I don’t quite get the logic in 13:13. If the reason he speaks in parables is because the people will not perceive or understand, doesn’t that mean would be free to speak plainly (given the crowd would not understand either way?).
I think it is interesting in v15 that God could clearly present the secrets of the kingdom yet deliberately obfuscate it, yet in v18-23, he reveals it to us. I wonder if this has implication of how we proclaim the gospel, that there seems to have been some difference between Jesus teaching crowds and the apostles teaching where the latter is more clear as per v52. Perhaps the question is why does he obfuscate his message and then why does this change?
I have heard it said that the parable of the 4 soils is different after the cross and we now only have those that accept and don’t, and Tim said there will be 4 types.
Is the parable of the sower consistent with our certainty of salvation? How can we be sure what type of ‘soil’ we are – that we won’t initially respond favourably before the world chokes the faith out of us? (like the thorns, or the rocky ground)
Is it weird to use hell/weeping and gnashing of teeth as a motivator to trust Jesus? Do we want to focus on God’s grace where possible?
