CRITICAL NOTES
PRELIMINARY REMARKS
The parables of Jesus.—The word “parable” has in the New Testament, in its application to the discourses of Jesus, a considerably wider meaning than the one in which we speak of the parables of the Lord in the current phraseology of the church. The designation παραβολή, from παραβάλλειν (therefore = placing side by side, comparing), belongs to every utterance containing a comparison of any kind (see Luke 5:36; Luke 6:39; Mark 3:23 ff.; Matthew 24:32; Mark 13:28). All these maxims are called parables because, in a visible fact, belonging to the sphere of physical or human life, they picture a corresponding truth in the sphere of religious life. A still more general use of “parable” is seen in the passage (Matthew 15:15), where it refers to the utterance of the Lord in Matthew 13:11 (cf. Matthew 13:16-20). Here, therefore, it refers to a concrete maxim without a properly figurative character, simply of an enigmatical stamp. A similar use, under another aspect, is found in the passage Luke 4:23 where the proverb, “Physician, heal thyself,” is called a parable, and that, as it seems, not so much because of its figurative, as rather merely because of its proverbial character. (Goebel).
The “parable” in the stricter sense.—The idea of the parable may be generally defined to this effect: A narrative moving within the sphere of physical or human life, not professing to communicate an event which really took place, but expressly imagined for the purpose of representing in pictorial figure a truth belonging to the sphere of religion, and therefore referring to the relation of man or mankind to God (ibid.).
The seven parables of the kingdom in this chapter are not to be regarded as grouped together by Matthew. They were spoken consecutively, as is obvious from the notes of time in Matthew 13:36; Matthew 13:53. They are a great whole, setting forth the “mystery of the kingdom” in its method of establishment, its corruption, its outward and inward growth, the condition of entrance into it, and its final purification. The sacred number seven, impressed upon them, is the token of completeness. They fall into two parts, four of them being spoken to the multitudes from the boat, and presenting the more obvious aspects of the development of the kingdom; three being addressed to the disciples in the house, and setting forth truths about it more fitted for them (A. Maclaren, D.D.).
Matthew 13:1. The same day.—The time is marked of this following sermon, and the place also, to teach us that nothing could hinder Christ from spreading the doctrine of salvation. No opposition of foes, no misconstructions of friends were able to discourage Him from His calling; for that “same day” wherein He had a bitter conflict with the Pharisees and interruption from His friends, that same day, without wearying or fainting in labour, He goeth to the sea-side to teach (David Dickson). The house.—Where He was accustomed to dwell, and where also the events of this day, previously related, took place (Goebel.) Sat.—See note on Matthew 13:1. By the sea side.—While the Sea of Galilee is almost entirely surrounded by mountains, yet the mountains, says Dean Stanley, “never come down into the water, but always leave a beach of greater or less extent along the water’s edge.”
Matthew 13:4. The wayside.—The ordinary roads or paths in the East, lead often along the edge of the fields, which are unenclosed … Hence, as the sower scatters his seed, some of it is liable to fall beyond the ploughed portion, on the hard, beaten ground, which forms the wayside (Hackett).
Matthew 13:5. Stony places.—Rocky (R.V.). Not soil containing loose stones, but a bed of rock, with only a slight covering of soil.
Matthew 13:8. An hundred-fold.—See Genesis 26:12. The return of a hundred for one is not unheard of in the East, though always mentioned as something extraordinary (Trench). When I was at Geneva, in 1855, I got from an adjoining field a single ear or spike of barley containing two hundred and seventy-six grains (Morison). In 1868, a year remarkable for its heat in Great Britain, it was mentioned in the newspapers that, in a field of wheat in Kent, there were many single seeds which produced each “thirty straws, topped with closely-set and fully-developed ears, which yielded between nine-hundred and one thousand grains from a single parent seed.”—Daily Review, August 14th, 1868 (ibid.).
Matthew 13:10. And the disciples came, etc.—Their question seems to show that our Saviour had just begun this peculiar style of teaching, at least in its more fully developed form. It was, as we learn from Mark 4:10, when “He was alone,” that the disciples asked their question. We may, therefore, suppose that some of the other parables were addressed to the people before the question was put (ibid.).
