The Parables

Jesus's Friendly Subversive Speech

Douglas D. Webster

• Publisher: Kregel Academic
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780825477355
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

A comprehensive study of Jesus' parables that emphasizes personal reflection and application Jesus' parables used familiar situations to convey deep spiritual truths in ways that are provocative and subversive of the status quo. Prayerfulness was pictured by a persistent widow. The joy of salvation in the homecoming of a lost son. Love of neighbor by a marginalized Samaritan. If we're not careful, we can easily miss details in the parables that reveal their subtle meanings as well as their contemporary relevance.Drawing on scholarship on the parables as well as theological, pastoral, and practical insights, Douglas Webster guides the reader through each of Jesus' parables, pointing out the important nuances that allow us to understand them and be transformed by them. Reflection questions at the end of each chapter can be used for personal or group study, and an appendix for pastors provides guidance for preaching the parables. Pastors, Bible teachers, and serious students of Scripture will find this tour through Jesus' parabolic teaching to be a feast for both the mind and the soul.

1

THE SOWER

MATTHEW 13:1–23

On the same day that the Pharisees accused Jesus of possessing demonic power and his family sought to carry out an intervention, Jesus went out of the house and “sat by the lake” (Matt. 13:1). A large crowd gathered around him and “he told them many things in parables” (Matt. 13:3). In the midst of a cultural storm he sat down in a boat. There is a cove near Capernaum that provided a natural acoustical setting. His voice amplified off the surface of the water. His body language was a picture of composure and calm engagement—an example to believers today of how to engage the world in the midst of resistance and rejection. When speakers sit, they naturally limit their voice volume and animation. The focus narrows to what is being said rather than how it is being said. Jesus’s simple style corresponds to his simple parables. But the simple content of the story is a fiction, a calculated cover for profound truths and a not-so-subtle invitation to the listener to go deeper. The preacher of the Sermon on the Mount has shifted genres. The Sermon of Parables was designed to stymie the opposition, keep the crowd listening, and draw the disciples deeper into gospel truth. Jesus diverted an early end to his public ministry by his friendly, subversive speech.

“HOLY SEED”

Those with ears to hear will understand even before Jesus quotes from the prophet Isaiah that Jesus’s simple story of the sower invokes the deep meaning of salvation history. When he begins with “A farmer went out to sow his seed” (Matt. 13:3), he telegraphs to his audience that this story should be understood on a deeper level than a carpenter’s son’s commentary on farming. Isaiah spoke of “the holy seed” sprouting from the “stump in the land.” The seed signified the early growth of the kingdom of heaven (Isa. 6:13). The Isaiah reference linked the sower’s seed to the word of God in Jesus’s audience. The promise of a fruitful harvest suggests the fruitful productivity of the word of the Lord: “It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you” (Isa. 55:11–12). If someone listened to Jesus closely, they would have anticipated the positive conclusion of the parable of the sower: “the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it” (Matt. 13:23).

There is little mystery as to who the sower is in Jesus’s parable. The word “sower” is unusual. The normal word to use back then was “farmer.” But Jesus chose “sower” to give the hearer another clue. The parable wasn’t about farming. It was about the proclamation of the word of the Lord. Jesus himself is the sower. The refrain “Whoever has ears, let them hear” implies that there is something more to be understood than the surface meaning. The deep meaning of the parable of the sower is related to the prophecy of Isaiah.

The liberally sown seed fell in four places, on a hard-packed footpath, on rocky ground with a thin layer of soil, on a thorny patch of earth, and on fertile soil producing a fruitful crop. The sower scatters seed everywhere. He is unconcerned about wasting seed. Later, when the disciples get Jesus away from the crowd, they ask him, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” They are aware that Jesus changed his communication strategy, and they want to know why. In other words, they ask, “Why do you teach them so cryptically? Why not spell things out for them?”¹ The question implies a change in Jesus’s teaching method, a change that must have impressed them as unusual.

