The Stories of Jesus: A Study in the Parables

The Stories of Jesus

A Study in the Parables

Elizabeth Danna

The Stories of Jesus

A Study in the Parables

Copyright © 2016 Elizabeth Danna. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952,[2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc™. All rights reserved worldwide. www. Zondervan.com

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

How to Use This Book

Week 1: Introduction

Week 2: Parables about Choice

Week 3: Parables about What God Is Like

Week 4: Parables about What the Kingdom Is Like

Week 5: Parables about Kingdom Living

Week 6: More Parables about Kingdom Living

Week 7: Parables about the End Times

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

There are several people who have helped me in preparing this second book, and I would like to thank them for their support. I went through an earlier version of this study with the women’s Bible study group at Shoreacres Bible Chapel, Burlington, Ontario, and their input, prayers, and encouragement are much appreciated. Thanks for letting me do this again, Sisters. The Rev. Charmain Sebestyen, the South Gate Presbyterian Church, Hamilton, Ontario, has once again been an invaluable support during this process—and much more, throughout our more than thirty years of friendship. I also thank my colleagues at 100 Huntley Street for their prayers, encouragement, and support (iron sharpening iron). Thanks also to the staff at Wipf & Stock for their help in getting this book into print. Above all, to God be thanks and praise.

How to Use This Book

Greetings, Friend, in the name of Jesus Christ who taught in parables. Thank you for choosing The Stories of Jesus. I’m glad that you’re coming with me on this journey through the Gospel parables. On the way we’ll learn about the meanings of the parables and how to apply their teaching to our lives. Before we start, a few words of explanation about how this study works.

The Stories of Jesus is a seven-week study designed for small Bible study groups meeting once a week. It’s also suitable for individual study. Week 1 is an introduction, providing an overview of the entire study. In week 2 we begin our study of the biblical texts. Each week’s lesson is divided into five sections, days 1 through 5 (the lessons, and the day sections, are not all the same length). Each day’s reading includes two questions for the group to take up when it meets, or for individual reflection. Feel free to discuss the other material as well. I’ve used the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible throughout this study, except where otherwise indicated. You may use any version you wish. We’ll touch on a variety of subjects, including literary/characterization issues (that is, how Jesus, the ultimate Storyteller, tells these stories), history, and archaeology. We’ll also ask how we can apply what we learn from each parable to our own lives. Above all, my prayer is that through this study we can grow spiritually, and also come to a fresh appreciation of these familiar stories.

Week 1

Introduction

I enjoy a good story. And I guess I’m not the only one who does, because every year millions of people buy novels to read, and millions more go to see stories told at the movies and at live theater. Hollywood director Steven Spielberg (who’s quite willing to use special effects when necessary) said that however many special effects a movie uses, it won’t be a good movie if it doesn’t tell a good story. Maybe this explains why recently several big-budget, highly publicized films haven’t gone over well with critics or audiences.

Stories have been an important method of communication for thousands of years. People have always gathered to hear stories, whether they gather around a campfire, in a movie theater or in some other location. Stories engage our emotions, which is why they can encourage, uplift, excite, frighten, or move us to tears. This is also what makes them a very effective teaching tool.

Stories with a Point

You may have heard the story about the Boy Who Cried Wolf:

A shepherd boy was lonely as he looked after the sheep through the long nights. So one night he cried out, Wolf! Wolf! The people of the village, thinking that a wolf was attacking the sheep, came out to help the boy, only to find that there was no wolf. He had called the people to him because he was lonely. He did this several more times. Finally one night a wolf really did attack the sheep. So the boy cried out, Wolf! Wolf! But this time the villagers didn’t come to help, because they didn’t believe him. So the wolf killed as many sheep as he wanted. When the shepherd boy complained that no one had come to help him, the village wise man answered, Someone who tells too many lies won’t be believed, even when he’s telling the truth.

This is a story with a point, and the point is obvious enough. The story is fictional (though like many of the stories we’ll look at in the coming weeks, it could be true—wolves sometimes do attack sheep). But its not being true doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have a point, or that we can’t apply that point to our lives. The parables of Jesus are also stories with a point.

