11. Chapter 11: His Parables

Chapter 11 His Parables

One of the most outstanding features of the method of Jesus as teacher is that he told stories. We call his stories parables, though some of his sayings regarded as parables are not exactly stories, but rather short comparisons, as “A city set on a hill cannot be hid (Matthew 5:14). There are some twenty-eight of these short comparisons and perhaps twenty-five different stories. About one fourth of all the spoken words of Jesus recorded by Mark are parables in this double sense of the term, and in Luke nearly half. The proportion is largest in Luke. The term “parable” occurs some fifty times in the New Testament.

Some things to do:

Read the four gospels and make a list of all the short comparisons you can find.

Make another list of the stories. When you have done this, if you read German, turn to Julicher, “Die Gleichnisreden Jesu” and compare your lists with his.

If you don’t read German, turn to Stanley Hall (who follows Julicher), “Jesus, the Christ, in the Light of Psychology” p. 517, and do the same.

What proportion of Matthew is occupied by parables?

What do you find peculiar about the form of the parable in John?

Why do you suppose Luke was so attracted by the parables?

What is the nature of a parable? A parable is a comparison between familiar facts and spiritual truths. This comparison may be short and pithy, like “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch” (Matthew 15:14), or it may be worked out in a story. If worked out in story form, the story may say one thing and mean another, as the story of the lost sheep found by the good shepherd, meaning lost man found by the Savior (Luke 15:3-7). This is the true form of the parable, or the story may embody in itself the truth taught, without referring to another realm beyond itself, as the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). This form of the parable may be called an illustrative story. There is still a third form which the story may take. It is one in which the story and its meaning do not run parallel, like a man and his shadow, but the two are interwoven with each other, as in the story of the Good Shepherd (John 10:1-21). In summary:

1. Short comparisons, like the three-word shortest parable: “Physician, heal thyself” (Luke 4:23).

2. A story suggesting a comparison between familiar facts and spiritual truths, like the story of the tares in the wheat. This is what people usually mean by a parable. Jesus told the story, but not its meaning, unless asked to do so privately by his disciples. It is this kind of parable which is familiarly referred to as “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.”

3. An illustrative story carrying the truth within itself, not above itself, like the Pharisee and publican praying in the temple. One might call it a single-story story, not a double-story story, as the group above.

4. Allegory, in which the spiritual meaning of the story is woven into the telling of the story, as in the Vine and the Branches (John 15). Recall the question raised above as to the peculiar form the parable takes in John’s gospel. Can you think of any explanation for this?

Now take your earlier list of the stories told by Jesus, and try to decide in the case of each story whether it is a true parable, or an illustrative story, or an allegory. Which of the three groups is the largest? In order to show very clearly the distinction between a true parable and an allegory, let me undertake the venturesome task of making a true parable based on the allegory of the Vine and the Branches.

First, read attentively John 15:1-10.

Then read the following, which tries to separate out of the allegory the meaning from the story: The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a thrifty-looking vine planted by a vine-dresser, which turned out to be the wild plant of a strange vine, and failed to bring forth fruit. ‘ Then he planted a true vine, and cut away the branches that bore no fruit, and cast them forth, and they withered, and were gathered, and cast into the fire, and burned. But he pruned with his pruning-hook the fruitful branches remaining in the vine, that they might bear more fruit, and their fruit ripened, and gave joy to the vine-dresser. And when be had ended, Simon Peter said unto him: “Master, declare unto us the parable.” And he said: Israel is the false vine, I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-dresser. The word is the pruning-hook, and ye are the branches—some fruitless, to be destroyed, because not continuing in me, and some fruitful, to be saved, because continuing in me. Abide in me, and I will abide in you.

What do you think of it?

What type of mind would prefer the allegory to the parable?

Why not attempt the same with John 10:1-5, and with John 6:30-40?