Jesus answered their question indirectly. His response did not focus on method (why are you choosing to speak in parables?), but on meaning (explaining what God was up to). His strategy is in response to what God was doing, rather than in how he could change his method to reach people. Reception, Jesus insists, is in the hands of God, not humans. Instead of changing methods because of consumer demand, Jesus insists on a deeper reason. Understanding, like grace, is a gift of God, lest anyone should boast. The disciples are privileged by God to be given “the secrets of the kingdom of heaven”—the crowd is not; the religious leaders are not. The synergy between a human response (“Whoever has ears, listen!”) and God’s sovereignty (“The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, not to them,” Matt. 13:11) cannot be explained in an equation or measured in percentages. Jesus lifts the preaching of the gospel above competing ideologies and the eloquence of human wisdom (see 1 Cor. 2:1–4).

ISAIAH’S OPEN SECRET

Jesus described the gospel as “the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.” The Greek word for “secret” is “mystery,” a word we tend to associate with what we find vague, inscrutable, and puzzling. The apostles used the word “mystery” for the truth of God revealed. Truth is not unknowable and beyond our grasp, but neither does it originate with us. We are not the clever creators of truth. The source of universal truth is in God alone. Redemptive truth, absolute truth, is received, not achieved. This truth can only be known by the revelation of God (1 Cor. 4:1). The secret of the kingdom of heaven is that Jesus is God’s revelation in person. This is the open secret that the disciples are privileged to hear and understand. This is the truth that the crowd fails to comprehend. Mystery is the revelation of God, previously hidden, now made known. The privilege of reception is not a problem but a blessing, and the gift received increases in abundance.² Both reception and rejection of “the secrets of the kingdom of heaven” are orchestrated by the sovereign will of God. Theologian Carl Henry offers a line worth remembering: “Human reason is a divinely fashioned instrument for recognizing truth; it is not a creative source of truth.”³

Jesus attributes his reason for using parables to the hardness of people’s hearts. The crowd’s willful refusal to receive the truth undoubtedly has many reasons and excuses, but ultimately reception belongs to God. Jesus is neither surprised by the rejection nor filled with sorrow. His courage and conviction is reflected in the words of the prophet Isaiah. The prophet was called to preach the word of God to his own people who heard it clearly enough, but refused to accept it. They hardened their hearts, closed their ears, and shut their eyes.

Ironically, Isaiah’s calling reinforced the people’s failure to comprehend the truth. The better the prophet preached, the more resistant the people became. The Lord commissioned the prophet to make the truth plain and the people’s rejection complete: “Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving. Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed” (Isa. 6:9–10).

How did the prophet do this? He did this by presenting the truth with such clarity, simplicity, and sincerity that each successive refusal to respond to the grace of God made it that much more difficult for the people to receive the message. Isaiah was a straight-talking prophet who did everything he could to convince the people of the truth of God, yet because of his effectiveness, he only drove them further from the truth. Isaiah “faced the preacher’s dilemma: if hearers are resistant to the truth, the only recourse is to tell them the truth yet again, more clearly than before. But to do this is to expose them to the risk of rejecting the truth yet again and, therefore, of increased hardness of heart. It could even be that the next rejection will prove to be the point at which the heart is hardened beyond recovery.”⁴

Isaiah was actually criticized for making the truth simple and straightforward. His critics asked, “Who is it he is trying to teach? To whom is he explaining his message? To children weaned from their milk, to those just taken from the breast?” In today’s theological circles, Isaiah sounded like the simple believer who embraces the reality of the incarnation and the necessity of Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross. Isaiah believed and proclaimed the word of God plainly, yet boldly, and critics mocked him for it. They ridiculed his message: “Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule; a little here, a little there” (Isa. 28:10 NIV1984). Can you imagine dismissing the prophet Isaiah with “yada, yada”? Given such an unbelievably hard challenge, Isaiah naturally asked, “For how long, O Lord?” The answer he received was not easy! “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged, until the LORD has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken” (Isa. 6:11–12). Not only did Isaiah present the truth clearly and compellingly but he did it for more than fifty years with the same discouraging result. The substance and style of his ministry of the word was matched only by his endurance.⁵

Understanding is a gift.⁶ God opens eyes and ears to the truth otherwise concealed by our depravity and hardness of heart. Jesus frames the rejection of the crowd and the understanding of the disciples in the big picture of salvation history. The disciples were privileged by God’s amazing grace not only in their reception of the truth but in their timing. In Jesus, the revelation of God had reached its critical, redemptive climax (1 Peter 1:10–12; Heb. 11:13–16).

