Hermeneutics Pt. 3: What is a parable?

In our study on hermeneutics, interpreting the Word of God. Just a couple of quick things we knew, review what is hermeneutics, the art and the science of interpretation. Remember, it's an art because it takes practice, it takes skill.

It's a science because there are rules and principles that are necessary. Why is hermeneutics so important? Remember, the Bible is subject to distortion by the untrained and untaught. We see this is running rampant in our society today, subject to distortion.

And then, to bridge the many gaps between our culture today and the ancient culture of scripture. This one here, we'll see this very much today, our study is going to be on parables. Remember last week we looked at some of the basic principles, the foundational presuppositions, and then some of the principles of hermeneutics.

Alright? And then there's that quotation from Ram, I just want to keep putting that up, there's no prophet to us if God has spoken and we do not know what he has said. We need to know the correct method of biblical interpretation so that we do not confuse the voice of God with the voice of man.

What Is a Parable?

So today we're going to start a new study on parables and the first question we should ask always is what is a parable? If you look at the etymology of the word, it's placing one thing beside another.

You can see the para part of it which makes it that pretty clear. There's a popular definition which you hear in a lot of churches, what is a parable? An earthly story with a heavenly meaning, alright?

It's very popular. Practically, you can put it this way, it's a comparison drawn from nature or daily life and is designed to illuminate some spiritual truth on the assumption that what is valid in one sphere is also valid in another.

Keep this in mind what it says. The assumption is in a parable that what is being used as an example is valid. It doesn't make sense to use an example that isn't true or isn't valid, alright? So what's valid in one sphere is also valid in another.

Descriptively, speaking about a parable, the story is usually true to the facts of everyday experience. Where it is not, there is an element of surprise. The surprise is usually the point of the parable.

Now I'm not going to give too many examples going through today. In fact, let me preface what we're going to be doing. I'm going to go through all the principles of hermeneutics first and then for a couple of Wednesdays, we're actually going to look at certain portions of scripture, do the exegesis on it and practice some hermeneutics to see how we should apply the principles to the word of God.

But in this case, I want to show one right up front. Talking about a surprise, the parable of the vineyard owners. Remember in Matthew 20, remember he hired some people at 9 in the morning, some people at 11, some people at 1, etc.

When those hired about the 11th hour came, each one received a denarius. Now remember, denarius was about a day's pay. So they only worked about an hour and they received a day's pay. Each one received a denarius.

In verse 10, when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more but each of them also received a denarius. This is not normal practice. How many times have you ever gone to a boss and seen him practice this principle?

Anybody ever worked for a boss that did this? It doesn't matter how long you work, you're going to get the same pay. No. That's the surprise. That's the point. And if you go and we'll look at that parable a little bit more in the future, if you look at it, that's the whole point of it, is the surprise.

The Purposes of Parables

So, second thing we're going to look at is the purpose of parables. One of the purposes of parables is to stimulate thinking. Some of us need more stimulation than others. And parables are a good way to stimulate thinking, to generate interest in doctrine.

Which would you rather do? Would you rather hear a nice story that Jesus tells or just go down and a systematic theology book? Everybody would rather hear stories, especially if they can be used in such a way that they do teach.

It's active rather than passive learning. It's one thing to, again, using a textbook to go through and go through principles and there's a need for that. We need textbooks. But parables engage you in the learning process, usually by asking a question.

And you'll see I have a couple up here in a few moments. Usually by asking a question, forcing you to actively think about it. Instead of just receiving a thought, you have to think about and answer the question.

And that is always more engaging. Second is to enhance understanding. A concrete display of an abstract truth. The whole purpose of metaphors and analogies is to try to get you to understand things better than just the principle itself.

And again, you'll see these principles in play even tonight. To reveal, uncover or lay bare. These are all to enhance our understanding of a particular doctrinal point. To aid in memory. Outlines may be forgotten, but the truth of a sermon may be remembered through the parable.

I'm trying to think of which sermon was I preached just a short time ago. I gave a story. I'm trying to think of the one. And everybody came up afterwards. The best coleslaw. That was one of them. The Lone Ranger.

Everybody was talking to me about the Lone Ranger after the sermon. Because they remember it. And hopefully that will trigger the remembrance of what the theological point was. Example. The Good Samaritan.

Good Samaritan is remembered today. How many Good Samaritan hospitals are there? That's remembered even outside the church. In fact, they have in RV use, they have the Good Samaritan. It's like an auto club for RV users.

That's 2 ,000 years ago that Jesus gave that illustration. And yet we still understand what a Good Samaritan is. To evoke a response. We'll see that too when Jesus gave some of the parables. It definitely engendered a response.

