Matthew 13:13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. There is a huge boulder stone close by a man's cottage on the moor. He has been familiar with that stone from the early days of childhood. He has passed it a thousand times. He has climbed over it when a boy, and rested in the shadow of it when hot and tired with the toil of manhood. It was there in his father's time before him. And yet he has never seen that stone. Ask him the composition of it. Ask him the geological history of it and he cannot tell. But a geologist passes that way, and at a glance he sees what the cottager has never caught a glimpse of. To him the stone tells stories of ages long anterior to Adam; he hears in imagination the wash of primaeval waters and the mighty crash of volcanic upheavals; to the one man the rock reveals no secrets; to the other it is a scroll written within and without. There is a man, cold, guileful as a serpent, who is full of an insatiable hoarding propensity. The one object of his life is to amass wealth. He will allow himself no luxury, no recreation, but toils and saves with hungry, greedy avarice unremittingly. His eye glitters like lightning, and his busy brain is for ever concocting plans for lucrative investment. The money-fever burns like a fire in his heart. The one ruling motto of his sordid life is get — get gold. Now such a man hears of a philanthropist, who has parcelled out his fortune for certain needy classes of the community. And the whole thing is an enigma, a puzzle to him. He cannot understand how any one can have any pleasure n giving away anything. "It is more blessed to give than to receive," is a saying which he simply cannot and will not believe. And he calls the philanthropist a fool, an idiot, a madman. He has no vision for the duty and blessedness of generosity, His whole nature rises up in antagonism to it. and he thrusts the idea of benevolence mockingly away from him. (T. Hammond.) Parallel Verses KJV: Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. |
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