4:10-12
Now what is said in these verse is very interesting, and well worth paying close attention to. Jesus has just called on those who have ears to hear to hear the message of the parables. Now the disciples ask Jesus to explain the parables, so it would seem that they did not have ears to hear! Yet Jesus has just then said “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom, but to those outside everything is in parables”. Jesus then quotes from Is 6:9,10, after Isaiah has received his vision of God. Now this verse does not imply that God was being deliberately obtuse, rather it reflected the state of the hearts and minds of the people who are outside the kingdom. They will refuse to see the truth because of their stubborn hearts. If only they would repent and believe then they would be forgiven. So how did the disciples get to understand when they seem to be just as blind as the rest of the people? They asked Jesus! That is what we should do. There are two fundamental ways in which we can come to the word of God. One is coming to it intent on telling God what He should think. This is clearly presumptuous, but an awful lot of people do this. We can also do it ourselves if we are not careful. The other group, which hopefully includes us, come to God’s word asking Him to explain it to us. We come to learn from God.
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