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The Gospel of the Kingdom

Christ's Parables and the Kingdom

Did Jesus expect everyone to understand His parables about the Kingdom of God? In His teaching, Jesus often compared the coming Kingdom to common situations in people's lives. These messages are known as parables.

Most people assume Christ used this method of teaching to make the truth more easily understood. Jesus Himself said the opposite is true. "And the disciples came and said to Him, 'Why do You speak to them in parables?' He answered and said to them, 'Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given . . . Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand'" (Matthew 13:10-13).

Jesus did not expect everyone to understand His parables about the Kingdom, either in His days on earth or now. "And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: 'Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.' But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it . . ." (verses 14-17).

Jesus then explained the parable of the sower. The sown seed was "the word of the kingdom" (verse 19). Next He gave the three most common reasons most people don't understand what He called "the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" (verse 11).

He first gave the example of a person who is so deceived by Satan that he lacks the spiritual depth even to grasp the meaning of the message (verse 19). Next He gave the example of one who "stumbles" at the word when "tribulation or persecution arises" (verses 20-21). Then comes the example of one "who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful" (verse 22).

Last is the positive example of one who hears and understands Christ's teachings concerning the Kingdom of God (verse 23), the person who hears and believes the message, then acts on that information to produce abundant spiritual fruit.