The Parables of Jesus - Introduction:

The Gospel of Luke is the longest book in the New Testament. Compiled from eyewitness accounts, Luke has a lot of distinct insight into the life and teachings of Jesus, including more than 15 unique parables. The parables of Jesus make up a crucial part of the Bible. Jesus had the wisdom to simplify the profound spiritual truths he needed to share with humanity in the form of relatable stories that are easy to understand. A parable is a tale about a simple, common subject to illustrate a more profound, valuable moral lesson. The source definition of the word “parable” means a placement side by side for the purpose of comparison. Jesus was a storyteller. The stories and illustrations He told were called parables and there is something unique about them that made them stand out.

Throughout the more than 40 parables that Jesus taught throughout the Bible, He used parables to influence and challenge the thinking of the original audience and to help people consider a different perspective about Himself and the kingdom of God.

Parables can do the same for us today as they did for the original audience. They can give us a fresh perspective on Jesus’ ministry and understanding that God offers His kingdom to everyone. They show us that by choosing Christ, we are putting Jesus first instead of status, money or success.

The purpose of this unit is to acquaint youth with Luke's parables and a few from Matthew, but more importantly, the goal is to help the parables do what Jesus intended them to do. Jesus told parables to help his audience imagine a reality other than the one that they took to be normative and to respond to it by having a change of heart and seeking a closer relationship with God. That reality is the Kingdom of Heaven. Very often, our youth's early lessons on the parables led them to think of them as little morality stories, the lesson of which is "be good and you will be rewarded." Now it is time for them to hear the good news of the parables, the message of God's extravagant grace. They are invited into the topsy turvy reality of the kingdom in which those who serve and are treated as lowly or shameful or insignificant by the world are blessed and valued by God. They are shown a world in which the categories of neighbor and enemy or family member and outcast become meaningless, a world in which it is possible to imitate God and share abundance rather than hoard what the world deems valuable.

In Luke’s Gospel the parable of the Good Samaritan is part of Jesus’ conversation with a lawyer about loving God and neighbors or compatriots.

What kind of speech is meant when we use the term parable? A parable is a short story that refers to something outside the parable itself. Jesus’ parables refer to the kingdom of God. Although parables are related to other kinds of speech like riddles and proverbs, parables emphasize story. Jesus’ parables are short stories that refer to God’s realm of power, God’s kingdom. In Luke’s Gospel, as well as in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, Jesus’ parables generally have a very familiar setting, but these little stories also usually have some surprising element that turns that familiar world upside down.

Or Jesus may provide an example from everyday life to convey spiritual truth, such as the Parable of the Good Samaritan to emphasize love and mercy, or the Parable of the Friend at Midnight to show persistence in prayer. A parable utilizes the full story to produce the spiritual lesson, whereas a proverb, metaphor, simile, or figure of speech centers usually on a word, phrase, or sentence. Discover the many parables of Jesus from the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke in the collection of Bible.