Since the teacher is concerned with the effects of his teaching on the minds of his pupils, let us ask, What are the mental effects of the parable? This will help us to understand why Jesus made such large use of it

Try this experiment: Select one of the parables with which you are least familiar, get some one to read it aloud to you, and note carefully the mental effects upon yourself. Or, you may select a friend capable of introspection, and do the same with him. Or, read the following parable carefully, and see what happens in your own mind. A certain teacher, noting that some of his pupils were not making use of their opportunities, told his class this story:

“Two men went into a shop of fine wares to buy. And when they had made their purchases, the dealer wrapped their parcels and laid them on the counter. Whereupon, one of the two took up his parcel and departed to his house, but the other left his parcel lying on the counter. And the dealer said, ‘See, you are leaving behind the goods you purchased.’ But he replied, ‘Oh I didn’t mean to carry them away. I only came into your shop for the pleasure of being with my companion, seeing, and buying, but not caring to take anything away with me.’”

Give this story a chance at you first, then write down some of its mental effects.

Some of the mental effects of the parable are: It holds attention through interest; it presents a mental challenge to discover the meaning (it is a kind of puzzle one wants to solve); there may be surprise at the turn the story takes (compare the stories of O. Henry); one’s personal pride may be piqued; it may release effort of will if a personal application is made; and it is an aid to memory. It may give offense if one feels that there is an indirect personal thrust.

Compare now your list of effects with this list.

If you would really like to appreciate a parable, stop at this point, and write one yourself. This is proposed seriously, why not try?

Why did Jesus use parables?

Before reading further, turn to the following references, and try to answer the question for yourself: Matthew 18:10-18; Matthew 13:34-35; Mark 4:10-12; Mark 4:33-34; and Luke 8:9-10.

Now recall that the parables or “dark sayings” were spoken to a mixed company of enemies and friends, of persons typified by each of the four kinds of soil, and that they were explained privately to the disciples. They were spoken primarily to the indifferent and hostile public, but their spiritual meaning was interpreted only to earnest inquirers.

Why, then, were the parables used? To conceal truth from the unreceptive and to reveal truth to the receptive The parable was a way of separating the sheep from the goats, fit was the method whereby Jesus followed his own injunction, and did not cast that which was holy to the dogs, nor his pearls before swine. Had he done so, they would have trampled them under foot (i.e., rejected his plain teaching) and turned again and rent him (i.e., attacked the new prophet) sooner than they finally did. The parable was the word which would judge them at the last day, showing them not to belong to the understanding kind. In repeating the injunction: “He that hath ears to ear, let him hear,” the line of distinction is being drawn between those with and without the hearing ear. So that the result was, as the prophet had said, for all their seeing they did not perceive, and for all their hearing they did not understand, and so did not turn and receive forgiveness (Matthew 13:14-15). So Stanley Hall refers to the parables as “Binet tests of spiritual insight.” “Thus for genetic religious psychology they serve as moron-finders.”^[1] [1] “Jesus, the Christ, in the Light of Psychology,” p. 522.

Very likely there are other reasons also why Jesus used the parable. He adopted this method rather suddenly in the midst of his public ministry when the tide of opposition was rising against him, perhaps as a mode of self-protection in his teaching, enabling him to survive until his time should come. Besides, the story is the common Oriental method of imparting truth, and the Old Testament prophets (see, for example, Ezekiel 17), as well as the later Jewish rabbis, had used this method though without the perfection of form displayed by Jesus Can you think of still other reasons why Jesus may have used the parable?

Stop at this point and see whether you are a “religious moron” or not. State the latent meaning of one of the more difficult parables, e.g., equal pay for unequal work (Matthew 20:1-16).

How did the disciples themselves pass this test when they first heard the parables of the Sower and the Tares? Briefly to repeat the kinds of parables, for a purpose: Not all the sayings of Jesus that go by the name of “parables” belong in the same class. “Physician, heal thyself,” and “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch,” are very different from the story of the lost coin, or the lost sheep, or the lost son. These latter say one thing and mean another; they say something about the sense world and mean something about the spiritual world. Both of these differ from the Good Samaritan or the Pharisee and the publican, which combine the spiritual and material worlds in one story. There is no parallelism, but the virtue is embodied in the story itself.