Matthew 13:11. Mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.—Those glorious gospel truths which at that time only the more advanced disciples could appreciate, and they but partially (Brown).
Matthew 13:12. Whosoever hath.—I.e. keeps, as a thing which he values. Whosoever hath not.—Who lets this go, or lie unused, as a thing on which he sets no value (ibid.).
Matthew 13:13. Because (ὅτι) they seeing see not.—In Mark (Mark 4:12) and Luke (Luke 8:10), it is “that (ἵνα) seeing they might not see.” Two different objects were effected at the same time, and by the same act, corresponding to those two terms; it is true that the Lord employed parables, as one employs pictures to teach a child, because His auditors were children in understanding; and it is also true that He veiled His doctrines under metaphor in order that those who were children in understanding, but in malice men, might not perceive His drift, and so might not violently interfere to suppress His ministry (Arnot). But even here we may venture to trace beneath the penalty an element of mercy. The parable could, at all events, do men no harm. It could not rouse the fierce enmity that had been kindled by truth spoken in its plainness. And it might prepare the way, might set men thinking and questioning, and if so, that was at least one step towards the “having,” though it were but a very little, which might place them among those to whom more shall be given. (Plumptre).
Matthew 13:14. Fulfilled.—Or rather, is completely fulfilled, a strong expression, not otherwise used by Matthew, but foremost in the sentence by way of emphasis (Lange). The tense is that of a work still in progress (Plumptre). The quotation is from the LXX.
Matthew 13:15. This people’s heart is waxed gross.—The heart was regarded as the seat of intelligence. Gross =fat, so stolid, dull (Carr). Should be converted.—Should turn again (R.V.). Moral unwillingness resulting in moral inability (Schaff).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Matthew 13:1-17
Timely teaching.—The Saviour here adopts a style of instruction almost peculiar to Himself. “He spake unto them by parables.” So much so, indeed, at this time, that, when He ceases to do so, attention is drawn to the fact (Matthew 13:53). It may not be amiss, therefore, to use the first of these parables—that now before us—to see what a parable is. In other words, to try and learn, from this specimen of the class:
1. The chief characteristics.
2. The natural consequences.
3. The special purpose—of this method of teaching.
I. Its chief characteristics.—These are, first, and of course, that, on the surface, it speaks of things familiar and known. In this first parable, e.g. that of the sower (Matthew 13:3-8), this is obviously the case. All the Saviour’s hearers had heard something of sowing and soils, of harvests and crops. Probably most of them thought that of such things they knew a great deal. Secondly, it was necessary, of course, if the parable was to be listened to, that it should have a story of some kind, or main idea, to characterise it throughout. In this first parable, this “main idea” was that of failure in sowing. Out of four kinds of soils mentioned, there was only one from which a harvest was reaped. Thirdly, it was equally necessary, to make it a “parable,” that the story told should mean more than it says. Like a “safe” locked up, its very aspect should show that it holds a treasure within. This was plainly so in this case. Evidently the Saviour, as He sat in that ship and spake to the multitudes that were pressing upon Him to hear His instructions, was thinking of more than mere sowing and reaping. If they did not think this during the setting forth of the parable, they must have felt so at its close. “He that hath ears, let him hear” (Matthew 13:9, R. V.). What was this but to say, in effect, I have told you more than appears? Such, therefore, according to this primary parable, is what a parable is—a familiar story, the meaning of which is not familiar as yet.
II. Its natural consequences.—These would be, on the one hand, identical; on the other, diverse. They would be identical, to begin. To such teaching almost every hearer would be disposed to listen at first. A “bit of a story” about things we know about has inevitable charms for us all. It is like hearing the accents of one’s mother tongue in a far-away land. One naturally turns to it from everything else. After this, however, the consequences would differ very widely indeed. In the case of a willing and teachable hearer, for example, this form of teaching would at once stimulate further inquiry, and so prepare for further instruction; and so, finally and fully, when received, insure its retention. No man could learn more than such a learner would from this style of instruction. At once it would open his hand, and fill his palm, and tighten his grasp. On the other hand, all this would be exactly reversed with a hearer of a different stamp. Such a hearer would never get beyond the mere shell of this nut. He would see the outside of the “safe,” but nothing beside. Never troubling to inquire, he would never learn. Never searching, he would never discover. A form of words, in short, that had a meaning of some sort; a challenge to inquiry never responded to on his part; a great opportunity come and gone—that is all that the parable spoken would be in his case.
