The Kingdom's Similitude
Matthew 12:46-50
While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood without, desiring to speak with him.…


Not the kingdom of heaven is, but the kingdom of heaven is like, so and so. Truth is a separate matter from the forms of phrase along which it is conveyed, or the forms of thought under which it is apprehended. In this respect it resembles the light. No painter can paint light. He can give you colours, the greens, the blues, the crimsons, but he cannot give you light; and yet if he is a genius he will succeed in filling his picture with those tinted suggestions that will somehow quicken in you a deep, thrilling sense of light. So Christ, in a similar manner, did not point out to His disciples this particular thing and that particular thing, but loaded His sentences with suggestions, and started in men's minds presentiments that went leaping along ahead of the spoken word He cut no grooves for men's opinions to slip in, fashioned no moulds for those opinions to be cast in; did not care to have them think precisely this, or precisely that; tied them to no nice forms of declaration; did not accentuate with periods. And so their minds moved as vessels move at sea; at the direction of the compass, to be sure. but without the sea ever being worn down into ruts and roadways. He drew for them pictures of the truth, and then let them make what they could of these pictures. A truth never can be quite told. It is best seen when we are not trying too hard to see it, not straining our eyes to see it — as faint stars become visible when we look a little off from them.

(C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him.

WEB: While he was yet speaking to the multitudes, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, seeking to speak to him.




The General Teaching of These Seven Parables
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