Jesus was using parables to blind unbelievers

JESUS WAS USING PARABLES TO BLIND UNBELIEVERS
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
Luke 8:9-10 9His disciples askedhim what this
parablemeant. 10He said, "The knowledge of the
secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you,
but to others I speak in parables,so that, "'though
seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not
understand.'
BIBLEHUB RESOURCES
Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of GOD
Luke 8:10
The mysteries of the kingdom
R. Halley, D. D.
A mystery, as the word is used in Scripture, is nothing more than an unknown
thing. It has no reference to anything obscure, or awful, or difficult to
understand. The most simple truth may be called a mystery so long as it is
concealed. Thata Gentile could be convertedto Christ was a mystery to the
Jews — an unknown thing, not a thing difficult to be understood. Readthe

text, "Becauseit is given unto you to know the secrets ofthe kingdom of
heaven, but to them it is not given," and the meaning is plain and complete.
I. Let us endeavourTO DISTINGUISHTHE TWO CLASSES, — on the one
hand, those to whom it was given to know the mysteries of the kingdom; on
the other, those to whom it was not so given. Some have interpreted this
passageas a judicial sentence ofperpetual ignorance and unbelief. I am more
disposedto interpret it as a description of a hardened and obdurate state of
mind — a wilful ignorance connectedwith gross stupidity. Becausetheir
hearts had waxed gross, andtheir ears were dull, and their eyes were closed
— wilfully closed— the Lord left them to the mystery of the parables, but
expounded the interpretation to His disciples in their more private
intercourse. Jesus had spokenHis parables from a ship on the Sea of Galilee
to vast multitudes who collectedto hear Him from the neighbouring towns
and country. We have, then, abundant illustration of the characterof this
multitude. They came from the places in which He had done most of His
mighty works — Capernaum, Chorazin, Bethsaida, and the neighbourhood.
In their synagogues Jesus hadexpounded the Holy Scriptures and showed
their fulfilment in Himself. But these people had seenHis wonderful works as
though they saw them not, and heard His words of wisdom and love as though
they heard not. The application is to you, and an affecting application it is.
Take heedhow ye hear. See that ye refuse not Him that speakethfrom
heaven. The dreadful shadow of the seconddeath had fallen upon the
multitude, and no beams from the Light and Life of the world could dispel its
gloom. And oh, considerthat the men of the neighbourhood where Jesus
chiefly taught were those denied the interpretation of the parable. Exaltedto
heaven by their privileges, they were debasedand brought near to hell by the
abuse of them. Now let us look to those to whom Jesus gave the interpretation.
The inquiry is, What had they which the others had not? If the disciples had
not knowledge,they had the desire to obtain it, and the spirit to make it
productive.
1. They had the desire to obtain it. In learning the mysteries of the kingdom
(as in everything else)the docile disposition and the acquisition of knowledge

are inseparably connected. Whatcaredthe multitude for the hard sayings of
Jesus? Gratifytheir vain curiosity, amuse them with signs and wonders, feed
them with loaves and fishes, and they are content. But the disciples — that is,
the learners — longed to know the whole meaning of the Saviour's lessons.
They heard the parables, and they soughtthe interpretation. They felt that
they lackedwisdom; they hungered and thirsted after the knowledge of
righteousness, andwith the docility of children they desiredto learn the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. To them it was given to know — to them,
having the teachable disposition, the instruction was readily and freely
afforded. Multitudes are still ignorant of the truths of the Gospel, evenin the
midst of this bright day of clear, evangelical, heavenlylight; but the ignorance
of every one of them amidst so many means of instruction is to be attributed
to their own wilful indisposition to learn. To how many among us is the Bible
enveloped in thick darkness!its greattruths are still to them mysteries of the
kingdom — secrets hidden from their view, as with a Pharisaic contempt, or a
sinful dislike, they pass their wandering eyes over the words of the sacred
page. They read, but understand not what they read. They have no
interpreter. The Holy Spirit they have resistedand repelled. The avenues by
which pure, Divine, holy truth might reachtheir hearts they have closedby
the corruptions of the flesh and the cares ofthe world. But some of you have
otherwise learnedChrist. You were impelled by an ardent desire, and you
went with humility, like children, to sit at the feetof Jesus to learn of Him. His
words, read in the letter of Scripture, became much more than letter as you
read them; they became spirit and life. You felt their spiritual quickening
power. Imploring by earnestprayer the light of heaven, that light shone upon
the Book ofGod, and you saw as you had never seenbefore, wonderful things
out of His law. Thus to you much has been given. But —
2. The disciples had a spirit to make their knowledge productive. They did not
neglector abuse the knowledge they had. The goodseedin their hearts
brought forth its own fruit in its season. How often have the elements of
scriptural knowledge beenabused, and how often have they been suffered to
lie neglectedin the heart! And abuse or neglectwill always prevent a clear
and believing perception of the mysteries of the kingdom. If this be so, no one

ought to utter a word of complaint respecting his ignorance ofthe mysteries of
the Gospel. Why do they remain hidden from him? The answeris at hand:
because he is not faithful to the little light he already has obtained. Men often
see not the doctrine, because the present duty, always plain, it disregardedby
them. You may think you know little of the mysteries. But do you not know
that you ought to seek more earnestlythan you have sought? to practise more
self-denial than you have yet practised? to do many things you have not done,
and to refrain from doing much that you continue to do? It is no wonder that
you should remain still in ignorance of many things, seeing you have already
more light than you follow in the practicalpart of religion.
II. LET US CONSIDER THE MEANS BY WHICH THESE MYSTERIES
WERE REVEALED TO THOSE TO WHOM IT WAS GIVEN TO KNOW
HIM.
1. A plain and easyway of giving the true knowledge is made apparent. We
have the admonitions of Christ as well as His teaching. Our duty is not
mysterious. We can seek wisdom, and seek it in the path of obedience.
2. The mysteries are revealed in their appropriateness to ourselves and their
application to our wants:revealedto our hearts, according to our need. Show
the man himself, a sinner ready to perish — the suitable Saviour for him is
revealedby His paying the penalty of sin.
3. The mysteries are revealed in succession, as they prove useful, not to gratify
curiosity.
(R. Halley, D. D.)

The mysteries of the kingdom of heaven
G. Macdonald, LL. D.
God is always undoing mystery. He keeps no mystery for the sake ofthe
mystery. He is never withholding, but always giving. His work in relation to us
has been from the first an unfolding. He is the God that giveth truth. I say
again, He does not put forth His will to hide, but everand always to reveal.
The mysteries of God are the things that the wise and prudent so often turn
aside from — they take them as matters of course;and many besides the wise
and prudent, many fools likewise, many who are wise in their own eyes — let
me sayall who are wise in their own conceits. "Ofcourse, ofcourse," they
say; "we know all about that; but we want to understand this, and we want to
know what that means; and we want to see how you canaccountfor this, and
whether or not you canput this and that and the next thing in your scheme,"
when all the time things are crying out in them and around them which they
think are too common, too simple, puerile perhaps; "they do not interest us,"
they say. That which God requires of men is lust to attend to the thing,
whateverit is, that He requires of them, as revealedin their heart, in their
feeling, in their sense, thatthey are not doing altogetherright, that they are
not being altogetherright. And while they are speculating, perhaps, upon
what they call the mysteries, what the theologiancalls the mysteries, the thing
that is a mystery to them is the thing that every simple child-heart can
understand. When God calls His children it is that they respond as children in
obedience — in obedience. The Lord in His parable is telling us something
that perhaps has ceasedto be lookedupon as at all a mystery with us. Do you
know what St. Paul so often calls the mystery that he has to reveal? It looks to
us a simple thing enough. It was a very hard thing for many at that time to
receive it, and now m other forms it is hard still for certain kinds of minds to
receive it. It was just that God loved the Gentile as much as the Jew, that God
was no respecterof persons, that He cares for the poor man as much as for the
rich. That was the mystery. We think not very mysterious after the common
use of the word, but the mystery is the simple truth, the fact of relationship
that lies deepestand uppermost and everywhere throughout nature, making
life worth living, and men worth being. That kind of mystery is a thing that it
is so difficult somehow to wake up the minds of men to see. Try to show any

man his duty and he will immediately begin to ask you questions about
theories. To get man or woman to acknowledge — I do not mean by word of
mouth, but by act of soul, by powerful emotion of the spirit, of themselves, of
their will — to acknowledge, Isay, that there is betweentheir hearts and the
infinite, all-pervading, unseenforce of life, that there is a heart thinking about
their hearts, and wanting to have them, that there is a father-love at the heart
of things that is looking down and brooding over the hearts of His children,
and drawing them to lift up the heart to God, and be in His presence a live
thing opening door and window to the receptionof that which He is
continually trying to give — this is the mystery, the absolute simplicity of life
to which it seems scarcelypossible sometimes — I mean it sometimes seems
scarcelypossible — to wake up one's own flesh and blood to understand and
feel, for we are all one family in Him in whom the whole family in heaven and
earth are named. Some would think it a grand thing to be told they could
increase their life twofold, tenfold, and live for hundreds of years. God knows
if I would turn that leaf to gain that. I should simply scornit. Whateveris true
in any of these things, whatever is true is mine; but I do not want it exceptby
growing to it in the natural progress ofthe law of Him who is the root of my
being, and who has told me that I inherit with Jesus Christ that which my
Father has to give. I would put my hand forth, I say, to take no glory of
existence save whatthe natural process ofHis developing of an obedient child
comes to me in its own free, simple form. If you want to attain anything in the
shape of true moral, physical, spiritual progress, I say, be the simple disciple
of Jesus Christ. That is what you are born men and women for, not to make
money, but to know God; and to know Christ is the only way to know God.
You may learn of the powerof God, but the power of God is not God. God is
love, and until we love with our whole souls we do not know God. We may
know Him a little, less or more, in proportion as we are capable of loving; or
rather, not as we are capable of it, but as we do it — we know God. And in
this spirit let us look at the parable that our Lord had just spokenabout as
containing mystery. Well, God knows it is to me the deepestof all mysteries,
even in the common sense ofmystery, a thing that utterly perplexes me, and I
just stop there and cannotunderstand it, and that is, the point when the heart
of man, the child of God, stops turning its back upon Him, and begins to
wheelround the other way; the point when the prodigal, who is the type of

