Jesus Said What?!?

“Seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they not understand”

I am excited about this new series on Pick Up Your Bible, called “Jesus Said What?!?”. This series is an attempt to identify things that Jesus said that might be hard to grasp at first, but when we pause and dig deep we see God revealed. Remember my favorite Piper quote, “When you rake you get leaves. When you dig you find diamonds”. In this series, I will be combing through the NT in an effort to dig deep and find diamonds in those precious red words in the Bible. I welcome you to join me over the next few weeks on PUYB as we learn more.

We will begin with a passage in the gospel of Matthew 13 v 10 – 13. I54 encourage you to pause and grab your Bible before we start so that you can underline, circle, and highlight it. The choice of this passage was by no means random. I believe it is perfect for this first episode because in these verses, Jesus is responding to his disciples who were having a hard time understanding Him. They find Jesus after He has preached to the masses and ask Him for understanding. Many of us believers experience the same in reading the Word of God. We may understand some of it but are left with a feeling that there is something deeper that we are missing. And we are usually right. Just like the disciples, its when we spend time in the Spirit, asking for understanding of what we just read that we get deeper insight.

But why is it so? Why did Jesus speak in a manner that was hard to understand? Why didn’t He just say things clearly and simply right off the bat. In Matthew 13, we see the disciples approaching Jesus with this same question. Jesus was teaching about the Kingdom of God through parables and people were having a hard time getting His point, including the disciples. This frustrated them. They couldn’t understand the meaning of what He was saying and they couldn’t imagine why He’d choose to teach that way. If Jesus would just speak in a simple manner and make His message clear probably all would believe and follow Him. And so they straight up ask Him.

Matthew 13 v 10,

“Then the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”

In Matthew 13 v 11, Jesus answers them.

“”to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.”

Jesus said what?

Woah! Is He saying that His words are for some but not for all? Is he implying that salvation is just for a few chosen? Does he mean that He didn’t come to save everyone?

It seems He is.

Jesus is not unaware that people are not getting Him. He means to be not understood by all. Isn’t that mind blowing! On one hand it’s a relief because we can know that it’s not always because we have poor comprehension that we don’t understand and its not that we don’t have the theological training that we can’t follow. I’d always feel frustrated when I’d wrestle with a passage in the Bible and them I’d hear someone teach on it and I’d wonder how I didn’t see that the whole time. On the other hand, it shows that Jesus intends for us to pursue the meaning, to seek Him for understanding. Jesus was intentionally being mysterious with His words. In these verses, He is telling the disciples that His message, His revelation, the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven are for those who seek Him.

Now, before we get riled up, I suggest that The key to understanding this is in the following verses, so let’s read 11-13 together.

““to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has , more will be given, and he will have in abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand”.

Lets unpack this. Here Jesus explains why His words are meant for His disciples and not for others. V 12, “for to the one who has more will be given, but to the one has not, even what he has, he will lose”.

What is He referring to when He says “The one who has and the one who has not”? It seems like Jesus is referring to some amount of divine understanding that anyone and everyone could possess even before hearing or reading a word that He says.

I’m not pulling this out of nowhere. Paul describes this same preexisting knowledge of God in his letter to the Romans. Let’s read Romans 1 v 18 – 25.

“18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in the their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools. 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”

Jesus said in Matthew and Paul described in Romans, this same phenomenon – That the understanding of God that is evident to all through His creation from the very beginning pf time, is received in two different manners. To the one accepts and holds onto it, it will be increased. But to those who have rejected even this elementary knowledge of God, and have suppressed the truth of Him, this indeed multiplies. Even the little that such a person understands increases to a total lack of knowledge and an utter rejection of understanding. In Paul’s words, they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts are darkened.

Thus we get a glimpse of the great mystery of how people perish despite God’s desire for all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of Him (1 Timothy 2 v 4).

In my opinion, this is a peek into the essence of election. For those of us who struggle with the concept of election, that God would choose one person but not all, hopefully this is a start to understanding it. This also gives us comfort in knowing that there is not one who seeks Him that He hides himself from. All who seek God for who He is will find Him (Matthew 7v 7). When He says that to them it was not given to understand the secrets of the kingdom of God, it is not because He withholds understanding from the seeking heart. It is because to the one who has rejected the evident knowledge of Him, God remains unseen, unknown, unrevealed.

It is easy to misunderstand the word of God, to think that it is beyond our ability to comprehend, or worse, to think God doesn’t intend for us to search for deeper meaning. But though it isn’t for all, it is for His children. Like the disciples who decided to approach Jesus personally when they didn’t understand Him, let us, as His disciples of today and as students of His Word also readily and eagerly approach the Holy Spirit to give us after we read His words. Jesus told us to do so in John 6 v 13,14:

“The Spirit of truth will guide you into all the truth… He will glorify me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

The Father sent the Spirit for this purpose – to reveal the Son in all His glory and to declare the truth of His word to us. We are never alone in our seeking. The Spirit of God leads and guides us.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this first episode and can’t await for you to join me again as we continue on in the series “Jesus said What?!?”

Until next time, listeners. God bless you.