“Why do You speak in parables” (parabolḗ: pará + bállō)? Part I. Beyond the institutional religious system
[Reading Time: 15 minutes]
Introductory questions
Are you in a religious system?
Am I?
Our family? Down through the generations?
If so, does our system (be it Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Reformed, Charismatic, Catholic, Orthodox, Nondenominational, etc.) control the lens through which we view the Scriptures?
Does it offer us a comprehensive method for interpreting the Word so as to keep us out of error?
Or, does it confine our understanding to a particular time and place and spirit of the Age that together keep us from fully seeing the Scriptures for what they are, apart from that third-dimensional, cultural lens?
Or if we come from a “goodly heritage” has it become sick?
Has it begun to break down?
Has it fallen from the heights where it formally operated, be it of the Fathers, or the Desert tradition or the great saints East and West, the martyr monks, the pioneering missionaries?
And having fallen and being broken down, is it being made well by the grace of God?
Is it…in recovery?
To begin answering these questions, we turn to Matthew 13 where will find that Jesus, having Himself been born into a tightly operated religious system, introduces a form of teaching that will open His hearers up far beyond it..
What is a “parable”
In Matthew 13, we are taken to the Sea of Galilee where Jesus sits down with His disciples to open up for them the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven in seven parables.
Which leads us to ask,
What exactly is a parable?
With the related question, which the disciples themselves specifically ask Jesus,
“Why do You speak to them in parables?” (Mt 13:10)
In briefly responding to the first, we might say that we know what a parable is—a simple narrative that utilizes a familiar, earthly scenario to illustrate a transcendent moral or spiritual truth. A scene from life in this Third Dimension which opens up to us the eternal realities of the Fourth.
But what does the word actually mean?
Etymology and Dictionary Definition
The etymology is formed from a Greek verb and preposition: pará + bállō
It is literally something that is ‘cast’ or ‘thrown’ (bállō) ‘alongside’ (pará) something else.
And as the two images are set before us side by side, as it were, we can then begin to draw parallels between them. And these parallels become clearer and more plain to us as they are worked out within the narrative structure of a story.
The Parables of the Kingdom and the question of “Why”
This word occurs 50 times in the NT with half of those instances appearing in Matthew 13 together with their parallel passages in Mark 4 and Luke 8. That is to say, the conceptual understanding of a parable is first opened to us in these synoptic Gospel chapters, where, it should again be noted, Jesus Himself is speaking to us.
That is to say, it is nothing less than Christ Himself, the anointed Son of God, the eternal Logos-made-flesh, Who is unfolding for us the eternal meaning of what a parable is. And He does this through layers and layers of interconnected images, which set simple everyday, third-dimensional images (Sower, seed, a beaten down path, stony places, a scorching sun, choking thorns…tares, a hidden enemy, a mustard seed, leaven, hidden treasure, etc., etc.) side-by-side with fourth-dimensional realities (Son of Man, the Word of the Kingdom, the devil, angels, the Kingdom of Heaven, etc.).
But to make this even more clear, the Gospel writer specifically records that the disciples come to Jesus after the very first parable and explicitly ask Him,
“Why do You speak to them in parables?”
As in to say, this is not the typical way of formal, religious instruction.
The form of the parable (mashal) had been utilized in the OT as an instructional method (The Prophet Nathan’s parable to King David of a rich man who steals a poor man's only ewe lamb [II Sam 12], Isaiah’s parable of the vineyard [Is 5], Ezekiel’s riddles (hiydah) of the Two Eagles and the Vine [Ezek 17], the Two Sisters [Ezek 23], the Boiling Pot [Ezek 24], etc.); yet this was not the typical way the Scribes and Pharisees taught in the synagogues.
Which leads us, as 21st century Westerners, to then ask,
How did they actually teach the Scriptures in the first century?
And how were Jesus’ methods different?
From a Kathedra to the cathedral of a fishing boat
From the Torah Shebiktav (Written Torah) and Torah Shebe’al Peh (Oral Torah) to everyday parables
At the time of Jesus, formal theological instruction would have been given in the synagogue by a teacher of the Law, be it a Scribe, Pharisee or other rabbinic figure. He would have first stood upon a raised wooden platform (bema) located in the center of the room to read the Torah Shebiktav (Written Torah, cf. Lk 4:16-17).