For many people, if they know anything at all about Jesus of Nazareth, they know that he taught in parables. In this study we’ll take a look at those parables, as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels (that is, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke).¹ While Jesus didn’t teach only in parables—the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John also record lengthy sermons of Jesus—parables seem to have been his preferred method of teaching, especially to the crowds.

Parables in the Ancient World

It may surprise you to know that Jesus wasn’t the only one who taught in parables. In fact, parables may be found in almost all cultures, by as early as 2400 BC. Buddhist and Chinese parables were widely known in ancient times. The ancient Greeks and Romans had parables, so the genre would not be unfamiliar to Gentile readers of the Gospels. Aesop’s fables, which come from Greece, are well known to this day.

It’s more relevant to our purposes that parables are also part of the Jewish tradition: there are parables in the Old Testament, and the rabbis also told parables. The most famous parable in the Old Testament is the parable of the Rich Man and the Ewe Lamb, by which Nathan confronts David about his sin with Bathsheba (though the Old Testament text doesn’t actually call it a parable; 2 Sam 12:1–15). There are also the parables of the Vineyard (Isa 5:1–7); the Valley of Dry Bones (Ezek 37:1–14), and several others. We can see, then, that in teaching in parables Jesus was drawing on his people’s tradition. We may also notice that most of the Old Testament’s parables are in the prophetic books. This may be why Matthew says,

All this Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed he said nothing to them without a parable. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet: I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world. (Matt

13

:

34

–

35

, quoting Ps

78

:

2

)

The Uniqueness of Jesus’ Parables

But there’s something distinctive about Jesus’ parables. Like the Old Testament, Jesus uses parables to confront Israel. But he also uses them to describe the kingdom of God and to teach others about how God’s people should live. "To our knowledge no one else used parables as frequently or as forcefully as Jesus does in the Synoptic Gospels."²

New Testament scholar Arland J. Hultgren identifies six characteristics of the parables of Jesus which make them unique.³

• Jesus sometimes addresses the crowd directly, beginning a parable with a question like Which one of you . . . ? (Luke 11:5; 14:28; compare Luke 17:7) or What do you think? (Matt 18:12; 21:28).

• The parables are independent units of teaching, not parts of a larger argument.

• The parables relate to everyday life, so the first-century reader or hearer would need little outside education to understand them.

• The parables are God-centered, and talk about God in practical rather than theoretical language.

• Many of Jesus’ parables have a twist at the end, as a main character doesn’t behave as the reader or hearer might expect. No first-century father, for example, would act the way the father of the Prodigal Son does. As we’ll see over the next several weeks, this is Jesus’ way of illustrating that God’s ways are not our ways (Isa 55:8).

• The parables combine two important Jewish traditions, the wisdom tradition (as illustrated most clearly in the Old Testament by the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes) and eschatology (the idea that final judgment is coming). In the parable of the Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids, for example, the wise bridesmaids are the ones who are ready when the bridegroom comes; that’s why they’re allowed into the wedding. To enter the kingdom of God, one must be wise enough to realize that time to prepare for the kingdom’s arrival is limited.

If we divide the parables of Jesus according to form, they may be divided into two groups:

• Narrative parables, that is, parables in the form of a story;

• Similitudes, that is, comparisons—e.g., The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed (Matt 13:31) or, The kingdom of heaven is like a net (Matt 13:47).

We may also divide them according to subject matter. There are a number of ways to do this, and it seems that everyone who writes a book about the parables groups them in a different way! Next week we’ll talk about parables about choice. These ones touch on an important theme in the Gospels. We’ll start with the parable of the Sower, which is key to understanding all the others (Mark 4:13).

What Is a Parable?

Before we go any further, we need to ask, what is a parable? You may have learned in Sunday school the same definition that I learned there: A parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. But can we go further than this? The first thing we may say is that the English word parable is the usual translation for the Hebrew word māshāl and the Greek word parabolē. These two words actually cover things that could be rendered by several English words that are more precise: analogy, riddle, proverb, image, fable, similitude (i.e., comparison using like or as if).⁴ If we’re going to come up with a suitable definition of a parable, we must also remember that parables are always figurative—one must look beneath the surface to find the meaning. There are two levels to God’s order—the natural level and the spiritual level. In the parables Jesus uses the things of the natural level—things which the reader or hearer could easily understand—to teach about the things of the spiritual level.