every one who goes awayfrom God, and loves anything better than God. God,
it seems to me, alone can see and know that, but that this turning takes place
we know, and plenty of testimony could you have to the fact. And so in this
parable about the seedsown. And looking at all the parables of Christ, what I
find in them is this, that He is doing what He can just so to wake up the soul of
man, and to cause this change to be begun in the soul of man. He does not
speak the parables for the purpose of concealment. Neitherdoes He speak
them for the purpose of instructing the intellect and the understanding about
things. That is not His work, though all that follows is. Ah, you would know
something, friends — let me speak to my young friends present — you would
know something of the glory of a life that was independent of outside things. If
you just set yourselves to be the thing God meant you to be, set yourselves to
obey Him whom the Father sentjust to make you shine in the very light, the
supernal light, that is all about at the root of everything, wisdom and
knowledge, everything that the heart of man falselyworships, precious as it is,
freely worships at your command, and if you would but be Divine as you are
meant to be, if you will be earthy, if you will be poor creatures, if you will be
what Dante calls "insects in whom the formative power is lacking, defective
insects that cannot pass into the glorious butterfly"; he says — and I am
speaking now of what one of the greatestof men said six hundred years ago —
"Do you not know," he says, "that you are worms that are meant to go forth
as the angelic butterfly?" "O foolish man," he says, "why do you seek low
things? Why are you content to be unborn in the cocoon, orin the chrysalis of
the worm?" The Lord speaks, I say, in all His parables to wake up that power
of life in us that makes a man put everything aside and look up and feel that
he has but to be, and he must be, he must be the thing that the Eternal Father
made His child to be, else we are but the defective insect we may be born. So
what do I find? Here is the story of sowing seed. It falls on different soils, and
at last it comes on goodsoil, and the Lord does not say a word about anything
that the soil can do. But He seeks to make us think it and feel it and weighit in
our minds, and speaks ofsomething that we have got to do with it — the hard-
trodden ground by the wayside and the poor soil on the rock, with the corn
hanging its head, drying up with the drought, and the corn that would look
over the tops of the thistles — that would say, "I am bad soil, but I cannot
help it; the seedhas fallen, but what have I got to do with it?" But there is

goodsoil, and that soil knows that it has gotto do with it, and that is just the
difference. When the truth of Godcomes to a true heart — and God claims
that the heart should be true, and if the heart is not true there is its
condemnation already — when the word drops into the true heart, the true
heart says, "I must keepthat: I must mind what I am about, I must see to this
thing or that," and so it grows and grows. There was one man I heard
sometimes when I was a youth, and I cared more to hear him than all the rest
put together. When I came out from hearing him perhaps I could not tell you
a word he had said, but I knew I had something to mind; and you may make
that a test whether you have been the true ground or not, when anything true
has come to your consciousnessas truth. The greattrouble is, first, with those
who never know that anything has anything to do with them. The time has not
come, somehow. There may be good soilunderneath, but the top is hard-
trodden. There is something that seems to prevent any form of the truth
getting down to the growing part of them. But when there is a sense ofany call
that you have not obeyed, made haste to obey it, that you may the soonercome
forth into the light. Then there are some, you know, that are the picture of the
different kinds of people. Well, I will not sayit is wonderful, because it comes
from the wonderful. Look how simple it is. There are those when they get
moved with feeling begin to grow. They start very fast, you think, as though
they would take heaven by storm, but the storm takes them; they are beaten
down. They do not like to suffer. Well, we do not any of us like to suffer; but
the question is, whether we will make the effort and even if foiled, make an
effort again, to meet the future, or whether we shall let adverse powers,
whateverthey may be, beat us down to the dust, and we lie in the mud instead
of soaring in the free air. What is it you want more than anything else? A good
many of you think more about the cares ofthe world, the deceitfulness of
riches; and the desires of other things enter in and choke the word — the
word, the truth of God that you have got in you. There is something that you
know is your duty. You may not love it very much. You have not seenthe
glory of it. It is to you like a rough diamond that does not shine. It is very
dirty, perhaps. But you have gotsomething in you that you know you ought to
use. That is the thing the Lord speaks of;that is the thing that is come out of
the heart of God into your heart, and the question is, are you caring about
that more than anything else, or are you thinking, " Well, I mind it just

enough not to be castout. You know it is absurd to ask me to he perfect. I am
not perfect. I cannotbe perfect," and the personthat says that has not tried
enough to know the difficulty of it, but only takes it for granted. Mother, do
you think as often about your Fatheras you think about your child? Oh, I do
not want you to love your child less. Godforbid. There are very mistakenly
wickedthings said of that kind. Mothers say, "I love my child too much."
Foolishwoman! you never loved your child enough. If you had loved your
child aright he would have forced you to lift up your hears to your Father in
heaven. You are loving yourself, not your child. No, we cannot love eachother
too much. Oh, friends, the absurdity of it, that we will give three-fourths to
man, and give God a fourth. Are we seeking Him as the business of life, or are
we making money the business of life, and thinking of God now and then,
sometimes? I do not understand half ways of things. But the people that are in
the condition of this corn growing amongstthorns, they are perhaps the last
that will understand "it to mean themselves;the strangenessofwhich is this,
that a few more years and all the possibility of my having anything whatever
to call my own — I shall have no hand to hold it, not to say no pocketto put it
into. Then there is the ground that bears, some fifty, some sixty, and some a
hundredfold. You getnothing except you look at that part. It is for yourself.
But then perhaps you will say, " May some bring forth thirty, some sixty, and
some a hundredfold?" Yes. " Does notthat imply that the Lord is content to
acceptan inferior quantity? That some He will take though they only bring
Him thirtyfold, and others when they bring Him sixty. But the hundredfold
seems to be a maximum, and therefore it seems to imply that, well, perhaps we
may bring thirtyfold and we shall be accepted. How low would it go, do you
suppose? Twentyfold? Tenfold? How far down would it go? "Well, I think
that the disposition that would be content to bring the thirtyfold would prefer
to bring one seedor none at all. And I am certain of this, that if it be possible
for you to bring forth forty, fifty, or sixtyfold, the Lord will not be content
with your thirtyfold. And you will have something to go through yet. For
observe this — "Every branch in Me that beareth fruit, He purgeth it." Why?
Becauseit is bringing forth fruit, why should He be hard upon it? He wants
more fruit, and the man who is content with himself anywhere, is just the man
that the Lord is not content with. I will tell you your thirtyfold would do very
well provided you are not content with it, and you want to make it more. Oh,

what a hopeless thing, do you say; we can never get at that? That He will see
to, if you see that you want it, and that you are acting as far as you canupon
it. lie will see to that. Do you think that your Father in heaven will be content
to have you, His child, deformed, ugly, lame, worn as with famine, with dirty
face and hands, clothedin rags? Whatkind of a father or mother would it be
who would be contentto have a child such? Ah, he or she might be exulting
unspeaking to have that poor miserable child in his or her arms, but would he
be content to see it like that? Friends, do you want it?
(G. Macdonald, LL. D.)
A right attitude essentialto perceiving God's truths
Christian Age.
An Easternlegendrelates that somewhere in the deserts of Arabia there stood
a mass of jaggedrock, the surface of which was seamedand scarredby the
elements;but wheneverany one came to the rock in the right way he saw a
door shape itself in the sides of the barren stone, through which he could enter
in, and find a store of rich and precious treasures, whichhe could carry away
with him. There are some things in God's universe that seemas barren and
unattractive as bare and fissured rocks, but which contain an inwardness of
warmth and sweetnessinconceivable. The inner holies of God are fast
concealedfrom those who will not come aright, with a heart of love and trust,
but open to all who are willing to see and to hear.
(Christian Age.)
COMMENTARIES
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(10) That seeing they might not . . .—St. Luke, like St. Mark, gives the words
of Isaiah, but not as a quotation. On the difficulty presented by their form, as
thus given, see Note on Mark 4:12.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary
8:4-21 There are many very needful and excellentrules and cautions for
hearing the word, in the parable of the sower, and the application of it. Happy
are we, and for ever indebted to free grace, if the same thing that is a parable
to others, with which they are only amused, is a plain truth to us, by which we
are taught and governed. We ought to take heed of the things that will hinder
our profiting by the word we hear; to take heed lestwe hear carelesslyand
slightly, lest we entertain prejudices againstthe word we hear; and to take
heed to our spirits after we have heard the word, lestwe lose what we have
gained. The gifts we have, will be continued to us or not, as we use them for
the glory of God, and the goodof our brethren. Nor is it enough not to hold
the truth in unrighteousness;we should desire to hold forth the word of life,
and to shine, giving light to all around. Great encouragementis given to those
who prove themselves faithful hearers of the word, by being doers of the
work. Christ owns them as his relations.
Barnes'Notes on the Bible
See the parable of the sowerexplained in the notes at Matthew 13:1-23.
Jamieson-Fausset-BrownBible Commentary
Lu 8:4-18. Parable of the Sower.
(See on [1596]Mr4:3-9, [1597]Mr4:14-20.)
Matthew Poole's Commentary
See Poole on"Luke 8:4"
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And he said, unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of
God,.... The doctrines of the Gospel, which to have spiritual knowledge is a
specialand peculiar gift of God. The Vulgate Latin and Persic versions read,
"the mystery", in the singular, as in Mark: "but to others in parables";that
is, the doctrines of the Gospelare delivered in a parabolicalway to others; to
such as "are without", as the EvangelistMark expresses it, who are strangers
and foreigners, and not children, who are not the favourites of heaven, and
the disciples of Christ:
that seeing they might not see, and hearing, they might not understand; what
was delivered to them; see the following notes. See Gill on Matthew 13:11,
Matthew 13:12, Matthew 13:13
Geneva Study Bible
And he said, Unto you it is given to know the {a} mysteries of the kingdom of
God: but to others in parables;that seeing they might not see, and hearing
they might not understand.
(a) Those things are calledsecretwhich may not be uttered: for the word used
here is equivalent to our saying, to hold a man's peace.
EXEGETICAL(ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)
Expositor's Greek Testament
Luke 8:10. The contrastbetweenthe disciples and others, as here put, is that
in the case ofthe former the mysteries of the kingdom are given to be known,
in that of the latter the mysteries are given, but only in parables, therefore so
as to remain unknown. The sense is the same in Mt. and Mk., but the mode of
expressionis somewhatdifferent.—τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς, a milder phrase than the
ἐκείνοις τοῖς ἕξω of Mk.; cf. ἄλλων in chap. Luke 5:29.—ἵνα βλέποντες, etc.:
this sombre saying is also characteristicallytoned done by abbreviation as
compared with Mt. and Mk., as if it containedan unwelcome idea. Vide notes
on Mt.