Having read the scroll, he would have next sat down on an ornately carved stone, known as the "seat of Moses" (Kathedra de-Moshe, cf. Mt 23:2, a symbolic chair representing authority in interpreting the Law), from which he would have then delivered the traditions handed down in the Torah Shebe’al Peh (Oral Torah).
His teaching would not have occurred outside these walls in an open, informal setting, like the shores of the Sea of Galilee, where the roof was now, as it were, the open sky and a natural cove the amphitheater.
But Jesus was different.
It was not the acoustics of the humanly-constructed synagogue structure that carried the message of His words, but the natural acoustics of the created waters, off of which Jesus’ voice could bounce in specular reflection—the water’s flat, dense, and reflective surface acting as a natural acoustic reflector, carrying His message far beyond the four walls of a synagogue.
Nor would a Rabbi have gone so far as to get into an actual boat (Mt 13:2) and therein sit down, making a mere tradesman’s vessel His Cathedra (‘Teacher's Chair’).
Nor, finally, would His teaching have been packaged in novel parables opened to His audience through the Master’s own interpretations.
They would have been offered in the structured teachings and interpretations given within the Rabbinical system (Halakhah: The way of walking), which translated JWHW’s divine decrees into the practical walk of everyday life.
All this to say, Jesus was unique.
No formal training. No institutional degree.
This was because Jesus came from outside the human religious system. He had not been a disciple (Talmid) to a prominent sage or Rabbi in Jerusalem (like Hillel, Shammai, or Gamaliel). He had not studied Oral Torah traditions in the best schools, debating Halakha (Jewish law) to the point where He had learned to accurately interpret Scripture independently.
No.
None of this explained Jesus’ profound understanding of the Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvim, which He fluidly interpreted in a way where a child or mill worker or un(formally)educated fisherman (agrámmatos) could understand them—even more, be changed by them, transformed, empowered, and through them emboldened to actually confront the Rabbinic system in way that would bring healing to the people (Acts 4:13-21).
Healing a people, who in Jesus’ later parable had been left on the road, robbed, wounded and “half-dead” (Lk 10:30). A people whom the religious system of the priests and the Levites had seen and then “passed by” (Lk 10:31-32), knowing, as it were, that they and their system of religion had no power to heal and restore.
And so when Jesus in the opening verse of Matthew 13 left “His household” and “went out” to the crowds (aorist tense), Jerome suggests that the "house" represents the Law of Moses and his going out the point of transition from the narrow, literal interpretation of the letter of Jewish Law to the liberty of the Spirit.
Similarly Chrysostom sees that Jesus is officially going out from the synagogue, the “house” being left desolate, and was now opening His teaching up to the the entire world (the “sea”) which He made His classroom. And further, when He “began to sit down by the sea” (imperfect tense, Mt 13:1-2), He was in the process of (re)making the natural realm into His interpretational seat of authority.
Jesus, however. not only moves outside of the narrow confines of the Jewish Rabbinic system, but also expands the horizons of His own family.
A word from Jesus on family ties
Before Christ’s going out of the house to teach the parables, the prior chapter had ended with these words, which show His own movement beyond the familial, matrilineal systems in Israel:
“While He was still talking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and brothers stood outside, seeking to speak with Him.
Then one said to Him,
‘Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You.’
The Gospel writer repeats the phrase about His mother and brother standing outside and seeking to speak with Him so as to emphasize the ever present tension of family dynamics within ministry. As in to say,
‘Look, Jesus, you need to leave off speaking to the crowds and attend to your family.’
In our cultural era, we might add,
‘Because your family is your primary ministry."‘
But how does Jesus respond?
But He answered and said to the one who told Him,
‘Who is My mother and who are My brothers?’
And stretching out (ekteínō) His hand toward His disciples, He said,
‘Here are My mother and My brothers!
Ekteínō and a different miracle
Raising His hand and stretching it out (ekteínō) to the disciples both before and afterwards in the Gospel signals the working of either a miracle or salvific act:
In Mt 8:3, Christ heals a leper;
In Mt 12:9-14, He heals a man with a “withered hand”;
And in Mt 14:31, Jesus stretches out His hand to save Peter from drowning…just moments after the disciple had by faith miraculously “walked on the water” …only to take his focus off the Messiah and begin sinking back into the water’s depths.
