When He was on earth Jesus often spoke to the crowd in parables. 40 are listed in the NIV Study Bible. A parable is a short story with two levels of meaning that may be hard to understand.

Matthew said that this was a fulfilment of Psalm 78:2-3. “I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.” (Mt. 13:34-35). Here Asaph teaches them from history – how they forgot what God had done for the Israelites. It’s a warning not to repeat their sins of the past. He revealed what was not readily apparent.

This was a pattern fulfilment (or typology) – What Jesus did was similar to what Asaph did. His parables were often about the kingdom of God. God offered the kingdom to the Jews (“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near”, Mt. 4:17), but they rejected it when they attributed His healing miracles to the power of Satan (Mt. 12:23-37). So, the kingdom was postponed until the Jews will accept it. Meanwhile the good news about Jesus goes out across the world.

Parables reveal and conceal. They reveal to believers in the Lord and conceal to unbelievers. God permits believers to know and does not permit unbelievers to know. Jesus’ parables concealed the truth from those who rejected Him (Mt. 13:10-15; Mk. 4:10-11; Lk. 8:9-10). This was a pattern fulfilment of Isaiah – His message was also rejected (6:9-10). Those who continually rejected Christ’s message were left in spiritual darkness. But Jesus revealed the truth to those who followed Him. He explained the lessons of the parables to His followers (Mk. 4:33-34). That’s why we read the Bible and learn from sermons and Bible studies in order to understand what God wants us to know. Believers have the “Spirit of truth” who guides them “into all the truth” (Jn. 16:13).

If you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, you are a citizen of that coming kingdom. But there’s going to be some difficulty before that happens. That’s the new truth that Jesus revealed in the parables (it’s not revealed in the Old Testament). There’s a gap between the first and second advents of Christ. And in this gap, before we enter the kingdom we will experience “many trials”. Paul said, “We must go through many hardships (or persecutions or sufferings) to enter the kingdom of God,” (Acts 14:22).

Prayer

Father God, we give thanks for the whole Bible, including the parables of Jesus which show we are not in your kingdom yet – there is both good and evil in our world. We thank you for sending Jesus so that your kingdom can come because He saved sinners by sacrificing His life and rising back to life again in great power over sin and death. And thanks for sending the Holy Spirit to help us understand the parables.

In Christ’s name, Amen.

G Hawke