Sticking to the point of the parable is important as the church has a long history of allegorizing these parables, assigning a “deeper” meaning to every detail…We get into trouble when we don’t stick to the point. The story is the means of communicating that point. Often the point is not as clear as we would wish, but in the case of our Parable the point seems clear—only the humble are right with God.

One of the more intriguing things about Jesus is how often he told stories. Think about it: God with us, the very Word of God, the miracle working King of everything, the all-powerful Son of Man spent a lot of time telling stories. And not just any stories. He told stories that are simple and yet profound. Easy to understand and yet full of wisdom for any who has ears to listen.

What are we to do with the stories Jesus tells? What is their function? How can we understand them better? How might we preach them well? My hope is that this short article gestures towards answers. Neither this article, nor any article, or even a full-length book could fully plumb the depths of Jesus’s stories. This is not due to a lack of effort, knowledge, or skill. Rather, it is a feature of the stories themselves.

The stories to which I refer are called parables. So, what is a parable? A short, simple-yet-profound story based in the real world that provokes the listener. Like anything, there are many ways to define something. This way is just the one I have come up with that I find helpful. But some explanation is necessary.

What is a Parable?

Parables are short. Even the longest parables take just a few minutes to read. The beauty and challenge of a short story is that they require great economy of words. But their power is in their smallness. Every word matters.

Parables are also simple yet profound. What they say is readily understandable to anyone who hears them. This would have been particularly true of those Jesus was speaking to. But within their simplicity also lies great depth. This is one reason the parables are so beloved and why people have written so much about them. It also accounts for how much debate surrounds the meaning of each parable.

Parables are based in the real world. This point largely follows on from the last. They almost always have to do with ordinary aspects of life: Searching and finding. Planting something. Dealing with a challenging situation. The real world the stories refer to is the world of the first century, so at times some cultural understanding can enrich our understanding (a point to which we will return shortly), but ordinarily the stories are understood by any twenty-first century listener.

Parables are meant to provoke the listener. Part of the genius of parables is how confrontational they are the moment one begins to think about Jesus’s story. At first the story is simply interesting and perhaps amusing, but the point tends to sit in the listeners’ heart and mind, continually provoking them to think about what Jesus means and how our lives must change in response to what he says.

This is all kind of hard to understand in the abstract, so let’s get concrete. For the remainder of our time we will consider one parable in particular, The Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9–14). I have chosen it as I preached it at a friend’s church.

Our task in what follows is twofold: 1) learn how to read parables well and then 2) understand how we might share them well. My hope is that this strategy will help not only preachers, but all Christians to read the parables well and then share what they have learned with others—be they fellow Christians or someone who has yet to become a Christian.

Reading Parables Well

To begin to read the Parables (or any part of the Bible), we should begin by reading for pleasure. Seriously. Far too often we skip this step and move straight to the technical stuff. But if you don’t learn to love the way the text is written, you are going to have little chance of understanding it well and teaching others profitably. So, start by enjoying the ride. Here’s Luke 18:9–14:

9 He [=Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt:

10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus:

‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’

13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying,

‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

For example, in our passage, it is interesting to me that we have the purpose of the parable before the story is even told in Luke 18:9 (this rarely happens with parables). I also find it interesting that the whole story revolves around two men, especially their prayers in the temple. Intriguingly the Pharisee’s prayer is way longer than the tax collectors. The Pharisee’s prayer is also self-evidently rather pretentious. I note these things not merely as technical exegetical notes, but because they capture my imagination—in other words, because they interest me and cause me to enjoy the story more. Other things might have stood out to you. What matters most is that you get interested in what you are reading.

So, what do we do with what we have taken pleasure in? We should begin by understanding the flow of the story. With the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, this is very, very simple. Two completely different men go to the temple. Once there, they pray completely different prayers. Jesus closes by commenting on the story by explaining which one is right with God on the basis of a very simple principle.

Now that we understand the flow of the story we are helped by coming to an understanding of the cultural context. This involves elements of the story that would have been obvious to those who first heard the story, but not necessarily by people today—mainly because we live in a different time and place.

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