All three of these differ from the Good Shepherd, in which, as we have seen, the story and the meaning are closely interwoven, and the story is subordinate to the meaning in the telling. Perhaps this last should not be called a parable at all, but an allegory. What allegory did John Bunyan write? The first kind of parables might be called proverbs, maxims, or aphorisms. The second class are properly called parables, because they convey a moral or religious truth in short-story form. The third are illustrative stories. And then, in the fourth place, we have the form that the parables take in John’s gospel—the allegory.

Given these four headings, how would you classify;

“Ye cannot serve two masters.”

“Take the lowest seat.” The Widow and the Unjust Judge. The Ten Virgins. The Tares and the Wheat. The Foolish Rich Man.

Dives and Lazarus. The Vine and the Branches. The Bread of Life.

If you want an engaging hunt, classify all the sayings of Jesus you can find that belong under some one of the first three heads. There will be between fifty and seventy- five of them.

Now compare your findings with those of Julicher (“Die Gleichnisreden Jesu”), followed by Hall (“Jesus, the Christ, in the Light of Psychology,” p. 517). But there is a yet more interesting mode of approach to the parables, because throwing more light upon the range and quality of the thinking of Jesus. Suppose we classify the parables according to the sphere from which they are drawn, whether things, plants, animals, or men. Some will be difficult to classify according to this principle, e.g., the drag-net with the fish, the sower with the seed and the soils, the lost coin with the woman seeking.

What we find on this basis is something like the following:

Things The Salt of the Earth. The Light of the World. The City Set on a Hill. The Light on a Candlestick.

Things That Defile.

Things Hidden and Revealed. The Eye as the Light of the Body. The New Cloth on the Old Garment. The New Wine in the Old Bottles. The House Divided against Itself. The Two Houses Built on Rock and Sand. The Four Soils. The Drag-Net. The Hid Treasure. The Pearl of Great Price. The Great Supper.

Plants The Budding Fig-Tree. The Tree “known by its fruits.” The Barren Fig-Tree. The Seed Growing Independently. The Mustard Seed. The Taxes and the Wheat. The Leaven.

Animals The Carcass and the Eagles. The Children’s Meat and the Dogs. The Lost Sheep. The Sheep and the Goats.

Human Beings The Woman Seeking the Lost Coin. The Servants Given the Talents. The Servants Given the Pounds. The Unprofitable Servants.

Children in the Market Place. The Son Asking for a Fish or an Egg. The Disciple and His Lord.

Blind Leaders. The Two Masters. The Scribe Instructed in the Kingdom. The Thief in the Night. The Ten Virgins.

“Physician, heal thyself.” The Whole Who Need No Physician. No Fasting in the Bridegroom’s Presence.

Counting the Cost of War or a Tower. The Adversary in the Way.

Guests to Take the Lowest Seat. The Neighbor in Need of a Loaf. The Widow and the Unjust Judge. The Unmerciful Servant.

He to Whom Much and Little is Forgiven. The Lost Son. The Two Sons Commanded to Work. The Defiant Tenants of the Vineyard. The Unwilling Guests. The Eleventh-Hour Man. The Good Samaritan. The Pharisee and the Publican. The Foolish Rich Man.

Dives and Lazarus. The Unrighteous Steward. The Faithful Steward.

Servants Looking for Their Lord. Where shall we put the parable of the unclean spirit wandering in desert places?

