Using the word “parable” in its broadest sense (to include word pictures, personifications, similes, metaphors and allegories), it is probably the most common and effective means of both spoken and written communication available. It is the primary tool employed by Jesus when teaching. Actually, there is scarcely any account of anything in Scripture where the parable isn’t used—from the Garden of Eden in Genesis to the New Jerusalem in Revelation. And yet orthodox Christianity prides itself on sticking to a literal reading of Scripture whenever possible. Of course there are countless instances where it isn’t possible for even the most literal-minded person to read it thusly.
Even though Jesus told us that “all the law and the prophets” “hang” (another parable!) on the commandments to love God and one another (Matthew 22:36-40), and though Paul instructed us that insofar as it depends upon us, we are to “live peaceably with all men” (Roman 12:18), we have experienced nothing but strife and division amongst the body of Christ over the interpretation of Scripture. Let’s take the Genesis account of creation for a start. Christians are ready to fight about whether or not the days of creation are 24-hour days and about how old the earth is.
The doctrine of “transubstantiation” came about because Jesus said “This is my body” and “This is my blood” when giving the disciples bread and wine at the “last supper” (Matthew 26:26, 28) and also said on an earlier occasion, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you” (John 6:53).
I would go so far as to say that every church doctrine (whether it concerns baptism, salvation, women, end times, whatever) is based on how one reads a particular Scripture. Whole denominations and subdivisions of those denominations have arisen because of Scriptural interpretation. Many non-Christians want nothing to do with Christianity because of this division and strife amongst Christians.
Jesus told us:
John 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
And He also prayed:
John 17:20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; 21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. 22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: 23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
In Jesus’ day, each town had its synagogue, and the temple was at Jerusalem. These are the places where the people gathered to worship. The widow was commended by Jesus for giving her “mite” into the temple treasury (Luke 21:1-4) even as He rebuked those in authority in the temple (Matthew 23:27)—thereby indicating that her response to God was what was of importance, not the correct doctrine taught by the scribes, Pharisees and doctors of the law.
And when the Christian churches began to be established, there was one to a town. In the book of Revelation, we hear Jesus addressing “the church in Pergamos,” “the church in Thyatira,” etc. Whatever the differences and difficulties, the people who were followers of Jesus had to learn to live in some sort of harmony. Today we have a church on every corner. If a portion of a church has a disagreement with those in authority, they just split off and start another congregation. Or if an individual member has a difference, he just finds another church where he is more comfortable or where the doctrine is more agreeable. I’ve done this myself many times.
Not only do people switch churches; they also switch friends most of the time. Amongst Christians, friendships seem to be based entirely on similarities in doctrine. When it is the preacher who changes the way he interprets Scripture, he is in danger of being relieved of his position, as well as his friends. No matter how long or how close those friendships, they can be instantly dissolved and he can be labeled a “heretic.” Unbelievers appear to be more loyal in their relationships than do Christians.
And don’t think that non-Christians don’t notice. As Paul tells us, our lives are “epistles” (letters), being “read of all men” (2Corinthians 3:2). People are looking at our lives all the time, ascertaining whether or not they want what we have.
Jesus often had large audiences when teaching. Matthew tells us that “He spake many things unto them in parables” (13:3). Then we are given the parable of the sower, which Jesus concluded by saying, “Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.” Then His disciples asked Him why He used parables when teaching the multitudes. Jesus responded, as He most always did, with words that can be subject to more than one interpretation:
Matthew 13:11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. 12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. 13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. 14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: 15 For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. 16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. 17 For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.
Then He explained to them privately the meaning of the parable of the sower, as He so often did when using the parable to teach.
One might read Jesus’ words as meaning that He deliberately taught in such a way that people couldn’t understand what He was saying. No, Jesus is saying that they have closed their own eyes and kept themselves from seeing, hearing and understanding what He is saying. We hear Jesus saying repeatedly while walking this earth, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear” and even posthumously in the book of Revelation, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches” (chapters 2 and 3). We know that the disciples themselves also often had to have Jesus explain to them the meaning of the parables (as He did in the parable of the sower); yet Jesus made a distinction between them and the multitudes. He said that they were “given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given” (Matthew 13:11). The difference was in the nature of their relationship to Jesus. They not only listened to Jesus teach and received from His hand; they were hungry enough to get alone with Him and have Him explain that which He was doing and teaching.
When the rich young ruler asked Jesus what he must do to have eternal life and Jesus told him (a personal word) that he would have to give up his possessions, the young man found he wasn’t willing to do that (Matthew 19:16ff). It was at this time that Peter noted that the disciples had “forsaken all” to follow Jesus (Matthew 19:27). And THAT is what distinguished them from the multitudes. They were not only willing to get alone with Jesus and LISTEN to what He had to say; they were also willing to DO whatever was required of them.
Jesus Himself said that we won’t find life in the written Scriptures. They are the “letter” which “kills”; it is only the Spirit that gives life (2Corinthians 3:6). The Scriptures themselves cannot give us eternal life; they lead us to the Christ (John 5:39) who is Life (John 14:6). It is the words that He speaks to us when we are quiet and listening that bring life to us:
John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
If Jesus had not taught in parables, everything He said would have been just another law to follow, another doctrine to divide us. Alas, as in the doctrine of transubstantiation, we have succeeded in making even the parables into doctrines and laws! It is the ones who are willing to choose the “one thing that is needful,” the ones willing to sit at Jesus’ feet and LISTEN (Luke 10:42) and the ones willing to do the will of the Father as they hear what that will is (Matthew 12:50) that come “to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,” the ones who have “ears to hear.”
If I read the Bible as a history book of things past and a book of prophecy of things to come, I will inevitably, as has been amply proven by the multitude of churches (though not God’s definition of the “church”—those called out of darkness into light) existing today, I will inevitably live my life by doctrines and become a very dogmatic, judgmental, unloving person because I feel I must defend the doctrines that I live by. And I must keep myself “untainted” by those whose doctrines differ from mine.
But if I read the Bible as a parable that I must get alone with the Christ and have Him explain it to me and what it means for my own spiritual ongoing (as in the case of the rich young ruler) and then be willing to obey whatever I’m told to do during those times of communion, I will respect (not condemn) others who are also “working out their own salvation” as I am mine “with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). I will understand that when I get to thinking that I know something and think I am the one to instruct others as to what they should also know, the truth is that I am but an embodiment of the one Paul describes:
1Corinthians 8:2 And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.
Now I can begin to obey the two great commandments that fulfill all the others—love God with all my heart and my neighbor as myself. I can begin to walk in 1Corinthians 13, that great “love” chapter, because I have known and believed the love that God has for me:
1John 4:16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.