Message preached Sunday, March 22, 2015 from Mark 4:33-34
Theme: Jesus taught the truths of the kingdom in such a way that only those who are in a personal relationship with Him can truly know them.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
Over the past couple of months, we have been looking together at a remarkable section of Mark’s Gospel. We have been studying together from our Lord’s teaching concerning the spread of the kingdom of God. It’s a section in which Jesus spoke from a boat to a large crowd of people who were lined up along the shore of the Sea of Galilee; and in which He taught them truths about the kingdom of God through the use of many fascinating parables.
And this morning, we come to the close of that section—and to Mark’s summary statement about Jesus’ method of teaching these great truths to people. In Mark 4:33-34, we read;
And with many such parables He spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it. But without a parable He did not speak to them. And when they were alone, He explained all things to His disciples (Mark 4:33-34).
Jesus was the Master Teacher. No teacher ever taught as He taught. And in this short passage, we see some remarkable things about His method of teaching. As His students (and that, by the way is what a ‘disciple’ is—a student), we would obviously be interested in this passage. We would naturally want to know and understand something of the teaching methods of our Savior and Lord.
But there’s even more in this brief passage than just that. It teaches us something very important about our Savior’s method; something that—if we grasp as we should—will progressively change our lives. In fact, I would say that the kind of person that we will end up being a week or a month or a year from now, will hinge greatly on how we personally choose to respond to what this passage is telling us.
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Now; I’m going to begin by baring my soul to you a little. From the time that I was a very little boy, I was greatly intimidated by my school teachers. I had a very negative and hurtful experience with a teacher in my earliest years of grade school; and so, I went through most of my schooling years always being afraid of them.
One of the hardest things I ever had to do as a small child was to ask my teacher for help when I didn’t understand something. That was something my parents made me do. They didn’t like the results they were seeing on the report card; and so, they told me very firmly that if I didn’t understand something, I was to raise my hand and ask questions, or go to the teacher after class and ask for help. I don’t think they understood how terrifying that was to me. I would much rather have not known something than to have to go up and ask—and risk having that hurtful experience again!
That was pretty much true of me all the way through my time in school as a child—even into high school.
But you’ll be happy to know that I got over it. What I believe it was that changed things for me was that I accepted the Lord Jesus as my Savior in the summer just before my Junior year in High School. And when I went to school that next year, I felt as if the whole dynamic of my inner being had begun to be transformed—including my level of confidence. My love for Jesus helped me with my fears; and I wasn’t so fearful of my teachers any more.
In fact, by the time I went to college, the pendulum had swung pretty far in the other direction. In almost every college class I took, I sat up in the front row—up close to where the teacher was. I always made a point of going up to the teacher and personally introducing myself after the first day of each class at the beginning of each new semester. I would tell them my name, where I hoped to go for further education and what I hoped to do one day, and why it was that I was looking forward to their particular class. That would usually weird them out a bit. Of course, I would also ask lots of questions. And then, at the end of the semester, I would always go to them and personally thank them for what I had learned. I enjoyed having good conversations with several of them outside of class. (I’m going to be honest, though. I didn’t do that so much with my math classes. I usually sat way in the back and tried to hide in those classes—especially pre-calculus. If you did as miserably as I did in that class, you would’ve hidden too. But anyway . . .)
Now here’s the thing that I discovered from it all. Once I got past my fear of teachers, and when I learned to talk to them, and ask questions of them, and become personable with them, and learn to genuinely like them, and to even sit way up in the front so that I could engage with them better—in other words, when I had developed a sincere and personal relationship with them—I always got more out of their class. There’s just something about the relational dynamic in education that’s indispensable, and that always seems to make the learning process much more effective.
And if ever there was a place in which that principle would be the truest, it would be in the school of Jesus Christ. The teaching method of our Savior is such that we cannot learn the things that He teaches—and in the way and to the depth that He wants us to learn them—unless we are willing to enter into a deep relationship with Him, and draw up close to Him in full humility of heart, and bring our questions to Him, and allow Him to instruct us personally and lovingly and ‘relationally’. If I may put it this way, you can’t learn in Jesus’ classroom as you should if you are going to sit way in the back of the classroom. To be a good student of Jesus, you need move up close to the front row—close to where He is—and become personal with Him.