Cambridge Bible for Schools andColleges
10. And he said] This verse is rather an answerto the other question, recorded
in St Matthew, “why dost thou speak to them in parables?”
it is given] Rather, it has been given.
to know the mysteries] i.e. to grasp the revealedsecrets, the ‘apples of gold’
hid in these ‘networks of silver.’ The proper use of the word ‘mystery’ is the
opposite of its current use. It is now generallyused to imply something which
we cannot understand; in the New Testamentit always means something once
hidden now revealed, Colossians1:26;1 Timothy 3:16; Matthew 11:25-26;
Revelation17:5, &c. It is derived from μύω), ‘I initiate.’ “Godis a revealerof
secrets,”Daniel2:47.
“What if earth
Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein
Eachto the other like, more than on earth is thought?”
Milton.
to others] Rather, to the rest; “to them that are without,” Mark 4.
Pulpit Commentary

Verse 10. - And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the
kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and
hearing they might not understand. In St. Matthew we have the Lord's reply
given at greaterlength; the same prophecy of Isaiah which here forms the
basis of St. Luke's accountof Jesus'reply is given in full. St. Mark weaves the
Isaiah-words into the Master's answer. The thought, however, in eachof the
three accounts is exactly the same. The parable mode of teaching was adopted
by Jesus who, as Heart-reader, was aware now by sad experience and still
sadder foreknowledge, thathis glorious news rather repelled than attracted
the ordinary hearer. They did not want to be disturbed from their earthly
hopes and loves and fears. They preferred not to be healed as God would heal
them. The Masterthen spoke his parables with the intention of veiling his
Divine story from the careless andindifferent. These, he knew, would for the
most part be repelled by such teaching, while it would speciallyattract the
earnestinquirer. "The veil which it (the parable) throws over the truth
becomes transparentto the attentive mind, while it remains impenetrable to
the careless"(Godet). It was therefore his deliberate wish that such hearers
might neither see nor understand. Dr. Morrison('Commentary on St. Mark')
well and clearlyputs the Lord's thought here: "It is the sinner's deeply rooted
wish that he should not see and understand, and the sadexplanation of this
wish is given by St. Mark - the sinner is afraid lest he should be prevailed to
turn. Lest at any time they should be converted (Mark 4:12)."
STUDYLIGHTRESOURCES
The Biblical Illustrator
Luke 8:10

Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of GOD--
The mysteries of the kingdom
A mystery, as the word is used in Scripture, is nothing more than an unknown
thing.
It has no reference to anything obscure, or awful, or difficult to understand.
The most simple truth may be calleda mystery so long as it is concealed. That
a Gentile could be converted to Christ was a mystery to the Jews--an
unknown thing, not a thing difficult to be understood. Readthe text, “Because
it is given unto you to know the secrets ofthe kingdom of heaven, but to them
it is not given,” and the meaning is plain and complete.
I. Let us endeavourTO DISTINGUISHTHE TWO CLASSES,--onthe one
hand, those to whom it was given to know the mysteries of the kingdom; on
the other, those to whom it was not so given. Some have interpreted this
passageas a judicial sentence ofperpetual ignorance and unbelief. I am more
disposedto interpret it as a description of a hardened and obdurate state of
mind--a wilful ignorance connectedwith gross stupidity. Because theirhearts
had waxedgross, and their ears were dull, and their eyes were closed--wilfully
closed--the Lord left them to the mystery of the parables, but expounded the
interpretation to His disciples in their more private intercourse. Jesus had
spokenHis parables from a ship on the Sea of Galilee to vast multitudes who
collectedto hear Him from the neighbouring towns and country. We have,
then, abundant illustration of the characterofthis multitude. They came from
the places in which He had done most of His mighty works--Capernaum,
Chorazin, Bethsaida, and the neighbourhood. In their synagoguesJesushad
expounded the Holy Scriptures and showedtheir fulfilment in Himself. But

these people had seenHis wonderful works as though they saw them not, and
heard His words of wisdom and love as though they heard not. The
application is to you, and an affecting application it is. Take heedhow ye hear.
See that ye refuse not Him that speakethfrom heaven. The dreadful shadow
of the seconddeath had fallen upon the multitude, and no beams from the
Light and Life of the world could dispel its gloom. And oh, considerthat the
men of the neighbourhood where Jesus chiefly taught were those denied the
interpretation of the parable. Exalted to heaven by their privileges, they were
debasedand brought near to hell by the abuse of them. Now let us look to
those to whom Jesus gave the interpretation. The inquiry is, What had they
which the others had not? If the disciples had not knowledge, they had the
desire to obtain it, and the spirit to make it productive.
1. They had the desire to obtain it. In learning the mysteries of the kingdom
(as in everything else)the docile disposition and the acquisition of knowledge
are inseparably connected. Whatcaredthe multitude for the hard sayings of
Jesus? Gratifytheir vain curiosity, amuse them with signs and wonders, feed
them with loaves and fishes, and they are content. But the disciples--that is,
the learners--longedto know the whole meaning of the Saviour’s lessons.They
heard the parables, and they sought the interpretation. They felt that they
lackedwisdom; they hungered and thirsted after the knowledge of
righteousness, andwith the docility of children they desiredto learn the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. To them it was given to know--to them,
having the teachable disposition, the instruction was readily and freely
afforded. Multitudes are still ignorant of the truths of the Gospel, evenin the
midst of this bright day of clear, evangelical, heavenlylight; but the ignorance
of every one of them amidst so many means of instruction is to be attributed
to their own wilful indisposition to learn. To how many among us is the Bible
enveloped in thick darkness!its greattruths are still to them mysteries of the
kingdom--secrets hidden from their view, as with a Pharisaic contempt, or a
sinfuldislike, they pass their wandering eyes overthe words of the sacred
page. They read, but understand not what they read. They have no
interpreter. The Holy Spirit they have resistedand repelled. The avenues by
which pure, Divine, holy truth might reachtheir hearts they have closedby

the corruptions of the flesh and the cares ofthe world. But some of you have
otherwise learnedChrist. You were impelled by an ardent desire, and you
went with humility, like children, to sit at the feetof Jesus to learn of Him. His
words, read in the letter of Scripture, became much more than letter as you
read them; they became spirit and life. You felt their spiritual quickening
power. Imploring by earnestprayer the light of heaven, that light shone upon
the Book ofGod, and you saw as you had never seenbefore, wonderful things
out of His law. Thus to you much has been given. But--
2. The disciples had a spirit to make their knowledge productive. They did not
neglector abuse the knowledge they had. The goodseedin their hearts
brought forth its own fruit in its season. How often have the elements of
scriptural knowledge beenabused, and how often have they been suffered to
lie neglectedin the heart! And abuse or neglectwill always prevent a clear
and believing perception of the mysteries of the kingdom. If this be so, no one
ought to utter a word of complaint respecting his ignorance ofthe mysteries of
the Gospel. Why do they remain hidden from him? The answeris at hand:
because he is not faithful to the little light he already has obtained. Men often
see not the doctrine, because the present duty, always plain, it disregardedby
them. You may think you know little of the mysteries. But do you not know
that you ought to seek more earnestlythan you have sought? to practise more
self-denial than you have yet practised? to do many things you have not done,
and to refrain from doing much that you continue to do? It is no wonder that
you should remain still in ignorance of many things, seeing you have already
more light than you follow in the practicalpart of religion.
II. LET US CONSIDER THE MEANS BY WHICH THESE MYSTERIES
WERE REVEALED TO THOSE TO WHOM IT WAS GIVEN TO KNOW
HIM.

1. A plain and easyway of giving the true knowledge is made apparent. We
have the admonitions of Christ as well as His teaching. Our duty is not
mysterious. We can seek wisdom, and seek it in the path of obedience.
2. The mysteries are revealed in their appropriateness to ourselves and their
application to our wants:revealedto our hearts, according to our need. Show
the man himself, a sinner ready to perish--the suitable Saviour for him is
revealedby His paying the penalty of sin.
3. The mysteries are revealed in succession, as they prove useful, not to gratify
curiosity. (R. Halley, D. D.)
The mysteries of the kingdom of heaven
God is always undoing mystery. He keeps no mystery for the sake ofthe
mystery. He is never withholding, but always giving. His work in relation to us
has been from the first an unfolding. He is the God that giveth truth. I say
again, He does not put forth His will to hide, but everand always to reveal.
The mysteries of God are the things that the wise and prudent so often turn
aside from--they take them as matters of course;and many besides the wise
and prudent, many fools likewise, many who are wise in their own eyes--letme
say all who are wise in their own conceits.“Ofcourse, ofcourse,” they say;
“we know all about that; but we want to understand this, and we want to
know what that means; and we want to see how you canaccountfor this, and
whether or not you canput this and that and the next thing in your scheme,”
when all the time things are crying out in them and around them which they
think are too common, too simple, puerile perhaps; “they do not interest us,”
they say. That which God requires of men is lust to attend to the thing,
whateverit is, that He requires of them, as revealedin their heart, in their
feeling, in their sense, thatthey are not doing altogetherright, that they are

not being altogetherright. And while they are speculating, perhaps, upon
what they call the mysteries, what the theologiancalls the mysteries, the thing
that is a mystery to them is the thing that every simple child-heart can
understand. When God calls His children it is that they respond as children in
obedience--in obedience. The Lord in His parable is telling us something that
perhaps has ceasedto be looked upon as at all a mystery with us. Do you know
what St. Paul so often calls the mystery that he has to reveal? It looks to us a
simple thing enough. It was a very hard thing for many at that time to receive
it, and now m other forms it is hard still for certainkinds of minds to receive
it. It was just that God loved the Gentile as much as the Jew, that God was no
respecterof persons, that He cares for the poor man as much as for the rich.
That was the mystery. We think not very mysterious after the common use of
the word, but the mystery is the simple truth, the fact of relationship that lies
deepestand uppermost and everywhere throughout nature, making life worth
living, and men worth being. That kind of mystery is a thing that it is so
difficult somehow to wake up the minds of men to see. Try to show any man
his duty and he will immediately begin to ask you questions about theories. To
get man or woman to acknowledge--Ido not mean by word of mouth, but by
act of soul, by powerfulemotionof the spirit, of themselves, of their will--to
acknowledge,I say, that there is betweentheir hearts and the infinite, all-
pervading, unseen force of life, that there is a heart thinking about their
hearts, and wanting to have them, that there is a father-love at the heart of
things that is looking down and brooding over the hearts of His children, and
drawing them to lift up the heart to God, and be in His presence a live thing
opening door and window to the receptionof that which He is continually
trying to give--this is the mystery, the absolute simplicity of life to which it
seemsscarcelypossible sometimes--Imean it sometimes seems scarcely
possible--to wake up one’s own flesh and blood to understand and feel, for we
are all one family in Him in whom the whole family in heavenand earth are
named. Some would think it a grand thing to be told they could increase their
life twofold, tenfold, and live for hundreds of years. God knows if I would turn
that leaf to gain that. I should simply scorn it. Whatever is true in any of these
things, whateveris true is mine; but I do not want it exceptby growing to it in
the natural progress of the law of Him who is the root of my being, and who
has told me that I inherit with Jesus Christ that which my Fatherhas to give. I

