What are the parables of Jesus?
Parables are the most distinctive form of Jesus' teaching: short stories drawn from daily life — a farmer sowing seed, a lost sheep, an indebted servant, a wedding feast — that carry a deeper truth. Depending on how they are counted, the Gospels contain between thirty and forty…
Parables are the most distinctive form of Jesus' teaching: short stories drawn from daily life — a farmer sowing seed, a lost sheep, an indebted servant, a wedding feast — that carry a deeper truth. Depending on how they are counted, the Gospels contain between thirty and forty parables; most appear in Matthew, Mark and Luke, while John records long discourses and "I am" sayings instead. Among the best known are the Sower (seed falling on four soils; Matthew 13, Mark 4, Luke 8), the Good Samaritan (the stranger who helps the wounded man; Luke 10), the Prodigal Son (the returning son met with an embrace; Luke 15), the Mustard Seed (the kingdom that starts tiny and grows; Matthew 13), the Unmerciful Servant (forgiven yet unforgiving; Matthew 18) and the Two Foundations (houses built on rock and on sand; Matthew 7). Their common subject is most often "the kingdom of God": what it is like, how it grows, whom it includes. The form's power lies in carrying the hearer to a point of decision: the story opens familiar, then turns unexpectedly and makes the hearer question their own stance — as when the Good Samaritan flips "Who is my neighbor?" into "which of these three... seemed to be a neighbor...?" Asked why he speaks in parables, Jesus answers with a quotation from Isaiah; the parable both reveals and sifts — a door for the seeker, a veil for the indifferent. The texts can be read in the relevant Gospel chapters on this site, and the "Two Weeks with the Parables of Jesus" reading plan follows the best-known parables day by day.