BIBLE CLASS PRIMERS 
 Edited by 
 
 Prof. Salmond, D.D., Aberdeen 
 
 THE PARABLES 
 
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 ED BY PROFESSOr'^ALMOND, D.D,, ABERDEEN. 
 
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CONTENTS. 
 
 PAG54 
 
 ... "34 
 
 I. The Charm of Figurative Speech.—2. Onr Lords 
 Use of Figurative Speech.—3. The Word “ Parable.’ 
 
 —4. The Word “ Parable” in the Old Testament.—5 
 The Word “ Parable ” in the New Testament.—6. The 
 Distinctive Nature and Position of the “ Parable.”— 
 
 7. The Parable as Distinguished from the Proverb 
 and the Allegory.—8. The Parable as Distinguished 
 from the Fable.—9. The Parables of other Teachers. 
 
 10. Christ’s Parables as compared with those of other 
 Teachers.—11. The Place of the Parable in Christ’s 
 Teaching.—12. The Reason for the Change.—13. The 
 Uses of Parabolic Teaching.—14. The Penal Side of 
 Parabolic Teaching.—15. The Number of our Lord’s 
 Parables.—16. Minor or Partial Parables.—17. The 
 Classification of the Parables.—18. The Classification 
 according to Historical Position.—19. The Three 
 Historical Divisions.—20. Characteristics of the 
 Parables.—21. The Parables in Matthew compared 
 with those in Luke.—22. The Interpretation of 
 the Parables.—23. Aids to the Interpretation of the 
 Parables. 
 
 Parables of the First Period.34""7 5 
 
 24. The Cluster of Seven in Matthew.—25. The 
 
 Sower: its Circumstances.—26. The Sower: its 
 Terms.—27. Notable Points of the First Parable.— 
 
 28. The Impression on the Hearers.—29. The Im¬ 
 mediate Purpose of the Parable.—30. The Larger 
 Lessons of the Parable.—31. The Tares: its Dis- . 
 tinction from the Sower.—32. The Terms of the 
 Parable.—33. Christ’s Interpretation of the Parable.— 
 
 34. The Scope of the Parable.—35. The Main Lessons 
 of the Parable.—36. The Mustard Seed.—37. The 
 Mu.stard Seed : its Terms.—38. The Mustard Seed : 
 its Meaning.—39. The Leaven.—40. The Leaven : 
 
 Scope of the Parable.—41. The Leaven: Meaning of 
 the Parable.—42. I he Hid Treasure.—43. The Hid 
 Treasure: Scope of the Parable.—44. The Pear of 
 
6 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 rAGE 
 
 Great Price. ~4S. Scope of the Parable.—46. Dis¬ 
 tinction between the Hid Treasure and the Pearl.— 
 
 47. The Drag-Net.—48. Scope of the Parable.—49. 
 
 The Seed Growing Secretly ; or, The Fruit-Bearing 
 Earth.—50. The Immediate Intentior of Mark’s 
 Parable.—51. Lessons and Relations of Mark’s 
 Parable. 
 
 Parables of the Second Period .78—108 
 
 52. The Parables of the Second Period. — 53. The 
 Two Debtors.—54. Scope of the Parable—35. The 
 Good Samaritan.—56. Scope of the Parable.—57. 
 
 The Friend at Midnight.—58. Scope of the Parable. 
 
 —59. The Rich Fool.—60. Scope of the Parable.— 
 
 61. The Barren Fig-Tree.—62. Scope of the Parable. 
 
 —63. The Great Supper.—64. Scope of the Parable. 
 
 —65. The Lost Sheep.—66. Scope of the Parable.— 
 
 67. The Lost Coin.—68. Scope of the Parable.—69. 
 
 The Prodigal Son.—70. Scope of the Parable.—71. 
 
 The Unjust Steward.—72. Scope of the Parable.—73. 
 
 The Rich Man and Lazarus—74. Scope of the 
 Parable.—75. The Unjust Judge.—76. Purpose of the 
 Parable.—77. The Pharisee and the Publican. 
 
 Parables of the Third Period .... 108—122 
 
 78. The Unmerciful Servant.—79. The Labourers in 
 the Vineyard.—80. Scope of the Parable.—81. 
 
 The Two Sons.—82. The Wicked Husbandmen.—83. 
 
