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Purpose of the Parable .—A study of the external form of Jesus’ sayings is of great value in reaching an intelligent understanding of his message. When a number of Jesus’ sayings are read in succession (see Chapter VIII) it becomes at once apparent that he combined in a remarkable way a simplicity of expression with a depth of meaning. As Wendt has well put it, he brought together in perfect union “popular intelligibility” and “impressive pregnancy” of thought.
Jesus said to his listeners, “If your trust in God were as big as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain ‘Move away from here’ and it would move” (Lk. 17: 6). The individual words are very simple. Anyone can understand them, take them home with him, disagree with them, wonder why Jesus uttered such an absurdity, try to find some purpose or truth in the statement. The result of it all is that the listener asks himself just how much value or power there may be in a confident attitude of trust in God.
Again Jesus said, “If a man strikes you on one cheek, turn the other one to him” (Lk. 6: 29). The words are easily remembered. What could Jesus have meant by them? They become the subject of endless discussion; there is “impressive pregnancy” of meaning in them.
In a like manner, Jesus took a child in his arms and told his listeners unless they received the kingdom as a little child, they would not be able to enter it (Mk. 10: 15). Perhaps he had in mind the simple, frank hopefulness of a child.
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When no such object lesson was present, Jesus told the story of some personal experience, or of some other homely, familiar incident to illustrate the particular quality or moral of life which he had in mind. It is this incidental nature of the parable which it is all important to understand. When he told people a parable, his purpose was to bring out one particular point. He wished to avoid stating his rule of life in abstract or literalistic terms. He was trying to liberate his followers from the Jewish tendency toward literalism. His intent was to suggest a principle, rather than a rule, and to clothe it in such plain language that anyone who heard might understand.
The statement of Mark 4: n, 12, that Jesus purposely spoke in a way difficult to comprehend, is often misunderstood and misapplied. As a matter of fact, Jesus’ purpose, as clearly portrayed in the earliest sources of the Gospels, was to make his teaching as clear and plain as possible to everyone who was willing to hear him.
Allegorizing the Parables .—When Jesus told the story of the good Samaritan, he was pressing home one particular lesson or moral, namely the duty of helping anyone in need, without regard to race or circumstances. In every age, however, some preachers of the Gospel have tried to find a meaning in each item of the story. In fact, the principle dogmas of medieval theology used to be read into the parable.
By the allegorists the man of the parable is made to represent humanity. The journey down is the fall of man. Jerusalem is heaven, and Jericho, hell. The thieves are the devil and his angels who tempted man in the Garden of Eden and caused his fall. The priest represents the old ceremonial and sacrifice which were unable to save humanity. The Levite is legalism and purification. The Samaritan is Jesus. The oil and the wine are the sacraments of the Holy Catholic Church. The beast is the body of Christ. The inn is the church, the two shillings are the two testaments of the Bible. The “come again” (Lk. 10: 35) is the second coming.
This old habit of allegorizing has found its way into modern [ p. 93 ] biblical literature to a most unfortunate extent. R. C. Trench, Notes on the Parables of Our Lord, is a book which well illustrates the old tendency. Even Nelson’s “Teachers’ Testament” constantly inserts allegory. In Luke 13: 6 it explains, “In this parable the fig tree is the Jewish nation; God the owner; Christ the vine-dresser.”
The allegorizing method leads into all sorts of difficulties. There is the story (Lk. 11: 5) of the man who went to his neighbor at midnight, asking for some bread for a guest. The neighbor answered, saying, “The door is locked and my children are in bed with me.” Now if the method just described is followed, the student will read that the man in bed is God, the children are the angels. God has locked his door and wishes no interruption. As a matter of fact, this is just the opposite of Jesus’ teaching regarding God, who is always ready and anxious to help. Jesus told the story to teach the value of persistence in prayer (see Chapter X). No other teaching should be read into the parable.