I suspect that that’s one reason why so many people say that they have tried to follow Jesus, or have tried to learn His teaching, but ended up not getting anything out of it all. You hear people say that kind of thing pretty often, don’t you? “I tried following Jesus; but it didn’t work for me.” Well; the reason may be because they tried to follow Jesus on their own terms, and treated the Christian faith as if it were an abstract philosophy or set of moral teachings that they could just embrace and use independently. But that’s not the way we are to learn from Jesus. He doesn’t have any correspondence courses. He doesn’t teach by extension through on-line education. We have to be very ‘present’ in His classroom, and must be in a close relationship with Him, in order to truly learn from Him and to gain fully from His instruction. In fact, I would say that the whole point of His teaching is to draw us close to Him and into a day-by-day, personal relationship of love with Him as His fully-devoted followers.
And that, I believe, is what makes this morning’s passage so valuable. It certainly teaches us some fascinating things about Jesus’ teaching method. We certainly need to know something about His method. But more than just that, this passage shows us that Jesus taught the truths of the kingdom in such a way that only those who are in a personal relationship with Him can truly know them.
So; my hope this morning is that we will cease from staying way in the back row (metaphorically speaking), move up to the front of the class, and make it our purpose to enter into a depth of relationship with Jesus as our divine Teacher. What a difference it’ll make if we do so!
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Let’s go back through this brief passage then, and look at the different principles we see about Jesus’ method of teaching. As we do, I believe we’ll see plainly that they were all meant to lead us straight into a close relationship with Himself.
The first thing we discover about Jesus’ teaching method has to do with the content of His message. We see that . . .
1. HE SPOKE THE TRUTHS OF THE KINGDOM THAT WOULD BEAR GOOD FRUIT.
In verse 33, Mark tells us about how Jesus taught the crowds of people the parables of the kingdom as they were listening along the shore of the sea. He wrote, “And with many such parables He spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it.” And notice carefully what He taught. He spoke “the word” to them.
“The word”, as it is being mentioned here, needs to be understood in the context of this whole portion of Scripture about Jesus’ kingdom parables. The first thing He taught the people in it is the Parable of the Soils—where the seed is cast on four different soils with four different results. And when He explained this parable privately to His disciples, He told them plainly, “The sower sows the word”. And all through His explanation of His own parable, He describes the impact of “the word” that is being sown in people’s lives. The word that Jesus spoke to the crowds, then, was the very “seed” He described in those parables—the divine word of truth concerning the kingdom of God that He was even then ‘sowing’; the word of God that has the potential of bringing about great fruit in the lives of those who hear it and properly receive it.
Look back again at some of the other things He said about this divine word from God concerning the kingdom. He taught that it was brought as a light from God into a dark world—a lamp that, as it were, illumines the whole room. In verses 21-23, He said;
“Is a lamp brought to be put under a basket or under a bed? Is it not to be set on a lampstand? For there is nothing hidden which will not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret but that it should come to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear” (vv. 21-23).
The people of this world aren’t left to wander around in the dark with respect to the truths of God’s kingdom. Jesus has spoken those truths right in the midst of that world; and His word is as a brightly-burning lamp that is brought in from God. It’s the word that God Himself empowers, and that results in a glorious kingdom that blesses the whole world.
Each person, however, is responsible to respond to that word personally and productively. Jesus went on to say;
“Take heed what you hear. With the same measure you use, it will be measured to you; and to you who hear, more will be given. For whoever has, to him more will be given; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him” (vv. 24-25).
And I believe this is very important to stress. The things that Jesus taught were not simply the words of a mere human philosopher who spoke some interesting and insightful things long ago. They are meant to be understood by us as truths of His kingdom that had divine authority—the very word of God to mankind. To reject Jesus’ word is to reject the saving revelation from God.
Many people in Jesus’ day did indeed reject His words. Many who had begun to follow Him listened to the things He taught, didn’t like what they heard, and walked away from Him. But when He turned to the twelve and asked if they would turn away too, they said,
“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (John 6:68-69).
And that needs to be our attitude too. There is no other teacher to go to. He is the Son of God; and the words that He spoke are the words of eternal life.
