JESUS CHRIST

The New Testament authors, who provide the earliest reliable information about Jesus of Nazareth, noted that Jesus Christ often prayed during his life, especially at critical points in his ministry (Luke 5:16; 9:28).

Additionally, the Gospels also provide information about what Jesus taught about prayer.  For example, Jesus told his disciples, “And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened” (Luke 11:9-10).  This is a glorious promise, one that applies moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day.  It is understated, and perhaps by some, underexamined and underutilized.  Prayer is the means by which we develop our relationship with God and the Savior, and by which he is enabled to offer the additional assistance he freely loves to give. Prayer is the conduit to God’s power, his perspective, and his peace. It is the antidote to pride, for it speaks of our reliance on the Savior and his sacrifice as we pray in his name, and through his merits. (more…)

A parable, literally a comparison (Greek parabole), relates the essence of things rather than the ways things exist in fact. For that reason, parables transcend the limits of time and have meaning in an ever-changing world. The New Testament uses a loose definition of a parable when compared with the more restricted sense held by Greek thinkers. Instead, “parable” in the New Testament can describe an extended metaphor, an allegory, or a true narrative parable. The New Testament follows closely the tradition set forth in the Jewish scriptures (Hebrew or Old Testament) that a parable is anything that compares two objects to one another. “How can Satan cast out Satan?” as a parable (Mark 3:23), while using the same terminology to speak of the Parable of the Sower. The predominance of parables in the New Testament reveals that the parable was a favorite teaching method of Jesus Christ, providing the modern reader with a window into who he really was and how he viewed the world. Jesus preferred to speak of things as they would, could, and would be instead of directly instructing his disciples on how to handle an issue. Rarely did Jesus interpret his own parables (Matthew 13:36-43); he preferred that the task of interpretation be carried out by this disciples. For this reason, the parables offer an open invitation for interpretation to each generation who uses them. Without this continuing window of interpretation, the parables become historically confined and explicable for a determined moment in history. In the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew contain more parables of Jesus Christ than any other source. Its author was apparently drawn to Jesus’ teachings in parables. Unlike Mark, Luke, and John , Matthew not only records the parables but also gathered them into several concise collections (Matthew 13 and 25) with a distinct aim in mind.

Surprisingly, only two of Jesus Christ’s parables are given names in the text or manuscripts of the New Testament: the “parable of the Sower” (Matthew 13:18) and the “parable of the tares of the field” (Matthew 13:36). The other parables bear names that are the result of being described in commentaries, chapter headings in printed Bibles, and secondary discussions. Originally, these other parables had no standardized names. The importance of this information is that the interpretation of the parables has been inextricably linked with their names. The title “the Prodigal Son,” for example, focuses on the wayward son who squanders his father’s inheritance. In reality, however, the parable of the Prodigal Son is about a loving father who has two wayward sons, one who departs and repents and one who becomes hardhearted through jealousy. Perhaps the original intent was to show the love of a father, but unfortunately this intent is obscured through the parable’s usual (and incomplete) name.

Consider the following names and their impact on understanding the meaning of the parable: “the parable of the wheat and the tares” and “the marriage of the king’s son.” In the first example, the modern name suggests that the wheat and tares receive equal focus, but when Jesus’ disciples asked him to interpret it, they called it “the parable of the tares of the field” (Matthew 13:36). Their understanding had been directed toward an immediate concern-the recognition of tares within the kingdom and their duty to discern them-whereas our modern name identifies both wheat and tares as equal elements.

The parable of the marriage of the king’s son initially seems to focus on one part of a rich story-namely the actual marriage ceremony, which is mentioned once but never recounted (Matthew 22:2). However, the theme of the parable then shifts to the main issue of invited and uninvited guests, with those who were expected to attend the wedding being cast out and those who had been disregarded ultimately being welcomed to the ceremony. The modern name misses the powerful conclusion that an invitation does not guarantee entrance to the wedding. In reading the biblical text, we should distinguish between the actual text and more recent commentary, such as chapter headings, footnotes, and other interpretive helps.