Jesus and His Parables
What is a parable and how do they work? Well, to begin with, parables are not “earthly stories with heavenly meanings”! They are so much more!
Generally speaking, Jesus’s parables draw on agricultural imagery, daily village life, stock character types, and everyday situations to discourse on “God, God’s people, and God’s word.”[1] They draw on a “collective store of Jewish imagery”[2] by rehearsing Old Testament images of a farmer and a vineyard or that of a shepherd and his sheep which often describe God’s relationship with Israel. Or else they resource common images for God and Israel such as a master and his servant, a king and his subjects, or a father and a son.
The parables often explain God’s character, kingdom imperatives, and the nature of discipleship; precisely why they were probably preserved and promulgated by the early church. However, put specifically, the parables are very often “weapons of controversy”[3] in the adversarial context of Jesus’s ministry in that the parables retell Israel’s story in shocking ways affronting to the official and unofficial leaders of Israel.