III. Its special purpose.—This was, briefly, in order to bring about the very consequences described. According to the order of the Gospel before us, recent events had brought strongly to light the exceeding captiousness of some of the hearers of Christ. Their extraordinary perverseness (Matthew 11:18-19), their invincible unbelief (Matthew 11:20-24), their lamentable hypocrisy (Matthew 12:24-37), had all been—almost strikingly—brought home to His notice. On the other hand, this had only the more strikingly exhibited the opposite bearing of some of His hearers; of those, e.g. of whom He had only just now spoken, because of this, as His “brothers” indeed (Matthew 12:49-50). How is the Saviour to deal with both sides of this condition of things? Here are hearers before Him of both the opposite kinds of which we have spoken. How is He to speak words which shall be suitable to them both? Words which shall convey the “pearls” of His teaching to those who truly desire them? Words which, at the same time, shall not merely expose them in other quarters to be “trampled on” with contempt? This method of “parables” exactly accomplishes both these two ends. And in this fact, therefore, is the reason why He chooses it now. According to His own account of the matter—according to that account of the matter which had been given in the pages of prophecy ages before—this is why He chooses it now (Matthew 13:10-17).
In a general way this view of a “parable”—as a kind of “parable” itself—may teach us two things. It may teach us:—
1. How easily truth may be missed.—These careless hearers of the Saviour’s parables had only to continue their carelessness and their wretched object was gained. This is true of other things too. Of almost all the teaching of God in His word. Of the story of Israel of old. Of the rites and ceremonies of the law. Of the story and passion of the Saviour Himself. It is also true of the teaching of God in His works. There is something of the “parable” in them all. “They half reveal and half conceal the truth within.” It is only too easy, therefore, in the case of all of them, to miss the truth they convey. We have only not to knock at the door, and the whole treasure is lost!
2. How easily truth may be gained.—What can be really better, for such scholars as we are, than such a method of teaching? To begin with us just as we are, to stir us up thereby to seek more, and to insure thereby that, if we do, we shall find and keep it—is surely not only the only way, but the simplest way too! What more can we ask than that we may be fully enabled to find our way to the light?
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Matthew 13:1-9; Matthew 13:18-23. The sower.—The parable is, in our language at least, so universally associated with this name, that it would not readily be recognised under any other designation; but “The Four kinds of Ground,” the title which seems to be in ordinary use among the Germans, is logically more correct, inasmuch as it points directly to the central idea, and expresses the distinctive characteristic. We turn to the ground and the various obstacles which there successively meet the seed and mar its fruitfulness.
I. The wayside (Matthew 13:19).—Behold in one picture God’s gracious offer, man’s self-destroying neglect, and the tempter’s coveted opportunity! The parallel between the material and the moral here is more close and visible in the original than it appears in the English version. But our language is capable, in this instance, like the Greek, of expressing by one phrase equally the moral and the material failure: “Every one that hears the word of the kingdom and does not take it in” (μὴ συνιέντος).
1. The seed is good.—“The word of God is quick and powerful,”—i.e. it “is living, and puts forth energy” (Hebrews 4:12). Like buried, moistened seed, it swells and bursts, and forces its way through opposing obstacles.
2. The fault lies not often, or to a great extent even, in the sower, although his work may have been feebly and unskilfully done.
3. Nor does the cause of failure, in the last resort, lie in the soil.—Believers and unbelievers are possessed of the same nature and faculties.
4. It was the breaking of the ground which caused the difference between the fruitful field and the barren wayside. Those minds on which the good seed has often been thrown, only to be thrown away, may yet yield an increase of a hundredfold to their owner when conviction and repentance shall have rent them open to admit the word of life.
II. The stony ground.—A human heart, the soil on which the sower casts his seed, is in itself, and from the first hard both above and below; but by a little easy culture, such as most people in this land may enjoy, some measure of softness is produced on the surface. Among the affections, when they are warm and newly stirred, the seed speedily springs. Many young hearts, subjected to the religious appliances which abound in our time, take hold of Christ and let Him go again. This, on the one hand, as we learn by the result, was never a true conversion; but neither was it, on the other hand, a case of conscious, intentional deceit. It was real, but it was not thorough.
