People entrenched in their current understanding set their defenses against direct communication, and end up conforming the message into the channels of their current understanding of reality. “Direct communication is important for conveying information, but learning is more than information intake, especially if the learner is someone who already thinks they understand. In this conversation, Tim and Jon take a deeper look at the cryptic nature of the parables-that Jesus often communicated indirectly about the things which were most important to him. These parables were repeated often, with subtle variation for each audience. Many of his parables draw from imagery and themes from the Hebrew prophets. They helped the listeners make sense of what Jesus was doing.Īnd what was Jesus doing? Jesus was bringing about the culmination of the story of God in the Hebrew Scriptures.
These parables were a subtle commentary on what Jesus himself was doing in the moment. These parables didn’t make sense to those who were unwilling to listen, but for those who had “ears to hear,” the parables revealed the Kingdom of God.
Jesus told parables as a form of indirect communication to communicate how he was bringing the Kingdom of God to ancient Israel. In part one (5:25–25:00), Tim and Jon open the conversation by reviewing the first two episodes. God’s Kingdom was coming, but not in the way that his listeners expected. The first major kind of parable Jesus used showed people the surprising nature of the arrival of God’s Kingdom.When pondered, these stories change the way we see the world. The parables function like much of the Hebrew Scriptures, as Jewish meditation literature.Jesus often used parables as a means of indirect communication to critique and dismantle his listener’s views of the world to show them the true nature of God’s Kingdom.They’re little stories that, if you ponder them, actually embody a totally different way of seeing the world. The parables sneak in through the back window.
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