would put my hand forth, I say, to take no glory of existence save whatthe
natural process ofHis developing of an obedient child comes to me in its own
free, simple form. If you want to attain anything in the shape of true moral,
physical, spiritual progress, I say, be the simple disciple of Jesus Christ. That
is what you are born men and women for, not to make money, but to know
God; and to know Christ is the only wayto know God. You may learn of the
powerof God, but the power of God is not God. God is love, and until we love
with our whole souls we do not know God. We may know Him a little, less or
more, in proportion as we are capable of loving; or rather, not as we are
capable of it, but as we do it--we know God. And in this spirit let us look at the
parable that our Lord had just spokenabout as containing mystery. Well,
God knows it is to me the deepestof all mysteries, even in the common sense
of mystery, a thing that utterly perplexes me, and I just stopthere and cannot
understand it, and that is, the point when the heart of man, the child of God,
stops turning its back upon Him, and begins to wheelround the other way;
the point when the prodigal, who is the type of every one who goes awayfrom
God, and loves anything better than God. God, it seems to me, alone can see
and know that, but that this turning takes place we know, and plenty of
testimony could you have to the fact. And so in this parable about the seed
sown. And looking at all the parables of Christ, what I find in them is this,
that He is doing what He can just so to wake up the soul of man, and to cause
this change to be begun in the soul of man. He does not speak the parables for
the purpose of concealment. Neitherdoes He speak them for the purpose of
instructing the intellect and the understanding about things. That is not His
work, though all that follows is. Ah, you would know something, friends--let
me speak to my young friends present--you would know something of the
glory of a life that was independent of outside things. If you just setyourselves
to be the thing God meant you to be, setyourselves to obey Him whom the
Father sentjust to make you shine in the very light, the supernal light, that is
all about at the rootof everything, wisdom and knowledge,everything that the
heart of man falsely worships, precious as it is, freely worships at your
command, and if you would but be Divine as you are meant to be, if you will
be earthy, if you will be poor creatures, if you will be what Dante calls “insects
in whom the formative power is lacking, defective insects that cannot pass into
the glorious butterfly”; he says--andI am speaking now of what one of the

greatestofmen said six hundred years ago--“Doyou not know,” he says, “that
you are worms that are meant to go forth as the angelic butterfly?” “O foolish
man,” he says, “why do you seek low things? Why are you content to be
unborn in the cocoon, orin the chrysalis of the worm?” The Lord speaks, I
say, in all His parables to wake up that power of life in us that makes a man
put everything aside and look up and feel that he has but to be, and he must
be, he must be the thing that the Eternal Fathermade His child to be, else we
are but the defective insectwe may be born. So what do I find? Here is the
story of sowing seed. It falls on different soils, and at lastit comes ongoodsoil,
and the Lord does not say a word about anything that the soilcan do. But He
seeks to make us think it and feel it and weighit in our minds, and speaks of
something that we have got to do with it--the hard-trodden ground by the
wayside and the poor soil on the rock, with the corn hanging its head, drying
up with the drought, and the corn that would look over the tops of the thistles-
-that would say, “I am bad soil, but I cannot help it; the seedhas fallen, but
what have I got to do with it?” But there is goodsoil, and that soil knows that
it has gotto do with it, and that is just the difference. When the truth of God
comes to a true heart--and God claims that the heart should be true, and if the
heart is not true there is its condemnation already--when the word drops into
the true heart, the true heart says, “I must keepthat: I must mind what I am
about, I must see to this thing or that,” and so it grows and grows. There was
one man I heard sometimes when I was a youth, and I caredmore to hear him
than all the rest put together. When I came out from hearing him perhaps I
could not tell you a word he had said, but I knew I had something to mind;
and you may make that a test whether you have been the true ground or not,
when anything true has come to your consciousnessas truth. The great
trouble is, first, with those who never know that anything has anything to do
with them. The time has not come, somehow. There may be goodsoil
underneath, but the top is hard-trodden. There is something that seems to
prevent any form of the truth getting down to the growing part of them. But
when there is a sense of any callthat you have not obeyed, made haste to obey
it, that you may the soonercome forth into the light. Then there are some, you
know, that are the picture of the different kinds of people. Well, I will not say
it is wonderful, because it comes from the wonderful. Look how simple it is.
There are those when they get moved with feeling begin to grow. They start

very fast, you think, as though they would take heaven by storm, but the
storm takes them; they are beaten down. They do not like to suffer. Well, we
do not any of us like to suffer; but the question is, whether we will make the
effort and even if foiled, make an effort again, to meet the future, or whether
we shall let adverse powers, whateverthey may be, beat us down to the dust,
and we lie in the mud instead of soaring in the free air. What is it you want
more than anything else? A goodmany of you think more about the cares of
the world, the deceitfulness of riches;and the desires of other things enter in
and choke the word--the word, the truth of God that you have gotin you.
There is something that you know is your duty. You may not love it very
much. You have not seenthe glory of it. It is to you like a rough diamond that
does not shine. It is very dirty, perhaps. But you have gotsomething in you
that you know you ought to use. That is the thing the Lord speaks of;that is
the thing that is come out of the heart of God into your heart, and the question
is, are you caring about that more than anything else, or are you thinking, “
Well, I mind it just enoughnot to be castout. You know it is absurd to ask me
to he perfect. I am not perfect. I cannot be perfect,” and the person that says
that has not tried enough to know the difficulty of it, but only takes it for
granted. Mother, do you think as often about your Father as you think about
your child? Oh, I do not want you to love your child less. Godforbid. There
are very mistakenlywickedthings said of that kind. Mothers say, “I love my
child too much.” Foolishwoman! you never loved your child enough. If you
had loved your child aright he would have forced you to lift up your hears to
your Father in heaven. You are loving yourself, not your child. No, we cannot
love eachother too much. Oh, friends, the absurdity of it, that we will give
three-fourths to man, and give God a fourth. Are we seeking Him as the
business of life, or are we making money the business of life, and thinking of
God now and then, sometimes? I do not understand half ways of things. But
the people that are in the condition of this corn growing amongstthorns, they
are perhaps the last that will understand “it to mean themselves;the
strangenessofwhich is this, that a few more years and all the possibility of my
having anything whateverto call my own--I shall have no hand to hold it, not
to say no pocketto put it into. Then there is the ground that bears, some fifty,
some sixty, and some a hundredfold. You getnothing exceptyou look at that
part. It is for yourself. But then perhaps you will say, “ May some bring forth

thirty, some sixty, and some a hundredfold?” Yes. “ Does not that imply that
the Lord is content to acceptan inferior quantity? That some He will take
though they only bring Him thirtyfold, and others when they bring Him sixty.
But the hundredfold seems to be a maximum, and therefore it seems to imply
that, well, perhaps we may bring thirtyfold and we shall be accepted. How low
would it go, do you suppose? Twentyfold? Tenfold? How far down would it
go? “Well, I think that the disposition that would be content to bring the
thirtyfold would prefer to bring one seedor none at all. And I am certain of
this, that if it be possible for you to bring forth forty, fifty, or sixtyfold, the
Lord will not be content with your thirtyfold. And you will have something to
go through yet. Forobserve this--“Every branch in Me that beareth fruit, He
purgeth it.” Why? Because it is bringing forth fruit, why should He be hard
upon it? He wants more fruit, and the man who is contentwith himself
anywhere, is just the man that the Lord is not content with. I will tell you your
thirtyfold would do very well provided you are not content with it, and you
want to make it more. Oh, what a hopeless thing, do you say; we can never get
at that? That He will see to, if you see that you want it, and that you are acting
as far as you canupon it lie will see to that. Do you think that your Father in
heaven will be content to have you, His child, deformed, ugly, lame, worn as
with famine, with dirty face and hands, clothed in rags? What kind of a father
or mother would it be who would be contentto have a child such? Ah, he or
she might be exulting unspeaking to have that poor miserable child in his or
her arms, but would he be content to see it like that? Friends, do you want it?
(G. Macdonald, LL. D.)
A right attitude essentialto perceiving God’s truths
An Easternlegendrelates that somewhere in the deserts of Arabia there stood
a mass of jaggedrock, the surface of which was seamedand scarredby the
elements;but wheneverany one came to the rock in the right way he saw a
door shape itself in the sides of the barren stone, through which he could enter
in, and find a store of rich and precious treasures, whichhe could carry away

with him. There are some things in God’s universe that seemas barren and
unattractive as bare and fissured rocks, but which contain an inwardness of
warmth and sweetnessinconceivable. The inner holies of God are fast
concealedfrom those who will not come aright, with a heart of love and trust,
but open to all who are willing to see and to hear. (Christian Age.)
Copyright Statement
These files are public domain.
Text Courtesyof BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
Bibliography
Exell, JosephS. "Commentary on "Luke 8:10". The Biblical Illustrator.
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/tbi/luke-8.html. 1905-1909.
New York.
Return to Jump List return to 'Jump List'
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible
And he said, unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of
God,.... The doctrines of the Gospel, which to have spiritual knowledge is a
specialand peculiar gift of God. The Vulgate Latin and Persic versions read,
"the mystery", in the singular, as in Mark: "but to others in parables";that
is, the doctrines of the Gospelare delivered in a parabolicalway to others; to
such as "are without", as the EvangelistMark expresses it, who are strangers
and foreigners, and not children, who are not the favourites of heaven, and
the disciples of Christ:

that seeing they might not see, and hearing, they might not understand; what
was delivered to them; see the following notes. See Gill on Matthew 13:11,
Matthew 13:12, Matthew 13:13
Copyright Statement
The New John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible Modernisedand adapted
for the computer by Larry Pierce of Online Bible. All Rightes Reserved,
Larry Pierce, Winterbourne, Ontario.
A printed copy of this work can be ordered from: The Baptist Standard
Bearer, 1 Iron Oaks Dr, Paris, AR, 72855
Bibliography
Gill, John. "Commentary on Luke 8:10". "The New John Gill Expositionof
the Entire Bible". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/geb/luke-
8.html. 1999.
Geneva Study Bible
And he said, Unto you it is given to know the a mysteries of the kingdom of
God: but to others in parables;that seeing they might not see, and hearing
(a) Those things are calledsecretwhich may not be uttered: for the word used
here is equivalent to our saying, "to hold a man's peace".
Copyright Statement

