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Our Vision is to Glorify God and Make Disciples through MANY SITES yet ONE Church Family.
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NOTES FROM GOTQUESTIONS.ORG
Question:
"Why did Jesus teach in parables?"
Answer:
It has been said that a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. The Lord Jesus frequently used parables as a means of illustrating profound, divine truths. Stories such as these are easily remembered, the characters bold, and the symbolism rich in meaning.
Parables were a common form of teaching in Judaism. Before a certain point in His ministry, Jesus had employed many graphic analogies using common things that would be familiar to everyone (salt, bread, sheep, etc.) and their meaning was fairly clear in the context of His teaching.
Parables required more explanation, and at one point in His ministry, Jesus began to teach using parables exclusively.
The question is why Jesus would let most people wonder about the meaning of His parables. The first instance of this is in His telling the parable of the seed and the soils. Before He interpreted this parable, He drew His disciples away from the crowd. They said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in parables?" Jesus answered them, "To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive; For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it" (Matthew 13:10-17).
From this point on in Jesus’ ministry, when He spoke in parables, He explained them only to His disciples. But those who had continually rejected His message were left in their spiritual blindness to wonder as to His meaning. He made a clear distinction between those who had been given “ears to hear” and those who persisted in unbelief—ever hearing, but never actually perceiving and “always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). The disciples had been given the gift of spiritual discernment by which things of the spirit were made clear to them. Because they accepted truth from Jesus, they were given more and more truth. The same is true today of believers who have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit who guides us into all truth (John 16:13). He has opened our eyes to the light of truth and our ears to the sweet words of eternal life.
Our Lord Jesus understood that truth is not sweet music to all ears. Simply put, there are those who have neither interest nor regard in the deep things of God. So why, then, did He speak in parables? To those with a genuine hunger for God, the parable is both an effective and memorable vehicle for the conveyance of divine truths. Our Lord’s parables contain great volumes of truth in very few words—and His parables, rich in imagery, are not easily forgotten. So, then, the parable is a blessing to those with willing ears. But to those with dull hearts and ears that are slow to hear, the parable is also an instrument of both judgment and mercy.
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NOTES FROM Wiersbe Commetary
Why did Jesus teach in parables?
Two reasons were given: because of the sluggishness of the people (Matt. 13:10-17); and because it was prophesied in Psalm 78:2 (Matt. 13:34-35).
Jesus did not teach in parables to confuse or condemn the people.
Rather, He sought to excite their interest and arouse their curiosity.
These parables would give light to those with trusting, searching hearts.
But they would bring darkness to the unconcerned and unrepentant.
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NOTES FROM LIGONIER MINISTRIES
The Purpose of the Parables (ANOTHER VIEW)
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“Truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” (v. 17). - Matthew 13:12–17
Examining the purpose of parables.
Jesus tells us in Matthew 15:12–15 that He speaks in parables to hide the secrets of the kingdom from some and reveal them to others
(Matt. 13:12–15).
This does not mean His parables are full of esoteric information that only a select few can grasp with their minds. Christ’s enemies often understand exactly what His parables mean (see 21:33–46); the problem is their refusal to trust His teaching about Himself and God’s kingdom.
The difficulty the Pharisees have is moral and thus volitional, not intellectual. They choose not to believe our Savior’s words.
Those who take up their cross gain more access to kingdom truth; those who reject Him lose whatever insight they had (13:12).
Matthew Henry says parables make the things of God “more plain and easy” to those willing to be taught, and “at the same time more difficult and obscure to those who [are] willfully ignorant.”
A person’s final response to the parables reveals whether or not he is elect ...
JESUS speaks in parables so that the rebellious will rage against Him more fiercely and manifest the justness of their condemnation (Matt. 13:13–15; Rom. 9:19–24). The Almighty decrees that those whom His grace passes over will hate His Son. And those whom His grace passes over do choose to hate His Son without coercion. We are always free to do what we want, but apart from God’s grace we do not want to love Jesus.
We would be amiss to emphasize the parables’ hardening purpose over the gratitude Jesus encourages in the elect. Our focus is not to be on why God has not chosen some. Instead, we must be thankful that He has made us, who are no more deserving than the reprobate, to see the kingdom (Matt. 13:16–17).
Coram Deo
We should marvel at God’s grace every time we recall that we have trusted Christ alone for our salvation. Before the Lord quickened us, we were dead in sin and had no desire at all to know or serve Him. But by His Spirit our Creator overcame this stubbornness and changed our hearts, enabling us to believe the Gospel. Take time today to thank God for His matchless grace and remember that your deeds contribute nothing to your salvation.
