An addition to the BHT, where Jesus tells his followers why he often teaches in story format, parable, allegory, analogy, symbol, or metaphor, instead of directly and literally.

10 The followers of Jesus came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to them in stories and allegories?”

11 He replied, “It’s been graced to you to know the mysticism of nondual unitive consciousness, but to them this has not been given.

12 “Whoever has been given this gnosis will have an overflowing abundance of insight and understanding; but whoever has not had this, even that which they think they know will be taken away from them, and their knowledge is as nothing.

13 “It’s for this reason that I talk to them in metaphors, to help clarify. Because even though they see, they do not really see; even though they hear, they do not really hear, and so they don’t understand if you try to tell it to them directly.

14 “They are the epitome of the prophetic truth that Isaiah wrote, ‘You will hear it all, but you won’t understand anything; you will see it all but you won’t perceive what it means.

15 “‘Your hearts have grown hard and impenetrable, your consciousness being heavily veiled by ego, so that you cannot hear with your ears, nor see with your eyes, both being closed up. Otherwise you would be able to see with your eyes, and hear with your ears what I’m saying, and your heart would embrace it, your consciousness would be attuned to it, and that would draw you to re-turn to the nondual unitive consciousness in yourself and be healed by it, being reconciled and redeemed, at-Oned in God.’

16 “But you followers, on the other hand, are full of joy and grace, because your eyes can clearly see, and your ears can clearly hear the meaning, having experienced it yourself.

17 “In fact, I’ll say that even many prophets and other very good persons in history have long desired to see what you can now see, but they didn’t, and hear what you can now hear, and haven’t, unfortunately.”

The image at the top is of Papyrus 103, perhaps the earliest extant papyrus manuscript showing a portion of Matthew 13 (verses 55-56), written in Greek, dated to the late 2nd or early 3rd century.