The Story Telling Saviour.
Story telling is an art, and no one was better at it than Jesus, our Saviour. Follow Stephen’s series drawn from a selection of parables Jesus told.
Looking at the Life of Jesus
When we look at the life of Jesus, there is no shortage of things that can be studied, examined, or talked about. We can consider the claims that were made about him, such as Jesus being the Son of God, the Messiah, and so on. Then there are those things that he said about himself, the seven “I am” statements found in John’s gospel account.
Perhaps we could explore his miracles, those displays of that divine power, healings raising the dead, casting out demons. We of course could look at his passion, his own death and resurrection by which he finished the work to save mankind. These are all things that would be expected when we consider the life of God in human form, and they would all be very worthwhile studies.
Story Telling Jesus
In this series, we are going to explore something that Jesus did for almost one-third of his recorded teaching ministry, telling stories. Now, we typically don’t call them stories, we refer to them as parables, and as far as teaching goes, they are an incredible tool for helping people understand the message that needs to be taught. In fact, we still use them today, though we may not call them parables or even think of them as such.
The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Take for example the story of the boy who cried wolf. He’s watching the sheep and thinks it would be a laugh to get all the townsfolk running so he cries out that a wolf has come. Everyone rushes to help, only to find out it was ruse, and they angrily return to their homes. This happens several more times, with the villagers growing increasingly angry and frustrated with the boy.
Finally, a wolf does arrive, and though the boy cries and cries for help, nobody comes, thinking it is another false alarm. As a result, all the sheep are eaten, and the boy is left to live with the consequences of his lies. It’s unlikely that many people who read or hear this story think its purpose is for entertainment only. In fact, the original writing even includes the moral at the end, stating, “this shows how liars are rewarded: even if they tell the truth, no one believes them.”
Story Telling and Parables of the Bible
While this story of the boy crying wolf could be categorized as a parable, it’s still quite different from the parables of the Bible. It imparts a moral for ethical living, simply, don’t lie. The parables Jesus told, sought to explain deeper, spiritual truths. They were helping to reveal things that had not been known before. Things concerning who Jesus was, or signs of the Messiah. They unveiled God’s plans of forgiveness, and salvation.
Some of them talked about the truth of the kingdom of heaven, or even about God the Father. Matthew 13:34-35 gives us more detail as to what the purpose of the parables was, when the author writes
All these things Jesus said to the crowd in parables; indeed, he said nothing to them without a parable. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet: I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.
Matthew 13:34-35
Two Purposes of Story Telling
In this passage of Matthew, we are given two purposes for Jesus teaching in this manner. First, to fulfill prophesy concerning the Messiah that he would speak in parables. This isn’t something that is usually made a big deal of, as Jesus did other, more extravagant things to prove he was the Son of God, the Christ. There were also more detailed and specific prophecies that he fulfilled, some of which couldn’t have been done by anyone else. Speaking in parables was something the Messiah would do but wasn’t something that only the Messiah could do.
Revealing What Was Hidden
The second reason provided in this part of Matthew 13 was that the parables would reveal what has been hidden. So, what is meant by hidden. Bible teacher and illustrator Clarence Larken has an illustration depicting what the prophets saw, and ultimately the information that the Jews of the Old Testament had. It shows the main events of the life of Christ, and the things still to come on mountain tops. What they couldn’t see was everything in the valleys between the mountains.
The Five “W’s“
Some of these things Paul refers to in his letters as mysteries. In journalism, they have what are referred to as the five “W’s”, who, what, where, when and why, sometimes how is added as well. When it came to Old Testament prophecy, often God would reveal some of those w’s but not all of them.
Now, in the life of Christ, more of the previously unknown was being filled in, and some of that required a stronger spiritual understanding of things, so the parables helped to provide that understanding for those who believed in who Jesus was, and yes, faith was a key to understanding the parables Jesus used.
The Disciples Ask Why
If we go back a few verses in Matthew 13, his disciples also ask him why he spoke to the people in parables. Jesus answered, in verse 11,
To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.