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NOTES FROM Adrian Rogers:
Jesus gave parables and these are things, mysteries that we need to understand.
A mystery in the bible is a truth that you cannot know apart from divine revelation. In the bible a mystery is a truth that you cannot comprehend
with your mind alone. Something you could not learn by observation or by human study. You would have to understand it by divine revelation.
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THE ACTUAL INTRODUCTION
TO PARABLES from MTB (Mastering The Basics)
“He taught them many things by parables…” (Mk 4:2).
Jesus was a master storyteller.
Whether he was addressing a large crowd on a hillside, sharing a private meal with his disciples, or answering one of the Pharisees’ trick questions, Jesus would often use stories to make his point.
Jesus used other methods of teaching, of course. He gave lectures and sermons, he posed thought-provoking questions, and he debated and dialogued. But there was something unique about the stories he told. Though simple in form, these stories carried a deeper message that slowly penetrated the minds of his listeners until the truth of it exploded within them. Some people were enlightened and compelled to glorify God. Others were enraged when they realized what Jesus was really saying about them and about himself.
These stories-or parables-have a lasting quality about them. They not only challenged the original hearers to reconsider seriously their relationship to God, they also cause us to do the same. In this book, we will be studying thirteen of Jesus’ best-known parables. But before we begin, we need to consider a few details about parables in general-their meaning, purpose, and interpretation.
What is a Parable?
The English word “parable” comes from the Greek word parabole, which literally means “to place alongside.” So, a parable compares one thing to another. In the Gospels, they are specifically used to compare some aspect of common, everyday life with some reality about the kingdom of God. However, parables are not simply illustrations (such as those found in modern speech or sermons). An illustration may help an audience understand or apply a point the speaker is making, but is not in itself essential to what the speaker is trying to say; the main weight of the communication is carried by concepts and ideas. In contrast, a parable is the message. It is not used to illustrate the point; it is the point. In graphic, picturesque language, the parable communicates insight about God, his kingdom, and the response expected of those who fear.
There is no single, uniform type of parable.
In the Greek version of the Old Testament, the word parable is applied to proverbs (1Sa 10:12; Pr 1:1,6), riddles (Jdg 14:10-18), taunt songs (Mic 2:4; Hab 2:6ff) and allegories (Isa 5:1-7; Eze 17:3-24). 1 The same broad use of the word is found in the New Testament, where parables range from short-liners (i.e., “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” –Mk 2:17) to extended narratives like the story of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37).
Parables are not unique to Jesus. Parables such as those Jesus told can be found in the Old Testament, and in the literature of Jewish rabbits (prior to Jesus) who used parables as a means of teaching. While the breadth of the nature and purpose of parables makes definition difficult, there are two helpful definitions:
• a metaphor or simile drawn from life or nature which captures our interest (by being so vivid and strange) and leaves us just enough confused (and teased) to think deeply about what it exactly means for our lives.2
• a dramatic form of theological language that compels us to make a response, because it reveals the nature of the kingdom of God (or shows how a child of the kingdom should act).3
The Purpose of the Parables
Both definitions emphasize how the parables of Jesus call for response.
Parables are not simply stories (like Aesop’s fables) that reinforce the kind of moral values that contribute to a good life. Nor are they Zen riddles meant to unhinge our minds to prepare us to transcend levels of consciousness. Instead, as the second definition shows, their intent is to reveal something of the kingdom of God and to call the hearer to respond to Jesus and his mission. They describe what life in that kingdom is like. They portray something of the nature of the king. They call the listeners to decide how they will live in light of the presence of the king in their midst. As they have often observed, no one would have bothered to crucify an itinerant Jewish peasant who went around telling stories that encouraged proper moral behavior! No-the parables are stories of a new kingdom that stands against the old ways.
While it is popularly thought that Jesus used parable to simplify hard truths, the reality is that the parables themselves were difficult to understand! As noted in the first definition, one mark of many of Jesus’ parables is that they have a twist that would have been totally unexpected to his hearers, and disturbed their assumptions about the way things are. A Samaritan, despised by the Orthodox Jews as unworthy of God, ends up as the hero in the story that includes Jewish priests the Levites. Despotic, fabulously wealthy kings, normally concerned only with their own power and wealth, mercifully cancel enormous debts owed to them by mere servants who have wasted the king’s resources. People throw a party over the recovery of one stupid lamb that got lost from a herd. As Jesus speaks to the Middle Eastern listener of his day, he knows that none of these actions is normal. It is precisely these strange twists that make the parables like thought-bombs which are tossed into the lives of those who hear them. Some parables may have a short fuse and others may have a long one, but sooner or later the parable explodes, rocking the hearer with new awareness about the implications of Jesus and his kingdom. In these parables “the ordinary has gone askew and thereby shocks us into realizing that the parables lead into another way of thinking about life.”4
Craig Blomberg provides a helpful summary of the overall purposes of the parables:
1. Jesus has three main topics of interest: the graciousness of God, the demands of discipleship, and the dangers of disobedience.
