Mark 4:21-25

Jesus continues to speak to His disciples in these verses, pushing the theme already elaborated upon - that of hearing/seeing is liken to one who takes Jesus' words and puts them into practice. He speaks of concealment and disclosure - what He has said by way of theology is expounded and better explained through parables. Verses 21-23 help explain why Jesus was so upset with His disciples; they heard His theology, but they couldn't make the connection with the parables, and furthermore had difficulty putting some flesh and blood to those parables (living them out).

In verse 24, we have an interesting sentence structure in the Greek. In English, "Consider carefully what you hear." A more literal translation, "See what you hear." Maybe a good English rendering would be, "Are you getting the picture?" And He continues that the person who gets what He is speaking of will continue to get more and more. The person who does not "get it" (or put it into practice), even what he/she gets will be taken away (or forgotten). Hence, hearing is doing. The person who hears but does not do does not truly hear. It's a call to action, similar to the Sh'ma in Deuteronomy 6:4: "Hear [Do!], O Israel...."

But Jesus is soon to give a twist to this action in the next parable.