Why Did Jesus Teach in Parables?
Old Testament prophecy fulfilled by Jesus:
Jesus would teach using parables.
People are drawn in by stories. People like stories. People respond emotionally to stories.
Jesus used stories, called parables, which are earthly stories with a deeper Spiritual meaning. Many of Jesus’s parables are well known, like the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, and the Sower of the seeds. There are many others.
Have you ever wondered why Jesus used parables?
His disciples wondered the same thing. And they asked Him.
In Matthew 13:10-17, the apostles asked Him why He spoke in parables. Jesus tells His apostles that they as believers had been granted the ability to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. He was teaching them truths that had not been revealed until that time. As believers, when He spoke in parables-they could understand the deeper spiritual meanings of His teachings.
But unbelievers who heard His parables could not understand the deeper spiritual meaning of them.
In this section of Matthew 13, Jesus explained to his apostles that when the multitudes came to hear His parables, unbelievers in the crowd fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah (Isaiah 6:9-10). Jesus quoted the prophet, “You will keep on hearing, but will not understand; and you will keep on seeing but will not perceive.” Matthew 13:14.
When multitudes listened to Jesus’s parables, those who did not believe in Him heard the words but didn’t understand. They saw God at work, but didn’t recognize it.
Just as it was in the first century, it is exactly the same way for modern people today. Unbelievers today hear the words of Jesus, but they don’t understand. They see God at work, but they don’t recognize it.
Why did Jesus speak in parables? Jesus used parables to fulfill Old Testament prophecy.
Matthew, an apostle who heard these parables from the lips of Jesus, also explained why He used parables. It was to fulfill another Old Testament prophecy found in Psalm 78:2. Matthew quotes it here:
“All these things Jesus spoke to the multitudes in parables and He did not speak to them without a parable, so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, ‘I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things Hidden since the foundation of the world.’” Matthew 13:34, 35.
Carla Killough McClafferty