Jesus used parables to teach people all sorts of things. He said to them: "Listen! There once was a man who went out to sow seed. Some of the seed he sowed fell on the pathway and birds came along and ate it. Some seed fell on rocky ground where the soil was shallow. It soon sprouted because there wasn't much earth. Because its roots weren't deep enough it withered and was scorched when the sun came up. Some seed fell among thorn bushes. It produced no grain because the thorns choked it. But some seed fell on fertile soil. It sprouted and grew, producing grain - some with a yield of thirty, some of sixty and some of one hundred."

4.9
Jesus usually finished by saying: "Those with good hearing had better listen!"

4.21, 25
Jesus once said: "Surely a lamp isn't brought inside to be put under a measuring basket or under a bed? Isn't it placed on a lamp-stand?"

He also said: "Those who have a lot will be given even more. And those who have almost nothing will have even that taken away from them. Anyone who has two good ears had better listen!"

4.26-29
And again he once said: "The way God gets things done* is like this: it's like a man sowing seed on his land. He gets up every day and goes to bed every night, paying little attention while the seed sprouts and matures. The process is automatic - first comes the shoot, then the head, and finally a mature ear of grain. When the grain is ripe, the man acts quickly, calling for his sickle, because it's time to harvest."

4.30-33
Yet again Jesus asked: "What's the best way to describe how God acts?* What sort of parable can we use? Think of a mustard seed. It's smaller than any other seed on earth. But when it's planted and comes up it's one of the biggest garden plants. It's branches are large enough for birds to make their nests in its shade."

By using parables like these, Jesus was able to tell people as much as they were capable of understanding.

* The phrase "The way God gets things done" and "... how God acts" replace the more familiar "The kingdom of God" and the "God's imperial rule" of the Jesus Seminar. The phrases could also be rendered by something like "The way God works in the world". The thinking behind this translation is [a] that kingdoms and empires are no longer viable paradigms for ways of organising society in the 21st century; and [b] that no one nation can now be reasonably seen as operating in isolation. Each nation is inextricably bound up with every other. So when we now think of our world, it makes sense to imagine an all-embracing, highly complex, totally integrated system. The tiniest part of this system affects every other part. When we imagine God acting today, it no longer works well to think of an emperor or a king giving commands for things to be done by underlings. If God does intervene in the world - and that's by no means certain - then something like the
phrases used here seem more expressive than those favoured by tradition. In addition, note that in the Old Testament God's Kingdom is not depicted as a place or a region but in terms of power and might. Kingship relates to action, not to hierarchical position.

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