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The Master-Teacher at Work

Text: Matthew 13 : 1 - 23

What a privilege it must have been to actually be able to listen to Jesus expounding the Scriptures! What rare insights He gave each time He taught God’s Word! It is no less a blessing to be able to study what Jesus taught through meditating on the Word so carefully preserved for us through the efforts of the evangelists like Matthew!

One of the clearest examples of the brilliance of Jesus as a Teacher is to be found in the way He told parables to the multitudes! None of the disciples ever mastered this special teaching gift that was unique to Jesus the Master-Teacher! (Much of Matthew 13 is devoted to the kingdom parables of Jesus).

Jesus had been seeking to present the Kingdom of God to the multitudes. Out of grace and compassion, He also healed the sick who were brought to Him. His greatest desire however was to help people cultivate a love for the Word of God. If only that could happen, how great would be the blessings of God!

Jesus expounded the Word of God in great depth! However, not everybody understood the deep implications that He sought to teach! How could He help people to understand better? He decided to use a truly unique method of teaching. He would use earthly stories that would become vehicles for communicating deep heavenly truths!

A COLLECTION OF PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM

The story line is so simple that even a child could follow! You would have to be a very skilled story-teller to keep the attention of all the adults in the audience though! Many, if not all, love to hear a good story, well told! The fascination with stories is clearly found in children. Even as adults, this fascination never really goes away. With this understanding, Jesus began to develop a whole series of parable with which He taught the people. Matthew collected some of these parables and put them together. One of those series of parables may be called “The Kingdom Parables”. The kingdom of God appears as the central theme in this series of parables.

THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER

The goal of Jesus remained resolutely the same. The methods may differ, but the goal of teaching remained ever consistent. The Word of God must be expounded. The seed of the Word of God must be sown!

“On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea.
And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that
He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood
on the shore.”
MATTHEW 13:1-2

The scene must be imagined! As Jesus left the city, He walked towards the seashore. It must have been refreshing to be out in the open for a little while. Quite a lot had happened in just one day. The Sabbath controversy must still have been very much in the mind of Jesus as He walked by the seashore. There were so many issues to think through. There was still so much to be done. There were many more to be reached with the Gospel.

As He walked towards the seashore, the crowds followed Him. Soon multitudes thronged Him. They pressed forward and soon Jesus was at the water’s edge, and still the multitudes kept surging forward. The wisest course of action was to get into a boat and teach the multitudes from there.

“Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying:
‘Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed,
some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and
devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did
not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up
because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was
up they were scorched, and because they had no root they
withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns
sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground
and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear!'”
MATTHEW 13:3-9

The disciples immediately noticed that Jesus had chosen a new approach. They knew that there must be a reason for this sudden switch in teaching method! They could not figure out why Jesus took this approach though. Shouldn’t He have taught the people as simply or plainly as possible? Wouldn’t they understand better if He had continued doing what He had been doing all this while?

“And the disciples came and said to Him,
‘Why do You speak to them in parables?'”
MATTHEW 13:10

Why indeed, had Jesus chosen to speak in parables? Multitudes flocked to Him and He tells them simple, almost childish stories? Why parables? Kindly Jesus explained.

“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. For whoever has, to him more will be given,
and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have,
even what he has will be taken away from him.
Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing
they do not see, and hearing they do not hear,
nor do they understand.’ ”
MATTHEW 13:11-13

How awesome these words must have sounded in the ears of the disciples.