Idioms
A friend of mine told me recently that he thought the parables (as told by
Jesus) were in fact based on real events. In other words, my friend had removed
the fictional aspect of the parables and considered them to be actual
historical events, with real people in them.
This made me think about the whole Bible and its methods of relaying
truth to us, which led me to realize how little is taught on the subject of
idioms. Without a general appreciation of the many devices and styles of
presentation which God has employed, we may easily miss the point – we might
even “strain at a gnat and swallow a camel” as the Pharisees did.
Before I begin, I must remind the reader that there are many bigger and
better studies of this subject available, written by people more able than me,
but perhaps this little essay will be a step in, and an encouragement to you to
go further.
Parables.
A parable is sometimes defined as “an earthly story with a heavenly
meaning”. The Greek word is ‘parabole’ which denotes a ‘placing beside’.
Another Greek word ‘paraballo’ means ‘to lay beside to compare’, so in the word
parable we have the idea of two things side by side, set that way for a
comparison.
This is not to be confused with a fable, which attributes to things what
does not belong to them in nature. For example a long-beaked bird and a
short-nosed fox, each trying to drink from a long-necked jar or a shallow dish,
in order to teach a moral about consideration to others.
The reason for the parables, as told by Jesus was not so much to
illuminate his hearers as to place them in a position of judgment. It
was usually only the few ‘worthy’ ones who actually understood the parables,
and even then they had some difficulty (Mat.13:10 -13).
Another important point is that the parables were usually about “the
kingdom”, which means that they had a national aspect. This does not
mean that some spiritual meanings may not be drawn from them, but it does mean
that we ought to look for national teaching in them first of all. A “kingdom”
parable means a story about a nation, not a church, and it was as the King of
Israel that Jesus told them, but it seems that even today, after 2000 years,
the Church is still largely unaware of the national implications of the
parables – a blindness which reminds us of the reaction of the religious people
in Jesus’ own day, who also missed the national aspect, and the godless crowds,
who followed Jesus merely for free food or healing. The parables were wasted on
them.
But returning to the question, can the parables be taken as literal
historical events?
First of all it must be pointed out that the Church of England, after
much scholarly study and consideration has declared that no parable is to be used
as the basis of a doctrine. This ought to sound an alarm bell right away. If
doctrine is not inherent in the parables, then any attempt to pull correct
doctrinal theology from them is bound to produce problems.
But there are (unfortunately) some Christians who would quickly discard
anything declared by the Church of England (as if it were the ‘the worthless
word of Man’) so we will move on to the second point.
Secondly, if we compare some of the parables with plain teaching in
other Scriptures, we find some serious contradictions and inconsistencies. I
will take this point a little further because it seems to be the more important
of the two.
There are 35 parables in the New Testament, three of which appear in Matthew,
Mark and Luke. (Only three of the same
parables appear in three gospels.) They are listed here should you want to read
them all:
Sower Mat 13, Mark 4, Luke 8
Mustard seed Mat.13, Mark 4, Luke 8
Wicked vinedressers Mat. 21, Mark
12, Luke 20
…………………………………………………..
Leaven Mat. 13
Hidden treasure Mat. 13
Drag net Mat. 13
Unforgiving servant Mat. 18
Labourers in the vineyard Mat. 20
Two sons Mat. 21
Marriage of the king’s son Mat. 22
Ten virgins Mat. 25
Seed growing secretly Mark 4
Householder and his servants Mark 13
Two debtors Luke 7
Good Samaritan Luke 10
Friend at midnight Luke 11
Rich fool Luke 12
Stewards and their absent master
Luke 12
Barren fig tree Luke 13
Great supper Luke 14
Lost coin Luke 15
Prodigal son Luke 15
Dishonest steward Luke 16
Rich man and Lazarus Luke 16
Unprofitable servant Luke 17
Judge and persistent widow Luke 18
Pharisee and publican Luke 18
Pounds given to servants Luke 19
Sheep and goats Mat. 7:31-36
House on rock and sand Mat. 7:21-27
Vineyard and husbandmen Mat. 21
The parables as doctrinal statements.
Many very difficult problems emerge when we press the parables beyond
what they were originally designed to do. If they are doctrinal statements,
then we must sort out many terrible inconsistencies and alarming
contradictions. This is inescapable. A few simple examples follow:
The parables in Matthew 13 are the most clearly explained by Jesus himself. In
response to his disciples, who asked “Why do you speak to them in parables?”
