Meaning and Use of Parables in the Bible

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The Meaning and Use of Parables in the New Testament
The New Testament gospels in the Bible are full of parables by Jesus. A parable is defined as “a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson” (as told by Jesus in the gospels). There were many parables he would tell to make the essence of the lesson easier to fathom. There are several reasons why he would use parables. One of the reasons is because parables would make principles easier to understand. Another reason is because they were so easy to remember. Parables were used to explain and teach on controversial problems without getting him into conflict with religious figures of that time. Also you can find in one passage that Jesus answers the question himself as to why he spoke in parables. There are different explanations of why these reasons exist and through this paper they will be illustrated and thoroughly explained.
The more abstruse an idea is, the more difficult it is to get across to someone the actual meaning. One reason Jesus used parables was due to it being easier to grasp the full concept of the idea he was using. For example in Luke 10 Jesus is using the parable of the Good Samaritan. He was speaking to a lawyer who asked a question about inheriting eternal life. The bible says that Jesus explained the parable of a “Good Samaritan” to the lawyer. The story is about a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. During his travel he is robbed of everything and beaten nearly to death. Jesus mentions that a priest walked by the man and showed absolutely no compassion for him and did not stop to help. This was written due to the fact a priest was (and still is) known for a person who desires to help others and full of love, so “love” was not a word fo...

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...s intended them all to be something everyone could relate to and/or recognize in their own life.
In conclusion, there are multiple reasons as to why parables were used. Jesus intended reason and purpose behind every parable he gave. Some of the parables had more than just one thing to gather from them. All of the parables can be found in the Bible under the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The reasons for the use of Jesus’s parables were for someone to be able to fathom more easily, to be more interesting so a person could remember more vividly, so that Jesus could safely use them without being charged with crime for it, and as he spoke in Matthew that the listeners would have a more firm knowledge of the Kingdom of Heaven. Through these few reasons it can be perceived that there was such utter importance of Jesus using parables when he would teach a lesson.

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