Similarly, the story of the importunate widow (Lk. 18: 1-8) who would not stop her supplications to the judge, teaches the value of prayer. But if the statement is made that the judge in the parable represents God, a very un-Christian teaching is unavoidable. Jesus’ stories are all to be understood literally. The judge is a judge, and not God. The widow is a widow, and not a Christian on his knees. Anyone who allegorizes the story loses the lesson of persistence.
The parable of the prodigal son (Lk. 15: 11-32) has suffered as much as any at the hands of the allegorists. The ring (15: 22) is made to represent the espousal of the soul to God. The robe is Christ’s righteousness, and the shoes are the godly walk. The older brother makes difficulties. He ought to represent Jesus, but his character does not fit. Modem scholars are avoiding all such allegory. The story pictures the joy of the father when his wandering son returns. Such is the “joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth” (15:7).
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Another parable which has been endlessly abused tells of the laborers in the vineyard (Matt. 20: 1-16). The parable tells that the laborers hired at the eleventh hour—that is, at five o’clock—received the same pay for one hour’s work which those hired in the morning received for twelve hours. Some laborunion leaders used to like to pick out these verses and hold them up as teachings of the Christian religion. Of course, Jesus had nothing in mind regarding the justice or injustice of laborers being hired in the emergency of harvest time. He was simply referring to customs which existed, to illustrate one particular point. He wished to tell certain self-righteous Pharisees, who pointed egotistically to their long records of pompous piety, that the poor sinner might repent and enter the kingdom with as fine a character as some of them.
The parable of the unjust steward (Lk. 16: 1-13) tells of the manager who kept two sets of books and defrauded the man for whom he was working. The story has occasioned endless discussion. But it is now quite clear to all modem students that Jesus had a perfect right to tell a story of a man whose code of ethics was blameworthy. Many a modern leader tells a story to illustrate the proverb that there is honor among thieves. The story of the unjust steward teaches clearly the lesson that material things may be instrumental in forming friendships and in promoting spiritual enterprises.
The parables of extra service (Lk. 17: 7-10) and the rich man and Lazarus (Lk. 16: 19) and the treasure hid in the field (Matt. 13: 44) and many others can be made to produce strange and un-Christian teaching if the allegorical method of interpreting verse by verse in an effort to discover a meaning in each individual sentence, is pursued.
Right Interpretation of a Parable .—The one way to find the true teaching in a parable of Jesus is to regard it as a single unit with a single teaching. The story is a literal incident which in most cases originated in some experience of Jesus and his disciples. Christians of half a century ago who had read Bunyan’s [ p. 95 ] Pilgrim’s Progress found it difficult to turn to the pages of the Gospels without looking for allegory.
To be sure, there are a number of allegories in the Gospel of John. But this Gospel is very different in style from the first three. Moreover the allegories are not in the form of simple stories. “I am the vine, you are the branches” is allegory. But it is utterly different from the story of the good Samaritan or the laborers in the vineyard.
The teaching of a parable is found by following the story through as a literal story, then stating the moral or teaching in a single sentence, and applying that simple statement in the spiritual and religious realm. The treasure hid in the field (Matt. 13 : 44 ) brings out the fact that it is sometimes wise to sell everything to buy a certain piece of land. Applying the principle in the spiritual realm, this means that it may be wise to give up all mere pleasure and material success to gain a blessing more valuable than either. In the parable of the lost sheep (Lk. 15: 3) the personal interest of a shepherd in the wandering sheep is the theme. Applied in the spiritual realm, it teaches the love and care which God exercises toward a wandering soul.
The parable of the sower (Mk. 4: 3-9) teaches that the farmer must expect varying degrees of success, according to external conditions and kinds of soil. This parable has proven to be the greatest barrier in the way of taking Jesus’ parables as literal stories. For Mark (4: 13-20) narrates that Jesus himself allegorized this parable. “The sower soweth the word.” The birds of the air which came and picked up some of the seed represent Satan who takes away the word (4:15). It is possible that Mark or the followers of Jesus whom he represents were responsible for this allegorizing. There is no reason to consider it impossible that Jesus could have taken one of his own literal stories and made of it allegory.