III. The thorns.—In the application of the lesson this term must be understood not specifically, but generically. In the natural object it indicates any species of useless weed that occupies the ground and injures the growing crop; in the spiritual application it points to the worldly cares, whether they spring from poverty or wealth, which usurp in a human heart the place due to Christ and His saving truth. In two distinct aspects thorns, growing in a field of wheat, reflect as a mirror the kind of spiritual injury which the cares and pleasures of the world inflict when they are admitted into the heart; they exhaust the soil by their roots, and overshadow the corn with their branches. The faculties of the human heart and mind are limited, like the productive powers of the ground. Worldly cares nursed by indulgence into a dangerous strength interpose a veil between the face of Jesus and the opening, trustful look of a longing soul. Fitful glances of sunshine now and then will not bring the fruit to maturity.
IV. The good ground.—While all the ground that was broken, deep and clean in spring and summer, bears fruit in harvest, some portions produce a larger return than others. The picture in this feature is true to nature; and the fact in the spiritual sphere also corresponds. There are diversities in the Spirit’s operation; diversities in natural gifts bestowed on men at first; diversities in the amount of energy exerted by believers as fellow-workers with God in their own sanctification; and diversities, accordingly, in the fruitfulness which results in the life of Christians.—W. Arnot, D.D.
The sower.—I. The first faultiness of soil our Lord specifies is imperviousness.—The proposals made to the wayside hearer suggest nothing at all to him. His mind throws off Christ’s offers as a slated roof throws off hail. You might as well expect seed to grow on a tightly-braced drum-head as the word to profit such a hearer; it dances on the hard surface, and the slightest motion shakes it off. The consequence is it is forgotten.
II. The second faultiness of soil our Lord enumerates is shallowness.—The shallow hearer our Lord distinguishes by two characteristics: he straightway receives the word, and he receives it with joy. The man of deeper character receives the word with deliberation, as one who has many things to take into account and weigh. He receives it with seriousness, and reverence, and trembling, foreseeing the trials he will be subjected to, and he cannot show a light-minded joy.
III. The third faultiness of soil which causes failure in the crop is what is technically known as dirt.—The soil is not impenetrable, nor is it shallow; it is deep, good land, but it has not been cleaned—there is seed in it already. This is a picture of the pre-occupied heart of the rich, vigorous nature, capable of understanding, appreciating, and making much of the word of the kingdom, but occupied with so many other interests, that only a small part of its energy is available for giving effect to Christ’s ideas. The care of this world has been called the poor man’s species of the deceitfulness of riches, and the deceitfulness of riches a variety of the care of this world. Man is possessed of free will, of the power of checking, to some extent, natural tendencies, and preventing natural consequences.
IV. In contrast, then, to these three faults of impenetrability, shallowness, and dirt, we may be expected to do something towards bringing to the hearing of the word a soft, deep, clean soil of heart (see Luke 8:15).—There must be:
1. Honesty.
2. Meditation. “If there is a person, of whatever age, or class, or station, who will not be thoughtful, who will not seriously and honestly consider, there is no doing him any good.” You must let your milk stand if you wish cream. And meditation is a process of mind whose necessary element is the absence of hurry.
3. Patience.—M. Dods, D.D.
Matthew 13:3-9. The word of the kingdom diversely received.—The reason for this parable is to be sought in the moral situation of the hour. The motives must have come from the spiritual composition and condition of the crowd.
1. “For this people’s heart is waxed gross,” etc.
2. The great historical melancholy fact of the Capernaum crisis recorded in John
6., in which the Galilean revival came to a deplorable end. “From that time many of His disciples went back,” etc.
3. The minute particulars of information supplied by the Evangelists as to the circumstances amid which Jesus spake our parable show that the Galilean enthusiasm is at its height, and therefore, that the crisis, the time of reaction, must be near. The crisis, then, is approaching and it is in view of that crisis Jesus speaks the parable of the sower. We shall best learn to discriminate accurately the different classes of hearers by giving close attention to the manner in which they are respectively characterised by our Lord.
