Tarrying and Teaching by the Seaside

151:1.1About this time Je­sus first be­gan to em­ploy the para­ble method of teach­ing the mul­ti­tudes that so fre­quently gath­ered about him. Since Je­sus had talked with the apos­tles and oth­ers long into the night, on this Sun­day morn­ing very few of the group were up for break­fast; so he went out by the sea­side and sat alone in the boat, the old fish­ing boat of An­drew and Pe­ter, which was al­ways kept at his dis­posal, and med­i­tated on the next move to be made in the work of ex­tend­ing the king­dom. But the Mas­ter was not to be alone for long. Very soon the peo­ple from Ca­per­naum and near-by vil­lages be­gan to ar­rive, and by ten o’clock that morn­ing al­most one thou­sand were as­sem­bled on shore near Je­sus’ boat and were clam­or­ing for at­ten­tion. Pe­ter was now up and, mak­ing his way to the boat, said to Je­sus, “Mas­ter, shall I talk to them?” But Je­sus an­swered, “No, Pe­ter, I will tell them a story.” And then Je­sus be­gan the recital of the para­ble of the sower, one of the first of a long se­ries of such para­bles which he taught the throngs that fol­lowed af­ter him. This boat had an el­e­vated seat on which he sat (for it was the cus­tom to sit when teach­ing) while he talked to the crowd as­sem­bled along the shore. Af­ter Pe­ter had spo­ken a few words, Je­sus said:

151:1.2“A sower went forth to sow, and it came to pass as he sowed that some seed fell by the way­side to be trod­den un­der­foot and de­voured by the birds of heaven. Other seed fell upon the rocky places where there was lit­tle earth, and im­me­di­ately it sprang up be­cause there was no depth to the soil, but as soon as the sun shone, it with­ered be­cause it had no root whereby to se­cure mois­ture. Other seed fell among the thorns, and as the thorns grew up, it was choked so that it yielded no grain. Still other seed fell upon good ground and, grow­ing, yielded, some thir­ty­fold, some six­ty­fold, and some a hun­dred­fold.” And when he had fin­ished speak­ing this para­ble, he said to the mul­ti­tude, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

151:1.3The apos­tles and those who were with them, when they heard Je­sus teach the peo­ple in this man­ner, were greatly per­plexed; and af­ter much talk­ing among them­selves, that evening in the Zeb­e­dee gar­den Mat­thew said to Je­sus: “Mas­ter, what is the mean­ing of the dark say­ings which you pre­sent to the mul­ti­tude? Why do you speak in para­bles to those who seek the truth?” And Je­sus an­swered:

151:1.4“In pa­tience have I in­structed you all this time. To you it is given to know the mys­ter­ies of the king­dom of heaven, but to the undis­cern­ing mul­ti­tudes and to those who seek our de­struc­tion, from now on, the mys­ter­ies of the king­dom shall be pre­sented in para­bles. And this we will do so that those who re­ally de­sire to en­ter the king­dom may dis­cern the mean­ing of the teach­ing and thus find sal­va­tion, while those who lis­ten only to en­snare us may be the more con­founded in that they will see with­out see­ing and will hear with­out hear­ing. My chil­dren, do you not per­ceive the law of the spirit which de­crees that to him who has shall be given so that he shall have an abun­dance; but from him who has not shall be taken away even that which he has. There­fore will I hence­forth speak to the peo­ple much in para­bles to the end that our friends and those who de­sire to know the truth may find that which they seek, while our en­e­mies and those who love not the truth may hear with­out un­der­stand­ing. Many of these peo­ple fol­low not in the way of the truth. The prophet did, in­deed, de­scribe all such undis­cern­ing souls when he said: ‘For this peo­ple’s heart has waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hear­ing, and their eyes they have closed lest they should dis­cern the truth and un­der­stand it in their hearts.’”

151:1.5The apos­tles did not fully com­pre­hend the sig­nif­i­cance of the Mas­ter’s words. As An­drew and Thomas talked fur­ther with Je­sus, Pe­ter and the other apos­tles with­drew to an­other por­tion of the gar­den where they en­gaged in earnest and pro­longed dis­cus­sion.