Teaching With Illustrations

JESUS is apparently in Capernaum when he rebukes the Pharisees. Later the same day, he leaves the house and walks to the nearby Sea of Galilee, where crowds of people gather. There he boards a boat, pulls away, and beings teaching the people on the shore about the Kingdom of heavens. He does so by means of a series of parables, or illustrations, each with a setting familiar to the people.

First, Jesus tells of a sower who sows seed. Some seed falls on the roadside and is eaten by birds. Other seed falls on soil with an underlying rock mass. Since the roots lack depth, the new plants wither under the scorching sun. Still other seed falls among thorns, which choke the plants when they come up. Finally, some seed falls on good soil and produces a hundredfold, some sixty-fold, and some thirty-fold.

In another illustration, Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to a man who sows seed. As the days go by, while the man sleeps and when he is awake, the seed grows. The man does not know how, It grows all by itself and produces grain. When the grain ripens, the man harvests it.

Jesus tells a third illustration about a man who sows the right kind of seed, but "while men were sleeping," an enemy comes and sows seed among the wheat. The man's servants ask if they should pull out the weeds. But he replies: 'No, you will uproot some of the wheat if you do. Let them both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the reapers to sort out the weeds and burn them and put the wheat in the barn.'

Continuing his speech to the crowds on the shore, Jesus provides two more illustrations. He explains that "the kingdom of the heavens" is like a mustard grain that a man plants. Though it is the tiniest of all seeds, he says, it grows into the largest of all vegetables. It becomes a tree to which birds come, finding shelter among its branches.

Next time: Continue with Teaching With Illustrations

The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived, 1991