Parables... what they don't tell you in R.E.

We were looking at the first half of Mark 4 at church last night, where Jesus begins to use parables to teach. Jesus' commands to "Listen!" (4.3, 9, 24) boom right out of the text.

It's those that follow him and ask him about the parables, who have been given the secret of the kingdom of God. What a secret! "But for those outside everything is in parables, so that...

"they may indeed see but not percieve,
and may indeed hear but not understand,
lest they should turn and be forgiven."
(Isaiah 6.9,10)

The big point is Jesus' sovereignty, not that different soils show the inability of Jesus' power. The kingdom of Jesus is sovereignly revealed to those who'll listen and deliberately concealed from those who reject Jesus. He will see that the word is removed if we reject it, in line with the principle of 4.25 - to those who have, more will be given, but to the one who doesn't have, what he has will be taken away.

To the one whom the secret has been given... well, what a privilege. Opened eyes! And so the assurance of fruit, thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold!