Dear friends in Christ at Peace and Grue,
Peter said, “Lord are you telling this parable for us or for all?” Luke 12:41
We are in the season of Pentecost. The season of growth. The longest season of the church year. It is in this season that we hear the balk of Jesus’ parables. In all the teaching of Jesus there is no feature more striking than the parable. Although other religious teachers had made use of parabolic stories (see Judges 9:7-15 or 2 Samuel 12:1-6) in quantity and in quality, Jesus’ parables are acknowledged to be outstanding. About sixty, from what was probably a larger number, have been preserved for us primarily in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and especially Luke, the gospel we are following this year.
The old definition of a parable as “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning” contains a certain amount of truth, but there are many details in Jesus’ parables that are present in order to make the story “live” and were not included primarily to instruct or edify the hearer. The proper method of interpreting Jesus’ parables is inquire into the “life-setting” in his ministry when the parable was first uttered, and to seek out the chief point which in that setting the parable was intended to teach. In other words, to whom did Jesus speak the parable and why did he speak it, precisely Peter’s question.
An analysis of Jesus parable reveals that most of them are intended either to portray a type of human character or to reveal a principle of God’s government of the world. In other words, Jesus parables usually teach a certain kind of conduct which his hears are to emulate or avoid (matters of ethics), or they disclose something about the character of God and his dealings (matter of theology).
Finally it should be noted that when the gospel writers and early evangelist retold Jesus’ parables in the early church they occasionally introduced small changes so as to apply the stories to new situations or to bring out the application more vividly. An example of the latter is the slight modification in Matthew and Luke’s retelling of the parable of the Wicked Tenants. According to Mark when the owner of the vineyard sent his son to collect some of the fruit, they “killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard.” Matthew and Luke finding in the parable a parallel to what happened to Jesus when he was crucified “outside” the city walls, altered the sequence to read, “they cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him.”
There was also a tendency to turn parables that Jesus addressed to the crowd or to opponents, into parables for the disciples. For example, according to Luke Jesus told the parable of the Lost Sheep as an answer to criticisms leveled against him by Pharisees and scribes. When Matthew recounts the same parable, it has now become part of Jesus’ instructions to his disciples, that is to the church, on how Christians are to relate to other Christians.
The answers to Peter’s question is really both. Jesus’ excellent parables are “living documents” that have come down to us through the ages, through which the Holy Spirit works faith in all who have ears to hear. As summer winds down and we enter into fall, I look forward to seeing you in church as the Spirit continues his work.
In Christ,
Pastor Dan