In this passage, however, ekteínō conveys a spiritual transformation.
And whereas before it described Christ’s actions towards a single individual, here, it describes the entrance of the “multitude” of disciples into intimate communion with Jesus. Here, it marks a New Covenantal bond that will transcend even that of our natural family:
For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother'” (Mt 12:46-50).
That is to emphasize that the criteria is not the matrilineal line—it is our response to the words of Our Father.
It is at this point, that Matthew then transitions to His teaching on the parables, connecting them with the phrase,
“On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea” (Mt 13:1).
All these movements are happening at the same point:
The transition out of the house of the institutional religious system where man wields absolute power and control…into the sea of the entire world where the God-man is liberating humanity from the bondage of religion, guiding him into new dimensional realities of the Kingdom;
It is here where Jesus is stepping out of His own household, moving beyond the confines of family ties and bloodline and genealogy…into the dynamic relations of Kingdom community;
In short, is is here where Christ is taking us out of the temporal into the eternal; out of the Third into the Fourth.
And the Parables become the pathway with His Word the entry point and His teaching the map.
A Word that was not derivative but generative
Jesus now begins to lead us into new territories.
He was not some sort of curator, like the Scribes, of a massive, interlocking system of oral traditions, which He then weaved together for His audience from memory ("Rabbi Hillel the Elder says..." or "Rabbi Simon ben Shetach taught...").
No.
The teachings of Jesus—the Word-made-flesh—were not derivative but generative. They were not locked in past Pharisaical orders and scribal traditions. They were not temporally bound to any human religious structure or sociopolitical Golden Age. His teaching, in fact, would move man beyond every temporal institutional order altogether.
And so, He speaks with, we might say, a Fourth Dimensional authority that surpasses every Scribe and Rabbi before Him. We might, to use a related picture, say that Jesus’ word breaks the yoke of rabbinic control.
The three yokes
Two chapters earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus had invited mankind to take onto himself a different yoke. The final verses of the eleventh chapter had ended with this call of Jesus:
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For My yoke is easy (chrēstós: literally, the that which has been specifically fitted for you so as to furnish you [chráomai] with what is most needed) and My burden is light” (Mt 11:28-30).
When we, who have been burdened by the demands of the religious system, come to Jesus and take upon ourselves His “yoke,” its “burden” will not be the “heavy burden, hard to bear” of the Pharisaical system (Mt 23:4). but one so perfectly fitted to us that its weight paradoxically becomes “light.”
But going further beyond the agrarian imagery of this term, yoke, Jesus is here referencing the rabbinic system. As such, yoke is actually a technical term used in Rabbinic discourse to describe one’s total commitment to a specific religious system. And in this system, there are three primary yokes:
The Yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven (Ol Malkhut Shamayim): This is the primary act of acknowledging God's sovereignty. It is famously associated with the daily recitation of the Shema ("Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one");
The Yoke of the Torah (Ol Torah): This is the subsequent commitment to keep the 613 commandments (mitzvot) contained within the Torah; and
The Yoke of the Commandment (Ol Mitzvot): This refers to the daily practical application of the law in the Halakhah.
“One greater than the Temple…”
Jesus’ teaching, however, while fulfilling the Law perfectly, at the very same time confronts the religious system that had been built around the Law. And so, moving forward to chapter 12, when the religious elite accuse Christ’s disciples of breaking one of the 39 distinctive forms of Sabbath Law (The Melakhot). He declares,
“Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the Temple” (Mt 12:6).
This is a tremendous statement:
“One greater than the Temple”??
Yes.
What??
The Temple in Jerusalem—the holiest site in Judaism, the central institution of Jewish worship, the place where sacrifice is carried out, where the sins of Israel are atoned year by year—is being surpassed?
By You?
You, a Jewish teacher in your early 30’s, Who can somehow offer us more than the very Temple of our Fathers?
Yes.
Communion with JHWH? Forgiveness? Atonement?
You are “greater than this Temple”?
Yes.
