“Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”

      Then pointing to His disciples, Jesus said ...

“Behold my mother and my brothers.”

      Jesus did not mean that He did not love His mother any longer. We know that Jesus loved her very dearly. Jesus meant that it would be wrong for Him to give up His work even for the sake of such a dear friend as His mother. He meant that others needed Him more than she did. He meant that He must love and work for them as much as a man would love and work for his nearest and dearest friends.

      So Jesus went on from one city to another, helping people’s souls and bodies. If Jesus was near the lake when men and women crowded to hear Him, He would often step into a boat, as He did that other day, and pushed out a little way from the shore. Jesus would sometimes sit on such a boat and teach the people while they stood on the shore. Jesus could teach them this way much more easily than He could standing among the crowds.

      One of Jesus’ favorite ways of teaching was by parable. A parable is a sort of story. The Lord often explained to His disciples what the story meant, even when He left it for other people to guess. This is one of the Lord’s parables.

      A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed some of the seed fell by the side of the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Some of the seeds fell on stony places. These seeds sprang up very soon, because the earth was not deep. But when the sun came up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. Some of the seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. But other seeds fell into good ground and bore fruit, thirty, sixty, or one hundred times as much as was planted.

      The disciples asked Jesus to tell them what this parable meant. This is the way Jesus explained it ...

“I am the sower; the lessons I try to teach are the seed; the people are the ground. When I said that some of the seed fell by the side of the path, I meant that some of the people hear with their ears, but do not think enough about my words to learn them, and do not try to understand them. So, very soon, the wicked spirit, who is always watching, whispers other thoughts into their minds. The good lessons are forgotten, and cannot grow and bear fruit.”

“The stony ground hearers understand my teachings, and try to obey them for a time. But they are not brave enough to keep on trying when it is hard to do right, or someone makes fun of them.”

“The thorns are those whose minds are so filled with their work or play, with getting money or having a good time, that thoughts of God and what he wants them to do are almost crowded out.”

“The good ground hearers are those who try all the time to know and do what is right, and the more they know and the more they do, the happier and the more useful they become.”

      Here is another parable that Jesus told them ...

“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. At night, when everybody was asleep, an enemy (someone who did not like him) came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away quietly, without being seen.”

“Tares are weeds which look very much like wheat until the seeds are ripe. There is a little difference, but one has to look carefully to see it. But the seed is very bad; it is almost poisonous. If it is picked and mixed with the wheat it makes the people who eat it sick.”

“When it was time for the young plants to show, the servants noticed that some were a little different from the rest. They looked closely, and found that they were tares. They went to their master, and said: ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How is it that there are tares there?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done it.’ The servants asked, ‘Shall we go and gather them up?’ The master answered, ‘No, for fear that if you try to gather the tares you will root up some of the wheat also. Let both grow together until the harvest time. Then I will say to the reapers, Gather together the tares first, bind them in bundles and burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn.”

      In this parable the man who sowed the wheat is God; the enemy is Satan. Satan is that wicked spirit who tempted Jesus. In this parable our thoughts are the seed; the harvest is the end of the world. Whatever we think that is good is a seed which God has planted. Whatever we think that is a naughty thought is a seed sowed by Satan. If we allow the good seed to grow, God will take us to His home in heaven when we die. But if we allow Satan’s bad seed to grow, we must be punished, like the tares in Jesus’ parable were burned.

      Jesus spoke other parables. One was about a small seed being planted, and a big tree growing from it. Another was about a little yeast being put into the middle of a pan of flour and working its way through the whole mass of dough. These parables show us what great things may come from little beginnings. We do not know how much good a little act of kindness, even a little word or smile, may help and encourage someone.

      Here is another parable that Jesus did not explain to the people who crowded around to hear Him teach. Perhaps we can understand the meaning of this parable on our own ...

“The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant man looking everywhere for good pearls. When he had found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”

      All these and many other parables Jesus spoke to the people one day as He was sitting in a fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee. The Lord taught all day, and when evening came He was tired. He said to His disciples ...

“Let us cross over to the other side of the lake.”

      The disciples were glad to do as Jesus wished.

      It was pleasant weather when they started, but before they had been out very long storm clouds began to gather. Fishermen on the Sea of Galilee do not like to see clouds look like these clouds did. To them, such storm clouds meant high wind, and a storm that was coming very quickly. These fishermen disciples of Jesus knew what the danger was, so they got their boat ready to stand the coming wind and rain as best they could.

      Jesus was so tired that He laid His head on a pillow that someone had placed in the stern of the boat. Jesus went to sleep soon after they started their journey. The storm came nearer and nearer. At last the storm was upon them in all its strength. The rain poured, the wind blew with gale force. The waves came over the sides of the boat. Jesus slept quietly through the storm. The disciples knew that Jesus was very tired, so they did not wake Him. They were busy working hard, doing all they could to fight the storm and save Jesus’ life and their own.

      The water began to fill up the boat. The disciples thought they were all going to drown. Still Jesus did not wake up. The disciples became so frightened that they did not know anything else but to touch Jesus and say ...

“Master, do you not care whether we drown or not?”

      Jesus awoke. He was not frightened at all. The Lord said ...

“Can you not trust me yet?”

      Then He got up, and, looking over the stormy and troubled water, Jesus said to the waves ...

“Peace, be still.”

      In a moment the winds had stopped blowing, and the water was perfectly quiet.

      Even though the disciples had seen Jesus do many wonderful things, they were still surprised at the sudden change in the weather. They said ...

“What kind of a man is this that even the winds and the waves obey him?”

      The storm was over, and they were soon across the lake. They had no sooner stepped on the shore than they were met by two demoniacs, or insane men. These two men lived in the caves and among the rocks on the shore. Insanity had made one of these men dangerous. He was wild. No one could tame him. Many times he had been tied with ropes and chains. But each time he had worked on the ropes and chains until he found a way to break them apart. This dangerous, insane man wandered among the caves night and day, screaming and cutting his body with stones. He had torn all his clothes to pieces.

      When this man saw Jesus coming, even when the Lord was far off, he began to cry out ...

“What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of the most high God? Do not trouble me.”

      Jesus said ...

“Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.”

      Jesus then asked the man what his name was. He was not yet in his right mind, and still talked about the many evil spirits that were living in him.

      He asked Jesus to send them out of him into some pigs that were feeding on the shore of the lake. There were about two thousand pigs in this herd. Just then, the whole herd ran down the bank into the sea, and were drowned. The men and boys that were taking care of them told everyone in the city and in the country what had happened.

      People wanted to know if the story was true. So, people hurried to the shore to find out for themselves if it were true. There they found the dangerous, insane man they had all been afraid of. There he was sitting by Jesus. He had his clothes on and he was in his right mind. Now the people feared Jesus, because He could make the evil spirits obey Him. The people begged Jesus not to stay with them any longer. They asked Him to go back to His own country. Just think about what those people lost when Jesus left them! Jesus did as they asked, and got into the boat again.

      The man just cured by Jesus wanted to go with Him, but the Lord said ...

“No, go back to your friends and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you.”

      The man obeyed Jesus. Just think about what happened to this man! Just a few hours before he was insane. Just a few hours before he was wild and dangerous. Just a few hours before people feared him. Now he went through all the cities telling everybody that Jesus had cured him and made him well.