 Scope of the Parable.—84. The Marriage of the 
 King’s Son.—85. Scope of the Parable.—86. The 
 Ten Virgins.—87. Scope of the Parable.—88. The 
 Talents.—89. Scope of the Parable.—90. The Pounds. 
 
 —91. Scope of the Parable. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 WELFARE OF YOUTH EXAMINATIONS. 
 
 Candidates in the Senior Grade take the whole Primer. 
 
 Candidates in the Middle Grade take § 25 {The Sotver: its 
 Circumstances') to the end of the Primer, 
 
 Candidates in the Junior Grade take § 23 (The Sower: its 
 Circumstances) to § 70 {ScoJ>e of the Parable 0/ the Prodigal 
 Son) inclusive. 
 
 S D. F. S. 
 
THE 
 
 PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 I. THE CHARM OF FIGURATIVE SPEECH. 
 
 —The Parables of the Lord Jesus are the choicest 
 examples of figurative speech as used to express 
 religious truth. Speech of this kind has a spell in it 
 which makes itself felt by most minds, arresting 
 them, captivating them, and making them open to the 
 hearing of instruction. It has had a special at¬ 
 traction for the peoples of the East, with whom the 
 imagination is quicker and more active than the 
 logical faculty. The great family of nations known 
 as the Semitic, to which the Hebrews, together with 
 the Arabs, the Syrians, the Babylonians, and other 
 remarkable races belong, has shown a particular 
 genius and liking for it. So we find it used abun¬ 
 dantly and in different forms in the Scriptures of 
 the Old Testament. Many examples at once sug¬ 
 gest themselves. We recall, for instance, the beauti¬ 
 ful words of the Eightieth Psalm in which Israel is 
 likened to a vine which the Lord brought out of 
 Egypt and planted, the shadow of which covered 
 the mountains ; Ezekiel’s wonderful picture of the 
 valley full of bones, many and very dry, into which 
 the breath came so that they lived and stood upon 
 their feet (chap, xxxvii. 1-14); Daniel’s vision of the 
 
8 
 
 THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 four great beasts which came up from the sea 
 (chap, vii.) ; and numerous passages of like pictorial 
 power and grace. The prophetical writings of the 
 Old Testament are peculiarly rich in a style of 
 speech which has so natural a charm ; and in the 
 New Testament the Gospels, those matchless 
 memorials of our Lord’s own words, surpass all the 
 other books in the place which they give it 
 
 2.ourlcrd’suseof figurative speech. 
 
 —The language of emblem and figure hasalwaysbeen 
 a great instrument in the hand of the skilled teacher, 
 and the Lord Jesus used it as no one ever has used 
 it Knowing its power and the fascination which it 
 had for the Jews of His day, he employed it largely 
 and in a variety of forms, in order to gain access to 
 their minds with His message regarding things 
 divine. Sometimes He adopted the brief simile, as 
 when He spoke of His disciples as called to be “ the 
 salt of the earth,” and “ the light of the world ” 
 (Matt V. 13, 14); sometimes He selected the 
 larger comparison, as when He discoursed of Him¬ 
 self as the “Good Shepherd,” and of His disciples 
 as His sheep,” who hear His voice, and know not 
 the voice of strangers (John x. 1-17). But above all 
 His chosen method of instruction was that more 
 definite, artistic, and effectual form of figurative 
 speech to which the distinctive name of Parable is 
 given If He had been content to communicate 
 what He had to teach in abstract, unembellished 
 fashion, much of it might have failed to catch the 
 attention of those who heard Him or to tarry in their 
 memories. But, taking this way, “ He did as He 
 declared His Apostles must do,” says one of the 
 
THE FA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 9 
 
 most careful students of the Parables, “ if they would 
 be scribes instructed unto the Kingdom, and able to 
 instruct others (Matt. xiii. 52) ; He brought forth 
 out of His treasure things new and old ; by the help 
 of the old He made intelligible the new ; by the aid 
 of the familiar He introduced that which was 
 strange ; from the known He passed easily to the 
 unknown.” 
 
