Tag: Parables

The servants want to clear the field and the farmer stops them. Wright reads them as the revolutionary movements of the day, eager to help God along a bit.

The man hides what he found and buys the field without telling the owner, which is not obviously honest. Why the awkwardness is worth facing rather than fixing.

A mustard bush is not the cedar Ezekiel promised, and yeast is an image of corruption everywhere else. Both parables pick the wrong thing deliberately.

The one parable Jesus explains, which makes it the control case for all the others. What the soils mean, and the hard answer about why he taught this way.

Shepherd language in the Bible is royal language, so this is not a picture of gentleness. It is a claim to the throne, made against named rival claimants.

Ten thousand talents was not a large debt, it was an unpayable one, and the second debt is real money. The gap between the two numbers is the parable.

Everything turns on the phrase the least of these my brothers, which Matthew has already defined elsewhere. That changes who is judged and on what basis.

The father runs to reach his son before the village does. A ceremony was waiting for a man who lost family land among Gentiles, and the embrace prevents it.

Three parables in Luke 15 answer one complaint about eating with sinners, and reading them as separate lessons loses the argument they build together.

Simon skipped every courtesy owed a guest, which was a calculated insult. Then a woman supplied all three of them, and the parable is aimed at the host.