Why They Don't Get It

Matthew 13:10-13

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

And he answered them, “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 an 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.”

Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 1)

The really troubling thing about this passage is . . . that now that [the kingdom] is appearing at last, it is bringing both judgment and mercy. And part of the judgment is that people will look and look and not see what God is doing. People will listen and listen to what Jesus is saying and they simply won’t be able to understand. . . . Jesus sees this happening and realizes that even this is not outside the purposes of God. . . . Judgment must fall on God’s unfaithful people before mercy can grow up instead. And, hidden within this warning, there is the promise: Jesus will himself go ahead of his people and take the brunt of that judgment on himself (162).

A. Orendorff

God’s judgment takes many forms. Normally, we think about judgment as active wrath—preeminently displayed in the chilling reality of hell. God’s passive wrath, however, is just as real and just as chilling. Perhaps the most frightening thing God can ever tell us is, “Have it your way.” This is what Jesus says his parables are all about. Those who don’t want to see will go blind. Those who don’t want to hear will go deaf. “To the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” The point is they don’t get it, and won’t get it, because they don’t want to get it: “To them it has not been given.”