I am just 'thinking out loud' today. This morning I read the parable of the sower - you know, the hard soil by the road, the rocky ground, the thorny soil and of course the good soil. I started wondering the same thing I always wonder when I read a parable: why did Jesus choose to use parables? Maybe that's an easy answer to someone else, but I've always had trouble with it. Why didn't Jesus just directly say the lesson he wanted to convey to the hearers? While he is direct in many portions of scripture, sometimes the parables are hard sayings. Then it struck me... the answer isn't as hard as I was making it. Every time I read a parable, I have to 'think'. I have to really ponder what it is that he is saying. I have to actually engage my mind! Was this his reason for speaking in parables? To get the hearers to 'think'? For those who heard the parables and thought through them, Jesus had some profound lesson for them to learn... and for those who didn't have 'ears to hear', the message was concealed from them.
The Christian faith is a 'thoughtful' faith. We have our Bibles and our minds, and so the Lord expects us to 'hear' and to think. The Christian faith is a 'reasoning' faith. "Come let us reason together", the Lord says in Isaiah. Reasoning, thinking, pondering engaging. We don't have a baseless faith; there is no blind faith in Christianity. No, it is reasonable. It is thoughtful. And so as we read the scriptures, we sink deep into them and think through the words and phrases. If we immerse ourselves in the Word, rely on the Holy Spirit as our teacher and helper, then the passages will become more clear to us than if we simply gloss over them in an effort to get our 15-minute or 3-chapter-a-day quota.
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