And with many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear,
Mark ends this run of parables with a note on the Lord's method. He fitted the word to what His hearers could take in — so why did He hold back, and what does that say about the way God gives truth?
The verse does not say Jesus told them everything He knew. It says His hearers' ability set the limit of what He gave.
In line with this principle of teaching fitted to the time, the Heavenly Teacher considered the capacity of His disciples and the degree of their spiritual growth. He chose the "measure and manner" of teaching that suited them best. The parable and its explanation were the means the Lord used to give them the "word of the kingdom." He gave it in the proportion that their minds and hearts were ready to receive it, giving them "food at the proper time." Their capacity for hearing was the measure.
The word "them" matters. It reaches past the disciples to the crowd, and it shows how the Lord still viewed them.
"With many such parables he spoke … to them"; here we have "to them" again, because He has not been speaking only to the disciples. But they still stand here as objects of the word, not as blasphemers. And He explained everything to His disciples in private.
The Lord began to speak in parables when the rulers and scribes blasphemed the Spirit. So why did He keep using them?
"As they were able to hear it" shows, I think, that He had begun to speak in parables when the rulers and scribes showed their blasphemy against the Spirit. Yet He continued doing it in mercy — patient mercy, in which He never failed. He fitted it to them, so that whoever had ears to hear might find what was suitable for them.
Elsewhere the Lord says He speaks in parables so that those who hear will not perceive. Set beside our verse, that looks like a flat contradiction.
So we also have what stupid, most stupid, rationalists would call contradiction. He spoke to them in parables as they were able to bear it. Yet He spoke to them in parables, so that hearing they might hear and not perceive. It was perfectly suited to them in grace. But it met a nation that refused truth given in this way, so that where the will was prejudiced, everything stayed dark. Those who had judged themselves, who had repented, believed and glorified Him.
The same story shelters the seeker and shuts out the scorner. Wanting to learn made the difference.
By such a method of teaching He tested everyone in the vast crowd who heard what He said, to see who wanted to learn. For we read: "he did not speak to them without a parable"; yet He spoke, as Mark alone tells us, "as they were able to hear it" (4:33). The profit of souls was His aim, and all who desired it had the interpretation.
A limit set by capacity is not a permanent ceiling. As hearers grow, they receive more.
We see, then, that the Lord recognised spiritual growth in His hearers. On one occasion He had many things to say, but the apostles were then unable to bear them (John 16:12). When the Spirit of truth came at Pentecost, He led them on into all truth. But in the letters, as in the Gospels, we find that the ministry of the truth took each person's progress into account. Paul fed some with "milk," and others with "meat" (1 Cor. 3:2; Heb. 5:12).
How much truth should you press on someone new to it? The Lord's own practice sets the standard.
When we preach the gospel to the unconverted, no sensible person would think we ought to bring in the deeper mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, or of the Church of God. The Lord Jesus spoke the word to the people "as they were able to hear it" (Mark 4:33). … Should not every wise teacher adapt his instruction to the condition of those taught? Who would teach conic sections or Euclid's elements to a child who had only learnt his alphabet?
- The measure — Not His knowledge but their capacity for hearing set how much the Lord gave at one time.
- Mercy in the measure — The leaders blasphemed, yet He kept teaching. He fitted His words so that anyone with ears could find what suited them.
- Two edges to the measure — The same parable was grace to those who judged themselves. To a nation whose will refused the truth, it was darkness.
- A moving measure — Milk for the young, meat for the grown. As hearers grow, they receive more; at Pentecost the Spirit carried the disciples further.
- Copying the measure — A wise teacher fits the lesson to the hearer, as the Lord did. No one starts a child on geometry before the alphabet.
but without a parable spoke he not to them; and in private he explained all things to his disciples.
Mark ends his record of the lakeside parables with two sides of one method: a veiled word for the crowd, a full explanation for those closest to Jesus. Why would the same Teacher hide and reveal at once, and what marked out the group who got the key?
The parables were not illustrations designed to make hard ideas easy. One writer explains what they were instead:
Even the apostles could not see what the parables meant without the Lord's own explanation, and that shows the parables were not used the way we normally use figures of speech. They were not like similes or metaphors or allegories brought in to light up a talk, decorate it, or make it simpler. The parables did the opposite. However deeply they stuck in the memory, they wrapped the truth in a veil, and neither the disciples nor the crowd could see through it. The Prophet lifted that veil to teach His followers. As we read, "He did not speak to them [the crowd] without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything." So when He asked them, "Have you understood all these things?" they could answer, "Yes, Lord."
Two Greek words can both be translated "without," and they do not mean the same thing:
One expresses lack, or non-existence; the other expresses only separation, being apart. Matthew 13:34 and Mark 4:34 only claim that apart from parables He spoke nothing then.
The difference between the crowd and the disciples was not intelligence. The dividing line ran through the will:
It suited them exactly, so that anyone who had ears to hear could take it in. But it was darkness to the stubborn and disobedient. Besides that, He made everything clear to the disciples in private, because they had given up their own will to His, slow though they might be.
Another writer puts the two outcomes side by side:
The explanation is for those who desire to take the truth to heart: others are left in their ignorance.
"Privately" describes a habit, not one evening. The disciples brought their hard questions to Him once the crowds had gone:
They came to Him alone to ask why they could not cast the demon out of a young man. Later, near the end of His ministry, some of them wanted to know more about the destruction of the temple, and what the sign of His coming and of the end of the age would be. They came to Him with their questions in private, as He sat on the Mount of Olives. These were not rare exceptions. Teaching like this in private was their normal experience, as we read, "He did not speak to them [the crowd] without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything."
The explanations were not a private luxury. They were training for men who would soon have to carry the message themselves:
This fits the plan of the Gospel, which shows not only the ministry of the Servant of Jehovah Himself, but also how He prepared His followers to carry on a divine witness on earth when He would be gone. The Lord had chosen and appointed them to preach the gospel of the kingdom. But how could they do that work well if they could not see the mysteries of the kingdom themselves? He set the new features that were to mark the people of God before the crowds in parables, but He explained the truths underneath them in full to the believing remnant.
The disciples did not hold on to everything He told them. The same writer points to a promise that covered the gap:
Whatever the disciples failed to keep of the parables and the explanations opened up to them during their Master's ministry, the Holy Spirit would bring back to their memory after He came at Pentecost. That was the Lord's promise (John 14:26).
- Veiled — The parables did not simplify the truth; they covered it. Nobody in the crowd, and none of His twelve closest followers, could see through them until the Teacher lifted the veil.
- Limited — "Without a parable" describes His method at that time, not a rule that He never spoke any other way.
- Surrendered — What separated those who got the explanation was not brainpower but a will handed over to Christ. The disciples were slow, yet teachable, and He made the meaning clear to them.
- Accessible — Private explanation became their habit. When they later hit problems they could not solve, they knew to come to Him apart and ask.
- Commissioned — The private teaching had a public aim. Men who would preach the kingdom had to understand it first. The crowd heard the picture; His followers heard the meaning.