(February 15, 2024) Richard Winter challenges…

Many times you will hear preachers begin some point with ‘Jesus said…’

The truth is that Jesus said a lot of things!

• Some were direct commandments, such as ‘Leave your boats and follow me’ (Matthew 4:18–22).
• Some were instructions, such as ‘Worship God only and serve people’ (Matthew 22:37-39).
• Some were easy to understand… and some were hard.

To help His hearers understand things, Jesus often took an event from life that everyone should be able to comprehend and see the spiritual application. These have been recorded as short teaching parables… earthly lessons with a heavenly application.

But… did listeners always comprehend?  
Take Matthew 13:3 for example – ‘… He told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed.”’ Then He tells the parable of seed sowing concluding with this challenge, ‘Are you listening to this? Really listening?’ (Matthew 13:9Mge).

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