 3 . THE WORD “PARABLE .”—The word P arable 
 which occurs so frequently in the Gospels, comes 
 from a Greek term which expressed the throwing or 
 placing of one thing by the side of another.^ and so 
 was applied to figurative language—comparisons, 
 similitudes, and the like. Words are living things, 
 and have their histories. This one would have a 
 very interesting story to tell us, if we could follow it 
 out. Among the ancient Greek writers it had a some¬ 
 what broad and general sense. It was used of any 
 simple statement which took the form of an analogy 
 or a bit of reasoning from something that was 
 familiar and acknowledged to something that was 
 not so. For example, one wishing to impress upon 
 the people the importance of seeing to have good 
 rulers appointed to direct public affairs, employed 
 this short argument—“Ye would not choose pilots 
 or athletes by lot ; why then should you choose 
 statesmen ? ” And this was called a Pa7’able. The 
 word had a life of many centuries after this, and 
 during these it came to its greatest honour. Then in 
 its later age it lost its point and its poetical dignity, 
 and sank to the level of a term applicable to any 
 kind of speech. After all the changes which it has 
 gone through in the course of these many hundred 
 
lO 
 
 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 years it may be recognised still in this last and 
 most reduced condition in such words as parole, 
 parley, palaver, parlia^nent, &c. But in the Gospels 
 we have it in its most distinct individuality, its 
 highest imaginative grace, its supremest dignity. 
 
 4. THE WORD “PARABLE” IN THE OLD 
 TESTAMENT. —The word Parable, as found on the 
 lips of Jesus and the Evangelists, represents a 
 Hebrew word which means a comparison or simili¬ 
 tude, but has a wide range of use in the Old Testa¬ 
 ment. It covers several forms of picturesque and 
 suggestive speech—all those forms in which ideas 
 are presented in the robes of imagery. As its ap¬ 
 plications are thus varied, it is variously translated 
 in our English version. It is used, for instance, of 
 short, pithy, proverbial sayings, as when in i Sam. 
 X. 12 it is said, “Therefore it became 2iproverb. Is 
 Saul also among the prophets ?” In this sense it is 
 used of the maxims of wisdom which are contained 
 in the book that is distinctively known as the 
 Proverbs, these maxims being given in large 
 measure in the form of comparisons, as when it is 
 said, “Treasures of wickedness profit nothing; 
 but righteousness delivereth from death” (x. 2). 
 It is used also of enigmatical utterances, riddles, 
 or “ dark sayings,” as in Psalm Ixxviii. 2, Prov. i. 6 ; 
 and of mysterious prophetic intimations, such as 
 the words of Balaam, the son of Beor, regarding 
 the greatness of the chosen people, the “Star” 
 that was to “ come forth out of J acob,” and the 
 “ Sceptre” that was “to rise out of Israel” (Num. 
 xxiii. 7, 18; jodv. 3, 15). But it is likewise used 
 of figurative soeech which takes more or less the 
 
THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 II 
 
 form of a narrative, and in this it comes nearest 
 the Parable proper. An instance of this last is 
 found in Ezekiel’s “riddle” or “parable” of the 
 great eagles, the one “ with great wings and long 
 pinions, full of feathers ” which came to Lebanon 
 and took the top of the cedar and also of the 
 seed of the land and planted it, so that it became 
 a great vine ; the other “ with great wings and 
 many feathers,” towards which the vine did bend 
 its roots and shot forth its branches, “ from the beds 
 of its plantation, that he might water it” (chap. xvii. 
 i-io). 
 
 5. THE WORD “PARABLE” IN THE NEW 
 TESTAMENT. —In the New Testament the word 
 has a similar flexibility of use. It is applied, e.g.^ to 
 terse, proverbial sayings, as in our Lord’s own word 
 in Luke iv. 23. “ Doubtless ye will say unto me 
 
 this parable^ Physician, heal thyself” (R.V.) In¬ 
 stitutions, persons, or events that were of a typical 
 or suggestive character are occasionally described 
 as “parables.” In the Epistle to the Hebrews the 
 entrance of the High Priest alone into the second 
 tabernacle once a year, and Abraham’s recovery of 
 Isaac as from the dead, are so designated (chaps, ix. 
 9; xi. 19)—although in our English Version the 
 Greek word is rendered figure. It is used also of 
 comparisons or illustrative statements which have 
 no narrative in them. Thus Christ’s word about the 
 blind leading the blind and both falling into the pit 
 is called by Peter a “parable” (Matt. xv. 15) ; and 
 the fact that the fig-tree, “ when her branch is now 
 tender, and putteth forth its leaves,” is a sign that 
 “summer is nigh,” is given as a parable of the truth 
 