In any case, the parables of Jesus are first and foremost literal stories. There is no law forbidding anyone to allegorize them. But it is of paramount importance to understand that any [ p. 96 ] teaching based on single verses of a parable or derived from the parable by processes of allegory are teachings of the interpreter himself and are not by any means to be considered as teachings of Jesus. The parable is a straight-forward incident to be taken as a whole, having a single, definite, simple lesson or moral.
Summary of Reasons against Allegorizing Parables. —Those who proceed by the allegorical method of interpretation are not able to agree in their explanations of Jesus’ teaching. Their findings are as different as their theologies. It is possible by the method of allegory to find almost any dogma or doctrine or creed in some parable or other.
Jesus did not, like Bunyan, spend long hours at a writingdesk. Bunyan lived in a prison, Jesus in God’s out-of-doors. He had little time for the literary and artistic labor which is necessary for the creation of allegorical stories like Pilgrim’s Progress. Rather his life was full of experiences and observations which he narrated along the way as he taught his followers. In fact, it is quite probable that most of the parables represent either personal experiences of Jesus or actual incidents which were taking place or had just taken place. Jesus would hear of a woman who had lost a piece of silver and had found it again (Lk. 15: 8-10). He perhaps used the woman’s experience to reveal to the woman herself or to her friends the joy of God over finding a human soul that had been lost. Similarly, the incident of the lost sheep or the lost son may have come to Jesus as actual news of the day, which he immediately used for his religious purpose.
The parables frequently contain the words “as” or “like.” The kingdom of heaven is “like” leaven (Lk. 13: 21). These words are absent in Pilgrim’s Progress or in any allegory. They indicate that the phrases following them are to be taken literally. The woman who mixes the yeast is a real woman. The yeast or leaven is also real. The lesson is the permeating power.
The naturalness of Jesus’ parables is another argument for [ p. 97 ] their literalness. No actual man ever went through the actual experiences described in Pilgrim’s Progress. Every item in the parables of Jesus is simple and easy to grasp. Every action either did take place or could have happened just as it is told.
A fifth argument is the presence of two factors of comparison in the case of the parables of Jesus. “The kingdom of God is like a man who plants seed in the ground and sleeps and rises night and day” (Mk. 4: 26, 27). There is the item in the spiritual realm, the kingdom of God, and over against it is the item in the material world, the man who plants seed. In an allegory there are not two members, but one. The allegory proceeds in a straightforward way from item to item. The reader himself must understand the undercurrent of meaning.
Furthermore, many of the parables interpreted as allegories yield un-Christian and immoral teaching. The importunate widow, the unjust steward, and many another give a strange idea of God and his ways of dealing with men, and still stranger teachings regarding the ethics of Christian brotherhood. Outworn theologies have no difficulty in finding Scriptural bases by this method of interpretation.
If the gospels and their sources are arranged in the chronological order in which they were written, the growth of the allegorizing habit among early Christians becomes clearly apparent. No saying of Jesus is interpreted as allegory in the Doubly Attested Sayings nor in any of the early sources of the Gospels (see Chapter VIII). The gospels of Mark and Luke have one allegory, the sower (Mk. 4; Lk. 8; Matt. 13). Matthew has two, the sower and the tares (Chap. 13). John frequently has an allegorical style and manner.
For all these reasons, the modern student concludes that the only safe rule for interpreting the parables of Jesus is to take them as literal incidents and find in each one a single teaching. The allegory may be a work of art. But Jesus’ parables are life itself. They are pieces of the life of Jesus’ day and, rightly understood, will contribute to the life which the religion of Jesus imparts to his followers.
