One of Jesus's preferred way to teach theological truths, a parable is often understood as a fictitious story in setting familiar to the audience from which they then have to draw out the implication by the inner connections in the story. But this conception of the parable is misleading. "[F]or all their charm and simplicity," observes Gordon Fee, "the parables have suffered a fate of misinterpretation in the church second only to the Revelation." Paraphrasing Marshall McLuhan, Fee argues that "the parable itself is the message."
It is told to address and capture the hearers, to bring them up short about their own actions, or to cause them to respond in some way to Jesus ad His ministry.
It it his 'call for response' nature of the parable that causes our great dilemma in interpreting them. For in some ways to interpret a parable is to destroy what it wa originally. It is like interpreting a joke. The whole point of a joke and what makes it funny is that the hearer has an immediately with it as it is being told. It is funny to the hearer precisely because he gets 'caught,' as it were. But it can only 'catch' him if he understands the points of reference in the joke. If you have to interpret a joke by explaining the points of reference, it no longer catches the hearer . . . When the joke is interpreted, it can then be understood all right, and may still be funny (at least one understands what one should have laughed at), but it ceases to have the same impact. Thus it no longer functions in the same way.
So with the parable. . . .
For preachers, it is, therefore, important that we learn something about how to understand parables if we are to use them in our preaching. A fuller article on this is planned for Alberith.
Resources:
☰ I.H. Marshall, Eschatology and the Parables. London: The Tyndale Press, 1963. Pbk. pp.48.
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