Matthew 13:10-17
Jesus on His Parables
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.
John 8:23
Jesus is Not of This World
23 But he continued, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world."
2 Peter 1:16
The Disciples Were Eyewitnesses to Jesus
16We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
No doubt God and His Son like to speak in parables...Jesus' disciples even ask Him why He used and taught in parables...He answers them that the Kingdom of Heaven has been given to them...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...Then He tells them a quote from the Prophet Isaiah...Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand....Then He tells them that He fulfilled one, if not all, of the prophecies of Isaiah...
When I read this and some of His other parables and the things He said, I still have a hard time understanding what He has said after many years...Often, to me, His parables mean many different things...For instance, take the Parable of the Lost Son...For years I thought the lost son was the one that left...Years later, after I read it, I am thinking maybe the lost son is the elder son, who is unable to forgive his younger brother...Then I thought both sons were lost and the young one has just found his Father...So, His Parables can be confusing for me...
I wonder if His disciples got the answer they wanted or thought He might give...I wonder if all of them understood what He just answered...I struggle often with His parables...In trying to understand Jesus and His need to teach us in these deep moral stories told in the parable form -I think, maybe He is telling His disciples and us that it is far more important to have faith in Him, than to understand Him...For the disciples, it was just as important for them to be in His Physical Presence, as it was to understand Him...It was very important for Jesus and His disciples to "just be there."...The needed to be there and believe and trust in Him...By being there His disciples and followers could tell about Him and His teachings to all future followers...They were eyewitnesses to His Majesty...
Why do we have faith?...We know that Jesus is full of all the greatest wisdom...He is the most unique One ever to walk the earth...He rose from the dead...He is not of this world...He is so complex, that maybe we can only understand a very small part of Him...Since He is from above, and we are from below, we find Him hard to comprehend and understand...It is possible, and this is only a guess, but our faith maybe divided into different parts...And believing and understanding are two of the parts...Love and Truth are others parts and reasons for our faith...But back to the two parts of believing in Him and having an understanding of Him (and not accounting for our other reasons of our faith)...I think, if we divide these two, ninety percent accounts for our believing in Him, and ten percent accounts for us in understanding Him (but this is only a guess -it may vary among believers, but believing in His Father and the One He sent is eternal life (John 3:16))...