12 
 
 THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 that the Son of Man “is nigh, even at the doors” 
 (Matt. xxiv. 32, 33). But its commonest use in the 
 Gospels is also its most specific use, and the one with 
 which we are more immediately concerned^ namely, 
 as a designation of those great words of the Lord 
 Jesus in which by figure and narrative conjoined 
 He sought to commend to men’s understandings 
 and hearts the spiritual truths of His kingdom. 
 
 6 . THE DISTINCTIVE NATURE AND POSI¬ 
 TION OF THE “ PARABLE.” -Those discourses 
 of our Lord, therefore, which are specially known as 
 His Parables^ have this peculiarity that they combine 
 more or less of a narrative with the comparison or 
 similitude. They are illustrative comparisons with 
 something of a story in them. They are defined as 
 “narratives expressly imagined for the purpose of 
 representing a religious truth in pictorial figure.” As 
 such parable Scripture is a method of teaching 
 which is almost confined to our Lord Himself. Also 
 as regards the records of His use of it, it is only in the 
 history of His ministry which is given in the three 
 Synoptical Gospels that the parable proper occurs. 
 Neither the word nor the thing is found in John’s 
 Gospel. That Gospel is much occupied with thereport 
 of our Lord’s discourses, and these discourses are 
 largely in figurative form. But it is a different kind 
 of figurative language that we find there. In J ohn we 
 have the allegorical form, of which we have examples 
 in the great words about the Bread of Life, the Door, 
 the Good Shepherd, the True Vine (vi. 35; x. 7, 11; xv. 
 i). But this Evangelist does not give the parable 
 proper. The writings of the Apostles, too, are 
 equally devoid of any instance of the parable. In 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 13 
 
 the Old Testament, however, it is occasionally 
 found in a more or less complete form. The best 
 and most memorable example of it there is the 
 story of the rich man who robbed the poor man of 
 the one little ewe lamb that was his cherished 
 possession ; by which the prophet Nathan roused 
 the dormant conscience of King David in the 
 matter of the wife of Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam. 
 xii. 1-6). Other passages, corresponding more or 
 less perfectly to the idea of the parable., occur in the 
 writings of the Prophets. One of the most attract¬ 
 ive of these is Isaiah’s song of the “well-beloved 
 touching his vineyard ” in a very fruitful hill, about 
 which he dug a trench, and gathered out the stones, 
 and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a 
 tower in it, and hewed out a wine-press therein, and 
 looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it 
 brought forth wild grapes (chap. v. 1-7). Another 
 Old Testament instance, which has even a certain 
 resemblance to some of our Lord’s own Parables, is 
 the passage in which the prophet speaks of the plow¬ 
 man plowing continually to sow, opening and 
 breaking the clods of the earth, casting abroad the 
 fitches, scattering the cummin, and putting in the 
 wheat in rows, the barley in the appointed place, 
 and the spelt in the border (Isaiah xxviii. 23-29). 
 
 7. THE PARABLE AS DISTINGUISHED FROM 
 THE PROVERB AND THE ALLEGORY. — The 
 parable proper, therefore, as used by our Lord, stands 
 apart from all other forms of figurative speech which 
 are used in Scripture, and is to be carefully distin¬ 
 guished from .them. There are proverbs, iox 
 
 instance, in the Bible, and these are often expressed 
 
14 
 
 THE TATABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 in vivid pictorial language. But the Proverb is some¬ 
 thing quite different from the Parable. It is usually 
 briefer, it deals with less lofty subjects, and it does not 
 concern itself with telling a story. The Bible-writers 
 also make frequent use of the allegorical mode of 
 discourse. But the Allegory is distinct from the 
 Parable. It has in it less of the hidden and 
 mysterious, and it interprets itself. In it the person 
 or thing that is to be illustrated by some natural 
 object is identified at once with that object. So 
 when our Lord speaks the great allegory of the vine 
 and the husbandman and the branches, under 
 which He instructs His disciples in the truth of their 
 relation to Himself and to God, He begins by 
 stating that He is Himself the true Vine, and that 
 His Father is the Husbandman (John xv. i). 
 
