Introduction:
Have you ever shared an encrypted message with your spouse in order to communicate a message that he or she would understand but that the children would miss?
Do you know that parables were something like that? Jesus taught his followers in parables so that they could gain spiritual understanding while others listening in could not. Without spiritual insight, people were incapable of grasping the truth being taught. In I Corinthians 2:1 through 3: 4, Paul wrote of different types of people; spiritually mature, spiritually immature, and natural (unsaved). Each group responds differently to the truth.
When a person preaches or teaches the word of God, his listeners hear him through preconceived ideas that determine what they understand from the message. Unsaved people cannot grasp spiritual truth. They hear the message one way. Spiritually immature, people cannot grasp much spiritual truth, so they hear in a different way. Spiritually mature people here in a distinctive way as well. They are able to grasp truth the others cannot.