Interpreting the parables

Mark 4:10-12 falls between the telling of the parable of the sower (Mark 4:1-9) and its explanation (Mark 4:13-20).

In these verses, Jesus explains why he used parables to teach. Parables act as a filter, because the amount gleaned varies according to whether the hearer wishes to put the teaching into practice or not. Merely listened to with disinterest, they will remain at arms length; however, the person who wishes to live out what Jesus teaches will understand them enough to do so.

This is seen most clearly once we realise that Jesus gave the explanation to "those around him with the twelve". The explanation was not a privilege for the twelve alone, but for all who would gather around him to hear. 4:10-12 sounds at first like the parables are to put us off; rather 4:10-12 functions as an invitation to the reader to join Jesus' first disciples and gather around to hear what the parables mean. We are being invited to join those to whom "the secret of the kingdom of God" "has been given".

So far, so frequently said. What I've not seen before is the way the position of 4:10-12 in the narrative is important. Mark will often juxtapose the stories he tells with great care, so that the order of the scenes points the reader to Mark's message. In particular, he often interrupts one story, inserting an apparently unrelated one, before resuming the original story.

• Jairus reports his daughter's illness, but Jesus stops to heal a bleeding woman before healing Jairus's daughter.
• Jesus curses the fig tree, then cleanses the temple before the disciples see the effect on the fig tree of the curse

The point is: The two stories are sandwiched together in this fashion because they are linked and Mark intends us to see them as linked.

Here's the next one:

• Jesus tells the parable of the sower, but talks about the purpose of parables before explaining it.

Yep: They're related.

The parable of the sower tells us that Jesus' teaching gets a varied response but that the problem lies with the soil not the seed. Then Jesus explains why he teaches in parables. He does so, because some people want to receive his teaching only on the surface, but others wish it to go deeper. He's saying the same thing.

I think this changes the way we understand the parable of the sower. People find 4:10-12 offensive, and even skip over it. Yet the parable of the sower is no less offensive. The reason why some people do not flourish in their faith is because they are like stony soil that does not really want the word to go in deeply, or because they are like an overgrown patch of weeds.

Having sharpened the offense, 4:10-12 then injects encouragement into the parable of the sower that would have been missing without 4:10-12. What kind of soil we are, and therefore what kind of reception we will personally give to the seed, is up to us. We either approach Jesus with the Twelve, desiring to know the secret of the kingdom, or we don't.

So: Get off the path, clear away the rubble, dig up the weeds - and listen in.. The explanation was not a privilege for the twelve alone, but for all who would gather around him to hear. 4:10-12 sounds at first like the parables are to put us off; rather 4:10-12 functions as an invitation to the reader to join Jesus