 8 . THE PARABLE AS DISTINGUISHED FROM 
 THE FABLE. —We see still more clearly what the 
 Parable is when we compare it with the Fable. 
 The Fable is also used in Scripture, though very 
 sparingly. But it is something far removed in 
 many ways from the Parable, much as the one 
 may sometimes resemble the other in outward 
 aspect. The difference between any one of yEsop’s 
 Fables,—the Countryman and the Serpent, the 
 Dog with the Bone, the Geese and the Cranes, 
 or any other, and any one of our Lord’s Parables 
 will be felt at once. The Fable is a lower kind 
 of figurative speech, and deals with less elevated 
 subjects. It is of the earth, and looks to com¬ 
 mon life and business. Its function is to con¬ 
 vey lessons of practical prudential wisdom. It in¬ 
 culcates the virtues of prudence, industry, patience, 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 15 
 
 self-control, and the like. It exposes evil as 
 folly rather than as sin, and holds up faults to 
 ridicule, vices to contempt or scorn or fear. It takes 
 great liberties, therefore, with the fancy, endowing 
 plants and animals with human faculties, making 
 them reason and speak. But the Parable moves 
 in the higher sphere of religion, and deals with 
 spiritual things, especially with the truths of the 
 kingdom of God. Its temper and its figures are 
 correspondingly lofty. It never descends to mockery 
 or satire ; its illustrations are true to reality, and 
 are never monstrous or unnatural. Like the Fable 
 it speaks through natural objects, trees, plants, or 
 animals. But it never represents these as doing 
 anything contrary to their nature. It has no 
 speaking beasts, no reasoning trees. The grotesque 
 and improbable elements which are associated with 
 the Fable unfit it for serving as an instrument for 
 the expression of high religious truth ; and it is never 
 found either in our Lord’s discourses or in any of 
 the New Testament writings. In the Old Testa¬ 
 ment it does occur, but so rarely that there are not 
 more than two passages which can be regarded as 
 genuine examples of it. One of these is the word 
 by which Jotham sought to expose the folly of the 
 men of Shechem when they made Abimelech king 
 over them—the story of the trees going forth to 
 anoint a king over them and being refused by the 
 olive, the fig, and vine, but invited by the bramble to 
 put their trust in its shadow (Judges ix. 8-15). The 
 other is the answer given by Jehoash, king of 
 Israel, to the messengers of the King of Judah, 
 warning Amaziah of the folly of a conflict by the 
 
i6 
 
 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 tale of the thistle in Lebanon, which sent to the 
 cedar that was in Lebanon, saying, “ Give thy 
 daughter to my son to wife,” and was trodden down 
 by a wild beast that passed by (2 Kings xiv. 8-10). 
 
 9. THE PARABLES OF OTHER TEACHERS.— 
 The Parable has been a favourite method of instruc¬ 
 tion with many teachers, especially with those of the 
 East—Arabs, Persians, and others. It was also much 
 used by Jewish teachers before and in Christ’s time. 
 Eminent Rabbis—Gamaliel, Hillel, and others— 
 are reported to have taught by parables, and 
 numerous examples of these Jewish sayings have 
 come down to us. Some of them are of much 
 beauty and point. One of them, for instance, 
 touches the question why the good so often die 
 young, and it runs thus : “ It is like a king who, 
 walking in his garden, saw some roses which were 
 yet buds, breathing an ineffable sweetness. He 
 thought, ‘ If these shed such sweetness while yet 
 they are buds, what will they do when they are 
 fully blown ? ’ After a while, the king entered the 
 garden anew, thinking to find the roses now 
 blown, and to delight himself with their fragrance, 
 but arriving at the place, he found them pale and 
 withered, and yielding no smell. He exclaimed 
 with regret, ‘ Had I gathered them while yet tender 
 and young, and while they gave forth their sweet¬ 
 ness, I might have delighted myself with them, but 
 now I have no pleasure in them.’ The next year 
 the king walked in his garden, and finding rosebuds 
 scattering fragrance, he commanded his servants, 
 ‘ Gather them, that I may enjoy them before they 
 wither as last year they did.’” (Trench.) But 
 
THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 17 
 
 mostly they were artificial, unnatural and fantastic 
 in form, and often trivial in meaning. They were 
 also meant for the Scribes and their disciples, not 
 for the common people. For the latter there were 
 endless rules, and forms of prayer, and prescrip¬ 
 tions of fastings ; but the parables of the Rabbis 
 were not for the common herd. To the Scribes and 
 their scholars the toilers in city and country, the 
 tillers of the soil and the tenders of flocks, were 
 the “ accursed,” the “ people of the earth,” of whom 
 it was written that “ they shall not be found where 
 parables are spoken.” 
 
 10. CHRIST’S PARABLES AS COMPARED 
 WITH THOSE OF OTHER TEACHERS. — In 
 teaching by Parables, Christ adopted a method 
 that was recognised among the Jews. But, how¬ 
 ever His Parables might in form resemble some 
 of those of the Rabbis, in quality and character 
 they differed vastly from them, and were incom¬ 
 parably superior to them. They were free of all 
 that was forced, exaggerated, and grotesque. 
 They had nothing of the stiffness and exclusive¬ 
 ness of the schools of learning, neither were 
 they confined to the educated classes. They 
 were spoken to the disciples and to the people, and 
 were open to the mass of common men. They 
 were taken from the simplest and most familiar 
 things in nature, life, social habit, and popular 
 custom, from the common activities of agriculture, 
 gardening, fishing, commerce, the preparation of 
 bread, the finding of treasure-trove, and the like. 
 But they were of the heavens heavenly, speaking 
 of the highest truths, the great things of God and 
 
 B 
 
i8 
 
 THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 the souls of men, as no other parables have ever 
 done. They have a wealth of spiritual truth 
 enshrined in them which will never be exhausted. 
 They exhibit so perfect a combination of beauty of 
 form with affluence of contents, that they have been 
 compared to ^‘apples of gold in network of silver,” or 
 to caskets of finest workmanship, which hold jewels 
 richer than their own goodly selves. 
 
 II. THE PLACE OF THE PARABLE IN 
 CHRIST’S TEACHING. —It does not appear, how¬ 
 ever, that the Parable was our Lord’s chosen mode of 
 instruction from the beginning of His public ministry. 
 The Gospels indicate that He adopted itat a particular 
 point in the progress of His mission. He seems to 
 have spoken at first in a more direct and less pictorial 
 form, instructing men in the eternal principles of 
 duty, in the spirituality of the Divine Law, in the 
 meaning of the Baptist’s mission, in the graces of 
 repentance and forgiveness, in the penalties of sin, 
 in the beatitudes of the poor in spirit, the mourner, 
 the meek, the righteous, the merciful, the pure, 
 the peace-maker, the persecuted. We see this in 
 the Sermon on the Mount, and in His earlier 
 recorded words, and so He appears to have taught 
 for a time both in Judsea and in Galilee, in the 
 synagogue, in the fields, and by the sea. Then 
 there came a point in His ministry when His work 
 was far beyond its beginnings, and things were 
 tending to the crisis, at which He began to speak 
 to the multitude in parables, and to do this in a 
 way which led His disciples to ask an explanation of 
 His action. “The disciples came and said unto 
 Him,” Matthew tells us, “ Why speakest thou unto 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 19 
 
