Parables of Jesus

Characteristics of a Parable
1. Power of Mystery
2. Emotional Connection
3. Soft-Critique - hear a story critiquing a person, then relate that character to yourself
4. Timelessness
5. Self-Discovered truths have more power
6. His message is dangerous - it threatens Rome
The Rich Fool - Luke 12:13-21
1. There is a rich man who has an abundant harvest. He stores up his grain because he has a surplus for many years and will take it easy for a while. God tells this rich fool that he is wrong in storing up for himself, instead he should be rich towards God.
2. The Rich Fool - he is self-conceited and only thinks about himself. Does not realize other people are not set like he is.
3. Soft-Critique - maybe you hear this parable and relate yourself to the rich fool. You could be saving up your money for only yourself and not give any away to charity, and after hearing this you could change that.
The Unmerciful Servant - Matthew 18: 21-35
1. There is a servant who owes his master lots and lots of money, but the master forgives him of his debt and does not make him pay. Then that same servant had a fellow servant of his who owed him a very small amount of money, but the first servant did not forgive his own servant. He threw his servant into jail because of it. Then the master heard about this and threw the first servant into jail for not being merciful to his servant like his master was to him.
2. Master - merciful, forgiving, fair master.
  1. Master could represent God
3. Servant who owes the master lots of money - unforgiving, hypocritical, wicked servant
  1. Servant could represent us
4. Don't judge others unless you want to be judged yourself
The Good Samaritan - Luke 10: 25-37
1. Characters
  1. Priest
    1. was supposed to by a "holy man", but didn't help the dying man
  2. Levite
  3. Jewish Man
  4. Good Samaritan
    1. was supposed to hate the Jew, but instead showed him love
2. A Jewish man was walking from Jerusalem to Jericho, and was mugged by some robbers. They stripped him, beat him, and then left. He was half dead on the side of the road. Then a priest came by and saw the half dead man, but left him there to die. Then a Levite passed by and did not help the man either. Finally, a Samaritan man passed by the dying man and felt sorry for him. So he helped him and took him to an inn so he could heal.
3. Love you neighbor as yourself
The Lost Parables - Luke15
1. Characters
  1. Woman who loses coin
  2. Shepherd who loses sheep
  3. Father who loses son
    1. Could represent God; he rejoices when we return home to him
  4. Son who is lost
    1. Represents us as God's children
  5. Son who is jealous of "lost son"
2. There is a woman who has 10 coins. She loses 1 and searches all over her house for it. Once she finds it, she tells her whole community and throws a celebration
3. There is a shepherd who has 100 sheep. He loses 1, drops everything and leaves the other 99 to go and find it. Once he does, he throws a celebration throughout the town because he found his lost sheep.
4. There is a son who goes to his father who is pretty wealthy and says, "Let me have my inheritance." The father gives it to the son and the son goes away to another town and wastes all of his inheritance on material things. He finds himself broke and eating what the pigs in the town eat. He returns home and finds his father running towards him with arms wide open. His father doesn't care what he did with the money, the only thing he cares about is that his son has come home. So the father throws a huge party and kills the fattened calf. Then the lost son's brother comes to their father and asks him why he is throwing a party for the son who lost all his inheritance

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Parables of Jesus

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	Created by runkelbr about 8 years ago