But Jesus dares continue further, moving from the religious to the political dimensions.
“One greater than Jonah”
Not merely greater than the Temple, but greater than the Prophets who came out of the Temple. In the words of Jerome,
“Jonah preached for only three days, whereas I have preached for such a long time.
Jonah preached to the unbelieving nation of the Assyrians, but I am preaching to Jews, the people of God.
Jonah preached to wanderers, but I am preaching to fellow citizens.
Jonah spoke with simple words and did no signs, whereas I have done such great signs and sustain the false charge of Beelzebub” (Commentary on Matthew, Book II, 12.41, p. 148).
And not merely greater than a divinely-chosen Prophet, but greater than a divinely-appointed King.
“One greater than Solomon…”
Christ next goes so far as to declare to the religious leaders that the
“Queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it.”
She, a pagan woman, whose testimony in 1st-century Halakhic courts of law would have been inadmissible, would "rise up in the judgment" and act as the primary witness in condemning these Jewish religious elite.
How could this possible be the case?
“For she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon;
And indeed a greater than Solomon is here” (Mt 12:42).
They ruled the hierarchy of Israel and yet refused to budge an inch when confronted by the Messianic King, the Temple embodied, Whose wisdom surpassed that of the wisest King of the ancient world.
And yet she, a pagan Gentile woman, who could not have been further in the social and religious order from the Jewish Scribe, had, in stark contrast, left everything at the mere rumor of the “wisdom of Solomon,” traveling 1500 miles on camel back from the edge of the Arabian Desert over the Hijaz Mountains and across the Negev Desert to hear a fallen King whose empire would begin crumbling by the end of his own lifetime.
And for this, she was granted more authority in the Messianic Kingdom than they.
So how do the religious elite respond?
The Logos Himself —the eternal Word-become-flesh—has tabernacled in Israel. And He is literally now standing in front of them—the Temple, the Prophet, the King—pouring out to them life-giving understanding of Fourth Dimensional realities.
And how do they, in comparison to this pagan Queen, actually respond?
Do they drop everything and seek Him out for His wisdom?
No.
Well…Yes and No.
They do, in a certain sense, actually drop everything and seek Him out…but only that
“they might destroy Him” (Mt 12:14, 21:46, 26:3-4).
But why?
Why are they so enraged by Jesus teaching the people in this new way?
Why are they seeking to destroy a man Who is healing broken down people in teaching them about the Kingdom of Heaven and His new chrēstós yoke?
And with these questions, we begin our move towards a conclusion.
“Why do You speak in parables?
The beginning answer stems from the fact that Jesus has been teaching as a Rabbi from outside of the religious power system in Israel.
And yet what is more threatening to that system, Christ is neither rejected by the people for this new way of speaking nor are His teachings ignored.
The “people,” the Gospel says,
“were astonished (ekplḗssō) at His teaching.”
Literally, they are “struck” (plḗssō) “out of” (ek) self-possession. They are “thunderstruck” in a way that breaks them into a new dimension of understanding beyond institutional religion.
And the Gospel writer specifically tells us why:
for He taught them as one having authority—and not as the scribes” (Mt 7:29).
Again, Jesus did not operate within the scribal religious tradition. He taught in a completely different manner—one which included the truths hidden in the best of their Rabbinic tradition but which opened His hearers up far beyond it.
And He did this by speaking in parables—again, by setting the Third Dimension side-by-side with the Fourth in a way that took them beyond human religion, and in doing so, generated new worlds of understanding.
“The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life" (John 6:63)
They are the wisdom of God come down from eternity through the Spirit, Who enables Christ to speak eternal truths to God’s people in plain language regarding how JHWH—not the religious system—actually deals with mankind; not with “heavy burdens hard to bear” but with grace and mercy.
Again, as we will see over and over again, Jesus is strikingly different from any Rabbi operating in 1st century Judea.
And so, His disciples, again, have to ask Him,
“Why do You speak…in parables?”
The answer to this question will form the basis of our next writing. which will take us back into Isaiah’s own prophecy about words that both conceal and reveal; words that both hide and open up a new dimension—and a new way of walking (Halakhah) out of the religious structures of Israel into eternal Kingdom realities.
Amen! So may it be!