Jesus replied that it was to them, and not the crowds that the “mysteries of
the kingdom of heaven” were to be revealed. Jesus then went on to explain some
of the keys to interpreting the parables, in the parable of the sower, and of
the tares and wheat:
The wicked hear the gospel but Satan
destroys the message
Some hearers lack determination,
some endure
Worldliness and pleasure choke the
resolution of some
The sower is God’s son (and
Christians who copy him)
The field is the world, planet
Earth, geographically
The tares are the followers of
Satan, the wheat the followers of God
The harvest is the end (or
consummation) of the age
The reapers are the angels
The kingdom will be cleansed of
rebels who have up till then been resident in the kingdom, but are now rooted
out and punished.
So already we have a clear indication that the parable is a story which
uses symbols to represent something true, and not an actual literal event, or
historical reality which represents something true. The true meaning is hidden
behind symbolic language, which is entirely consistent with all prophetic
language in both Old and New Testaments.
I will now deal with (as an example of many others) the parable of the
hid treasure in more depth because, like all the parables, it deals with
national events, and at the same time illustrates how difficult it is to draw
doctrinal teaching from most of the other parables.
Matthew 13: 44 – the parable of the hid treasure.
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is
like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man has found, he hides,
and for joy thereof goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field”.
First of all, Jesus cannot be the treasure (as is sometimes suggested),
because He is not “hidden”. He is the best known or heard of personality in the
world. He is proclaimed by the Church. He is published, and filmed, and taped,
and preached, and his Name is held up to all the nations through many types of
media. He can rightly be called ‘treasure’ but he is certainly not ‘hidden’.
Secondly the treasure cannot be the gospel (as is also sometimes
suggested) because it is the message to be proclaimed. God has never tried to
hide it, nor has the true Church. It would be absurd to think that God intends
Christians to find the gospel, or Christ, and then somehow ‘bury’ it, or hide
it from other people.
And further, what can it mean for Christians to joyfully sell all their
possessions in order to buy the whole field? Does God want the Church to buy
the world? I’m sure Jesus told Christians not to lay up their treasures on
Earth, so why would he tell a parable in which he encouraged Christians to buy
the “field”?
These very difficult problems are
resolved when we consider the parable in the light of its correct context – a
story about the kingdom – a national application solves all the difficulties.
In Ex.19:5 God said to
But God knew where His ‘treasure’ was (Amos 9:8-15, Ez.20:33-37 – tells
us about God sorting and gathering His people. Hos.13:14, Is.25:8 – tells us
how God intends to ransom His people)
The ‘man’ in the parable is the Lord Jesus, who came to “seek and to
save that which was lost” – Mat. 18:11, Luke 19:10, and when he (Jesus) found
His people, he “for joy thereof goes and sells all that he has, and buys that
field”. Jesus gave his very life for his people (John 10:11) but in doing so he
had to buy the whole field in which his people were. This is why we preach the
gospel to all the world, and this is why we say, with John 3:16 “For God so
loved the world . . .”
The interpretation of the parables in terms of the kingdom is worth a
whole separate study, but these two examples should be enough to set the
parables in their correct context, and also give the correct method of
interpreting them.
Another area worthy of a separate study is the use of different idioms,
or types, or methods, or devices of presentation of truth throughout Scripture.
For example ‘prophetic language’, which uses a sort of code. Only those who
know the code can correctly decipher the true meaning of prophecy. It is
because of the present day Church’s failure to correctly decode prophecy that
the false doctrine of Futurism is so widespread. Those who fail to approach
Scripture with the correct attitude, or with insufficient study, usually miss
the meaning, and stumble.
Along with all this we have the fact that the Bible is a collection of
many selective histories, poems, proverbs and other forms of literature. It is
in fact a vast collection of many different subjects, interwoven with past customs and cultural ideas, all written
by many different people, amended in places, sorted and rewritten in other
places, inserted with quotes, diced with foreign words and phrases, and
abbreviated, and all pulled together into one hugely entertaining package,
whose compilation spans many thousands of years. This is not to say that the
Bible is the work of Man. God has overruled in every detail, and what we have
in our hands today is the perfect, inspired Word of God, but God is an
entertainer as well as a Teacher. He has given us a book in which He is
revealed, but His revelation comes in an interesting and attention-grabbing way.
It is with this in mind that we approach the parables. Once we
understand that God is presenting something true to us through a certain form
of language, then we have a better chance of understanding what that hidden
truth is. But if we fail to identify the form of language in which God is
trying to communicate, then we will inevitably wind up in all manner of
difficulties.