NBST 520 — The Parables of Jesus
NBST 520 is a graduate, single-genre deep reading of the parables of Jesus, the form in which he taught most and most memorably. Each parable is approached on a four-move method: the picture drawn from ordinary life, the jolt where the story turns against expectation, the target audience Jesus was addressing, and the disclosure of the kingdom with the response it summons. Defining the genre comes first, marking off the parable from the allegory and the example-story. The course then narrates the history of interpretation in its own voice, the long allegorical reading, the recovery of a single point, and the return of each parable to its first setting, drawing no verdict among the methods. From there it reads the parables of the Kingdom, of grace, of judgment, and of discipleship, and it closes by applying the method to a parable held in reserve.
Learning outcomes
- Read any parable of Jesus on the four moves of the method, the picture, the jolt, the target, and the kingdom-and-response.
- Define the parable as a genre and distinguish it from the allegory and the example-story.
- Tell the major interpretive methods apart, from the allegorical reading to the one-point reading to the recovery of each parable’s first setting, as a fair witness with no verdict.
- Read the parables of the Kingdom, accounting for its hiddenness, its growth, its worth, and its sorting.
- Read the parables of grace, including the grace that offends the dutiful and the elder son who will not come in.
- Read the parables of judgment and of discipleship, reading accountability and reversal reverently and neighbor-love, persistence, and humility on their own terms.
- Apply the four-move method to an unfamiliar parable not read earlier in the course.
What Is a Parable?
No parable can be read well until the kind of thing a parable is has been settled. This opening module defines the genre, the Hebrew mashal and the Greek similitude, the example-story, and the allegory, and locates the surprise that sits at the center of the form. It then narrates the long history of interpretation in the course’s own voice, the centuries of allegorical reading, Jülicher’s insistence on a single point, the recovery of each parable’s first setting under Dodd and Jeremias, and the modern readings that followed, naming what each saw without rendering a verdict. Five public-domain interpreters, Augustine, Trench, Bruce, Dods, and Calvin, are heard in their own words, and the four-move method the course will use at every parable is introduced.
Parables of the Kingdom
Many of the parables open with the same words, the kingdom of heaven is like, and this module reads the cluster gathered in Matthew 13. The sower scatters seed on four soils; the mustard seed and the leaven trace a kingdom that begins small and spreads; the hidden treasure and the pearl weigh its worth against everything a person owns; the net drawn to shore divides the catch. Read together, these stories disclose a reign that is hidden before it is visible, that grows quietly, that is worth all a person has, and that will at the last sort what belongs to it from what does not.
Parables of Grace
When the religious objected that Jesus received sinners and ate with them, he answered with three stories in a row. This module reads the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son of Luke 15, where heaven rejoices over the one that was lost and an elder brother stands outside the celebration. It then turns to the laborers in the vineyard of Matthew 20, where those hired at the eleventh hour receive a full day’s wage. Taken together, these parables press a grace that runs ahead of merit and offends the dutiful, and they ask the hearer where he stands when the undeserving are welcomed.
Parables of Judgment
A strand of the parables turns on a reckoning that comes, and this module reads it with care and without sensationalism. The rich man and Lazarus sets a great reversal beyond death; the ten virgins divides the ready from the unready when the bridegroom arrives; the talents and the minas call each servant to account for what was entrusted; the sheep and the goats gather the nations before the throne. Read on the method, these stories disclose a kingdom in which what is done now is weighed, and the unexpected reversals they contain are heard as the warning they were meant to be, soberly and reverently.
Parables of Discipleship
Some parables answer a question put to Jesus about how a life under the kingdom is to be lived. This module reads the good Samaritan, told in answer to who is my neighbor; the persistent widow, who will not stop coming to an unjust judge; the Pharisee and the tax collector, two men at prayer whose standing is reversed; and the rich fool, who builds bigger barns and hears that his life is required of him that night. Read on the method, these stories press neighbor-love, persistence in prayer, humility before God, and the folly of hoarding, each as the call to discipleship it was spoken to be.
Capstone — Apply the Four Moves
The course closes by turning the method loose on a parable held in reserve. The unjust steward of Luke 16, who is commended for his shrewdness after squandering his master’s goods, is among the hardest of all the parables to read, and it has been left unread until now for exactly that reason. Working the four moves in order, the picture of a manager facing dismissal, the jolt of a master who praises the very dishonesty that ruined him, the disciples Jesus was addressing, and the disclosure of the kingdom, the student reads a difficult story from the ground up and demonstrates the method on a parable not met earlier in the course.