Evangelical Parables
Introduction to exegesis
Before treating the Parables of Jesus it is necessary to remember who Jesus was. A Nazarene man called Jesus, through the incarnation, entered human history in the double role of true God and true man. He, custodian of the perfect knowledge of God, did not want to deliver this knowledge in a theoretical way, so that everything was acquired only on a mental level, but the Spirit of God communicated to us.
His was not a social mission to eliminate poverty, because the poor remained. He did not come to eliminate the diseases because, despite the many healings, these remained. He did not come to free us from the Demon because, despite having carried out many liberations, the Ancient Serpent remained. Jesus' messianic ministry was the proclamation of the Kingdom of God.
When Jesus entered the world, the people of Israel were a flock without a Shepherd. If it is true that Moses delivered the Ten Commandments obtained from God on Mount Sinai to the Priestly class of the Levites, with the passage of time Scribes, Pharisees and Priests changed the law of God, which was the law of love, into human law. They, under the influence of Satan, obscured the face of God by introducing about six hundred rules and precepts detailing the life of the faithful. Religion has thus changed into a human organization related to politics, to the powerful, to their own interests.
Jesus came to take away this great satanic sin and restore the true face of God. This mission led him to an atrocious death decreed and desired by the whole Religious class, and decreed by the head of the Sanhedrin Caiphas. This shows that it is not enough to study the Scriptures like the Scribes - current theologians - or belong to the Priestly caste to know Jesus. Despite being Bible scholars and dedicated to religious rites, they committed a deicide.
Jesus taught through narrative parables and these were stories that started from what he observed to compare eternal realities to what was familiar, he wanted to invite listeners to put themselves in the characters' place to make them understand the divine realities and enter the kingdom of God. His was a unique, universal literary genre invented by a divine Master to express his Theology and his teaching.
Jesus therefore used the Parables for pedagogical purposes and to reveal the Kingdom of God and addressed the crowd, but many with a hard heart did not understand it, could not understand it, rejected it, as also today it happens, its sublime message. Moreover, God can reveal the secrets of His Kingdom only to those who have faith and want to become his disciple.
The historical distance between the original text and the present is evident. In fact, we read an ancient text designed and written for that specific cultural moment, for that social and religious situation. If the writings have remained almost the same over the centuries, the interpretations have changed.
There are two categories of Parables: narrative and similarities. The Parables can be interpreted in an allegorical way, a method that has been adopted since the beginning of Christianity by the Patristic and by all the most experienced commentators. This method rests on the assumption that within the parable, there are allegories to be interpreted and a meaning is given to each detail, to each image.
In the last century if another literary method is added. This method for interpreting the Parables uses numerous methodologies that can be summarized in rhetorical analysis, structural and philological analysis. A modern method suitable for studying the original historical context. A method that uses a philological work to understand both the meaning of words, both the Palestinian Roman expressions, and the images already used in the Old Testament.
Finally a method by abstraction which uses neither allegories nor literary analysis, but the preconceived idea of the commentator, who adapts the parable to his moral and cultural world and interprets it as he likes, not to express the teaching of Jesus, but your own.
Index Parables
- Merciless servant
- Vineyard workers
- The lost sheep
- The lost coin
- The prodigal son
- The Good Samaritan
- The rich fool
- The rich and Lazarus
- The Pharisee and the publican
- Wise and foolish builders
- The construction of the tower
- The king who goes to war
- The dishonest administrator
- The faithful and wise slave
- The ten virgins
- The sower
- Children on the market place
- The two debtors
- The two children
- The friend at midnight
- The gifts of the Father
- The barren fig
- The duty of the slave
- The widow and the judge
- Slaves waiting
- Talents
- The mines
- The tares
- The network
- The final judgment
- The Great Banquet
- The wedding feast
- The wicked tenants
- The seed that grows in secret
- The mustard seed
- Yeast
- The treasure in the field
- The pearl of great value
- The fig tree
- The lamp under the bushel
Parables characteristic of the Gospel of John
Parable theme
Christian evangelists
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Stories of Jesus found in the Gospels