Devotional Reading from Matthew 13:10-17
Matthew 13:10–17
10 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? 11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. 12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. 13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. 14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: 15 For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. 16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. 17 For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hearthose things which ye hear, and have not heard them.
Kids think they are so clever don’t they? I know that as a child I thought we were when we coded the notes we passed in class. Doing it would get us in trouble with the teacher but that didn’t stop us. Funny thing, I can’t remember a message really worth passing. We would write a key to the code, which usually was a small paper with letters or symbols and a corresponding letter beneath each. For example, Z actually meant A. We were not that clever and our codes were not that complicated. Usually the teacher would figure out that the code actually said that Jason liked ^!##!{.
(I can’t tell you all our secrets)
The point is that understanding the message was all about having the key.
Why parables the disciples asked? Why tell an earthly story with a Heavenly meaning? The reply from our Lord was two-fold. To reveal and to conceal. To his true believers the stories conveyed and explained truth, but to those without faith they made his teachings all the more confusing. Many walked away from his lesson scratching their heads.
Of course they are perplexed, Jesus had not yet given the explanation to his parable. He left everyone hanging until his disciples came to him and sought the answer to the parable.
If you receive a coded message you would expect to gain useful information, but only if you have the key. Jesus held the key, actually he is the key. The teachings of Christ can only be understood when you come back to him for the meaning. This is true of more than just this parable, it is true of all of the Scriptures.
The apostle Paul said,
“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Corinthians 2:14
Because I have the key, I read the Old Testament Scriptures with greater understanding than those to whom they were originally written. Augustine famously said it better,
“The new is in the old concealed; the old is in the new revealed.”
A little girl kept interrupting the study of her preacher dad wanting him to play so he came up with a plan. He saw a picture of the world in a newspaper below his desk. He quickly tore the picture of the world into puzzle pieces and told his daughter, “Put this puzzle together and we will go play.” He knew she had no knowledge of geography and she would be distracted long enough for him to complete his studies. To the dad’s surprise she came back in just a short time with the world taped back together. “How did you do that?” he asked. “Oh, daddy it was easy, there was a picture of Jesus on the back of the pieces.”
Once she had Jesus in place the world made sense.
It is true of the parables, it is true of all the teachings of the Bible, It’s true of everything.