Mark's Gospel says that when Jesus taught the crowds, he did it in parables, and explained them privately to his disciples afterward (Mark 4:33). One of those stories even changed the English language. In Jesus' day a talent was a sum of money, roughly twenty years' wages for a laborer, and his story about servants entrusted with talents (Matthew 25:14) is the reason "talent" now means a gift or ability. Scholars estimate that about a third of his recorded teaching in Matthew, Mark and Luke comes in parables.

What is a parable?

The Greek word parabolē means "a placing alongside." It sets an ordinary scene beside a spiritual truth so you see one through the other. Behind it stands the Hebrew mashal, a much wider word that covers proverbs, riddles, sayings and comparisons. The Hebrew Bible has stories of this kind too, like the prophet Nathan's tale of a rich man who takes a poor man's only lamb (2 Samuel 12:1). Jesus' stories are full of his listeners' world: seed, bread dough, lamps, debts, weddings and day laborers.

A parable is not quite an allegory, where every detail stands for something else. Most turn on one or a few main points, often with a twist that catches the listener off guard.

Why did Jesus teach this way?

A story slips past defenses. People who would argue with a statement lean in to hear how a story ends, and a truth you discover for yourself stays with you longer than one you are handed.

Jesus also said something more puzzling. When his followers asked about the parables, he told them that the secret of the kingdom had been given to them, while to outsiders everything came in riddles, and he drew on a hard saying from Isaiah about people who look without seeing (Mark 4:10; Isaiah 6:9). It has been read in different ways; for many, real hearing is not a matter of intelligence but of willingness to listen and follow. Either way, the parables reward a second look.

Parables about God's love

Luke 15 opens with religious leaders grumbling that Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them. He answers with three stories about something lost.

  • The lost sheep. A shepherd leaves ninety-nine sheep to find the one that strayed, then calls his friends to celebrate (Luke 15:1).
  • The prodigal son. A younger son wastes his inheritance and heads home with a speech ready, hoping to be taken on as a hired worker. His father sees him a long way off and runs to him. The older brother, angry about the party, refuses to go in (Luke 15:11). The story ends before we learn whether he does, so it has two lost sons, not one.
  • The workers in the vineyard. Laborers hired at different hours all receive a full day's pay, and the grumbling that follows shows how hard grace can be to accept (Matthew 20:1).

Parables about how we treat others

  • The good Samaritan. A lawyer asks who counts as his neighbor. Jesus tells of a man robbed and left on the road; a priest and a Levite pass by, and a Samaritan, from a people Jesus' Jewish listeners distrusted, stops to care for him. Jesus ends by asking which of the three acted as a neighbor, turning the question around (Luke 10:25).
  • The sheep and the goats. In this judgment scene, feeding the hungry, welcoming strangers and visiting the sick and imprisoned turn out to have been done for Jesus himself (Matthew 25:31). Some scholars call it a parable and others a prophetic vision, but its point is plain.
  • The persistent widow; the Pharisee and the tax collector. Two stories about prayer: one about not giving up (Luke 18:1), one about coming to God without pretense (Luke 18:9).

Parables about the kingdom

Many compare the kingdom to something ordinary. (Matthew usually says "kingdom of heaven," Mark and Luke "kingdom of God.")

  • The sower. Seed falls on a path, on rocky ground, among thorns and on good soil. The story is about how people receive God's message, and Jesus explains it to his disciples (Matthew 13:1).
  • The mustard seed and the yeast. A tiny seed grows into a plant where birds can nest, and a little yeast works through a large batch of flour. The kingdom starts small and grows quietly (Matthew 13:31).
  • The hidden treasure and the pearl. Someone finds something so valuable that they gladly sell everything to have it (Matthew 13:44).
  • The wheat and the weeds. The servants are told not to pull the weeds early; wheat and weeds grow together until the harvest, a reminder that we are not the final judges (Matthew 13:24).

Parables about being ready

In the talents, each servant must give an account of what he did with what he was given (Matthew 25:14). In the two builders, a house on rock and a house on sand meet the same storm (Matthew 7:24). In the rich man and Lazarus, a wealthy man feasts every day while a hungry beggar lies at his gate, and only after death sees what he never noticed (Luke 16:19).

How to read them

  1. Read the whole story slowly. Ask who the characters are and where the surprise comes.
  2. Put yourself in it. Are you the younger son, the elder brother, the priest, the innkeeper?
  3. Look for the main point. Not every detail is a code. Ask what the story chiefly says about God or about us.
  4. Notice the setting. Luke often says who Jesus was speaking to and why (Luke 15:1; Luke 18:9), and that changes how a story lands.

Christians have differed on how far to press the details. Augustine read the good Samaritan as a map of salvation: the wounded man is Adam, the Samaritan is Christ, the inn is the church. In the late 1800s the German scholar Adolf Jülicher argued that each parable makes only one point; many scholars today, such as Craig Blomberg, allow a point for each main character. Both instincts have borne fruit, and neither cancels how simply these stories speak.

A good place to start

If you have never read the Gospels, try the prodigal son. It takes about five minutes and needs no background. In one scene it shows how Jesus understood God: a father who watches the road, runs, and welcomes home someone with nothing to offer.

To see how these stories fit into the larger picture, the next page looks at what Jesus taught more broadly.