2. The central theme uniting all of the lessons of the parables is the kingdom of God. It is both present and future… It involves both personal transformation and social reform, it is …the dynamic power of God’s personal revelation of himself in creating a human community of those who serve Jesus in every area of their lives.
3. The teachings of the parables raise the question of Jesus’ identity. Who is this one who, by his teaching, can claim to forgive sins, pronounce God’s blessing on social outcasts, and declare that final judgment will be based on the responses people make to him?
4. Jesus’ parables include implicit claims to deity. Jesus associates himself with authority figures in his parables (which obviously stand for the God of the Hebrew Scriptures). His audiences must decide whether to accept these claims and worship him, or to reject them as misguided or even blasphemous. But Jesus’ parables leave no neutral ground for casual interest or idle curiosity. They sharply divided their original audiences into disciples and opponents. They must continue to function in the same way today.5
Interpreting the Parables
For much of the history of the church, the parables were seen as elaborate allegories. In an allegory, the details of a story have a deeper meaning that the reader must discern. While a few of the parables in the gospels are interpreted allegorically by Jesus himself (i.e., Mt 13:24-30, 36-43),this approach to the parables led some interpreters to assign meanings to details that had no relation to anything that Jesus’ original hearers would have understood. The danger in treating parables as allegories is that the parables can then be manipulated to support whatever theological interests are important to the reader, rather than allowing them to convey the original intention of Jesus.
The allegorical approach was finally challenged by leaders of the Reformation period. Calvin, Luther, and others sought to understand parable within the context of Jesus’ ministry. But even they often failed to understand much of what Jesus was saying. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that scholars began to study these teachings in light of the historical, cultural, and theological realities of Jesus’ time. Since then, in reaction to the excessive, fanciful allegorizing of the parables that dominated earlier periods of the church, the prevailing position has been that parables have only one main point, and that this point is somehow related to the kingdom of God.
While this was a needed corrective, today there are scholars who argue that this perspective is too limited. These scholars have opened the way to looking for multiple meanings in the parables, not in the sense that they become imaginative allegories, but in the sense that the various characters and situations in the parables are meant to embrace various theological themes that work together to evoke a response from the hearer.
Kenneth Bailey suggests several important principles to keep in mind in seeking to understand, interpret and apply a parable:
1. Determine the audience. Is Jesus talking to the scribes and Pharisees, to the crowds, or to his disciples? The meaning of the parable is related to the audience who heard it. The parable of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:11-32) takes on new meaning when it is realized that Jesus told it to a group of Pharisees who were appalled by his association with people they considered to be sinners. Knowing this, the fact that we are not told how the older brother in the story finally responds takes on a new significance. What on one level is the story of God’s grace to sinners is, on another level, an open-ended challenge for these Pharisees (who are like the older brother) to repent.
2. Examine carefully the setting/interpretation provided by the author or his source. Most of the parables are found in the context of a particular setting which informs the meaning of the parable. For example, the parable of the generous moneylender (Lk 7:41-42) takes on special meaning when we see that it is found in the context of Jesus’ encounter with a sinful woman and a self-righteous Pharisee. The context makes it clear that this simple story is a strong rebuke of the lack of love for God on the part of the Pharisee. It also forces the reader to ask questions regarding the authority and identity of Jesus, since he clearly places himself in the role of the one who forgives enormous debts owed to him.
3. Try to discern the cultural presuppositions of the story, keeping in mind that the people in them are Palestinian peasants. The point here is not only to identify Middle Eastern customs (such as what people wore or how they traveled), but also to become familiar with their values, their ways of relating to one another, and their sense of propriety. While we in the United States do not see anything particularly strange with older men running (they are either exercising or are about to miss their plane!), older men in the Middle East always walked slowly as a sign of their dignity. This sheds new light on the detail in the parable of the Prodigal Son which tells how the father ran to greet his son.
