What was he thinking?

Jesus used parables. We all know that. Some are deep, some are fun, some are great for making into sketches etc.

But don't they make things harder to understand? Why not spell things out direct, crystal clear, line by line. Surely that would make more sense, avoid room for mis-understanding, get straight to the point.

Note in Mark's gospel how it kind of seems like he actually 'switched ' into using parables (round about 3:20f). Perhaps this was a response to his authority (in driving out demons) being directly challenged. For at this point onwards he seems to want to separate people into the hearers and non-hearers, an effect achieved by using parables.

Yet here is something even more curious, especially for us as we work out how to do mission. Mark tells us that Jesus explained stuff later to his close followers (4:10, 33-34), and yet Mark himself only records a couple of these explanations. Why doesn't Mark give us the detailed handbook to spell things out clearly?

It strikes me Mark was writing with mission purpose, telling people about Jesus and his work through the book. Does the book generally keep to the original parables to have the same separating effect?

Maybe there are times when working with people we need to use the parables, and through them discover who is really interested and who is only there for the beer.