The Purpose for Parables

http://www.gty.org/products/audio-lessons/90-464

Scriptures: Selected Scriptures

I just want to talk about the issue of the parables, okay? Just be real frank. I just want to talk about that because we finished a book on the parables, and the publisher delayed the release for a year, and that’s not fair to the author. This is like having a baby and somebody telling you you have to keep it in a closet for a year. You really didn’t intend that. You want to get that thing out as fast as you can. So since they won’t publish the book, I’m going to tell you what I said in the book anyway. So it’ll come around a year from now.

Talking about the parables is really important. It actually is a parable that Jesus told during the middle of His Passion Week that ignited the final fire or we could say poured gasoline on the fire. Chapter 11 of John ends with the leaders of Israel wanting to seize Him. Then you move into the middle of the week and He tells a parable recorded in Mark 12. The end of that parable says the same thing, “They were looking for a way to seize Him.” It really was a combination of the raising of Lazarus and the telling of that parable that precipitated the human activity that led to His execution.