I. The wayside hearer hears the word, but does not understand it,—or, to use a phrase which expresses at once the literal and the figurative truth, does not take it in. Thoughtlessness, spiritual stupidity, arising not so much from want of intellectual capacity as from pre-occupation of mind, is the characteristic of the first class. For a type of this class see Luke 12:13.
III. He that received seed into stony places, is he that heareth the word and anon with joy receiveth it. The characteristic of this class is emotional excitability, inconsiderate impulsiveness. If a type of this class is sought for in the Gospel records, it may be found in the man who said unto Jesus “Lord, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest,” and to whom Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes,” etc. The crowd by the lake to which the parable of the sower was spoken was full of such professors. The melancholy history of many hopeful religious movements is this; many converts, few stable Christians; many blossoms, little fruit coming to maturity.
III. He that received the seed among the thorns is so described as to suggest the idea of a double-minded man—the ἀνὴρ δίψυχος of St. James 1:8. This man is neither stupid, like his brother-hearer of the first class, nor a mere man of feeling, like those of the second class. He hears in the emphatic sense of the word, hears both with thought and with feeling, understanding what he hears, and realising its solemn importance. The soil in his case is neither hard on the surface nor shallow; it is good soil so far as softness and depth are concerned. Its one fault (but it is a very serious one) is that it is impure; there are other seeds in it besides those being sown on it, and the result will be two crops struggling for the mastery, with the inevitable result that the better crop will have to succumb. This man has two minds, so to speak; we might almost say he is two men. Of the thorny ground hearer, the man of divided mind and double heart, we have an example in him who came to Jesus and said “Lord I will follow Thee, but first let me,” etc. How many men are wasting their lives at home, who might go forth to a life of abundant fruitfulness in mission fields, were it not for an attachment like that of John Mark for fathers or mothers or native land!
IV. He that receiveth seed into good ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth it. This is inadequate as expressing the idea of a perfect hearer. For the “understandeth” of Matthew, Mark gives “receive” and Luke “keep.” The precise distinction of the perfect hearer, however, is this—that he receives and retains the word alone in his mind. He is characteristically single-minded and whole-hearted in religion. The kingdom of God has the first place in his thoughts and everything else only the second. His motto is taken from the words of the Psalmist: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me.” This is undoubtedly the idea in Luke 8:15. See Christ’s eulogium upon Mary, “She hath wrought a noble work upon Me.” Barnabas, “For he was a good man,” etc. Lydia, “Whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.”—A. B. Bruce, D.D.
Matthew 13:3. The sower.—A slight recess in the hill-side, close upon the plain (Gennesareth), disclosed at once, in detail, and with a conjunction which I remember nowhere else in Palestine, every feature of the great parable. There was the undulating cornfield descending to the water’s edge. There was the trodden pathway running through the midst of it, with no fence or hedge to prevent the seed from falling here and there on either side of it, or upon it; itself hard with the constant tramp of horse, and mule, and human feet. There was the “good,” rich soil, which distinguishes the whole of that plain and its neighbourhood from the bare hills elsewhere descending into the lake, and which, where there is no interruption, produces one vast mass of corn. There was the rocky ground of the hill-side, protruding here and there through the corn-fields, as elsewhere through the grassy slopes. There were the large bushes of thorn—the “nabk,” that kind of which tradition says that the crown of thorns was woven—springing up like the fruit trees of the more inland parts, in the very midst of the waving wheat.—Dean Stanley.
Matthew 13:4. The wayside.—It represents the case of men whose insensibility to the word is caused by outward things having made a thoroughfare of their natures and trodden them into incapacity to receive the message of Christ’s love. The heavy baggage-waggons of commerce, the light cars of pleasure, merry dancers, and sad funeral processions, have all used that way, and each footfall has beaten the once loose soil a little firmer. We are made insensitive to the gospel by the effect of innocent and necessary things, unless we take care to plough up the path along which they travel, and to keep our spirits susceptible by a distinct effort.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Matthew 13:5-6. Surface religion.—It is a case of “lightly come, lightly go.” Quick-sprouting things are soon-dying things. A shallow pond is up in waves under a breeze which raises no sea on the Atlantic, and it is calm again in a few minutes. Readily stirred emotion is transient. Brushwood catches fire easily, and burns itself out quickly. Coal takes longer to kindle, and is harder to put out. The persons meant are those of excitable temperament, whose feelings lie on the surface, and can be got at without first passing through the understanding or the conscience.—Ibid.
