parables

169:1.16Many, many times dur­ing his years of teach­ing, Je­sus told and re­told this story of the prodi­gal son. This para­ble and the story of the good Samar­i­tan were his fa­vorite means of teach­ing the love of the Fa­ther and the neigh­bor­li­ness of man.

151:4.7Many other para­bles spoke Je­sus to the mul­ti­tudes. In fact, from this time for­ward he sel­dom taught the masses ex­cept by this means. Af­ter speak­ing to a pub­lic au­di­ence in para­bles, he would, dur­ing the evening classes, more fully and ex­plic­itly ex­pound his teach­ings to the apos­tles and the evan­ge­lists.

151:3.16Many times did the apos­tles turn this say­ing over in their minds, but the Mas­ter never made fur­ther men­tion of this ad­di­tion to the para­ble of the sower.

167:2.4The next day all of the apos­tles en­gaged in the philo­sophic ex­er­cise of en­deav­or­ing to in­ter­pret the mean­ing of this para­ble of the great sup­per. Though Je­sus lis­tened with in­ter­est to all of these dif­fer­ing in­ter­pre­ta­tions, he stead­fastly re­fused to of­fer them fur­ther help in un­der­stand­ing the para­ble. He would only say, “Let ev­ery man find out the mean­ing for him­self and in his own soul.”

169:3.3Af­ter Pe­ter had re­cited this an­cient para­ble of the Nazarite broth­er­hood, and since the crowd had qui­eted down, An­drew arose and dis­missed them for the night. Al­though both the apos­tles and his dis­ci­ples fre­quently asked Je­sus ques­tions about the para­ble of Dives and Laz­a­rus, he never con­sented to make com­ment thereon.

171:8.8And then the apos­tles sought to know the dif­fer­ence be­tween the mean­ing of this para­ble and that of the for­mer para­ble of the tal­ents, but Je­sus would only say, in an­swer to their many ques­tions: “Pon­der well these words in your hearts while each of you finds out their true mean­ing.”

169:3.1When the meet­ing be­came too noisy, Si­mon Pe­ter, stand­ing up, took charge, say­ing: “Men and breth­ren, it is not seemly thus to dis­pute among your­selves. The Mas­ter has spo­ken, and you do well to pon­der his words. And this is no new doc­trine which he pro­claimed to you. Have you not also heard the al­le­gory of the Nazarites con­cern­ing the rich man and the beg­gar? Some of us heard John the Bap­tist thun­der this para­ble of warn­ing to those who love riches and covet dis­hon­est wealth. And while this olden para­ble is not ac­cord­ing to the gospel we preach, you would all do well to heed its lessons un­til such a time as you com­pre­hend the new light of the king­dom of heaven. The story as John told it was like this:

169:3.2“There was a cer­tain rich man named Dives, who, be­ing clothed in pur­ple and fine linen, lived in mirth and splen­dor ev­ery day. And there was a cer­tain beg­gar named Laz­a­rus, who was laid at this rich man’s gate, cov­ered with sores and de­sir­ing to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s ta­ble; yes, even the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the beg­gar died and was car­ried away by the an­gels to rest in Abra­ham’s bo­som. And then, pres­ently, this rich man also died and was buried with great pomp and re­gal splen­dor. When the rich man de­parted from this world, he waked up in Hades, and find­ing him­self in tor­ment, he lifted up his eyes and be­held Abra­ham afar off and Laz­a­rus in his bo­som. And then Dives cried aloud: ‘Fa­ther Abra­ham, have mercy on me and send over Laz­a­rus that he may dip the tip of his fin­ger in wa­ter to cool my tongue, for I am in great an­guish be­cause of my pun­ish­ment.’ And then Abra­ham replied: ‘My son, you should re­mem­ber that in your life­time you en­joyed the good things while Laz­a­rus in like man­ner suf­fered the evil. But now all this is changed, see­ing that Laz­a­rus is com­forted while you are tor­mented. And be­sides, be­tween us and you there is a great gulf so that we can­not go to you, nei­ther can you come over to us.’ Then said Dives to Abra­ham: ‘I pray you send Laz­a­rus back to my fa­ther’s house, inas­much as I have five broth­ers, that he may so tes­tify as to pre­vent my broth­ers from com­ing to this place of tor­ment.’ But Abra­ham said: ‘My son, they have Moses and the proph­ets; let them hear them.’ And then an­swered Dives: ‘No, No, Fa­ther Abra­ham! but if one go to them from the dead, they will re­pent.’ And then said Abra­ham: ‘If they hear not Moses and the proph­ets, nei­ther will they be per­suaded even if one were to rise from the dead.’”