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The Physical World. —Jesus’ career was very short. His ministry at the most was not longer than three years. It was no proper time to correct all the imperfect ideas which were current in his day. He concentrated his whole attention upon the great message and spirit which he wished to impart to those about him. At one time a man came to him and said, “Make my brother give me my half of our inheritance” (Lk. 12: 13). Jesus said to him, “Man, who made me a divider for you?” Many a modem Christian leader is severely criticized for not helping to right a wrong which is called to his attention. If Jesus had given his time to all such matters, he would never have imparted to men that spirit of love which was the pearl of great price.
Jesus found companionship in nature. He used the lilies of the field and the birds of the air as illustrations of God’s love, but he did not make any contribution of any sort to physical science. Departments of botany and zoology will learn nothing of a technical nature from the Gospels. Jesus spoke in neverto-be-forgotten terms of the God who sends his rain on the just and the unjust. He told men to imitate God in thus doing good to both friend and enemy, but Jesus never gave any information as to how the rain was sent. Men still went on thinking that there were great reservoirs of water stored in the sky.
Jesus told of a God who so loved his children, good and bad, that he made the sun to rise on both sorts. But he never told the process by which God caused the sun to rise. He did not forestall Copernicus. Men still continued to think that the earth was flat.
Jesus said never a word about evolution. Most Jews continued to think that the world was created in six days, about 4,000 years before. To be sure, some early Christians, as shown by the first verses of the Gospel of John, indicated plainly their [ p. 99 ] belief in some sort of an evolution as against a creation of the world. But Jesus never raised any question of that sort.
It is interesting to speculate as to what would have happened if Jesus had had special knowledge of physical science. Any hint which he might have dropped in Nazareth concerning evolution would have created an atmosphere in which it would have been quite impossible for him to teach the love of God. John could do this later in Ephesus because the situation was very different and because John’s ministry covered forty or more years. If Jesus had announced to the Jews that the earth is round and that the sun does not really “rise,” he could not have won their attention to his revelation of God.
What Jesus did do was to read God into nature. He made men love the flowers of the field and the birds of the air. A man who listened to Jesus and then saw the sun rise or set could not fail to think of God. A disciple of Jesus lost all fear of natural phenomena. He felt himself in the care of a heavenly Father who was watching over him. Men and women forgot their privations and sufferings, and thought of the harvest of the field and all the gifts of nature, as witnesses that God was blessing his children and showing his love for them.
The Nature of Man .—Jesus made no change in the anthropological and physiological ideas of the Jews. Such a revolutionary discovery as that of the circulation of the blood had to wait for the seventeenth century. What reforms in medicine and therapy might have been made if Jesus had known and preached this simple truth I
The terms which Jesus used regarding the human soul and personality were taken over from the Jewish usage of the time. This usage coincides in part with our own modern ideas and in part is quite different.
“Soul” was used much as in modem times. The soul was the personal element, the seat of the Ego. It lived after death— “This night your soul will be required of you” (Lk. 12: 20).
“Heart” was a term of much larger significance than in modern speech. It denoted the whole inward nature of man. [ p. 100 ] “It is from men’s hearts that evil plans proceed; immorality, stealing” and the rest (Mk. 7: 21). According to this old Jewish view, a man thought with his heart. There could have been no such contrast as in modem parlance between the dictates of the mind and those of the heart. The mind was included in the heart as a part of it. “A good man out of the good things he has treasured up in his heart produces good, and a bad man out of what he has accumulated of bad things produces what is bad. For his mouth speaks only those things with which his heart is filled” (Lk. 6: 45).
“Spirit” denoted that in man which aspires to God. It was usually contrasted with the flesh or the body. While the word “spirit” is frequently used by John and Paul in this sense, it is utilized by the authors of the first three Gospels specifically in but two passages: “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” (Mk. 14:38); “Into thy hands I commit my spirit” (Lk. 23: 46).
Supernatural Beings .—In harmony with the Jewish ideas of his time, Jesus spoke of angels and demons. If any man in the twentieth century has difficulty with these conceptions, he should understand that Jesus was using Jewish terms and Jewish ideas. He could not have expressed his Gospel in ways that were foreign to his people and his time. There is really no need to suppose that Jesus himself had any supernatural or unnatural ideas along all these many lines. His mission and purpose was to tell men of the love of God and to urge upon them the finding of God and the divine life through the service of one’s fellow men.