If these classifications will at all stand, they show that of a total of sixty-one different parables, sixteen or about twenty-six per cent deal with the inanimate world of things, while the remaining seventy-four per cent deal with the animate world of plants, animals, and men. Of these last, seven or about eleven and one half per cent of the total deal with plants; only four, or some seven per cent, deal with animals; while thirty-four, or over fifty-five per cent, deal with human relations. The Parables of Jesus

Stop here and consider what these results mean for the quality and range of the thinking of Jesus. From these results it is very evident that the thinking of Jesus centered in the human world rather than in the world of animals, plants, and things. This gives a humanistic rather than realistic or scientific quality to his thinking. It is also clear from the relatively small place in his thinking of the inanimate world of things that his thinking was not static but dynamic in quality. The phenomena of growth rather than lifeless material especially affected his thinking. And from the great sweep of his illustrations from every department of creation it is clear that Jesus had a wide circle of interests; his thinking was comprehensive and not limited in range. As pieces of literary composition, would you regard the parables as works of art? as models of the short-story form? Of course, Jesus only spoke them without writing them down, but he spoke them in such a way that they were easily remembered. Besides, he may have thought some of them out carefully in advance. Does not his question, already referred to, when the disciples asked him the meaning of the parable of the sower, perhaps his first parable: “Know ye not this parable? And how shall ye know all the parables?” indicate that he had some parables in mind which were not yet spoken?

Now any work of art embodies the ideal in some pleasing form of the real. The parable suggests the poetry of heaven by the prose of earth. It conveys a spiritual meaning by the aid of an earthly story. And this it does in a form pleasing to the imagination. It is proper, then, to regard the parable as a work of art. By the canons of literary criticism, the parable of the Prodigal Son is the world’s greatest short story. In what consists the beauty of the parable? Among the most beautiful of the parables are: The Lost Sheep, The Lost Son, The Hidden Treasure, and The Pearl of Great Price. Reread these at this point just to enjoy their beauty. Can you find them? If not, use the concordance.

Yon will notice that the first two of these are parables of compassion, the other two are parables of value. Can you feel their beauty?

Now what are the elements of the parable that stir the esthetic sense within us, like a lovely lyric or a rare sunset, or a beautiful face? It is more important that you should feel the beauty of the parable than that you should understand it. In fact, perhaps the full understanding of it is not accessible to us.

Among the elements of beauty in the parable are economy of expression, not a word too many; and appeal to the imagination, giving us something to see with the mind’s eye, or hear with the mind’s ear. Thus emotions of awe and sublimity are awakened, as we envisage that house on the sand wrecked by the storm. There are simplicity and ease of understanding in the familiar part of the parable, and there are profundity and suggestiveness in its recondite meaning. There are harmony between the parts, proportion, and grace, the whole being a unity composed of related parts. There are appropriateness to the occasion and adaptation to the needs of men. The parable is a neat tool, whether it is revealing truth to friends or concealing truth from enemies. It has the beauty of truth—truth to nature and to human nature in its divine aspects. In short, like any work of art, the parable is the union of the real and the ideal, the material real with the spiritual ideal. And the union is so full and flawless that we call it beautiful. Could you illustrate each of these elements in the beauty of a parable? Do you feel their truth? Once again read the following:

“Again the Kingdom of the Heavens is like a jewel merchant who is in quest of choice pearls. He finds one most costly pearl; he goes away; and though it costs all he has, he buys it” (Weymouth). Is it not a gem itself? The parable may be regarded as the analogue of the miracle. This would mean that the parable and the miracle are both alike and unlike. Stop a minute and see whether you can find similarity as well as dissimilarity between the two.

How would it do to say that both the parable and the miracle show the supremacy of the spiritual, but the parable shows it in the region of thought, and the miracle in the region of action? In the one case Jesus was expressing his thought, in the other his power. In this connection recall the unusual miracle of cursing the barren fig-tree—unusual because it is the only instance of Jesus’ cursing an irresponsible thing. Can we suppose that this miracle was really intended as a parable, that is, as a condemnation of the unfruitful Pharisees? If so, in this instance, instead of speaking the word of the parable, Jesus performed the deed, to suggest spiritual truth. If this interpretation is acceptable, then this incident reveals the close connection of the parable and the miracle. In another connection we should study the use Jesus made of the miracle in his teaching; only a hint of it is given here. The parables of Jesus suggest to us very interestingly something of his philosophy of life. By the phrase “philosophy of life” we mean one’s general view of the world and its effect on conduct; or, we might convert the order of these terms and say we mean one’s conduct and its effect on his general view of the world. Can you figure out what is coming? Try to do so.

