Parables and the Sermon on the Mount

What you need to know

• A parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning, drawn from ordinary farming, trading, household or family life, and aimed at one main point rather than at a meaning for every detail.
• Jesus told the disciples that the secrets of the kingdom were given to them while others heard in parables, so that seeing they might not perceive. Parables therefore both revealed truth to the willing and concealed it from the hardened.
• The Parable of the Sower (Mark 4) describes four kinds of ground: the path where birds snatch the seed, the rocky ground where plants spring up and wither for lack of root, the thorny ground where cares, riches and pleasures choke the word, and the good soil that bears thirty, sixty or a hundredfold. The seed is the word of God and the soils are kinds of hearers.
• The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) was Jesus's answer to a lawyer who wanted to know who his neighbour was. A priest and a Levite passed the wounded man on the Jerusalem to Jericho road, but a Samaritan, a man the Jews despised, bandaged him, took him to an inn and paid for his care. Jesus reversed the question: the neighbour is the one who shows mercy, so neighbourliness is defined by what a person does, not by tribe, religion or status.
• The Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15) has three characters, and WAEC often asks about the elder brother. The younger son demanded and wasted his inheritance, came to himself in a pig farm, returned with a prepared confession, and was met by a father who ran, embraced him and ordered the best robe, a ring, shoes and the fatted calf. The elder son refused to go in, complained that he had served for years without a goat for his friends, and had to be pleaded with.
• The Rich Fool (Luke 12) pulled down his barns to build bigger ones and planned years of ease, only to be told that his soul was required of him that night. The point is that a person who is rich towards himself and not towards God is a fool regardless of his balance sheet.
• The Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16) contrasts a man clothed in purple feasting daily with a beggar covered in sores at his gate. After death their positions are reversed, a great gulf is fixed, and Abraham tells the rich man that his brothers have Moses and the prophets; if they will not hear them, they will not be persuaded though one rise from the dead.
• The Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18) was released from an enormous debt by his master and then seized a fellow servant over a trivial one. The master handed him to the jailers, and Jesus concluded that God will deal the same way with anyone who does not forgive his brother from the heart.
• The Talents (Matthew 25) and the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25) both concern readiness. The servant who buried his one talent was condemned for doing nothing with what he had, and the five foolish virgins were shut out because they took no oil for their lamps. The Sheep and the Goats in the same chapter makes judgement turn on whether the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the prisoner were cared for.
• The Sermon on the Mount occupies Matthew 5 to 7 and opens with the Beatitudes, which pronounce blessing on the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and those persecuted for righteousness' sake, each with its own promised reward.
• Jesus called His disciples the salt of the earth and the light of the world, warning that salt which loses its taste is useless and that a lamp is not put under a bushel. He insisted He had not come to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfil them, and required a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees.
• The six antitheses, each introduced by 'you have heard that it was said ... but I say to you', move the law from outward act to inward attitude: anger and insult are treated as murder, the lustful look as adultery, divorce is restricted, oaths are replaced by plain yes and no, retaliation gives way to turning the other cheek and going the second mile, and love of neighbour is extended to love of enemies.
• On religious practice Jesus condemned giving, praying and fasting done to be seen by men, directing each to be done in secret, and gave the Lord's Prayer as a model, with its petitions for God's name, kingdom and will, for daily bread, forgiveness as we forgive, and deliverance from evil.
• The sermon closes with practical demands: lay up treasure in heaven, do not be anxious about food and clothing since the Father feeds the birds and clothes the lilies, do not judge while a log is in your own eye, ask and it will be given, do to others what you would have them do to you, enter by the narrow gate, know false prophets by their fruits, and build on rock by doing His words rather than on sand by merely hearing them.