JESUS’S INTERPRETATION

We are used to expositions coming before illustrations. But here we have the reverse: an illustration first that anticipates exposition. The parable functions as a riddle, designed to provoke thought. For the crowd, the parable conceals; for the disciples, it clarifies. Jesus himself entitled the parable: “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means” (Matt. 13:18, emphasis added). We may be inclined to change the title to the parable of the soils, because much of our preaching focuses on the various ways we reject the word of God. But it is best to follow Jesus’s lead. He keeps the focus on the sower and the sower’s assessment of the four soil types.

The sower’s analysis of rejection does not discourage as much as warn. The ratio of rejection to reception is three to one. The fate of the seed (the gospel) is negative 75 percent of the time. Although, as we will see, the abundant yield of the good soil makes up for the rejection (Isa. 55:11). But Jesus’s description of these three forms of rejection serves as a warning to his followers. Jesus doesn’t want the disciples to be surprised by the rejection rate. One of the big secrets of the kingdom of heaven given to the disciples involves a radically new understanding of the Messiah. Instead of the political triumph of a popular messiah who defeats Rome and ushers in a new Davidic kingdom, Jesus calls for a righteousness that surpasses the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. The kingdom ethic outlined in the Sermon on the Mount promises persecution, not power.

The three forms of rejection all have to do with people who hear the good news of the kingdom. So even when the seed falls on the beaten path, the gospel has been heard. They may even be part of the church, but when it comes to the word of God, it goes in one ear and out the other. “The first-soil hearer lets the devil steal the Word of God from his heart because he does not want to know or do the will of God.”⁷ Like seed on a hard-worn footpath, there is no soil in which the gospel can germinate. The secular and religious idols and ideologies of the world have hardened the soul and enthroned the self.

The people represented by this type move along the path of life with such speed and distraction that the loss of meaning and significance is not even noticed. They are sufficiently thoughtless that even nihilistic despair can be laughed off as a joke. Sex, fame, power, and adventure are sufficient goals in the secular age to inspire those who race along the well-worn path. The sexualized, secularized self does not realize that the good news of salvation has been snatched from their hearts by the evil one. They are oblivious to the power of evil and the seduction of the soul. The tragedy of the first-soil hearer is no respecter of persons. It is shared by the corner-office master of the universe and the home...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. The Sower—Matthew 13:1–23
• 2. The Weeds among the Wheat—Matthew 13:24–30
• 3. The Hidden Treasure, the Pearl, and the Net—Matthew 13:44–52
• 4. The Good Samaritan—Luke 10:21–37
• 5. The Friend at Midnight—Luke 11:1–13
• 6. The Rich Fool—Luke 12:13–34
• 7. The Faithful Servants and the Exuberant Master—Luke 12:35–41
• 8. The Faithless Servant and the Furious Master—Luke 12:42–48
• 9. The Barren Fig Tree—Luke 13:6–9
• 10. The Great Banquet—Luke 13:22–14:27
• 11. The Tower Builder and the King at War—Luke 14:25–35
• 12. The Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Sons—Luke 15:1–32
• 13. The Shrewd Manager—Luke 16:1–15
• 14. The Rich Man and Lazarus—Luke 16:19–31
• 15. The Hardworking Servant—Luke 17:1–10
• 16. The Persistent Widow—Luke 18:1–8
• 17. The Pharisee and the Tax Collector—Luke 18:9–14
• 18. The Workers in the Vineyard—Matthew 20:1–6
• 19. The Two Sons—Matthew 21:28–32
• 20. The Tenants—Matthew 21:33–46
• 21. The Wedding Banquet—Matthew 22:1–14
• 22. The Fear-of-the Lord Parabolic—Matthew 24:42–25:46
• Appendix: Preaching the Parables