Jesus said at the end of one of the parables in Matthew 13, he who has ears, let him hear. Now in Matthew 21, after his parable, he says, when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they understood he was speaking about them.

What response did it engender? They sought to seize him. Doesn't always give you a positive response. They sought to seize him, but they feared the people because they considered him to be a prophet. But they understood through the parable what he was saying about them, that the kingdom was going to be taken from them.

This one is a limited purpose, but to judicially veil the truth. You don't see this very often, but there are a couple of parables. In Matthew 13, and when the disciples came and said to him, why do you speak to them in parables?

They're talking about the crowds. Jesus answered, to you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. And if you continue on, he says, basically, it's their destiny is to be lost.

So, he didn't want them to come to understand the truth. That was part of his decree. Now again, you don't see that very often, but he explained and interpreted the parables to his disciples, but to the crowds in general, they were left on their own.

Principles for Interpreting Parables

Third, we're going to look at now, this is the crux of what we're looking at tonight, the principles of interpreting parables. First, look for the main point of the parable. That should make sense. The main point is usually obvious.

Luke 10, 29, the parable of the Good Samaritan. What prompted Jesus to tell the parable of the Good Samaritan? He had just uttered the words, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Love your neighbor as yourself. And what does the lawyer say? Who's my neighbor? That's what prompts the parable. Who is my neighbor? At the end of the parable, Jesus asked the question, who proved to be a neighbor?

And obviously, the answer is the Good Samaritan. You see how it works. There's a point, there's a theological question that comes up. Jesus immediately goes into a parable. At the end of the parable, he asked the question, and he's engendering conversation and asking the listener to actually come up with the answer to his question.

Who is my neighbor? Jesus comes back, okay. Based upon what I've just said, who proved to be the neighbor in this case? See how parables are useful? The details of the parable will relate to the main point.

We need to be careful. Parables are usually for one main point only. And if you try to make comparisons with every aspect of the parable, every detail, you can be led astray very quickly. The details of the parable are only to enhance the main point of the parable because otherwise you can go too far.

These details are always part of the central theme. Go back to what the purpose for the parable is. Don't try to take a parable and apply it to other parables necessarily unless it's of the same genre.

They will support, expand, and illustrate the main point. For example, take the vineyard owner again. If you take it too far, you can then say the parable shows that you have to work for your salvation.

Is that what the parable is saying? That's not the point of the parable. So you have to be careful. What is the purpose of including in what they were paid? It's the main point of the parable. It shows that everybody's on an equal footing.

It doesn't matter at what point in your life you come into the kingdom of God. We can also, and this is a very important point, whenever we start talking about biblical principles of interpretation, learn from the hermeneutics of Jesus because we have Jesus interpreting parables right in the word.

The parable of the sower, for example. In verses 1 to 9, he gives the parable, and he leaves it there for the moment, but later on down in verses 18 to 23, he gives the interpretation. So if you read verses 1 to 9 and you're thinking of anything other than what's in 18 to 23, you have misinterpreted the parable.

And that gives us a great example of how parables are to be interpreted. Same thing with the parable of the wheat and tares. The parable is given in verses 24 to 30, and the interpretation in verses 36 to 43.

So if somebody asks you a question, what's the parable of the sower? What does that mean? Very simple. Go right there. You don't have to, in this case, the thinking was done for you, but it was done as an example to teach us how to interpret parables.

Fourth, understand the story's meaning for the first century listener. This is a big one. How often do we see pastors today giving sermons and taking stories that were given in the first century and giving them 20th century meaning?

You can make application, but you can't change the essential meaning. You have to look at it to the people that Jesus was talking to initially. And our response must be the same as the first century. If it's not, if you read the parable and your response is not the same as the crowds, you've probably misinterpreted it.

All right. I had a boss who said, if you can keep your head when everybody else is around you is losing theirs, you probably don't understand the situation. So we want to make sure we're on the same page with everybody else.

For example, the widow's lost coin. If you read the text and you understand, she's looking for a couple of coins, a couple of cents. I mean, if you try to bring that into a 20th century application, you say, what's the big deal?

She lost a couple of coins. But to her, it's all she had. That was like her life savings. And so when she finds it, what does she do? She calls up all her neighbors. She says, I found my coins. That's her livelihood.

All right. And so you have to go back and put yourself in those circumstances. The mustard seed in Matthew. What's the point of the mustard seed? Well, and this is where you have to be, do maybe do a little extra work.

What does Jesus say? It's the smallest of seeds. Okay. If you have to know that, how tall is the mustard seed grow? How big are mustard plants? How many can tell me? How big do mustard plants go? Not one.

