Parables and The Journey to Knowledge
When you travel across this nation, you will find rural and state highways that run parallel to interstate highways. The interstate highway is designed for high speeds and uninterrupted travel. The rural highways are often two-lane roads that meander through farms and small towns. On the small roads, you will find stop signs and traffic lights, and sometimes a tractor will slow you down. Both will get you to your destination. The interstate will get you there faster but the two-lane highway will get you there contented.
When Jesus taught people, He would often use parables. The word parable means “laid alongside of or parallel with.” Jesus would use earthly examples to teach spiritual principles. The parables that He taught took the people through grain fields, sheepfolds, and even into pig pens. Jesus was not one to make acquiring knowledge come easy or fast. He knew that the experience of learning is often just as important as the knowledge itself.
If you have a math problem to solve, you can use pencil and paper or a calculator. With the calculator, you can find the answer but with the pencil and paper, you will understand the answer. In the same way, when you are traveling, a GPS will get you to your destination. But if you use a map, you will know how you got there.
When Jesus taught his disciples using parables, the parable was like solving a math problem with pen and paper. He wanted His students to gain understanding more than knowledge. Jesus used His parables like a road map. When His disciples arrived at their destination, He wanted them to know how they got there.
This is what I hope you will do. Stay off the interstate of knowledge. Don’t be satisfied to learn only from preachers and teachers. Take time to ponder the Word of God for yourself. Slow down and meander through the pages of the Bible. The world loves to tell you what to think, but Jesus wants you to know how to think. That is why the journey to knowledge is most important because it is in the journey that you gain wisdom. Knowledge without wisdom is foolishness.
“And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” 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. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive; For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.’
But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”
Matthew 13:10-17 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/mat.13.10-17.NKJV
Douglas & Deborah Huff
From Down Where the Pavement Ends
Email-douglas@pavementendsministry.com
a very good reminder that fast isn’t always the best – God’s Word is amazing even when reading Numbers .
What a great way to look at parables. This reminds me of the movie cars, and how it shows us that we have to get off the highway to learn to make friends. Getting off the Biblical highway and down onto the country roads of the parables helps us to become friends with God!
Thank you Pastor Pete