The parables point beyond themselves to a realm of higher than earthly values and One who claims more than a hearing—our utmost devotion . . . In reading the parables we must never forget that in telling them Jesus was making Himself, as well as His message, known to men.⁵

Perhaps the best definition of a parable is New Testament scholar Arland Hultgren’s: A parable is a figure of speech in which a comparison is made between God’s kingdom, actions, or expectations and something in this world, real or imagined.⁶

Parables use what is known to teach about the unknown. The images from family, agriculture, building, and business which Jesus uses were familiar to his hearers because they were part of their everyday lives. Indeed, many of them resonate with us today. For example, while some aspects of the story of the Prodigal Son need an explanation of first-century culture before we can understand them, other aspects will be all too clear to anyone who has had a rebellious or wayward child. And anyone who has read news stories about failed real estate developments will be able to understand the parable of the Man Building a Tower.

Why Did Jesus Teach in Parables?

This leads us to one answer to the question of why Jesus taught in parables. The parables convey spiritual truth in concrete, easily understood language, because Jesus wanted to be understood. He wanted to reveal God, and himself, to humanity. When dealing with parables as teaching and literature we must not forget that our ultimate concern is to know God through them.⁷ This is the revelatory function of the parables. Connected to this is the idea that Jesus taught in parables out of mercy to his hearers. Among the crowds who listened to Jesus’ parables were many who would have rejected him if he had spoken plainly (my experience on the Prayer Line tells me that there are still a lot of people like that!). By speaking to them in parables, Jesus makes sure that they will keep listening to him, and that some of them will eventually receive his teaching.

We can’t discuss why Jesus taught in parables without discussing Mark 4:10–12. Those around him [Jesus] along with the Twelve ask Jesus why he teaches in parables. He answers by quoting part of Isaiah 6:10:

Make the heart of this people fat,

 and their ears heavy,    and shut their eyes;lest they see with their eyes,    and hear with their ears,and understand with their hearts,    and turn and be healed.

There has been much discussion of this controversial passage, and we can’t go into it fully here. But I will say a few things. Let me say plainly that I don’t believe that this passage is about divine hardening or predestination. Rather it’s about Jesus’ role as a prophet (not that Jesus saw himself as only a prophet. But prophecy was one of things that he did while he was on earth). Like Isaiah and Jeremiah before him, Jesus knew that his message would not be received. "The use of the words of Isa 6:9–10 by later writers shows that this passage became the classic description of the refusal to hear."⁸ Israel has gone too far, and judgment is inevitable. But nonetheless the prophet must continue to preach the word that God gives him, because a few people will believe. Parables are the ideal form for this kind of preaching. This is another reason why in Matthew 13:34–35, Matthew quotes Psalm 78:2, as we’ve seen above. "Parables are prophetic instruments, the language of the O[ld] T[estament] prophets, which occur especially in contexts of judgment and indictment⁹ We may call this the shock function of the parables: they are to startle the hearer into truly listening, into not being one of those outside."

But those inside will do more with a parable than just listen to it. They’ll take its message to heart, and a change in attitude and behavior will result. That’s why New Testament scholar Klyne Snodgrass calls the parables stories with intent. They have a purpose, and their purpose is to persuade the listener to change.

A few more things need to be said before we move on to study the parables themselves. First, we’ll see that a number of the parables are found in more than one Gospel. The parables of the Sower, the Murderous Vineyard Tenants, and the Mustard Seed are in all three Synoptic Gospels, and several parables (including the Father’s Good Gifts, the Leaven Hidden in Flour, and the Talents) are found in both Matthew and Luke. Sometimes the different versions of a parable will vary in some details. The simplest explanation for the differences is that Jesus told these parables more than once, changing the details to suit the occasion, and Matthew records one version and Luke another. The differences are so slight that this need not cause any problems.

Another thing we must say is that as we interpret the parables, the details must not be pressed too far. Not every detail of the story is significant; this is an important difference between parable and allegory. And Snodgrass reminds us that our interpretations of