Matthew 13:11
He then added,
This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophesy of Isaiah is fulfilled.
Matthew 13:13-14
He then recites the portion of Isaiah directly that speaks of the hearts of the people growing dull, so that they will hear but not understand, and they have willfully closed their eyes to the truth. The parables then serve to obscure the truth of spiritual things from those who don’t believe in the Christ. Now, this may seem counter-intuitive to the mission of Jesus, which was to seek and to save the lost, why would he want to obscure these important truths from people?
The Divine Plan
There are a couple reasons. One, being more direct about who he was, and what he had come to do would give more ammunition to his opponents to come after him. In John’s gospel, Jesus is very careful to do things in accordance with the divine plan.
Quite often he would say things like, “My time has not yet come” or “the hour is not yet come.” Now, I’m in no way suggesting that increasing the opposition against the Lord could have altered the plan working out the way it did, but it would have added unnecessary opposition along the way.
Understanding Comes by Faith
The second reason is a little more profound and taken from what Jesus first said to the disciples. He said, “To you”, that is to those who believed in who he was and followed him in faith, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.” The understanding, and revelation of the promises of God, come from God alone, through faith in Him and in His Son.
As we go through the parables, we’ll notice that whenever Jesus gives further explanation of one, it is only to his disciples, the general public was never privy to the extra detail. This still holds true today in many ways. While there are many books, commentaries, and other resources to go with the Bible, and it is fully possible for someone who does bot believe in God to know what the Bible teaches, they can never truly understand the full impact, or significance, of the promises of God that we have in Christ.
How can they, it isn’t real to them, Paul even writes that the message of the cross if foolishness to those that are perishing. So even with all those available resources, the words of Christ remain true, that seeing they will not see and hearing they will not hear, nor will they understand. Because they have rejected the one who made the promise, they cannot truly appreciate the full value of the promise. The prophesy of Isaiah ends with another curious line, after mention that their hearts had grown dull, they closed their eyes and shut their ears so that they would not understand and turn to the Lord and be healed.
Revealing God’s Plan of Salvation
Again, at first glance this seems to run counter to what Jesus’s mission was. Afterall, wasn’t the point of his coming to reveal God’s plan of salvation, so people would turn, or repent, and accept God’s gift of salvation? It was; however, God’s desire is that we seek the blesser, not the blessing. The parables obscured the understanding of those who would attempt to claim the kingdom as their own, while rejecting the one true king.
And that’s where we are today, we have this wonderful promise available to us. God is offering forgiveness of sins and everlasting life with him in heaven. The promise came to us through His Son, Jesus Christ, who willingly died in our place to pay the penalty for our sin. But he calls us not to seek after the reward, but the one who made the reward possible. Paul wrote, “Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”
If we truly believe in Jesus, in who he is and what he has done for us, if we love and worship him, and desire to be like him, only then can we fully understand and appreciate the magnitude of everything we have been given through Christ.
Jesus used story telling as a way to draw people into a deeper understanding of His identity. What is your response? We would love to hear from you. Comment below or contact us at HopeStreamRadio.
Stephen March
Stephen March is the President of FBH International and HopeStreamRadio. He graduated from the Broadcasting Program at Niagara College in 2001, and has previously worked in television production and post-production.
Stephen lives in St. Catharines, Ontario, with his wife Corinne and their four children.
Read and hear more from Stephen March on his contributor’s page. Stephen currently has 5 Programs on HopeStreamRadio:
- Please Forgive Me
- Isolation Chronicles
- Faith By Hearing – The Twelve
- Bibles and Baseball
- Bible Tech Talk
More Podcasts Below:
More Blogs:
Palm Sunday, The Coming King, and the Last Week of Christ
Why Did Jesus Say “I Am the Bread of Life
Images courtesy of:
Jesus Story Telling – Free Bible Images
Wolf – mohamed_hassan
Jesus and Boy – Free Bible Images
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