Behind the Parables

Then after dismissing the crowds he went into the house.  And the disciples came to him and said: ¨Explain to us the illustration of the weeds in the field.¨  Matthew 13:36 (Reference Bible)

We who read the Bible today have a slight advantage in some way over those who heard Jesus preach.  Jesus Christ spoke in parables to them.  They loved His way of teaching and followed Him from place to place.  They must have gotten much from His preaching, but when the crowds went away, Jesus explained these illustrations on a deeper level to His disciples.  These explanations were documented and you and I have access to this deeper knowledge today.

One could get the sensation that in knowing the fuller revelation; we have got it all down.  We know the final meaning behind the parables and need to seek no further understanding.

However, verse 15 says:  ¨For the heart of this people has grown unreceptive, and with their ears they have heard without response, and they have shut their eyes; that they might never see with their eyes and hear with their ears and get the sense of it with their hearts and turn back, and I heal them.¨  (Reference Bible)

With an eye for instruction, healing and warning, you and I could perk up our ears and come to Jesus for reassurance that something of the sort is not happening with us today.

There are things that a person can say he or she understands, but on a deeper level there is just no way that they could because they have never experienced it for themselves.  Truth is by nature something that must be lived through personally for any real understanding.

For example a young person may get upset when an older person tells them that they don´t understand what it is like to have children.  The younger person may feel hurt by the remark because they can imagine holding a baby in their arms and loving it.  They do have experience in the fact that they have seen others enjoying their children and they were once loved by their own parents.

But however informed the younger person may be or how vivid their imagination, it cannot compare nor does it prepare them for that moment when the doctors place their own baby in their arms.

This same principle is at work within the stories and illustrations that Jesus used.  We can say we understand and that we can imagine what the Lord is trying to tell us.  However there are more levels of truth than we are aware of and only the Holy Spirit can reveal this to us when we live through it in personal experience.

Jesus has warned us that it is possible for us to hear and not understand.  He has told us that we can see something yet its significance never reach our hearts.  And Christ warned us that if the seeing and hearing does not result in a turning to Him for healing, then it never sank deep enough and the truth has been lost to us.

Therefore we should each and every one, be on our guard at all times.  The warning stands.  There will be those who receive deeper understanding through personal experience, and those who merely heard and think they understand.

Dear Jesus, we bring our hearts to You today.  Please examine our case as we attempt to turn to You for some healing right now.  We have heard Your parables and Illustrations but yearn to live in personal experience Your deeper revelations.  Please accept our humble ignorance and our looking towards You, and be pleased to take us aside and reveal to us Your truths.  Feed us today in a very personal way so that our hearts are united and completely dependent on You.  May it be said of us one day that we had ears, and we did hear.

And may Your name be glorified in all the earth,

Amen

Scott W