“When Jesus told his parables to the people, his disciples asked, why do you talk to them in riddles? And his answer was: ‘So they won’t catch on. Because anything they could catch on to would be the wrong thing. As Isaiah said, seeing they don’t see and hearing they don’t hear, neither do they understand [Matthew 13:10-17]. That’s why I talk to them like this: because I don’t want them to have little lights go on in their heads. I want to put out all the lights they’ve got, so that in the darkness they can listen to me.'” – Robert Farrar Capon from an interview with Alive Now Nov/Dec 2001.
Early Church Studies 