, hard of hearing and having my eyes shut? These very concerns about the parables’ purpose lead us to the meaning of parables.
The parables reveal “the secrets of the kingdom” (vs. 11). Furthermore, according to vs. 12, the parables are tools by which those who have been given these secrets can have the gifts “in abundance.” Parables as a whole (as we will discover as we unfold the eight parables of Matthew 13) describe the prodigal character of the kingdom. “Prodigal” means “wastefully or recklessly extravagant.” It was Timothy Keller who, to my knowledge, first applied the word “prodigal” to God and the kingdom rather than the wayward son in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. And if this is the character of God (in other words, the way God acts), we have nothing to fear. If we are ready to receive these teachings, God will mercifully prepare our hearts. God’s not out to get us; we have to work to turn our backs to the prodigal God.
The parables as a whole tell a story of God’s excess. In the first parable we will consider in this series, for instance, the harvest turns out to be up to one hundredfold. That is a description of excess. In the parable of the prodigal son (Lk 15:11-32), in spite of the son’s misdeeds, the father throws decorum to the wind and runs to greet the boy when he returns in spite of his wickedness. That is a description of “excessive” mercy. In the second parable of Matthew 13, weeds are sown in the field but the landowner tells his workers not to remove them until the harvest. Implied in that statement is the possibility of repentance until the very end, which is a description of “excessive” grace.
In the parable of vineyard workers (Mt. 20:1-8), the landowner keeps hiring workers right up until the end of the day and pays them all a full days wage. From a human standpoint this is not just (at the very least it is not fair). But from the kingdom perspective, this is yet another example of God’s “excessive” love toward mankind. The parables of the kingdom describe a God who is far more loving, more gracious, more merciful, and more kind than we have any reason to expect. As St. Paul says in Rom. 8:31 (KJV), “If God be for us, who can be against us?” More than anything the meaning of the parables is that God is good beyond measure. This is why, in spite of the responsibility, embracing the gospel is worth the chance. If this God who is good beyond measure, who is prodigal with his love, mercy, and grace, is for us, who can be against us?
Furthermore the parables are not about the goodness of God in an abstract or theoretical sense; they are about the goodness of God in the context of the vagaries of life. Seed (which is the Gospel, or, as the parable calls it, “the word of the kingdom”) is sown, but not all of it ends up in the right place. Some of it falls on the path, some in the rocks, and some in the weeds. From the divine perspective the Gospel is efficacious. Seen from the vagaries of life, the Gospel can seem uncertain because it is hit-or-miss. Read from an absolutist perspective, the story presented in the parables can seem unsure and frightening, while the divine-side story of St. Paul seems far more comforting in its absolutes.
But, as was observed in the previous essay, viewing life from the absolute divine-side perspective also creates its own sets of doubts. Both sides are necessary if we are to develop the utter confidence in God that comes from growing into perfect love that casts out fear (1 Jn. 4:18). The parables, then are tools (for those who have been called by God to understand them) which allow us to see the goodness of God within the context of the fallen world so that we might grow into the perfect love to which God has called us.