 them in parables ? ” (Matt. xiii. lo.) The question 
 implied surprise, and their surprise arose from the 
 fact that there was a marked change in His ways. 
 His teaching, indeed, had never been given in 
 abstract, didactic terms. From the first He had 
 made large use of imaginative forms, similes and 
 figures of speech, like the “ city set on a hill,” the 
 ‘•candle” placed not “under the bushel” but on “ the 
 candlestick ” to give light to all in the house, and 
 many more (Matt. v. 14, 15) ; and some of these, 
 such as His words regarding the “ bridegroom ” and 
 the “ children of the bed-chamber,” the new patch on 
 the old cloth, the new wine in the old bottles (Matt, 
 ix. 15-17), approached the Parable. But now he 
 began to make definite and systematic use of it in its 
 recognised forms, and that not only in intercourse 
 with His disciples, but in speaking to the masses of 
 the common people who hung upon His lips by the 
 Lake and in the villages of Galilee. It is not 
 certain indeed that he made continuous use of this 
 mode of instruction thereafter. The parables 
 recorded in Matthew xiii. are separated from another 
 group, the report of which we owe mainly to Luke, 
 by a period of some months. But from the time 
 when he spake the great parable of the Sower the 
 parabolic method had a large and distinct place in 
 His recorded teaching. 
 
 12. THE REASON FOR TH E CHANGE.— It may 
 be that this change in His method of teaching was 
 occasioned by the poor reception which had been 
 accorded to the more direct moral instruction which 
 He had given up to this point. For in large measure 
 it had only revealed the dulness of the people’s 
 
20 
 
 THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 understanding and their hardness of heart; and 
 at best it had been but superficially regarded. But 
 the reason for the change lay more particularly in 
 the fact that He had now reached that point in His 
 ministry at which He had to speak of the deeper 
 things of His Kingdom, its purely spiritual nature, 
 the secret of entrance into it, the eternal issues 
 hidden in it, the vocation of suffering connected 
 with it, the Passion and the Cross which lay before 
 Himself in planting it among men, the long and un¬ 
 expected course which its establishment on earth 
 was to take. These were truths so strange and un¬ 
 welcome to the Jew, so unlike all his anticipations 
 of the Kingdom which his Messiah was to set up, 
 so hard for his heart to receive or for his under¬ 
 standing to grasp, that it was necessary to adopt a 
 mode of discourse which should conciliate him in 
 his prejudice, and gradually gain access to his 
 mind. To have begun by speaking directly of these 
 “mysteries” of His Kingdom to people utterly 
 unprepared for them, and by nature and training 
 opposed to them, would have defeated His purpose. 
 He, therefore, adopted this way, which would bring 
 those new spiritual truths gradually home to the 
 minds of His hearers, stimulating inquiry on the 
 part of those who were most receptive, and staying 
 offence on the part of the dull and the hostile. 
 
 13. THE USES OF PARABOLIC TEACHING.— 
 One chief use of the “ Parable ” is to attract the mind 
 and conciliate attention. The truths which Christ 
 had to speak to men are not naturally welcome. Men 
 have to be won to them, and parable is a ready 
 means of securing this. It has a second use in 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD, 
 
 21 
 
 making- the truth intelligible, in illustrating it, and 
 in opening the understanding and heart to it. So 
 it acts as a revealer, unveiling truth. A third use 
 is the service it renders to the memory and the 
 reflection. By it the mind is induced to retain a 
 truth once lodged in it, and is helped, as it broods 
 over it, to see farther and farther into its meaning. 
 And it has a fourth use, in acting as a protector of the 
 truth, being like a seed, the shell of -which “ should 
 guard the life of the inner germ, till that should be 
 ready to unfold itself, till there should be a soil pre¬ 
 pared for it in which it could take root, and find nour¬ 
 ishment suitable to its needs ” (Trench). In this 
 respect it serves the purpose of a veil, bringing the 
 things of the Spirit of God within the ken of those 
 to whom they are an offence, yet covering them so 
 that the scorner and the caviller may not at once 
 see all that is in them, or be excited to an enmity 
 which might bar their entrance to the mind. Ad¬ 
 dressed to the hostile-minded, it so far conceals the 
 truth, in order that perchance it may find its way to 
 the notice of men who will not receive it because it 
 means a complete change in their beliefs and ways 
 of life,—men who, as is implied in the words quoted 
 in Matthew’s Gospel (xiii. 13), if they saw^ would 
 not perceive, and if they heard,, would not under¬ 
 stand. No doubt our Lord, like other Jewish 
 teachers, employed the parable for all these pur¬ 
 poses. And so far it is an aid to human infirmity, 
 and a mighty instrument of education. 
 
