Matthew 13:10
And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? 11He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. 12For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. 13Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.

14And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:


In other words, these are parables giving teachings of knowledge that the lay man isn't really or able to understand, so the layman gets a nice parable story, and the advanced disciple gets the true teachings hidden in the parable.

By hidden I don't mean a secret code or something, but rather just multiple levels of knowledge in the same wording, based on understanding and context.

So in conclusion, Christianity as the general people understand it is not what Christ was actually the advanced knowledge Jesus was actually teaching.

And so Christianity is not what most people think it is.