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Now; that’s what this passage tells us about the content of Jesus’ teaching—that it is “the word” of the kingdom. And notice next what we’re told about how He spoke this word. We see that . . .
2. HE SET FORTH THOSE TRUTHS IN SUCH A WAY AS TO CAPTURE INTEREST.
One of the ways that Jesus is proven to be the Master Teacher is by the fact that great crowds of people eagerly flocked together to hear Him. They lined up along the shore of the Sea of Galilee in such great numbers that He had to be pushed off in a boat and teach them from the water! And one of the reasons I believe that He drew such great crowds is because He taught them eternal truths of the kingdom through fascinating and unforgettable stories. We’re told, “And with many such parables He spoke the word to them . . .”
Do you remember what the word “parable” means? Its basic meaning is that of ‘throwing things together’; and it has the idea of casting a truth out in front of people in connection with something else—a familiar sight or an everyday occurrence—so that they are able to relate one thing to another. Any good educator will tell you that, in order for people to learn something that is unknown and unfamiliar to them, it has to be connected in their minds with something else that is already known and familiar. And that’s what our Lord’s parables do. They cast spiritual truth in the mode of something that is well-known and familiar. Everyone in those days was acquainted with the work of sowing seed in the ground; and so, that’s what Jesus used to teach eternal truth to them. And that’s why Jesus’ parables are so effective—even to modern people today! Once you hear them, you can’t easily forget them.
Do you notice how, after Mark tells us about the parables of our Lord that he mentions in this passage, he goes on to say that it was with “many” such parables that Jesus taught? That means that the parables we read about in this passage weren’t the only ones that Jesus spoke at this time. There were many more. In fact, I believe we can see many of the other ‘kingdom parables’ that Jesus spoke in a similar passage in Matthew 13. Mark didn’t tell us about all of them; but just about some of them—just enough of them to communicate to us what the Holy Spirit wanted us to know.
But what a wonderful teacher they demonstrate Jesus to be! The things He spoke about were the most profound things that human beings could ever hear—truths of the greatest magnitude about the kingdom of God. But His teaching was never dry and dusty. It was set forth to people in a form that would have been fascinating and thrilling to hear. Do you remember the time when the chief priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards out to arrest Him and stop Him from teaching the people? We’re told that the guards went out to take Him; but that they started listening to Him, and eventually came back without Him. They got so caught up in what they heard that they failed to arrest Him!
Then the officers came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why have you not brought Him?” The officers answered, “No man ever spoke like this Man!” (John 7:45-46).
That was because He set forth truth to people in a captivating and engaging way.
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And what’s more, we find that . . .
3. HE KEPT THE TRUTH WITHIN THE REACH OF THOSE WHO HEARD.
Mark tells us that “ He spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it.” He didn’t teach things to the crowds along the sea shore except what they could understand if they wanted to. He spoke of the loftiest things anyone could ever ponder; and yet, He adjusted the level of His teaching so as to set it well-within the grasp of His listeners.
I assure you–that never happened when I took pre-calculus! The math teacher didn’t keep pace with me. I had to keep pace with him—and there really wasn’t much chance of that happening! In fact, if I accidentally dropped my pencil on the floor, it took me a week to get caught up again! Sadly, that’s also how some preachers and Bible teachers do things. I read the other day of how the great preacher Charles Spurgeon once told some of the preaching students in his collage that—judged by the way some of them taught their congregations—you’d think that Jesus had said, “Feed my giraffes”!
But Jesus didn’t do that. He didn’t preach so far above people’s heads that they couldn’t understand what He was saying—if they truly wanted to understand. There were times, of course, when He didn’t say everything to His disciples that He could have said to them. He once told them—just before He went to the cross for them—“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12). And there were times when He spoke in such a deep way that those who opposed Him couldn’t understand what He was saying at all. He told the leaders of the Jewish people who were hostile to Him, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). They thought He meant the actual temple in Jerusalem when what He was referring to was His own body. It wasn’t until after His resurrection that His own disciples understood what He was saying. But that was how He spoke to a hostile crowd that didn’t want to understand Him. To the eager crowds along the shore, He taught only what they could understand—if they truly wanted to understand.