About this high. But what does Jesus say? But what does Jesus say? It's going to grow to be the biggest tree in the garden. What does that mean? What's the application? He's talking about the kingdom of God.

Start small, but it's going to grow to be the largest tree in the garden. So large that the birds will come in and land in it and nest in it and everything else. And that even, and there's you get some even greater symbolism of the birds being nations coming, coming into the kingdom of God.

So you have to do a little bit of homework. All right. You have to understand what did this parable mean to the first century listener? Words must be understood in the first century context. You're going to laugh at the examples I'm going to show you here, but it, well, the second one, anyway, Samaritan.

What's the first thought that comes to your mind when, when I say the word, we're going to look at the Samaritan. I'm talking about today. Not, not don't go back to you think, yeah, it's a good person.

Somebody is going to help somebody. First century Jews. You mentioned Samaritan. What are they thinking? They hated them. Half breeds, impure rebels. They didn't even want to walk through. In fact, if you walk through Samaria, you had to shake the dust off your feet because you didn't want to take polluted dust into Israel from Samaria.

All right. So now that's why the parable gets full meaning when you understand it. Who is the neighbor? The Samaritan is my neighbor. In that case, it's not a question of who lives next door to you. It's a question of who does the function of a neighbor.

All right. Talent. I have to tell you, I've heard pastors take this and do the whole message on the talents that God has gifted you with to play the instrument, to, to speak and everything else. I mean, I don't, I don't mind the secondary application.

You can make it. But what's the first application? How to use your money. That's what it means. That's what it's talking about. It's talking about stewardship. Now, yes, we can take that and expand it to be stewardship over gifts and possessions and all.

But first and foremost, the purpose of the parable is how are you going to use the money? Then you take that and you can make all the spiritual applications. Okay. Fifth, compare the parable to other texts.

Remember, a parable is an illustration. It's not the primary teaching of doctrine. So once you've interpreted the parable, you want to compare it with other texts to make sure that your exegesis of the text is correct.

For example, Old Testament Associations. Parable of the Vineyard is given in Mark 12 verses 1 and 2. I'm sorry, 1 to 12. I've actually, I want to read this because this is important. I want you to pay close attention.

This is the parable of the, of the vineyard owners in Mark chapter 12. And he began to speak to them in parables. A man planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a vat under the winepress and built a tower and rented it out to vine growers and went on a journey.

At the harvest time, he sent a slave to the wine growers in order to receive some of the produce of the vineyard from the vine growers. They took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again, he sent them another slave and they wounded him in the head and treated him shamefully.

And he sent another and that one, they also killed. And so with many others, beating some and killing others. He had one more to send, a beloved son. He sent him last of all to them saying, they will respect my son.

But those vine growers said to one another, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours. They took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do?

He will come and destroy the vine growers and will give to the vineyard, give the vineyard to others. Have you not even read the scripture, the stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief cornerstone.

This came about from the Lord and it is marvelous in our eyes. Tremendous parable, tremendous impact both theologically, eschatologically, has a lot to say. We know that after he related this parable, what was the response of the scribes, the Pharisees?

They knew he was talking about them, right? How did he, how did they know that? Well, let me show you something. There's also a venue passage in Isaiah chapter 5. You think they were familiar with Isaiah?

Let's see what Isaiah 5 says. Let me sing now for my well-beloved a song of my beloved concerning his vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. He dug it all around, removed the stones and planted with the choices vine.

He built a tower in the middle of it and also hewed out a wine vat in it. Then he expected it to produce good grapes, but it produced only worthless ones. And now, oh inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.

Who's the vineyard? Israel. What more was there for him to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? Why when I expected it to produce good grapes, did it produce worthless ones? So now let me tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard.

I will remove its hedge and it will be consumed. I will break down its walls and it will become trampled ground. I will lay it waste. It will not be pruned or honed, but briars and thorns will come up.

I will also charge the clouds to rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel and the men of Judah his delightful plant. Thus he looked for justice, but behold bloodshed.

For righteousness, but behold the cry of distress. You think they could put those two together? And you can see how one, that's why I say compare it with others. Look for other parables, other portions of Scripture that relate to the same type of thing.

You take that parable and then the parable in Mark chapter 12 and you can see why Christ was inciting these people. He was telling them, you're finished. Kingdoms will be taken away from you. So look for parallels in other Gospels.

Sixth, beware of making parables proof text for doctrine. That's a big danger. You want to go to the didactic portions of Scripture where the doctrine is first being taught. Parables are meant to enhance and to illuminate doctrine, not to provide the main source for the doctrinal truth.

