Parables...

 

Aaron Ipisani

PARABLES: The kingdom Jesus intended to establish was utterly different from what was commonly expected of the Messiah. The kingdom of God is grasped with the heart and the spirit. 

This is why Jesus used stories about ordinary, everyday events to illustrate the origi, development, present-day character, and future consummation of the kingdom. Stories can get truths across in a way logical explanations cannot. Understanding the meaning of the parables required a receptive heart rather than a logical mind_which is why the parables in fact obscured Jesus' message for those whose heart was unwilling to listern.

    In interpreting the parables, the problem is to know which elements ard significant and what are merely details included to make the story vivid and memorable. Ordinarily a parable was meant to show one point; we should not try to draw lessons from every detail of the story.

    The number of Jesus' parables is variously put at anywhere from 27 - 50, since what some call parables others call metaphors. Most people agree that Jesus told about 30 parables. 

Some of them are quite similar. Jesus used different stories to illustrate fhe same point_and sometimes the same story to illustrate different points.