Parables enhance the understanding of those who earnestly seek God’s will, but remain a mystery to those whose minds have been darkened by the deceitfulness of sin. God does not arbitrarily conceal the truth from anyone. It is concealed only from those who have shut their eyes and ears, spiritually speaking. However, if at any time they turn to God in repentance and seek His will, He will remove the blinders and lead them to greater understanding. When this happens, the parables of Jesus will benefit them enormously.

When His disciples asked Him why He spoke in parables, Jesus replied, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to him who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which says:

“‘You shall indeed hear but never understand, and you shall indeed see but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are heavy of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn to me to heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it” (Matthew 13:10–17, Revised Standard Version).

Knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom of God “has not been given” to certain people because their “heart has grown dull, and their ears are heavy of hearing, and their eyes they have closed.”

The parables of Jesus are not the cause of spiritual blindness. They conceal truth in the sense that they are indiscernible to those who have closed their own eyes. Jesus knew that divine secrets presented in the form of metaphors would hardly be understood by those insensible to spiritual things.