That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat down. And the whole crowd stood on the beach.
Matthew 13:1-2
Jesus had a ministry to crowds of people. They followed Him because He healed people. But He always took the opportunity to preach good news to them without fail. And Matthew 13 records an abundance of teaching, via parables, about the kingdom of heaven as Jesus revealed it. And He spoke these illustrations in very relatable stories to the crowd. In this case He set out in a small boat and turned it into a pulpit as He faced the multitude who were standing on the beachside to hear Him.
Yet this chapter also shows Jesus interacting privately with His disciples on the same topic: the kingdom of heaven. It is to the disciples, and not the crowd, that Jesus reveals the interpretation of the parable of the sower and the soils. Later in Matthew 13:36, Jesus goes back into a private residence, away from the crowds and behind closed doors delivers even more kingdom pictures in parables to His disciples only. The truth was preached to the crowds, but it was expounded and applied in depth through its reception by the disciples.
How do we know this? The flow of the gospel of Matthew couldn’t be more poignant. In the very next section of Matthew 13:53-57, Jesus is rejected in Nazareth... His home town. The crowds who knew Him most were fickle. The rejection was real. We see that the very best investment to advance the gospel was in making disciples who made disciples. Nazareth saw His miracles and only peppered Him with doubts and scoffing questions. The disciples, however, knew His person and believed.
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