176:2.8Of all the dis­courses which the Mas­ter gave his apos­tles, none ever be­came so con­fused in their minds as this one, given this Tues­day evening on the Mount of Olives, re­gard­ing the two­fold sub­ject of the de­struc­tion of Je­ru­sa­lem and his own sec­ond com­ing. There was, there­fore, lit­tle agree­ment be­tween the sub­se­quent writ­ten ac­counts based on the mem­o­ries of what the Mas­ter said on this ex­traor­di­nary oc­ca­sion. Con­se­quently, when the rec­ords were left blank con­cern­ing much that was said that Tues­day evening, there grew up many tra­di­tions; and very early in the sec­ond cen­tury a Jew­ish apoc­a­lyp­tic about the Mes­siah writ­ten by one Selta, who was at­tached to the court of the Em­peror Caligula, was bod­ily copied into the Mat­thew Gospel and sub­se­quently added (in part) to the Mark and Luke rec­ords. It was in these writ­ings of Selta that the para­ble of the ten vir­gins ap­peared. No part of the gospel rec­ord ever suf­fered such con­fus­ing mis­con­struc­tion as this evening’s teach­ing. But the Apos­tle John never be­came thus con­fused.

• true stories, not allegories, illustrate one central truth

149:3.1Not­with­stand­ing the fa­vor­able re­cep­tion of Je­sus and his teach­ings by the com­mon peo­ple, the re­li­gious lead­ers at Je­ru­sa­lem be­came in­creas­ingly alarmed and an­tag­o­nis­tic. The Phar­isees had for­mu­lated a sys­tem­atic and dog­matic the­ol­ogy. Je­sus was a teacher who taught as the oc­ca­sion served; he was not a sys­tem­atic teacher. Je­sus taught not so much from the law as from life, by para­bles. (And when he em­ployed a para­ble for il­lus­trat­ing his mes­sage, he de­signed to uti­lize just one fea­ture of the story for that pur­pose. Many wrong ideas con­cern­ing the teach­ings of Je­sus may be se­cured by at­tempt­ing to make al­le­gories out of his para­bles.)

• mysteries of kingdom presented in

151:1.4“In pa­tience have I in­structed you all this time. To you it is given to know the mys­ter­ies of the king­dom of heaven, but to the undis­cern­ing mul­ti­tudes and to those who seek our de­struc­tion, from now on, the mys­ter­ies of the king­dom shall be pre­sented in para­bles. And this we will do so that those who re­ally de­sire to en­ter the king­dom may dis­cern the mean­ing of the teach­ing and thus find sal­va­tion, while those who lis­ten only to en­snare us may be the more con­founded in that they will see with­out see­ing and will hear with­out hear­ing. My chil­dren, do you not per­ceive the law of the spirit which de­crees that to him who has shall be given so that he shall have an abun­dance; but from him who has not shall be taken away even that which he has. There­fore will I hence­forth speak to the peo­ple much in para­bles to the end that our friends and those who de­sire to know the truth may find that which they seek, while our en­e­mies and those who love not the truth may hear with­out un­der­stand­ing. Many of these peo­ple fol­low not in the way of the truth. The prophet did, in­deed, de­scribe all such undis­cern­ing souls when he said: ‘For this peo­ple’s heart has waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hear­ing, and their eyes they have closed lest they should dis­cern the truth and un­der­stand it in their hearts.’”

• true stories, not allegories, illustrate one central truth

151:2.5The Mas­ter per­mit­ted this con­fu­sion to pass the point of most in­tense ex­pres­sion; then he clapped his hands and called them about him. When they had all gath­ered around him once more, he said, “Be­fore I tell you about this para­ble, do any of you have aught to say?” Fol­low­ing a mo­ment of si­lence, Thomas spoke up: “Yes, Mas­ter, I wish to say a few words. I re­mem­ber that you once told us to be­ware of this very thing. You in­structed us that, when us­ing il­lus­tra­tions for our preach­ing, we should em­ploy true sto­ries, not fa­bles, and that we should se­lect a story best suited to the il­lus­tra­tion of the one cen­tral and vi­tal truth which we wished to teach the peo­ple, and that, hav­ing so used the story, we should not at­tempt to make a spir­i­tual ap­pli­ca­tion of all the mi­nor de­tails in­volved in the telling of the story. I hold that Pe­ter and Na­than­iel are both wrong in their at­tempts to in­ter­pret this para­ble. I ad­mire their abil­ity to do these things, but I am equally sure that all such at­tempts to make a nat­u­ral para­ble yield spir­i­tual analo­gies in all its fea­tures can only re­sult in con­fu­sion and se­ri­ous mis­con­cep­tion of the true pur­pose of such a para­ble. That I am right is fully proved by the fact that, whereas we were all of one mind an hour ago, now are we di­vided into two sep­a­rate groups who hold dif­fer­ent opin­ions con­cern­ing this para­ble and hold such opin­ions so earnestly as to in­ter­fere, in my opin­ion, with our abil­ity fully to grasp the great truth which you had in mind when you pre­sented this para­ble to the mul­ti­tude and sub­se­quently asked us to make com­ment upon it.”

