Welcome to Form Now. I'm Tim Gray, president of the Augustine Institute. And joining me is Dr. Michael Barber,

who is a professor here at the Augustine of Scripture and a great author and biblical books and scholarship.

And we're going to continue our Bible study on the Gospel of Matthew. And we left off and finished off chapter 12 last time.

So we're going to pick up with Chapter 13 of the gospel of Matthew. And I just want to

set up the story here. Jesus is going to come out of the house. So he says that same day, Jesus

went out of the house and sat beside the sea. And then a great crowds came and gathered about

him. And he got into a boat and sat down and the whole

crowd stood on the beach and he told them many things in parables and what we're going to find is a

whole host of parables some count out seven parables but there might be eight parables and dr barbara will go

into that in a minute but this is a discourse that is a speech of jesus where he is going to be teaching in one consecutive parable after another where he is going to be teaching in one consecutive

parable after another.

So we're going to get the string of parables in chapter 13.

And those parables will all be about the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven.

And that'll be very important, but we're going to break into why he is teaching about that.

But when we talk about these parables, I just want to set this story before we talk about what a parable is, and that's where we're going to begin in a minute.

I want to mention that he goes out of the house here in verse 1, and then in verse 36,

he goes back into the house with it just as disciples, and then he explains the meaning of the parables.

So you have this, Matthew setting up the symbolism of outside of the house, Jesus teaches in parables,

and most people don't understand.

There's a lot of obscurity and misunderstanding about the nature of Jesus' teaching.

But inside the house, there Jesus explains, and there's understanding and clarity about Jesus' teaching.

And, of course, the house is Peter's house, because we're in Kaferno.

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