Bibliography
Beza, Theodore. "Commentaryon Luke 8:10". "The 1599 Geneva Study
Bible". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/gsb/luke-8.html. 1599-
1645.
Robertson's WordPictures in the New Testament
The mysteries (τα μυστηρια — ta mustēria). See for this word on Matthew
13:11;Mark 4:11. Part of the mystery here explained is how so many people
who have the opportunity to enter the kingdom fail to do so because of
manifest unfitness.
That (hina). Here Mark 4:11 also has hina while Matthew 13:13 has ινα —
hoti (because). Onthe so-calledcausaluse ofινα — hina as here equal to οτι
— hoti see note on Matthew 13:13 and note on Mark 4:11. Plummer sensibly
argues that there is truth both in the causalινα — hoti of Matthew and the
final οτι — hina of Mark and Matthew. “But the principle that he who hath
shall receive more, while he who hath not shall be deprived of what he
seemethto have, explains both the οτι — hina and the ινα — hoti Jesus speaks
in parables because the multitudes see without seeing and hear without
hearing. But He also speaks inparable in order that they may see without
seeing and hear without hearing.” Only for “hearing” Luke has “understand”
ινα — suniōsin presentsubjunctive from a late omega form οτι — suniō
instead of the -συνιωσιν — mi verb συνιω — suniēmi f0).
Copyright Statement
The Robertson's WordPictures of the New Testament. Copyright �
Broadman Press 1932,33,Renewal1960. All rights reserved. Used by
permission of Broadman Press (Southern BaptistSunday SchoolBoard)

Bibliography
Robertson, A.T. "Commentary on Luke 8:10". "Robertson'sWord Pictures
of the New Testament".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/rwp/luke-8.html. Broadman
Press 1932,33. Renewal1960.
Vincent's Word Studies
Mysteries
See on Matthew 13:11.
Understand ( συνιῶσιν )
See on understanding, the kindred noun, Mark 12:33.
Copyright Statement
The text of this work is public domain.
Bibliography
Vincent, Marvin R. DD. "Commentaryon Luke 8:10". "Vincent's Word
Studies in the New Testament".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/vnt/luke-8.html. Charles
Schribner's Sons. New York, USA. 1887.

Abbott's Illustrated New Testament
That seeing they might not see, &c.;that is, that while enoughis exhibited to
them to invite their attention, they may still be left at liberty to shut their eyes
to the truth, if they choose.There is nothing more striking in the government
of God, than the reserve in the communication of religious truth, which seems
to have marked the divine administration in all ages ofthe world. The higher
spiritualities of religionare not forcedupon the attention of unwilling minds;
there is a veil which conceals the sacredinterior from all, excepting those who
find in their hearts an honest desire to know and do the will of God, which
leads them in.
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Abbott, John S. C. & Abbott, Jacob. "Commentaryon Luke 8:10". "Abbott's
Illustrated New Testament".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/ain/luke-8.html. 1878.
Scofield's ReferenceNotes
mysteries
(See Scofield"Matthew 13:11").

Copyright Statement
These files are consideredpublic domain and are a derivative of an electronic
edition that is available in the Online Bible Software Library.
Bibliography
Scofield, C. I. "ScofieldReferenceNoteson Luke 8:10". "ScofieldReference
Notes (1917 Edition)".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/srn/luke-8.html. 1917.
James Nisbet's Church Pulpit Commentary
MYSTERIES MADE KNOWN
‘Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to
others in parables;that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not
understand.’
Luke 8:10
When Christ spake the parable of the sower, He was not addressing any little
cluster of men—‘a greatmultitude were by the sea on the land,’ and they all
heard His words. Why was it then that only a few, ‘those who were about Him
with the Twelve,’followedHim to ask the meaning of the parable? Surely if
more had askedthe question, more would have receivedthe answer.

I. ‘He that hath, to him shall be given.’—There are some who feel the mystery
of life, the awfulness of their being, who draw near to the Lord and ask Him
questions and receive His answer. There are others to whom the world is a
parable which they do not care to have explained. They ask no questions, for
they have forgottenthat there are things unseen. They have not, therefore
they cannot receive. Yet they who follow the Light are the very lastto fancy
that they have made that Light for themselves. Theywho arise at the sound of
their Father’s voice are the very last to fancy that they have made themselves
His children. They are sure that they could not have soughtHim, if He had
not been seeking them first. Unto them it was given to know the mysteries. It
was no greatachievement of theirs. He had called, and they had answered.
That was all. The calland the answerboth were His—the commandment and
the powerto fulfil it.
II. Life’s mysteries.—‘To know the mysteries.’ We live encompassedwith
mysteries. The fashion of this world passethaway. And when it has passed
away, what remains but—mystery? Whence came we? whither go we? what
are we doing here in this little point of time resting upon the depths of the
greateternity? None of us can quite forgetthe mystery of our being. It forces
itself upon us when we leastexpect it. In hours of sorrow and in hours of joy;
in the shock ofsome crisis of our life or in a time of quiet thought; in the awful
silence of the chamber of death or in the peacefulstillness of a starlight night.
Whether in tones of hope or fear, in a whisper which brings peace to the soul
or one which the soul would gladly not have heard, the world unseen, the
world of mystery, is sure to find a voice which will reachus—‘It speaksand
we must hear.’And as we hear we become conscious ofa mystery within
ourselves which is greaterand more mysterious far than all that is without.
III. The mysteries of the kingdom.—The mysteries which surround us are the
mysteries of a kingdom. The world unseenis not without form and void. It is
no dreary waste ofan un-peopled wilderness. There are no dark and terrible
forms which move without order or law, which may crush or destroyor let

alone, according to chance or their owncaprice. There is One Who controls
them all. They all obey a Ruler. They belong to a kingdom. It is the Kingdom
of God. All peace lies in these words—Blessedis he ‘who understands and
knows that God is the Lord.’
IV. Mysteries made known.—To those who ask it is given to know these
things—to know them, not as we know the things of this world, which we can
understand and express in words, but to know them with the deep devotion
and the fervent love of the inmost heart. ‘To know the mystery of His will’—to
give ourselves up to it, and enter into it with all the living consciousness ofthe
spirit—to work it out in ourselves and in the world around us; is there a more
blessedportion for us upon the earth than this? Is it not a gift worth the
asking?
Illustration
‘It is easy, alas!to question the authority of the greatestthoughts which God
sends to us. It is easyto darken them and to lose them. But it is not easyto live
on to the end without them. You must have been allowedto feelthat you are
stirred with the truest joy, and braced to labour best at your little tasks, while
you welcome and keepbefore you the loftiest ideal of the method and the aim
of work and being which God has made knownto you. That is, indeed, His
revelation, the vision of Himself. So He declares whatHe would have you to
do, what He will enable you to do. So He calls you to be prophets. The heart
alone can speak to the heart. But he who has beheld the leastfragment of the
Divine glory, he who has spelt out in letters of light on the face of the world
one syllable of the Triune Name, will have a confidence and a power which
nothing else canbring. Only let him trust what he has seen, and it will become
to him a guiding-star till he rests in the unveiled presence ofChrist. We shall
say, with the lowliestconfessionofour unworthiness, “our eyes have seenthe
King, the Lord of Hosts.”’

Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Nisbet, James. "Commentaryon Luke 8:10". Church Pulpit Commentary.
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/cpc/luke-8.html. 1876.
Thomas Coke Commentary on the Holy Bible
Luke 8:10. That seeing, they might not see,— As much as to say, "Take this
mark, among others, of the truth of my pretensions. My offers of salvation, as
was foretold, (see Isaiah 6:8-10.)are rejectedby my countrymen; and I have
delivered my messageto them in such terms, and attended with such
circumstances, as have been foretold by the prophets." In a word, our Lord is
here simply instructing his followers in the
wiseandwonderfulaccomplishmentofscripture-
prophesiesconcerningtheJews,andconcerning their Messiah;to convince them
of God's righteous dealings, and of the truth of his own mission. See the
Inferences on Matthew 10.
Copyright Statement

Bibliography
Coke, Thomas. "Commentaryon Luke 8:10". Thomas Coke Commentary on
the Holy Bible. https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/tcc/luke-
8.html. 1801-1803.
Matthew Poole's EnglishAnnotations on the Holy Bible
See Poole on"Luke 8:4"
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Poole, Matthew, "Commentaryon Luke 8:10". Matthew Poole's English
Annotations on the Holy Bible.
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/mpc/luke-8.html. 1685.
Justin Edwards' Family Bible New Testament
The manner in which the Saviour communicates instruction is suited to
impart knowledge to those who desire it, who seek forit as men seek for silver,
and searchfor it as they do for hidden treasures;while those who despise it,
he leaves in ignorance, darkness,degradation, and death.

Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Edwards, Justin. "Commentary on Luke 8:10". "Family Bible New
Testament". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/fam/luke-8.html.
American Tract Society. 1851.
Cambridge Greek Testamentfor Schools andColleges
10. ὁ δὲ εἶπεν. This verse is rather an answerto the other question, recorded
in St Matthew, “why dost thou speak to them in parables?”
δέδοται. ‘It has been given.’
γνῶναι τὰ μυστήρια. I.e. to graspthe revealed secrets, the ‘apples of gold’ hid
in these ‘networks of silver.’ The proper use of the word ‘mystery’ is the
opposite of its current use. It is now generallyused to imply something which
we cannot understand; in the New Testamentit always means something once
hidden now revealed, Colossians1:26;1 Timothy 3:16; Matthew 11:25-26;
Revelation17:5, &c. It is derived from μύω, ‘I initiate.’ “Godis a revealerof
secrets,”Daniel2:47.
“What if earth

Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein
Eachto the other like, more than on earth is thought?”
MILTON.
τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς. Vulg[175]caeteris, ‘to the rest;’ “to them that are without,”
Mark 4:11. It has been granted you to graspthese mysteries unveiled; to the
rest it has been only given to graspthem under the veil of parables.
ἵνα βλέποντες μὴ βλέπωσιν κ.τ.λ. These words are difficult, and (without
dwelling on the fact that the particle ἵνα loses in later Greek some ofits final
force)must not be pressedwith unreasonable and extravagant literalism to
mean that the express objectof teaching by parables was to concealthe
messageofthe Kingdom from all but the disciples. This would have been to
put the kindled lamp under a couchor bushel. On the contrary, they were
addressedto the multitudes, and deeply impressed them, as they have
impressed the world in all ages, andhave had the effect, not of darkening
truth but of bringing it into brighter light. The varying phrase of St Matthew,
“because seeing they see not, &c.,” will help us to understand it. Our Lord
wished and meant the multitudes to hearkenand understand, and this method
awoke their interestand deepened their attention; but the resultant profit
depended solely on the degree oftheir faithfulness. The Parables resembled
the Pillar of Fire, which was to the Egyptians a Pillar of Cloud. If men listened
with mere intellectual curiosity or hardened prejudice they would only carry
awaythe parable itself, or some complete misapplication of its leastessential
details; to get at its real meaning required self-examination and earnest
thought. Hence parables had a blinding and hardening effecton the false and
the proud and the wilful, just as prophecy had in old days (Isaiah 6:9-10,
quoted in this connexionin Matthew 13:14, comp. Acts 28:26-27;Romans

11:8). But the Prophecy and the Parable did not create the hardness or
stolidity, but only educed it when it existed—as all misused blessings and
privileges do. It was only unwillingness to see which was punished by
incapacity of seeing. The natural punishment of spiritual perversity is
spiritual blindness.
Nothing can be better than the profound remark of Lord Bacon, that “a
parable has a double use; it tends to vail, and it tends to illustrate a truth; in
the latter case it seems designedto teach, in the former to conceal.”
“Thoughtruths in manhood darkly join,
Deepseatedin our mystic frame,
We yield all blessing to the name
Of Him who made them current coin.
For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers,
Where truth in closestwords shallfail,
When truth embodied in a tale
Shall enter in at lowly doors.”