Matthew 13:1-9. No parable teaches everything.—Paths, rocks, and thorns cannot change. But men can plough up the trodden ways, and blast away the rock, and root out the thorns, and, with God’s help, can open the door of their hearts, that the sower and His seed may enter in. We are responsible for the soil, else His warnings were vain, “Take heed, therefore, how ye hear.”—Ibid.
Matthew 13:10-17. The revealment of the gospel.—
I. The evident necessity of its revealment.—
1. The gospel can only benefit us as it is believed.
2. There can be no belief without knowledge.
3. Without a revealment the realities of the gospel could never have been known.
II. The parabolic method of its revealment.
III. The different spiritual results of its revealment.
1. There is a difference in the kind of result.—The gospel ministry is a damning as well as a saving process. It has made millions of Pharaohs.
(1) The gospel benefits by design; it does not injure by design.
(2) The gospel benefits by adaptation; it does not injure by adaptation.
(3) The gospel benefits by Divine influence; it does not injure by Divine influence.
2. There is a difference in the degree.—“Many prophets,” etc. The disciples had a fuller manifestation, and a richer enjoyment of the gospel than the prophets and righteous men of whom Christ speaks.—D. Thomas, D.D.
Matthew 13:10-13. The reason of Christ’s method of teaching.—In answer to the question, “Why speakest Thou to them in parables?” Christ replies, “Because it is given unto you to know,” etc. “Therefore speak I,” etc. The reason is, the spiritual obtuseness of sinners. I am aware that many expositors, Olshausen and Doddridge amongst them, interpret the words of our Saviour as meaning that He taught in parables in order to conceal His meaning from His ungodly hearers. I cannot entertain this thought for the following reasons:—
I. The language does not necessarily imply this idea.—He gives parables, not to produce moral obliquity, but because moral obliquity existed.
II. This idea is essentially inconsistent with the nature of parabolic teaching.—The very nature and design of a parable are to make an obscure truth clear—to illustrate.
III. This idea is incompatible with the character and mission of Christ.—Does it comport with His kindness to suppose that He sought to intensify the darkness of the human spirit?—Ibid.
Matthew 13:10. Christ’s method of teaching.—Christ’s method of teaching the people by parables seemed strange in the eyes of His disciples. It was not the method of teaching adopted by the scribes, nor by John the Baptist. It may even seem strange to us; for there is almost an inversion of the order of education and teaching as we are accustomed to see it. We are accustomed to see first the indirect and story teaching, and then the direct instruction. But viewing the two ministries of John the Baptist and our Lord we find the process reversed; from the Baptist we have the direct teaching, from Jesus Christ more picturesque methods. Stranger still is the reason given for the adoption by our Lord of this teaching by parable; the reason is startling and stern, “That hearing they might hear and not understand.” This quite reverses our notions; we should have said probably that the parable was used because it simplified the teaching to the mind of the hearer.
I. We must first fix our thoughts on the parable method of teaching, and discover its advantages.—The true end of teaching is surely to make the mind available in life. It is to make all the powers usable. The true and wise teacher, therefore, is constantly seeking to awaken the thought, the imagination, the will, to co-operate with his efforts. This is indispensable in religious teaching. Here it is absolutely essential that the will and the affections should co-operate with the understanding. “Religion,” says Coleridge, “is the will in the reason, and love in the will.” Compulsion is not only irrelevant but fatal. Take a man who is notoriously avaricious. You wish to rescue him from his yoke of greed. You attempt a direct attack upon his vice; you accuse or you abuse him. You run the risk of arousing his pride. You try an indirect method you select a story of grief or misfortune; you speak of another’s sufferings; he is moved; the stirred heart becomes genial; the opening of the purse follows—you have gained a subscription; you have done more, you have won a human heart. The indirect method carries the greater chance of success. Example, Nathan and David. When the abrupt and direct plan of assault is made, the will is found to be pride-locked and armed for defence. By the indirect process the heart is prepared for surrender; the man is made to co-operate against himself for his own benefit. This was the method which our Lord seems to have most frequently adopted. Almost all His parables are examples of the employment of it; and it was all the more forcible, inasmuch as it followed the direct startling method of John the Baptist. Jesus Christ’s teaching suggested more than it said.