• true stories, not allegories, illustrate one central truth

151:2.7When Thomas had fin­ished speak­ing, the ma­jor­ity of his fel­low preach­ers were about ready to agree with him, even Pe­ter and Na­than­iel were on their way over to speak with him, when Je­sus arose and said: “Well done, Thomas; you have dis­cerned the true mean­ing of para­bles; but both Pe­ter and Na­than­iel have done you all equal good in that they have so fully shown the dan­ger of un­der­tak­ing to make an al­le­gory out of my para­bles. In your own hearts you may of­ten prof­itably en­gage in such flights of the spec­u­la­tive imag­i­na­tion, but you make a mis­take when you seek to of­fer such con­clu­sions as a part of your pub­lic teach­ing.”

• promote sympathy without arousing antagonism; simultaneously appeal to vastly different levels of mind

151:3.6The para­ble pro­vides for a si­mul­ta­ne­ous ap­peal to vastly dif­fer­ent lev­els of mind and spirit. The para­ble stim­u­lates the imag­i­na­tion, chal­lenges the dis­crim­i­na­tion, and pro­vokes crit­i­cal think­ing; it pro­motes sym­pa­thy with­out arous­ing an­tag­o­nism.

151:3.7The para­ble pro­ceeds from the things which are known to the dis­cern­ment of the un­known. The para­ble uti­lizes the ma­te­rial and nat­u­ral as a means of in­tro­duc­ing the spir­i­tual and the super­ma­te­rial.

151:3.8Para­bles fa­vor the mak­ing of im­par­tial moral de­ci­sions. The para­ble evades much prej­u­dice and puts new truth grace­fully into the mind and does all this with the arousal of a min­i­mum of the self-de­fense of per­sonal re­sent­ment.

151:3.9To re­ject the truth con­tained in parabol­i­cal anal­ogy re­quires con­scious in­tel­lec­tual ac­tion which is di­rectly in con­tempt of one’s hon­est judg­ment and fair de­ci­sion. The para­ble con­duces to the forc­ing of thought through the sense of hear­ing.

151:3.10The use of the para­ble form of teach­ing en­ables the teacher to pre­sent new and even startling truths while at the same time he largely avoids all con­tro­versy and out­ward clash­ing with tra­di­tion and es­tab­lished au­thor­ity.

• promote sympathy without arousing antagonism; simultaneously appeal to vastly different levels of mind

165:2.2“On this night I have much to tell you, and since many of you are my dis­ci­ples and some of you my bit­ter en­e­mies, I will pre­sent my teach­ing in a para­ble, so that you may each take for your­self that which finds a re­cep­tion in your heart.

• promote sympathy without arousing antagonism; simultaneously appeal to vastly different levels of mind

165:2.7“And now, lest some of you too eas­ily com­pre­hend this para­ble, I will de­clare that I am both the door to the Fa­ther’s sheep­fold and at the same time the true shep­herd of my Fa­ther’s flocks. Ev­ery shep­herd who seeks to en­ter the fold with­out me shall fail, and the sheep will not hear his voice. I, with those who min­is­ter with me, am the door. Ev­ery soul who en­ters upon the eter­nal way by the means I have cre­ated and or­dained shall be saved and will be able to go on to the at­tain­ment of the eter­nal pas­tures of Par­a­dise.

• difficult to crystallize or dogmatize spiritual teachings presented in

179:5.4In in­sti­tut­ing this re­mem­brance sup­per, the Mas­ter, as was al­ways his habit, re­sorted to para­bles and sym­bols. He em­ployed sym­bols be­cause he wanted to teach cer­tain great spir­i­tual truths in such a man­ner as to make it dif­fi­cult for his suc­ces­sors to at­tach pre­cise in­ter­pre­ta­tions and def­i­nite mean­ings to his words. In this way he sought to pre­vent suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions from crys­tal­liz­ing his teach­ing and bind­ing down his spir­i­tual mean­ings by the dead chains of tra­di­tion and dogma. In the es­tab­lish­ment of the only cer­e­mony or sacra­ment as­so­ci­ated with his whole life mis­sion, Je­sus took great pains to sug­gest his mean­ings rather than to com­mit him­self to pre­cise def­i­ni­tions. He did not wish to de­stroy the in­di­vid­ual’s con­cept of di­vine com­mu­nion by es­tab­lish­ing a pre­cise form; nei­ther did he de­sire to limit the be­liever’s spir­i­tual imag­i­na­tion by for­mally cramp­ing it. He rather sought to set man’s re­born soul free upon the joy­ous wings of a new and liv­ing spir­i­tual lib­erty.

179:5.5Not­with­stand­ing the Mas­ter’s ef­fort thus to es­tab­lish this new sacra­ment of the re­mem­brance, those who fol­lowed af­ter him in the in­ter­ven­ing cen­turies saw to it that his ex­press de­sire was ef­fec­tively thwarted in that his sim­ple spir­i­tual sym­bol­ism of that last night in the flesh has been re­duced to pre­cise in­ter­pre­ta­tions and sub­jected to the al­most math­e­mat­i­cal pre­ci­sion of a set for­mula. Of all Je­sus’ teach­ings none have be­come more tra­di­tion-stan­dard­ized.