Copyright Statement
Bibliography
"Commentary on Luke 8:10". "Cambridge Greek TestamentforSchools and
Colleges".https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/cgt/luke-8.html.
1896.
PeterPett's Commentary on the Bible
‘And he said, To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingly Rule of
God, but to the rest in parables, that seeing they may not see, andhearing
they may not understand.’
Then He explained to His disciples that for them the ‘secrets ofthe Kingly
Rule of God’ would be unlocked, because they genuinely wanted to know. The
word ‘mystery’ in the New Testamentalways speaks of‘a mystery now to be
revealed’. Thus He would open up the mystery for those who were seeking.
And it would mean more to them because they had first had to think about it
before asking.
But to the remainder it was told in parables, so that they would see what was
on the surface but not see what lay underneath, so that they would hear what
was said and yet not appreciate its true meaning. And why should He do this?
So that they might not become hardened to the message. Once they really

beganto want to know they could come and ask. Until then it was better if
they only receivedhints of it.
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Pett, Peter. "Commentary on Luke 8:10". "PeterPett's Commentary on the
Bible ". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/pet/luke-8.html. 2013.
The Expositor's Greek Testament
Luke 8:10. The contrastbetweenthe disciples and others, as here put, is that
in the case ofthe former the mysteries of the kingdom are given to be known,
in that of the latter the mysteries are given, but only in parables, therefore so
as to remain unknown. The sense is the same in Mt. and Mk., but the mode of
expressionis somewhatdifferent.— τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς, a milder phrase than the
ἐκείνοις τοῖς ἕξω of Mk.; cf. ἄλλων in chap. Luke 5:29.— ἵνα βλέποντες, etc.:
this sombre saying is also characteristically toned done by abbreviation as
compared with Mt. and Mk., as if it containedan unwelcome idea. Vide notes
on Mt.
Copyright Statement

Bibliography
Nicol, W. Robertson, M.A., L.L.D. "Commentary on Luke 8:10". The
Expositor's Greek Testament.
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/egt/luke-8.html. 1897-1910.
E.W. Bullinger's Companion Bible Notes
is = has been.
know = getto know. See App-132.
mysteries = secrets.
others = the rest. Greek. hoiloipoi. Compare Acts 5:13. Romans 11:7.
Ephesians 2:3. 1 Thessalonians 4:13. Revelation20:5.
in. Greek. en. App-104.
that = in order that. Quoted from Isaiah6:9, Isaiah6:10. See App-107.
seeing. App-133.
not. Greek. me. App-105.

PRECEPTAUSTIN RESOURCES
BRUCE HURT MD
Luke 8:10 And He said, "To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of
the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is in parables, so that SEEING THEY
MAY NOT SEE, AND HEARING THEY MAY NOT UNDERSTAND.
KJV And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom
of God: but to others in parables;that seeing they might not see, and hearing
To you Lk 10:21-24;Ps 25:14; Matthew 11:25; 13:11,12;16:17; Mark 4:11;
Romans 16:25; 1 Corinthians 2:7-11;12:11; Ephesians 3:3-9; Colossians 1:26-
28; 2:2; 1 Timothy 3:16; 1 Peter1:10-12
that seeing Deuteronomy29:4; Isaiah6:9-13; 29:14; 44:18;Jeremiah5:21;
Matthew 13:14-17;John 12:40;Acts 28:26,27;Romans 11:7-10
Luke 8:4-15 Receptivity to the Gospel, Part 1 - John MacArthur
Luke 8:4-15 - StevenCole
Luke 8 Resources - Multiple Sermons and Commentaries
JUDICIAL BLINDING
OF UNBELIEVERS

Mt 13:11 Jesus answeredthem, “To you it has been granted to know the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.
To you it has been granted - Light has been granted, illuminating the way to
God and the greattruths about God and His kingdom. This is an example of
the "divine passive" with God being the "Granter." The perfect tense speaks
of the enduring effectof this divine gift. The implication of course is that
unless God had opened their eyes to see and ears to hear, they would not have
been about to understand the parable. Notice that it is disciples who had been
granted this privilege. Amazing grace indeed! Disciples is not a specialclass of
believers as some have proposed. In fact the most common designationof the
believers in the book of Acts is "disciples." All true believers are disciples!
Spurgeon- It was a time of judicial visitations. These people had for centuries
refused to hear the voice of God and now they were to pay the penalty for that
refusal. The reward of virtue is capacityfor higher virtue, just as the effect of
vice is a tendency to yet greatervice. When men will not hear the voice of
God, it is a just judgment upon them that they cannot hear, their impotence
being the result of their impudence. Since they would not hear, they shall not;
who shall say that this is not a very just and natural way of allowing sin to
punish itself? So these people heard the words of our Saviour’s parable. It was
like a clock, a covering to the truth; but, to them, it hid the truth, they did not
see it. To the disciples of Christ, it setforth truth in all its beauty; but, to the
unbelieving people, it bid the truth, so that they did not discernit. Brethren
and sisters, if you and I understand heavenly mysteries let us not be proud
that it is so, but let us hear our Saviour saying to us, “Unto you it is given to
know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.” This is the gift of the free grace of
God. Be very thankful for it, but give God all the glory of it. For if thou
beginestto say to thyself, “I am a man of great understanding,” and if thou
shalt take to thyself a high place, Godmay leave thee to thy natural blindness;
and, then, where wilt thou be?

John MacArthur responds to His disciples question regarding the meaning of
the parable - He said, "To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of
the kingdom of God. But to the rest, it is in parables in order that seeing they
may not see and hearing they may not understand." Isn't that interesting?
To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.
When we talk about mysteries, mustērion here, we're not talking about some
esoteric, incomprehensible, divine idea. We're not talking about being able to
look into all the deep things of God and sort them out rationally. What the
word "mysteries" means is spiritual truth hidden in the Old Testament
revealedin the New. It's referring to those things that the Old Testament
people didn't know that the New Testamentreveals:the mystery of the
incarnation, the mystery of Christ in you the hope of glory, the mystery of the
church, the mystery of the rapture, the mystery of the resurrection. Truths
hidden in the Old revealedin the New and He says it's given to you, it's
granted to you by God to know these things. Paul said in Ephesians 3:8-9 that
God had sent him to explain the mysteries, what was hidden in the past and is
now revealed. It's not a mysterious idea, it's something that was hidden and is
now revealed. But to the rest, I speak in parables, unexplained ones, so that
seeing they may not see and hearing they may not understand. That's the
judgment....In Mt 13:11 "He answeredand saidto them, 'To you it has been
granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heavenbut to them it has not
been granted.'" You are select, youare elect. You are chosen. You are blessed.
You are privileged. It's just staggering,that we are not anymore worthy but
to us Godhas chosento revealHis greattruth. In Mt 13:12, "Forwhoever
has, to him shall more be given and he shall have an abundance. Whoever
does not have, even what he has shall be takenawayfrom him." Jesus says it
is a sad day today in Israel, splitting the people here. I'm separating those
who know the truth from those who don't. Those who know the truth are
those who believe in Me. Those who don't believe in Me don't know the truth.
I'm going to start explaining parables only to those who believe so that they
are parables of revelationto them. But to those who don't believe, I will not
explain and they become parables of concealment. And so He says, "Whoever
has, you already know the truth. I'm going to give you more truth. You're
going to have an abundance of truth." And I know we feel that way, don't we,
who know the Word of God?

Mt 13:13, Jesus says explicitly, "I speak to them in parables because while
seeing they do not see and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they
understand." I speak this way to concealit. I don't want to castmy pearls
before swine. I don't want to give spiritual truth to people who have no ability
to grasp it. Rather I will put them in a deeper darkness as an actof judgment.
And it's just like Mt 13:14 says. "It's just like in the days of Isaiah." You
remember that Isaiah was calledas a minister, as I mentioned earlier, and He
says in Mt 13:14, "In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled which
says you will keepon hearing but will not understand, you will keepon seeing,
will not perceive, for the heart of this people has become dull, their ears...with
their ears they scarcelyhearand they have closedtheir eyes lestthey should
see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart
and return and I should heal them." Godsays I don't want to healthem, I
don't want them to return so I'm judicially confirming them in deafness and
blindness and lack of understanding. What a serious judgment! You will not
believe so you cannotbelieve! They're hardening their own hearts and then
God hardened their hearts. But Mt 13:16, "Blessedare your eyes because
they see and your ears because they hear." (Receptivity to the Gospel)
Robertsonon mysteries - Part of the mystery here explained is how so many
people who have the opportunity to enter the kingdom fail to do so because of
manifest unfitness.
To know the mysteries of the kingdom of God - The Kingdom is not like a
mystery novel, like we normally think of when we hear the English word
mystery. As explained below, they would be given insight into truths about the
kingdom of God that heretofore had been concealedby God.
Kingdom of God - 66x in 65v - Matt. 12:28;Matt. 19:24;Matt. 21:31; Matt.
21:43;Mk. 1:15; Mk. 4:11; Mk. 4:26; Mk. 4:30; Mk. 9:1; Mk. 9:47; Mk.