II. It is easy enough to see that to speak by may, because of its very indirectness, be the best way of winning the hearts of men; but what surprises us is to find that the reason stated for the use of parables is apparently the very reverse.—That seeing they might not see, etc. One thing we have seen, that the indirect and parable method of teaching does not diminish the chance of the surrender of the hearer’s heart. On the contrary it seems to be a plan which was most widely successful. If this be the case, the harshness of the words is half gone. The plan was not employed to diminish the opportunity of spiritual illumination. There was nothing in the nature of the parables themselves, which were numerous and varied, to close the mind which was not willingly blind. It is as though the man of avarice listened unmoved to the sad and pathetic story. “He has eyes and sees not,” etc. We have found out how hard human nature can be. We have even unwittingly contributed to harden it more; for every appeal resisted builds a fresh wall against sympathy. Now in all this we have not been at fault. What has been wrong has been the moral sense of him we have appealed to. It is this which must be kept in mind in reading these stern words of the Evangelist. Everything has been tried, the direct and the indirect method; but the heart gives no response, and shows tokens of no surrender. The moral nature of those whom He spoke to closed itself against all the varied appeals. What more could be done? If they resist this strategy (the solemn, the plaintive, the pathetic parable) they are manifested to be those who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not.—Bishop W. B. Carpenter.
The importance of illustrative teaching.—Robert Hall’s criticism on a brother-minister was, “You have no ‘likes’ in your sermons. Christ taught that the kingdom of heaven was like to leaven, like to a grain of mustard seed, etc. You tell us what things are, but never what they are like.”—Metaphors are windows of speech; through them the truth shines, and ordinary minds fail to perceive truth clearly unless it is presented to them through this medium (E. P. Hood). The story, like a float, keeps the truth from sinking; like a nail fastens it in the mind; like the feather of an arrow, makes it strike, and like the barb makes it stick (T. Guthrie, D.D.). When the mental energy is only smouldering in a lukewarm way inside the subject, then you have the commonplace prosaic statement; when the warmth increases you get the clear, strong, impressive statement; but when the glow has thoroughly mastered the mass, and flames all over it, then come the gorgeous images and parables which dwell for ever in the minds of the hearers.—J. Stalker, D.D.
Parables are like the husk which preserves the kernel from the indolent and for the earnest.—Gerlach.
Matthew 13:12. The law of habit.—This is a principle of immense importance, and, like other weighty sayings, appears to have been uttered by our Lord on more than one occasion, and in different connections. As a great ethical principle we see it in operation everywhere, under the general law of habit, in virtue of which moral principles become stronger by exercise, while by disuse, or the exercise of their contraries, they wax weaker, and at length expire. The same principle reigns in the intellectual world, and even in the animal—if not in the vegetable also—as the facts of physiology sufficiently prove. Here, however, it is viewed as a Divine ordination, as a judicial retribution in continual operation under the Divine administration.—D. Brown, D.D.
Matthew 13:13. Seeing but not perceiving.—In Tennyson’s “Maud” we read:—
“I know the way she went Home
with her maiden posy,
For her feet have touched the meadows,
And left the daisies rosy.”
Now an eminent sculptor told me that a still more eminent critic to whom he was talking quoted this line with strong disapproval. “How could the girl’s feet make the daisies rosy?” he asked triumphantly, “it is nonsense!” “Nonsense?” said the sculptor, “it is an exquisite instance of observation! It means that the light feet of the maiden, bending the stems of the daisies, have shown their rosy under-surface. Have you never noticed that the underside of the daisy’s petal passes by beautiful gradations from rose-colour to deep crimson?” “No!” was the astounding answer of the critic.—F. W. Farrar, D.D.
Matthew 13:14. New truth bewildering to some.—Men who have lived in traditional knowledge do not thank you for a new truth. It dazes and confounds their dim vision, which is unsuited to its reception. Their bewilderment at the light is similar to that of the cricket. As the cricket lives chiefly in the dark, so its eyes seem formed for the gloominess of its abode; and you have only to light a candle unexpectedly, and it becomes so dazzled that it cannot find its way back to its retreat.—Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.