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But that’s when we come to the curious words at the beginning of verse 34. We’re told, “But without a parable He did not speak to them.”
Here, I believe we see that there were two ways of understanding the idea of “parables”. In one sense—as we have already considered—they involve a method of teaching truth in which one thing is thrown together with another, in order to make things memorable and clear. But there’s another sense in which they are ‘incomplete expressions’ of truth that left people with the sense that there was something more they needed to know. Those parables were like the little connect-the-dot drawings that we all did as kids; giving us just the bare outlines of a picture but without the lines fully drawn in. People who heard the Lord’s parables needed to have the dots connected. And only He could fully connect those dots for them.
And that leads us to another principle about Jesus’ teaching method—a very important one. It’s that, even though He gave people spiritual truth from God about the kingdom . . .
4. HIS WAY OF TEACHING NEVERTHELESS REQUIRED THAT HIS LISTENERS MUST COME AND ASK FOR HIS HELP.
Do you remember how Matthew told the story about the kingdom parables in his Gospel? After Jesus told the parable of the soils, it must have left the disciples scratching their heads a bit. They came to Him privately, and said,
“Why do You speak to them in parables?” He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says:
‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,
And seeing you will see and not perceive;
For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it (Matthew 13:10-17).
Their ears are hard of hearing,
So that I should heal them.’
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
Those disciples were blessed because there they were—coming to Him and asking for more understanding. Jesus is quite a teacher, isn’t He? He spoke forth the greatest truths that people could ever know. But He spoke them in such a way that people couldn’t understand them unless they truly want to understand them. If they didn’t want to understand—if they don’t see those truths as important enough to pursue, and if they don’t want to allow those truths to change their lives—then they only heard enough to make them guilty for not coming to Him personally to hear more.
And may I pause right here to tell you?—The same is true for you and me today. The truths of the kingdom that Jesus taught have been written down and recorded for us in the pages of Scripture. We have the “seed” of God’s word cast upon us. And in many respects, we are at a far greater advantage than the people along the shore who first heard Him. We have before us not only the teaching, but also the explanation! It’s set before us as plainly as can be; and we can understand as much of it as we sincerely want to.
But here is the great, practical point of all this. We simply can’t understand in the way that Jesus wants us to if we stay way in the back of the classroom. We have to come forward, go to Him personally, and ask for more.
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And that leads us to our final point about Jesus’ teaching from this morning’s passage:
5. ONLY THOSE WHO CAME TO HIM PERSONALLY WERE GIVEN UNDERSTANDING.
Look at what Mark says at the end of verse 34. It’s not talking about the vast crowd anymore. It’s talking specifically about those who proved themselves to be good and worthy students by the fact that they drew close to Him and asked questions. We’re told, “And when they were alone, He explained all things to His disciples.”
You can see this in verse 10, can’t you? After He spoke the great Parable of the Soils, and after He announced to them, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”, we’re told, “But when He was alone, those around Him with the twelve asked Him about the parable.” They proved that they had ears to hear; and in coming and drawing closer to Him personally, they got more. I even wonder if He wasn’t deliberately sitting alone where they could see Him—just waiting for them to come!
The same principle is true for you and me today. Only those who come to Jesus personally are given a greater understanding of the life-changing truths of His kingdom. We have a wonderful promise in God’s word in the Book of James that is applicable for every question we may ever have of our Lord about the life He wants us to live; that . . .
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him (James 1:5).
Jesus is no longer walking on this earth. He has ascended to the right hand of the Father—where He prays today for you and me. But He has sent His Holy Spirit into this world to serve as our Helper, and to minister Jesus’ own presence to us. Before Jesus left this earth, He told His disciples;
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you (John 16:12-15).
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So; what do we do with all this? Well; the lesson of this passage is that the Master Teacher taught in such a way that only those who are in a personal relationship with Him can truly know the truths of the kingdom. Get alone with Jesus a lot! Spend quality time with Him in the study of the Scriptures. Draw close to Him in prayer. Sit at the front of His classroom by faith. When you need to know something, go to Him. When you don’t understand something in His word, ask Him.
Make it relational! That’s how you get the most out of His class!