Parables

At the beginning of Y’Shua’s ministry, He was in the houses a lot. Toward the end of His ministry, He was outdoors a lot, for His audience grew beyond individual houses. You see Him teaching by the seaside, on the highways and byways, in the village streets, on the hillsides, and in the countryside.
In the latter part of His ministry, Y’Shua spent less time in the Synagogues. With all the words that He spoke, and the healings that He did, He would attract great multitudes of people. He spoke many things unto them in parables, before this time when He taught, He spoke in clear terms.
Many people had refused to listen to Him, so He began to teach parables that weren’t able to be understood easily. This would make one ponder on what He said and it also threw off the officials that were listening in. But those who believed, He explained every single detail of what He was trying to get across to them.
The Greek word for parable is parabole, Par means ‘something alongside of something else’ so that a comparison can be made. It basically means ‘a comparison, or an illustration’.
If you have a spiritual truth that is hard to understand, and lay alongside it a physical earthy story that is easily understood, then you give understanding to that spiritual truth.
That comparison is a parable.
The word parabole is used in the Greek Old Covenant 45 times. That indicates that it was a very common form of Jewish teaching. It meant taking something very external, observable, objective, and earthly and laying alongside something spiritual, supernatural, subjective, and heavenly so that people could understand the spiritual truth. It’s a earthly story with a heavenly meaning.
There are four reasons why parables are effective:
1. Because they make truth concrete, they think in pictures.
2. They make truth portable, remembering the story and its meaning.
3. They make truth interesting, turning dull thoughts into life situations.
4. They make truth personally discoverable, internalize the truth.
Parables are a mode of teaching because they make truth concrete, portable, interesting, and personally discoverable.
Hebrews use the term mashal to refer to parabolic teaching.
Ps. 78:2 says: ‘I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of truth.’
G-d wants seekers, if a person is not seeking, they will not find. A natural man can really understand the sayings of this word, where a spiritual man understands all the parables and dark sayings that are throughout the Bible. When a man turns to the L-rd, the veil is removed from the heart and that man begins to understand things in a new way. G-d revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of G-d. (1 Cor. 2:6-10).
A dream can be a parable, a vision can be a parable, a prophetic word can be a parable. The word parable means a placing beside.
Parables are short stories that teach a lesson, or they are obscure and enigmatic sayings. Many times parables are allegories. Allegories are stories in which people, things, and happenings have another meaning. Proverbs are enigmatical sayings in which a profound truth is cloaked.
A dark saying is a mystery, a riddle, something planed or understood, and it causes people to seek for the truth of it.
A parable requires confirmation and timing.
The Scriptures tell us we are to test all things. We are to determined if it from the right spirit? If it is from G-d’s Spirit, we need to interpret the word, message, dream, prophecy, or vision properly. Timing is the key; we need to wait on G-d’s timing.
A description is drawing out the truth that Y’Shua is teaching:
1. The sower and the seed days we will never win the whole world.
2. The wheat and the tares we will never fully purge the church. The true and the false will coexist in the church until judgment.
3. The mustard seed the Kingdom will begin small, and will become worldwide. It will become influential, and be a haven to some.
4. The leaven shows the internal, permeating influence of the Kingdom, which touches every dimension of human life.
5. The treasure tells us there will be many people who will come to know Y’Shua by ‘stumbling’ upon the grace of G-d.
6. The merchant and the pearl both gave up everything to purchase redemption. The difference is that this man was searching for the pearl, and that tells us there will be people in the Kingdom who spend a great amount of time seeking the truth before they finally find it. Some people will come without ever seeking. They will be surprised by joy, while others will spend a lot of time and effort endeavoring to find the truth.
7. The dragnet pictures the end of the church age, when Y’Shua brings everyone together and sorts out the true believers from the false.
All those parables give tremendously profound insight into our time. We have influenced the world, and preached our message across the globe. The church has both good and evil – the wheat and the tares.
We also know that as we proclaim the gospel, some reject it, some accept it for a little while, and some truly accept it and produce fruit.
We know that the enemy attacks us and we know that we’ll never be able to purge the church.
We know that there are people who search diligently for G-d, while others seem to stumble across G-d. Those are the characteristic of our time, and that is how it will be before the King returns.
The L-rd knew how to take the natural world and wield it as a weapon of great precision in giving instruction about spiritual truth. He was able to take something that people could understand, and lay it alongside something they did not understand so they could grasp the more difficult concept. That’s what a parable is – it is a truth.
The L-rd is able to tell each one in a simple, concise manner. He had the supernatural capability of using a bare minimum of terms and yet expressing incredible profundity.
The church has tended to glorify Y’Shua above G-d Himself and Y’Shua in His ministry was always careful to point beyond Himself back to His Father. Concerning the concept of eternal life, Y’Shua taught that one should observe the Laws (Lk. 10:25-28).
The church has traditionally placed more emphasis on Paul’s teachings than on those of Y’Shua Himself. This has occurred because the church scholars believed that Y’Shua introduced the basic concept of the Kingdom in a Jewish setting; and applied it to the Gentiles; and finally, Paul developed the message so it could be applied universally. Y’Shua introduced the crude beginning and Paul developed the finished product. Hence the message portrayed in Paul’s letters is much more applicable to the church than is the message of Y’Shua (so they thought).
Paul’s message appears to differ from that of Y’Shua in the fact that Paul was speaking primarily to the Gentiles who had little or no real knowledge of G-d. As a result he concentrated on the most elementary ‘starter’ lessons dealing with salvation, baptism, judgment and so on.
(Heb. 6:1-3).
Paul was a devote Jew and he himself keep the Laws. But the Gentiles did not take the time to learn the customs and history to understand all that Paul was telling them, so misconceptions began.
Paul hoped to instruct the churches later in the principles of the Kingdom of G-d. Y’Shua on the other hand dealt almost exclusively with the Jews who should have already been familiar with these fundamental things.
How the church divided from the original Scriptures:
The church moved to distinguish itself from Israel.
It changed its day of worship to the first day of the week instead of the Biblical Shabbat. It developed new festivals in the place of the ones G-d told us to celebrate.
It defined G-d by extra Biblical philosophy.
It established altars in each locality church.
It denied responsibility to the Torah, or Law.
It redefined its primary vision from being a dragnet that draws the nations into accountability before the L-rd to an ark of safety in which people could escape the judgments of G-d.
The church, in this way, denied its national character and became universal.
Grafting the church into Israel:
1. It must see itself in a national entity with Israel.
2. It must repent from an independent universal identity.
3. It must return to the Biblical oriented faith.
4. It must replace church tradition in defining practice.
5. Shabbat must be honored as the Biblical day of rest.
6. Biblical festivals must be implemented in the place of Christian festivals.
7. It must be responsible to G-d’s Law that are applicable to it.
8. It must use explicit Biblical terms to address G-d and His Son in the place of terms based on Greek philosophical thought.
9. It must openly confess its identity with Israel. When these Biblical practices are implemented, the church is prepared to become functional in G-d’s great dragnet.
The church had been given the ministry of reconciliation. This ministry should continue. When the local church returns to Biblical or Hebraic Roots, its position for preaching reconciliation can only be enhanced as the faithfulness of G-d is demonstrated toward Israel.