Matthew 13:13

“Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.”

And this is why He speaks to them in parables, because they are unseeing and unhearing and unreceptive in their minds. That would mean that any truth He taught them would either not be understood, or would merely anger them, or would be misinterpreted, or would be transformed in their minds into what they wanted Him to say. (There is nothing more exasperating for a preacher than to be congratulated on his sermon for saying the exact opposite of what he actually did say, due to the presuppositions of the listener). However, by receiving the truth in parables they will be saved from all three. They will receive whatever their heart is open to receive, they will not receive teaching parrot fashion, and if they want to know more, they will be able to ask. Meanwhile they will not have insulated themselves from the preacher’s words by having a constant ‘reinterpretation filter’ built into their thinking.

One of the great problems for the preacher or evangelist today in Western countries is that very often his listeners think that they know everything to do with what he is talking about because they have a smattering of vague and often completely wrong ideas about what Jesus did teach. And, if they bother to think about it at all, they interpret everything in that light. One good example of this is the idea of the Fatherhood of God. Most people today would consider that they know exactly what Jesus meant by that, and most of them are completely wrong. But they will never be convinced of that fact, unless God enlightens them, for it suits them to believe it. It had been better for them if they had never been taught it, or had been taught in parables.