Angels wait upon God to do his bidding. Each angel has a particular responsibility of guarding a human soul through life. This conception of guardian angels afforded Jesus a beautiful expression of God’s love for each member of his human family—“I tell you that in heaven their angels do always have constant access to my heavenly father” (Matt. 18: 10).
Corresponding to the angels were the great hosts of evil beings who worked on the other side to bring temptation and [ p. 101 ] suffering to human beings. They were commanded by their chief, who was called the adversary of God and his angels. The Hebrew word for “adversary,” “satan,” had become a proper name and a classical expression through such vivid literary pictures as that of the Book of Job. When the seventytwo disciples of Jesus returned from their missionary expedition and told of their success in casting out demons, he exclaimed in vivid language, “I saw Satan fall like a flash of lightning out of heaven” (Lk. io: 18).
The “demons” who waited upon Satan to do his bidding lured men into deeds of immorality, and endeavored in every way to disturb the happiness of mortals. Sickness, therefore, was a result of demonic influence. “There was a woman there who had had for eighteen years an illness caused by a spirit. She was bent over and could not straighten herself up” (Lk. 13: n). When one spirit was cast out of a certain man, it found seven other spirits more Wicked than itself, and entered into the man, and the man was “worse off than before” (Lk. 11: 26; Matt. 12:4s). [1]
In one case Jesus said to the demon, “Be quiet and get out of him!” (Lk. 4: 35). And the demon came out of him. Most modern scholars feel that Jesus shared the belief of his time in demons and demon-possession. The Jews did not have the modern conception of the universal correlation through natural law of all phenomena. Modern research seeks to understand the reason for all things. The ancient mind had to content itself with the hypothesis that diseases and unexplained events were caused by supernatural agencies.
It is interesting to follow the subject of demon-possession in ancient literature. The Gospel of John in a very striking and remarkable way avoids any statement of demon-possession as the cause of physical or mental illness. It is quite clear that the author of that Gospel had no such belief.
It is a well-known practice of modern psychotherapy that [ p. 102 ] the physician enters into the mind and thought world of the patient, and helps the patient to solve his problem in his own way. If a mentally deranged man today thinks that he is being tormented by an evil spirit, it is easier to show him how to overcome the demon, or escape from him, than it is to convince him that his suffering is only imaginative. In any case, without reference to modern practice, it is easy to understand that Jesus might speak to a man “possessed of a demon” in terms of the man’s own mind. This would be true even if Jesus himself had no such ideas about demons. But there is no need to suppose that Jesus had any knowledge along this line that differed from current Jewish thought.
Jesus’ Ideas about Hades .—It likewise appears that Jesus accepted the current belief in Hades, the world of departed souls (see p. 85). In the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk. 16: 19-31), Jesus had a vital and important lesson to teach. He moved rapidly toward his goal, using quickly and easily the language of his time. When Lazarus died “He was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom.” When the rich man died and was “in Hades,” he saw Abraham and Lazarus and began to talk to Abraham. Jesus’ whole purpose in the parable was to show that financial and social relationships may be distinctly reversed in the spiritual world. This lesson he expressed in the familiar pictures of his people.
Such a subject comes very close to the central message of Jesus’ ministry. It is a subject about which we in modern times would very much like to have further information. But there are many such matters of vital moral import which Jesus did not touch. He did not cry out against the practice of slavery, but left to his followers of the nineteenth century the task of solving this problem of human life. Moreover, Jesus never said anything about the evils of strong drink. He bequeathed to his spiritual descendants of the twentieth century the long and difficult battle for the solution of this human problem.
