Matthew 13: 1-23 (Tuesday, September 8th 2009)

Story-time!!
The Tale of the Planter
• (more commonly known as the Parable of the Sower)
What kind of person are we?
• Do we hear the Word of God and not understand it and forget about it soon after?
• Do we hear and receive the Word of God only to have trials or tribulations cause us to forget the truths we once heard? Do we abandon God and His will at the first sign of trouble?
• Do we love the things of this world more than we love God? Do the worries of this world drown out the promises of God and leave our relationship with Jesus unfruitful? Do we put more faith in the things of this world than we do our Lord and Savior?
• Do we trust the LORD with all of our heart? Do we lean not on our own understanding but acknowledge God in everything we do?

Why did Jesus speak in cryptic stories? Why not just come out and say what He wanted to say? From some of His conversations with the Pharisees and teachers of the Law it sure seemed like Jesus didn’t have a problem with putting people in their place or telling it like it is. Why then the switch to these stories when speaking to His disciples and others?

Jesus points us to Isaiah 6:9-10 as to why He speaks in parables. “In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah”. Again Jesus is meeting one of the many expectations that the prophesied Messiah was to meet.

One of the reasons I think Jesus spoke in parables was because they had a meaning that the common folk of the day could understand. He didn’t try to wow the people with His grasp of “theology” or “doctrine”. He spoke to them in plain language with stories that they could relate to. Sometimes I think that when we speak to unbelievers we tend to over “Christian-ese” them with our fancy terms of repentance and relevance. We mention spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues or prophesying and we probably scare away half of the people in our sphere of influence. Let’s take a simple lesson from observing Jesus and speak plainly to our friends and co-workers in language that they can understand.

Have a great day.

God bless.