Daily Bible Reading Podcast

Today I would like to give pointers for understanding Jesus’ parables. I consider the parable to be one of the greatest of all teaching devices, and a legacy of the Greatest Teacher. I will end this episode by sharing about one of my favorite writers of non-Biblical parables. One little detail to understand is that the word ‘parable’ (Greek paraboles) had a wider meaning than we normally think of in English, and you may see this sometimes in the New Testament. In English, we normally think of a parable as a story that points to some deeper meaning. However, as an example, the word ‘parable’ is used for a one-sentence figurative teaching in Mark 7:17 where it refers back to Jesus’ statement in verse 15: GW “Nothing that goes into a person from the outside can make him unclean. It’s what comes out of a person that makes him unclean.” In verse 17, the disciples ask Jesus to explain that ‘parable’. With that footnote, I want you to know that I will really just be talking briefly about what we normally think of as