Generally, parables illustrate truth, not define it. Let me give you an example of some errors, all right? The wheat and the tares in Matthew chapter 13. There are those churches who use this parable to say that there's no church discipline.

It's wrong to discipline. Well, what do you do with Matthew 18? When Jesus says, this is what you must do. There you have specific didactic teaching and you have a parable which is illustrating a completely different point, all right?

And yet they use it for an erroneous doctrine. The vineyard laborers, all right? I actually heard this was used to mean you shouldn't be negotiating a labor contract. Has nothing to do with that whatsoever.

So all you union guys are in big trouble. Seventh, look for common themes. And in the parables, these are some of the common themes. The mystery of the kingdom of God. It's one of the purposes of parables is to illuminate the mystery of the kingdom of God.

Because there are, the New Testament talks a lot about the mystery of the kingdom, the nature of the kingdom of God. For example, look at Matthew chapter 13. In Matthew chapter 13, we see Jesus presented another parable to them saying, the kingdom of heaven may be compared.

Look at, I want to show you how often you see this type of language. This is how you can know that you're looking at a parable. May be compared. You present another parable to them saying, the kingdom of heaven is like.

Notice the words of comparison. Matthew 13, 33, he spoke to another parable, the kingdom of heaven is like. This time it's like leaven. Here, it's like the mustard seed. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, all right?

The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant. Notice the same language. You see the same language over and over again. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, all right? And here, I just wanted to show this.

And when it was filled, they drew it up on the beach. They sat down and gathered the good fish into containers. But the bad, they threw away. There's the main point. So, it will be at the end of the age.

Here's your main point, Judgment Day. So, everything else in this parable is going to be pointed back to Judgment Day because this is what the kingdom of heaven is like. Any questions? Yes? I forget the man who confronted David about his sin, Nathan, right?

When he gave that story, would that be considered a parable? Sure. Yeah, a lot of sermon illustrations that we use today are in fact parables, not all of them. There's a difference between just a sermon illustration, but sometimes we do tell stories which is perfectly acceptable because that's how Jesus taught.

Yes, Steve? In Isaiah 5 and what's the New Testament? Mark 12. It's not exactly the same. No. In the New Testament, he's killing and beating up the... He's sending prophets and they're killing them or beating them and then he sends his son.

But in Isaiah 5, it's more like God is just going to remove the hedge. All the protection he's been giving to the vineyard is gone and it's going to be destroyed. Sure. So what do we make of the different...

It's different purposes. The Old Testament is prophecy to Israel to cause them to repent so that God doesn't destroy them. In the New Testament, it's pretty much even late. There's a warning there of what they're going to do to Jesus Christ.

They're going to be... The slaves that they send are like representative of the prophets who they killed. Remember Jesus constantly said, you killed the prophets. And then of course, the prophecy there is that they're going to send...

The son is given and they're going to kill him. I was just going to say the key between the two is not so much both being the same exact situation, but that the vineyard being Israel and the Pharisees would have known that the vineyard was referring to Israel.

Sure. Yeah. Good observation. Any other questions? Yes. Lazarus and the rich man, that was not a parable. That's still debated by theologians, whether it's a parable or not. So I'll pass on that question.

I don't want to throw that out at this point. Yes. It's just a comment, but didn't Jesus say as well that parables are used to reveal things of God to unbelievers and then reveal them to those who were chosen?

Yes. Yeah. In general, it's to reveal, but there are certain cases where it's to judicially hide. I mean, that's what Jesus says so clearly. No, I'm speaking to them this way because I don't want them to repent.

Yeah. I can say that here because you're Reformed and you understand God's decree. But I mean, to say that in another church, in a broadly evangelical church, I'd be stoned. Yes. I was going to say the illustration for the issue of Lazarus and the rich man.

I agree. That's a tough one to call, but it does point out the importance of context. You do need to see the surrounding conversation that led to the parable. That obviously plays into the points Jesus is trying to make.

He's usually answering or responding and challenging people's thinking and what they've been talking about and discoursing over. And so when you look at a parable or you what gives context and what gives meaning to those things is what was Jesus addressing in terms of the conversation of the people who raised these issues with him?

And you have to look at that as well. That's a good point because it doesn't matter whether that's a true story or a parable. The teaching is the same and based upon the context that's around it. Any other questions?

I think the main thing is just be careful in how you interpret it. Don't carry the parable any further than it was intended to go. What is the main point? And remember the details. You can't always hang the details and they're not always a one-to-one relationship to the actual situation.

But those details are to enhance the main point of the parable. You can get into trouble by taking analogies too far.