Old Testament History and Authorship .—Still more startling to some modem minds is the discovery that Jesus accepted and [ p. 103 ] used the ideas of his time regarding the early history of the world. He referred to the story of Noah and the Ark in such way as to indicate that he thought of the flood as an actual historical event. In a similar manner he spoke about Jonah and his preaching to the men of Nineveh. Matthew includes in the saying a reference to the three days and three nights which Jonah spent in the belly of the whale. To be sure, modern scholars understand quite well that the story of Jonah is a parable, and there is no difficulty with the proposition that Jesus could have referred quite as well to a parable as to a bit of history. Nevertheless, it is probable that the story was accepted as history in Jesus’ day and there is no reason to suppose that Jesus differed from those about him who so regarded it.
A half century ago, it was a custom among a certain class of Bible scholars to prove, or attempt to prove, positions regarding the authorship of Old Testament books, by reference to the words of Jesus. In Mark 12:36 Jesus is reported to have spoken as follows: “David himself said in the holy spirit.” Then follows a quotation from Psalm no, which is one of the later psalms. Verse 37 continues, “David himself calls him Lord.” There was, of course, in the mind of Jesus no thought of answering any question about authorship. He was simply using with contemporary significance their own accepted literature.
The most frequently quoted word of Jesus in such a relationship is Mark 12: 26, Luke 20: 37: “Have you not read in the Book of Moses . . . how God spake to him in these words: ‘I am the God of Abraham’?” This saying has been used to support the Mosaic authorship of the first books of the Old Testament. The quotation is taken from Exodus 3:6. It need hardly be said that Jesus was not upholding any theory of authorship. Jesus never sought to investigate, to correct, or to explain the current ideas in such matters. His whole purpose was to present the gospel of the kingdom of God in such way that men and women would rise above the difficulties and [ p. 104 ] sufferings of their daily existence, into a closer walk with their heavenly father.
Apocalyptic Ideas of the Coming of the Kingdom .—There are many other ways and places in which this same principle may be applied to the words of Jesus. It soon becomes apparent that modern men and women must use their God-given minds in understanding the message of Jesus. One of the basic beliefs of the Christian religion from the earliest days has been that the Holy Spirit or the “spirit of Jesus” will guide Christians into more and more perfect knowledge.
One of the most discussed questions of the Christian religion today is that of the second coming. Premillennialists may be found in most churches, who hold that there will be a sudden, catastrophic overturning of the present world, through direct intervention by God. Jesus will appear personally out of heaven. The righteous will be gathered to him, the wicked will perish miserably.
Those who have difficulty with such ideas will do well to remember that all this apocalyptic imagery is Jewish rather than Christian. Jesus never added anything to these concepts. He did not disagree outwardly with his contemporaries in his apocalyptic expectation. His teaching is filled with the atmosphere and the imminence of the great day when the kingdom would be inaugurated.
There are many sayings of Jesus which show that the spirit of his teaching was larger and deeper than any such purely physical expectation. Jesus said the kingdom is like leaven, or yeast, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened. Again he said the kingdom is like a mustard seed which, in spite of its smallness and insignificance, grows to great size. Many another such saying of Jesus points to a spiritual conception, to a realm of noble aspirations and high ideals which grow and spread rapidly in the hearts of men. Jesus’ idea of the kingdom will be presented at length in a later chapter of this volume. It should be clearly noted here, however, that among those Jewish ideas which Jesus did not revise [ p. 105 ] or change were some of the apocalyptic notions and catastrophic expectations which the Jews had begun to associate with the picture of the coming kingdom.
Fairweatiter, Background of the Gospels , pp. 292-311.
Julicher, A., “Parable” in Encyclopaedia Biblica.
Robinson, B. W., The Gospel of John , Chap. IV.
Robinson, W. H., The Parables of Jesus , pp. 13-42.
Walker, Teaching of Jesus and Jewish Teaching , pp. 185-221.
Wendt, Teaching of Jesus , Vol. I, pp. 106-172.
Zenos, “Parable” in New Standard Bible Dictionary 1926.
———, Plastic Age of the Gospel , pp. 35-43.
This is only a parable. But there are, however, other passages in which Jesus directly addressed the demons. ↩︎