Jesus saw analogies, comparisons, resemblances everywhere between the realm of matter and the realm of spirit. Thus there were two worlds, but they were related to each other. The first was a type or symbol of the second. It was less real than the other. It would pass away, but the other would not (“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away”). There is duality of materiality and spirituality, yet an analogical unity. Nature is a parable of Heaven, it means more than it says. The relations of man to his world symbolize the unseen relations of God to his children. This latter is the true and real world, existing now within the heart, and to abide forever. There is nothing here of the logical and intellectual interpretations of Plato, unless it be in his tales and myths (cf. The Tale of Er, at the end of the Republic), but rather the moral and the symbolic. Is it characteristic of the Greek genius to be intellectual and of the Hebrew genius to be pragmatic? No doubt you have been wondering whether Jesus originated, or borrowed, or both borrowed and adapted the parable. Read the following:

“And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward the south, and drop thy word toward the south, and prophesy against the forest of the field in the South; and say to the forest of the South, Hear the word of Jehovah: Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burnt thereby. And all flesh shall see that I Jehovah have kindled it; it shall not be quenched. Then said I, Ah Lord Jehovah! they say of me, Is he not a speaker of parables?” (Ezekiel 20:45-49.)

Ezekiel means that Jehovah will use the Babylonians to destroy utterly southern Judea and its capital Jerusalem, as explained plainly in the following chapter. There are many such parables in Ezekiel and in other Old Testament writers, as well as fables, riddles, allegories, proverbs, and the like. For beautiful parables, see 2 Samuel 12:1-9, and 2 Samuel 14:1-13. Jesus knew three books—the Old Testament, the book of nature, and the book of life. He found parables in the Old Testament, and he originated parables of nature and of life to set forth the new message of the Kingdom of Heaven. Besides, everybody in the Orient tells stories. In sum, we may answer our question by saying that Jesus found, adopted, adapted, and perfected the parable. This study of the parables could be considerably prolonged, for the subject is rich, and books have been written on it. But, for our purpose, we must conclude now with a few practical suggestions.

It is clear that the art of story-telling should be a part of the teacher’s, repertory. He should know what the four parts of a story are, should be able to discern these four parts in the parable, should exemplify them in the stories he writes or tells, and should know how to tell stories to a company.^[2] [2] On these points consult the author’s “Story-Telling, Questioning, and Studying,” N.Y. 1916. In order to see how a story-teller retells the parables, see the volume by Dean Hodges, “When the King Came,” pp. 166-175, and 240-267. In a book of synonyms or in an unabridged dictionary, find out the difference between parable, allegory, simile, fiction, fable, illustration, and metaphor.

You should also determine your favorite parable as well as discover the favorite parables of the group. And since the meaning of the parable is its essential part, you should state for yourself the meaning of each of the parables. For example, in the parable of the Tares, who sows the good seed? what is the field? what are the good seed? what are the tares? who sows these? what is the harvest? who are the reapers? what is the burning of the tares? what is the gathering of the wheat? Jesus himself answers all these questions in explaining the parable to the disciples (Matthew 13:36-43). Did Jesus intend all the parables to be interpreted in such detail? For example, should we try to say what the two pence are that the Good Samaritan gave to the inn-keeper? In following up the study of the parables, the following references will be useful:

Articles in Hastings’ “Dictionary of the Bible” and Hastings’ “Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels.”

Bruce, C. B., “The Parabolic Teaching of Christ,” London, 1882.

Goebel, S., “The Parables of Jesus,” Edinburgh, 1883.

Winterbotham, R., “The Kingdom of Heaven,” 1898.

Any commentary on the gospels or any life of Christ.

Mabie, Hamilton Wright, “Parables of Life,” 1903.