© Matthew Tuel — 2025
Exodus 20:17 (NET, 2nd Ed.)
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
Romans 7:7-25 (NET, 2nd Ed.)
7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! Certainly, I would not have known sin except through the law. For indeed I would not have known what it means to desire something belonging to someone else if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of wrong desires. For apart from the law, sin is dead. 9 And I was once alive apart from the law, but with the coming of the commandment sin became alive 10 and I died. So I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life brought death! 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it I died. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good. 13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Absolutely not! But sin, so that it would be shown to be sin, produced death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual—but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin. 15 For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want—instead, I do what I hate. 16 But if I do what I don’t want, I agree that the law is good. 17 But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me. 18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want! 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me. 21 So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me. 22 For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. 23 But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Genesis 42:1 (NET, 2nd Ed.)
1 When Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why are you looking at each other?” 2 He then said, “Look, I hear that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy grain for us so that we may live and not die.”
Matthew 13:24-35 (NET, 2nd Ed.)
The Parable of the Weeds
24 He presented them with another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a person who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, an enemy came and sowed darnel among the wheat and went away. 26 When the plants sprouted and produced grain, then the darnel also appeared. 27 So the slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Then where did the darnel come from?’ 28 He said, ‘An enemy has done this!’ So the slaves replied, ‘Do you want us to go and gather it?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, since in gathering the darnel you may uproot the wheat along with it. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At harvest time I will tell the reapers, “First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burned, but then gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ”
The Parable of the Mustard Seed
31 He gave them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. 32 It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest garden plant and becomes a tree, so that the wild birds come and nest in its branches.”
The Parable of the Yeast
33 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of flour until all the dough had risen.”
The Purpose of Parables
34 Jesus spoke all these things in parables to the crowds; he did not speak to them without a parable. 35 This fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet:
“I will open my mouth in parables,
I will announce what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.”
With Calvin, we see an expansion of what was posited yesterday.
With Spurgeon, we see observation and parables. Some of my friends have complained of pastors that start their sermons with stories or analogies that tie into the sermon and help make it relatable. "Why can't he just read scripture?" Well, one of the examples Jesus set forth was to use parables, which amount to analogies. The goal of a teacher is to help the student understand a given topic, and an easy way to accomplish that goal is to relate the topic to another that the student is likely to be familiar with. Jesus did qoute a lot of scripture, yes, but that's not all he did.