10:14;Mk. 10:15;Mk. 10:23;Mk. 10:24; Mk. 10:25; Mk. 12:34; Mk. 14:25;
Mk. 15:43; Lk. 4:43; Lk. 6:20; Lk. 7:28; Lk. 8:1; Lk. 8:10; Lk. 9:2; Lk. 9:11;
Lk. 9:27; Lk. 9:60; Lk. 9:62; Lk. 10:9; Lk. 10:11; Lk. 11:20;Lk. 13:18;Lk.
13:20;Lk. 13:28;Lk. 13:29; Lk. 14:15;Lk. 16:16;Lk. 17:20; Lk. 17:21;Lk.
18:16;Lk. 18:17;Lk. 18:24; Lk. 18:25;Lk. 18:29;Lk. 19:11; Lk. 21:31;Lk.
22:16;Lk. 22:18;Lk. 23:51; Jn. 3:3; Jn. 3:5; Acts 1:3; Acts 8:12; Acts 14:22;
Acts 19:8; Acts 28:23;Acts 28:31; Rom. 14:17;1 Co. 4:20; 1 Co. 6:9; 1 Co.
6:10; 1 Co. 15:50; Gal. 5:21; Col. 4:11; 2 Thess. 1:5
RelatedResources:
What is the kingdom of God?;
What is the difference between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of
Heaven?
What does it mean to seek first the kingdom of God?
What did Jesus meanwhen He said, “The kingdom of God is within you”
(Luke 17:21, KJV)?
What does it mean that a person will not inherit the kingdom of God (1
Corinthians 6:9-11)?
What is the gospelofthe kingdom?
What is kingdom theology?
What is Kingdom Now teaching?
Know (1097)(ginosko)means to acquire information through some modality,
as through sense perception(hearing). Howeverginosko involves experiential
knowledge, notmerely the accumulation of known facts.

Darrell Bock onmysteries - "Mystery" is an important biblical term. Its roots
go back to the image of the raz in Daniel (Dan 2:20-23, 28-30;Bornkamm
1967:814-15, 817-18). There Danielunlockedthe mystery hidden in an already
revealeddream. Some New Testamenttexts on mystery highlight the newness
of the revelation(Eph 3:4-6; Col1:27-29), while other mystery texts note the
connectionof what is revealedin Jesus to what was revealedin the Old
Testament(Rom 16:25-27). Thus the term speaks ofnew truth emerging
alongside old promise. Discontinuity in God's plan emerges within continuity.
Jesus is revealing further detail and fresh twists in God's plan, but those
details fit togetherwith the program that God has already promised. The
twists and turns in the promised and progressing kingdom program are being
revealedto the disciples in these parables. But the parables do not only reveal
secrets to the disciples; they also concealtruth from outsiders, those Jesus
calls others. (Luke 8:4-9:17 Call to Faith and Christology)
Mysteries (3466)(musterion from mustes = one initiated [as into the Greco-
Roman "mystery" religions] from mueo = to close orshut) in the NT is a truth
never previously known, and a truth which human intellect could never
discover, but one which has now been made known by divine revelation.
Mystery in modern usage is similar to this ancient use for it usually means a
secretfor which no answercanbe found (cf "mystery novel"). In contrastto
this contemporaryuse of "mystery", Scripture uses musterion to indicate
truth which was previously unknown but which now has been made known
through revelation mediated by God.
RelatedResource:
Backgroundon Mystery of the Kingdom and how it relates to Israel's
Rejectionof Her King and the future return of the King and establishment of
His Visible, External Kingdom - This topic can be confusing, but John
MacArthur gives a simple, but excellentexplanation of the "mystery phase"

of the Kingdom of Heaven/God. It will help you understand Peter's offer to
the Jews of "the times of refreshing" (Acts 3:19+) and "the period of
restoration" (Acts 3:21+). It will also help understand the disciples'somewhat
enigmatic question to Jesus just prior to His ascension -- "Lord, is it at this
time You are restoring the Kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6+). If you have been
taught that God is finished with the nation of Israelthen you need to study
these passages!
Vincent on mysteries - From muo, to close or shut. In classicalGreek, applied
to certain religious celebrations to which persons were admitted by formal
initiation, and the precise characterof which is unknown. Some suppose them
to have been revelations of religious secrets;others of secretpoliticoreligious
doctrines; others, again, scenic representationsofmythical legends. In this
latter sense the term was used in the Middle Ages of miracle-plays—rude
dramas representing scenes from scripture and from the apocryphal gospels.
Such plays are still enactedamong the Basque mountaineers. (See Vincent,
“In the Shadow of the Pyrenees.”)A mystery does not denote an unknowable
thing, but one which is withdrawn from knowledge ormanifestation, and
which cannot be known without specialmanifestationof it. Hence appropriate
to the things of the kingdom of heaven, which could be known only by
revelation. Paul (Philip. 4:12) says, “Iam instructed (μεμύημαι)both to be full
and to be hungry,” etc. But Rev. gives more correctlythe force of instructed,
by rendering I have learned the secret:the verb being μυέω (from the same
root as μυστήρια)to initiate into the mysteries.
But (a "deadly" term of contrast)to the restit is in parables - To reject Jesus'
truth is dangerous, because it potentially places you into a group He calls "the
rest," which only get His word in parables. DarrellBock explains it this way
"The danger of exposure to revelationis that if we do not respond in faith,
eventually hardness sets in and God acts to judge. Here is a warning about the
ultimate perils of rejection:God may sovereignlyinvolve Himself in
cementing the process. Thesewords are harsh, yet they serve as a warning of
the extreme dangerof rejecting Jesus'message" (Ibid)

Rest(others, remaining) (3062)(loipos from leipo = to leave or to lack)is an
adjective which refers to that which remains over - where it refers to people
the sense is the rest, those that are left, the remainder. Thus the parables do
not only revealsecrets to the disciples, but they also concealtruth from
outsiders, those Jesus calls the rest.
Parables (see discussionabove)
POSB - Jesus knew that many were following Him not because they wantedto
know God, not because they were genuine and sincere. The insincerity of so
many, of course, cut the heart of Jesus;but He still wanted to warn and reach
as many as possible. This is what the parable of the seedis all about. Jesus
wanted people to know that hearing the Word of God was not enough. There
are many ways to hear the Word of God, but only one way bears fruit. Only
one receptionmakes us acceptable to God. If we receive the Word of God any
other way, then it becomes fruitless and does no good. It is snatchedawayor
scorchedor chokedout. Only one reception will bear fruit. Note how the
parable speaks to every person. It is a warning to all hearers of the Word,
especiallyto those who are not genuine followers ofChrist. It gives great
assurance to those who do hear: they shall definitely bear fruit. It is great
encouragementto the preacherand teacherand to the lay witness. The seed
they sow shall bear some fruit. (The Preacher's Outline & Sermon Bible –
Luke)
Jon Courson- Why would Jesus teachin such a way that truth would be
concealed? Simply because He will honor the wishes ofevery person.
Therefore, if a person does not want to see, the Lord won't force His way upon
him. You see, Jesus couldhave spokenso persuasivelyand argued so
powerfully that people who didn't want to be converted would be converted
even againsttheir own will. But Jesus is not after conversionby force. Because
He honors man's free choice, He says, "If you don't want to know the truth, I

will concealtruth from you. If you don't want to know Me, I won't force
Myself upon you." Teaching through parables provided a way that those who
wanted to know truth could receive it, while those who didn't want to know
would be unable to receive it.At whateverpoint you say, "My mind is made
up. I don't want to know what the Word says or how the Lord might feel
about any given situation," you will be cut off from revelation. It is a
dangerous place to be. But eventually, you'll get so banged up trying to blindly
walk in your own darkness that you'll finally say, "I'm tired of arguing my
case ortrying to prove my point. Show me Your heart, Lord." And He will—
when you're ready. (Jon Courson's Application Commentary)
So that (hina) introduces the purpose for the parables.
SEEING THEY MAY NOT SEE, AND HEARING THEY MAY NOT
UNDERSTAND -This is divine judgment for failing to receive and believe.
We see a similar dynamic in 2 Th 2:10-12
And with all the deceptionof wickedness forthose who perish, because they
did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. 11 Forthis reasonGod
will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false,
12 in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took
pleasure in wickedness.
Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 6+ (prophetic warning was given some 150 years
in advance of its fulfillment) -
He said, “Go, and tell this people:‘Keep on listening, but do not perceive;
Keep on looking, but do not understand.’ 10 “Renderthe hearts of this people
insensitive (“Make the heart of this people fat” = obtuse and unresponsive),
Their ears dull, And their eyes dim (cf Isa 42:20 This is judicial hardening of
their hearts), Otherwise they might see with their eyes, Hearwith their ears,

Understand with their hearts, And return and be healed.” (God in His
omniscience knew in advance that the nation would not respond but would
remain indifferent and unrepentant, and thus would become hardened. The
judgment on the nation Israeldid not preclude the repentance of a remnant cf
Isa 11:11-12) 11 ThenI said, “Lord, how long?” And He answered, “Until
cities are devastatedand without inhabitant, Houses are without people And
the land is utterly desolate (Thoughthe people would not pay attention, Isaiah
was to continue to prophesy of the Babylonian deportation.), 12 “The LORD
has removed men far away, And the forsakenplaces are many in the midst of
the land. 13 “Yet there will be a tenth portion in it, (remnant who hear and
believe) And it will againbe subject to burning, Like a terebinth (an oak-like
tree from which, when cut, flows a fragrant, resinous juice) or an oak Whose
stump remains when it is felled. The holy seedis its stump.”
Relatedpassages - see Acts 28:27, Eph 4:19, Heb 3:13, Pr 29:1, Ro 2:5
MacArthur adds "in that day when Jesus gave these parables, He didn't give
any explanation to the unbelievers in Israelbecause this was a judicial act in
which He was hiding the truth from those who are obstinate and stiff-necked.
The same thing exactly that He did in Isaiah's day when He said to Isaiah,
"You go preach, but I'm going to tell you this, nobody is going to listen to
what you say. Their ears will be deaf, their eyes will be blind, their hearts will
be like stone, they will not hear." And then Isaiahsaid, "How long do I do
that?" He said, "Justkeepdoing it until nobody is left in the land, they'll all
be taken into captivity and know this, there will be a tenth.” There will be a
tenth. There will be a remnant who will hear and they will believe. In the
equation of the parable of the soils, there's a fourth, one out of four soils. I
don't think you can count on that in every situation, one out of four, but it's
always the minority. But what a privilege, we know the truth. (Receptivity to
the Gospel)

Understand (4920)(suniemifrom sun/syn = with + hiemi = send) (Click study
of related noun sunesis)literally means to send togetheror bring together.
The idea is to put together"pieces ofthe puzzle" (so to speak)and to exhibit
quick comprehension. Suniemi is describes the ability to understand concepts
and see relationships betweenthem. Suniemi means to put together, graspor
exhibit quick comprehension. Suniemi is the manifestation of the ability to
understand concepts and see relationships betweenthem and thus describes
the exercise ofthe faculty of comprehension, intelligence, acuteness,
shrewdness. The noun sunesis was originally used by Homer in the Odyssey to
describe the running togetheror a flowing togetherof two rivers.
The Bible Knowledge Commentary has an interesting comment - Jesus'
speaking in parables was actuallyan actof grace to those listening to Him. If
they refused to acknowledge Him as Messiah, theirjudgment would be less
severe than if they had understood more (cf. Luke 10:13-15).
WILLIAM BARCLAY
Luke 8:9-10 have always beenpuzzling. It sounds as if Jesus is saying that he
spoke in parables so that people would not be able to understand; but we
cannot believe he would deliberately cloak his meaning from his listeners.
Various explanations have been suggested.
(i) Matthew 13:13, puts it slightly differently. He says that Jesus spoke in
parables because people could not rightly see and understand. Matthew seems
to say that it was not to hinder people from seeing and understanding but to
help them that Jesus so spoke.

