Why did Jesus seemingly speak in Riddles, Stories, and Illustrations?

When Jesus seemingly spoke in riddles, stories, and illustrations, He did so on purpose. The common man did not understand them because they were spiritually deaf and blind, unable to discern the meaning of spiritual truths. 

The ancient "believers" spiritually understood Jesus' concepts because they possessed a spiritual awareness that enabled them to spiritually understand the parables, stories, and illustrations Jesus used, and they were able to be discerned by the listener because they were spiritually open to the God's truths. 

Jesus spoke in parables and illustrations that required an open spiritual mind for the meaning of the parables, stories, and illustrations to be fully understood in the spiritual sense, and He did it on purpose, so that only those who were seeing and able to hear His truths would understand them.

"The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned." This means that to a spiritually blind individual, spiritual things are meaningless. 1 Corinthians 2:14.

Jesus seemingly speaking in riddles, stories, and illustrations makes it even more difficult for those living in the present day to understand because they perceive things they read in the Bible that they comprehend in the literal sense, without an understanding of the nuances of culture, language, and the varied characteristics of living in those ancient times that accompany the meaning of the passages of the Bible.  

Therefore, present day believers, if they want to fully understand the meaning of the scriptures, and especially Jesus' seemingly using riddles, stories, and illustrations, it is recommended that they also seek a better in-depth understanding of the ancient languages, which are the Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek languages.  

Understanding the ancient language meanings, understanding the cultures, etc...are not a level of knowledge that can be easily obtained by most believers. But, much of the work has been done for us because this can be found in the commentaries on the Bible, where scholars have translated the literal meaning of the ancient languages.  

We can more easily understand what the words meant, spiritually, in the time the ancient languages were written in, along with commentary on the culture of the times the scriptures were written in, and the way in which the daily lives of the ancients lived, by reading Bible commentaries that apply this information to the various passages of the Bible.  

In addition, there are modern day translations of the Bible that make understanding the passages of the Bible more accurately for believers. One of these is the Parallel Bible, which displays the passages of the King James Version of the Bible next to modern translations of the passages of the Bible.

However, the Parallel Bible doesn't add the commentary that further enlightens the reader to accurate translations of the languages the passages were written in.  Some words in the ancient languages have many different meanings depending on context. The commentaries more accurately translate the words the original scriptures were written in, and they apply them within the context of the messages that the writer intended. 


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