To what does Mark 4:1-20 introduce the reader?
This extended section of teaching Jesus introduces us to parables. The discourse is bracketed by the phrase many parables
(Mark 4:2, Mark 4:33) and we are probably meant to understand that this was Jesus’ normal way of teaching people (Mark 4:11).
1 Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land.