WHAT, ME? A PARABLE?

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And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that "'they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.'"
Mark 4:10‭-‬12 ESV

¶With the parable of the sower and the soils, Jesus was crafting an agricultural metaphor that is intuitively obvious to the world. He was giving a discourse on the sowing of seeds for a crop. Anyone would easily understand what He was talking about and agree with it. In fact, the true farmers and gardeners in the audience would probably think it a bit quaint that a carpenter and the son of a carpenter would lecture them with such a basic lesson in agriculture. Not much of a mystery, not much of a secret, here. But is it possible that the ones most familiar with the topic under discussion would fail to see the meaning lying just beneath the surface? Is it possible that we so blithely co-opt for ourselves the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that we live without the fear of the Lord, which is truly the beginning of wisdom, and our eyes fail to see, our ears fail to hear? These parables are not just handy ways of using a physical reality to reflect another spiritual reality. There are not two realities. As counterintuitive as it may seem, Jesus's way, the way of the cross, is the realistic way to live, not just in the next world, but in this world. When the Spirit of God moved across the face of the deep, and the Word of God bubbled up, ordering and sustaining the world, and everything in it, all of creation bore the mark and the message of His truth.
So His disciples are like "so what's the catch?" The hook is at the end of this explanation: True seers and hearers readily engage in repentance and forgiveness. When the word of God impinges on their world, they bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance. (Matthew 3:8)
If the reading of the Word of God seems abstract and obscure to you, read on, then take it with you, bring it in to your world, and experience the incredible meaning it sheds on your life. You may find that you yourself are the next parable to be told!

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