4. Try to discern what symbols the original audience would have instinctively identified in the parable. This process required us to get into someone else’s world. To speak of Santa Claus in the United States is to evoke a whole range of images and feelings that are culturally associated with Santa Claus. However, a man from China would not react the same way to such a comment, since Santa plays no part in Chinese culture. We do not immediately grasp the meanings of the symbols in the same way as the original listeners would have, because we do not share their culture. We have to work at it.
5. Determine what response the original audience is pressed to make in the original telling of the parable. As we see the effect of parable was intended to have upon its audience, we can consider what parallel effects it is to have upon us. St. Augustine’s interpretation of the parable of the good Samaritan laid stress on the importance of getting people into the church in order to be saved. However, since the scribe who asked the question that prompted the parable (Lk 10:25-29) would have understood Jesus’ story as a call for him to start acting as a neighbor to anyone in need, it is clear that Augustine’s application is invalid. As important as the church is, involvement in it simply is not the topic of this parable.
6. Discern what the parable says about the cluster of theological themes that it affirms and/or presupposes. The parables reflect truths about God and how God expects his followers to live. Once we have identified the major symbols the original listeners would have (understood and have discerned the response that the parable calls forth on the part of its listeners), we can discern the central truths about God ad discipleship which are encapsulated within the parable. For example, Bailey suggests that the parable of the obedient servant in Luke 17:7-10 is built upon the assumptions that the believer is expected to obey God as her servant, that salvation is a gift not a reward, that believers have no claim upon God, and that God is served as one obeys Jesus.4
Some of these suggestions may make us feel that there is no way we can understand the parables. After all, most of us have no idea what cultural assumptions or values a Middle Eastern peasant at the time of Jesus might have had! Fortunately, this gap can be filled in through three main ways.
First, we can engage in thoughtful, careful reading of the text to see what it says and what it stresses. Discovering the context of a parable and the responses it generated among people is not difficult, since most of the parables occur in the middle of a bigger story. We can read around the parable to see how it fits into the bigger picture of what is happening. The more we read the Bible, the more familiar we will become with the way people thought and felt at the time. This will help us keep the parables in their historical context and protect us from reading our own thoughts and ideas into them. (The questions for personal study in this book will help you ask the right kinds of questions for this type of careful reading.)
Secondly, we can avail ourselves of the many excellent tools available to help us understand the background of the Bible and its ancient Middle Eastern culture. Bible dictionaries, commentaries, studies of the culture of biblical times (such as the Life and Times of Jesus by Alfred Eidersheim), and books on the parables are invaluable aids in this process. The notes that accompany each study are drawn from such resources and the bibliography in this booklet provides a good reading list for more comprehensive study.
Thirdly, we can benefit from learning about Middle Eastern people and cultures of today. Kenneth Bailey points out that many of the peasant customs and attitudes in the Middle East today have remained relatively unchanged for centuries. The insights about relationships and values that we can learn from Middle Eastern people today can shed valuable light on the meaning of the parables.6
Conclusion
The parables remain a rich source of spiritual insight for us.
While most North Americans are more used to hearing their theology expressed in creeds and concepts (such as “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth…” or “The chief purpose of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever”), the parables present us with pictures of God and his kingdom. Like any good art, the parables communicate beyond their original audience. While, rooted in the life and times of Jesus, the realities about God and discipleship that the parables present transcend that culture, and speak to us as well in images that are more powerful than words. We may well forget the formal definition of God (found in the catechisms that we were forced to memorize in church school), but we are not likely to forget the parable which tells us that God is like a shepherd who goes to great lengths to find his lost sheep. Those long sermons about what it really means to be a Christian may fade from our memory, but we will remember that the people of the kingdom are like the man who found a treasure buried in a field and in his joy sold all that he had in order to buy the field and gain the treasure. Theological discussions about the end times may leave us suspecting that everyone is really using Bible texts to suit their own perspectives, but we can find a clear word of hope in the assurance that the kingdom of God is like a little bit of yeast in a batch of dough which ends up influencing every part of that dough.
The parables are word pictures Jesus painted in order to teach us theology in a way that would stick with us. Once, the parable is heard, it is etched in the mind, where the Spirit of God can, over time, reveal its deeper implications to us as we are prepared to hear them.
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Mk 4:9).
1 Kenneth Bailey, The Gospel in Parable, Fortress Press, 1988, p. 5.
2 Adapted from C.H. Dodd, quoted in The Gospel in Parable, John Donahue, Fortress, 1988, p.5
3 Adapted from Bailey, Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes, Eerdmans, 1983.
4 op. cit., Donahue.
5 Craig Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables, InterVarsity Press, pp. 326-327.
6 adapted from Bailey, pp. xxii-xxiii in Through Peasant Eyes.
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