(ii) Matthew quotes immediately after this a saying of Isaiah6:9-10, which in
effectsays, "I have spokento them the word of God and the only result is that
they have not understooda word of it." So then the saying of Jesus may
indicate not the object of his teaching in parables but the result of it.
(iii) What Jesus reallymeant is this--people can become so dull and heavy and
blunted in mind that when God's truth comes to them they cannotsee it. It is
not God's fault. They have become so mentally lazy, so blinded by prejudice,
so unwilling to see anything they do not want to see, that they have become
incapable of assimilating God's truth.
BRIAN BELL
THE PARABLES TAUGHT! (9-15)
G. Campbell Morganopened my mind to something I haven’t thought of
before.
Q: Did Jesus adopt this parabolic method in order to prevent people from
understanding Him?
Not see, not understand…What?
If it is not see nor understand “at all” then why is he saying it?
It is not for those who “getit”; & not for those who don’t “getit”…then why
tell it?
Jesus, in speaking to the greatmultitude said, “he who has ears to hear, let
him hear.” [Hear what? I thought they couldn’t?]
Was he mocking them? “I have something you can’t hear (understand), so
hear this?”

The Not seeing & not understanding quoted from Isaiah is speaking to not
understanding the deeper truths(cuz of their hard hearts)
Of course “the natural man can’t understand the things of the spirit, because
they are spiritually discerned.”
A parable then is not to hide all but to reveal some!!!
A parable was intended to arrest & lure by picture method, by story method.
He was hiding the mystery of the kingdom from these men, not the fact of the
kingdom. (G.Campbell Morgan;Gospelof Mark;pg.94)
He was revealing the basics, & hiding the deepermysteries.
He was employing the last & only method possible in public teaching, in
showing them as much as may be seen.
By telling them a story He seeksto hasten their steps towardthe heart of God.
Prov.25:2 “It is the glory of Godto conceala thing; but the glory of kings to
searchout a matter.”
GENE BROOKS
. Luke 8:10 – The secretsofthe kingdom: The mysterion (secret/mystery)
here is the as yet unrevealed plan of God in establishing the Kingdom. Much
different from the way the Greek cults used the word, Jesus uses the word
here to refer to the End Time acts of God to be revealedto those being saved.
The prophet Danielspoke of the mystery (Aram raz/LXX mysterion) of
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream that Daniel reveals concerning the coming Kingdom
of God that would crush all other kingdoms and endure forever (Daniel 2:18-
19, 27-30, 47). Jesus is referring to God’s end time plan and the role that Jesus
is playing in unfolding salvationhistory.

h. Luke 8:10 - Seeing they may not see:Now let’s stepback for a moment
and look at this parable in its context. It follows a summary statementof
Jesus’preaching the goodnews (Luke 8:1) and healing those with evil spirits
and infirmities (Luke 8:2). This parable focuses onthe different responses to
the ministries of Jesus, and Jesus’use of the quotation from Isaiah 6:9-10
focuses squarelyon that response. Jesus here abbreviates Isaiah6:9 (which
Mark 4:12 quotes more fully). In its context in Isaiah, the passagespeaksof
the certainty of the coming judgment on Israel. Israel’s rebellion had reached
the point that God would blind her eyes until his discipline was complete. In
Isaiah’s day, the agentof judgment was the Assyrian army which would
devastate Israel. Throughout the New Testament, Isaiah6:9 is used to point to
Israel’s rejectionof the gospel. The text points to God’s blinding and
deafening those who obstinatelyrefuse to repent and believe.
THOMAS CONSTABLE
Verse 9-10
The reasonfor using parables8:9-10 (cf. Matthew 13:10-17;Mark 4:10-12)
Luke focusedthe disciples" questionon the one parable he recordedso far.
Matthew and Mark had them asking Jesus why He was speaking to the people
in parables (plural). "Mysteries"were secretspreviouslyunknown about the
kingdom (cf. Daniel 2:20-23;Daniel2:28-30). The Greeks hadtheir mystery
religions the secrets ofwhich only the initiated knew. Consequently Luke"s
original readers would have had no trouble understanding Jesus" meaning.
The parables intentionally revealedsome truth to everyone who heard them,
but only Jesus"disciples, who took a serious interestin their meaning, could
understand the deepersignificance ofwhat they taught. One of the principles
of spiritual growth is that when a person studies Revelation, God gives him or

her the ability to understand more truth. Howeverwhen one does not seek to
understand it, God hides further truth from him or her ( Luke 8:18; Isaiah
6:9; cf. Exodus 8:32; Exodus 9:12; Romans 9:17-18). "In order that" ( Luke
8:10) indicates divine purpose more than result ( Luke 8:10).
STEVEN COLE
Superficial and Genuine Believers (Luke 8:4-15)
RelatedMedia
If you have been a Christian for a while, you have ridden the roller coasterof
greatjoy in seeing someone make a professionof faith in Jesus Christ,
followedby awful disappointment as the same person later fell awayfrom the
faith. Fora while he seemedto be dramatically changed. He gotinvolved in
the church. He was zealous for the things of God. But then a difficult trial hit.
Perhaps he had a conflict with someone in the church. Or he had a personal
health problem or he lost a loved one. His zeal cooledoff and gradually he
stopped coming to church. Every effort to restore him failed. Todayhe is back
in the world.
Others don’t fall away altogether, but their early enthusiasm wanes. They
settle into a routine that includes going to church as long as there isn’t
something “better” to do for the weekend. But God is not centralin their lives.
They are more focusedon their things and on having a good time in life. They
profess to be Christians, but they have no burden for the lostand no desire to
serve God. They are living basicallyfor self and for pleasure. But they are not
living in light of eternity.

How do you explain such people? Some would saythat they have lost their
salvation, but that clearly contradicts the many clearpassagesthat teachthat
those whom God saves, He keeps for eternity. Others saythat these folks are
saved, but they are “carnal.” Theycan go through life living in this carnalor
worldly state and they will still go to heaven, but they won’t have many
rewards waiting for them. But this popular but false teaching contradicts
Hebrews 12, which says that if a person is truly God’s child, then God will
discipline him. If a person lacks suchdiscipline, he is not a true child of God
at all.
In the familiar parable of the sower, we see thateven Jesus saw people
respond superficially to His message. The parable serves both as an
encouragementto His followers and a warning to His hearers. The
encouragementto His followers is that when we see people respond
superficially to the gospeland later fall away, we should not be discouragedin
that even Jesus had the same response. The problem was certainly not in His
preaching, but in the audience’s hearing. The warning to those who hear the
parable, of course, is to take it to heart so that we avoid a superficialfaith.
Whateverthe current state of our hearts, we can appeal to God to grant us a
new heart so that we will hold fast to Him and bear fruit with perseverance.
Clearly, Jesus was not teaching some sort of fatalism, that the kinds of soils
are fixed forever. By God’s grace, a personcan change.
The Setting:
To understand this parable, we must see the context: Jesus’ministry was
immensely popular (8:4). People were journeying from greatdistances to hear
Him speak. Manyconfuse popularity with fruitfulness. When large crowds
flock to a church, the preacher and the congregationthink, “Look how God
is blessing!” But, is He truly blessing? Jesus knew thatlarge crowds did not
equal God’s blessing unless those in the crowd were truly responding to God’s
Word with saving faith. Jesus knew the selfishand fickle hearts of sinful men.
He also knew the intensity of the spiritual conflict when the gospelis

preached, that Satanwaits to snatchthe seedbefore it can take root in hearts.
So He spoke this parable as a warning of the danger of a superficial response
to the gospel.
Why did Jesus speak ina parable that even His disciples did not at first
understand? Jesus explains in verse 10: “To you it has been granted to know
the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is in parables, in order
that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.” The
latter half of that verse is a quotation from Isaiah6:9, which is quoted no less
than six times in the New Testament. Parables serve two functions: They
revealtruth to those who are spiritually responsive;and they concealtruth
from those who are spiritually superficial or scoffing.
Jesus’words and the quote from Isaiahplunge us into one of the deep
mysteries that we cannotfully grasp, the fact that God sovereignlygrants
salvationto His elect, but that sinners are fully responsible for their
persistence in sin and their ultimate condemnation. For the disciples, God
sovereignlygranted that they know the mysteries of the kingdom of God
(8:10). No one can boastthat he discoveredthese mysteries by his own
reasoning or investigation. Only God can revealthem and He does not reveal
them to everyone. Is God then unfair? Not at all, because men are responsible
for their selfishness,stubbornness, and sin. They have no one but themselves
to blame for their own hardness of heart.
John Calvin (Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists [Baker], 2:108)
uses the illustration of the effects of the sun on a person with weak eyes. When
such a person steps out into bright sunlight, his eyes become dimmer than
before, but the fault lies not with the sun but with the person’s weak eyes.
Even so, when the Word of God blinds the reprobate, it is not the fault of the
Word, but of the person’s owndepravity. Thus by speaking in parables, Jesus
was seeking to fostera genuine response from His electwho would apply the

Jesus was using parables to blind unbelievers

Jesus was using parables to blind unbelievers

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to Jesus was using parables to blind unbelievers

Similar to Jesus was using parables to blind unbelievers (20)

More from GLENN PEASE

More from GLENN PEASE (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (16)

Jesus was using parables to blind unbelievers