 14. THE PENAL SIDE OF PARABOLIC TEACH- 
 ING. —But the Gospels indicate that the “Parable” 
 has yet another use, and one of a very different kind. 
 
22 
 
 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 It is also the one that our Lord specially referred 
 tOj when the disciples asked Him, on the occasion 
 of His discourse on the Soii/er, why He spoke in 
 parables. According to Matthew’s Gospel (xiii. 
 11-15) He replied then, that while the disciples 
 themselves might know the mysteries of the King¬ 
 dom of Heaven, it being givejt them by God to do 
 so, it was otherwise with the multitude ; and that 
 He spoke as He did to the dull people because 
 seeing they saw not, and hearing they heard not, 
 neither did they understand. In Mark’s Gospel 
 (iv. 10-12) it is still more strongly expressed, “ Unto 
 them that are without, all things are done in 
 parables : that seeing they may see, and not per¬ 
 ceive ; and hearing they may hear, and not under¬ 
 stand ; lest haply they should turn again, and it 
 should be forgiven them ” (R.V.). These are words of 
 great solemnity, and of no less difficulty. But they 
 mean that, as the “ Parable ” discloses the hidden 
 power and beauty of spiritual truth when it is 
 addressed to the open and receptive mind, so 
 it acts in the opposite way with the gross, the 
 prejudiced, the obdurate. They point to what 
 may be called a ;penal object or result of the 
 Parable.” That our Lord had this in view in 
 uttering those solemn words appears from the fact 
 that He quotes a passage from Isaiah (vi. 10), in 
 which the prophet speaks of a blindness which was 
 to come as punishment upon the impenitent and 
 hardened people. In this way He calls attention 
 to a fact of awful moment, namely, that, according 
 to the Divine order and the nature of things, sin 
 punishes itself by eating out the capacity for better 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 23 
 
 things ; that the persistent love of the darkness 
 issues in insensibility to the light; that the one 
 thing follows on the other with all the certainty of 
 law, and so far, therefore, by the Divine purpose. 
 In those far-reaching words, indeed, which He 
 spoke in connection with the giving of His first 
 Parable, our Lord declares more than one of the 
 imperial laws of the spiritual world. Of these the 
 first is this—that the knowledge of Divine truth is 
 a gift of God, but a gift given to all who resemble 
 the disciples then about the Lord Jesus in being 
 seekers after the truth : “ it is given unto you to 
 know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven” 
 (Matt. xiii. ii). The second is this—that know¬ 
 ledge adds to knowledge, that if one attains to any 
 measure of insight into divine things, and uses that 
 worthily, it will lead him on to more : “ Who¬ 
 soever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall 
 have more abundance” (Matt. xiii. 12). But the 
 third is this—that failure to appreciate and use the 
 truth that is within one’s reach has for its result 
 the loss of the spiritual faculty, the penalty of 
 inability to see and discern : “ but whosoever hath 
 not, from him shall be taken away even that he 
 hath” (Matt. xiii. 12). So it has been said of 
 the “ Parable,” that it is like the pillar of cloud and 
 fire, turning a dark side towards Egyptians, but 
 a bright side towards Israelites, which comforts 
 them,” or like a “shell that keeps good fruit for the 
 diligent, but keeps it frojn the slothful” (M. Henry). 
 
 15. THE NUMBER OF OUR LORD’S PAR¬ 
 ABLES. —Our Lord probably spoke more parables 
 than those recorded in the Gospels. In reporting 
 
24 
 
 THE EATABLES OE OUT LORD. 
 
 certain of them the second Gospel adds the remark 
 that “ with many such parables spake he the word 
 unto them, as they were able to hear it ” (Mark iv. 
 33). As to those which have come down to us 
 in the Gospel narrative, their number is variously 
 estimated according to the definition, less or more 
 strict, of what makes a parable in the proper 
 sense of the term. Some include in the list 
 such discourses as those in Luke about the lord 
 who, when he comes, finds the servants watching, 
 and girds himself, and makes them sit down to 
 meat, and serves them (xii. 36-40) ; and about “ the 
 faithful and wise steward ” who is set over the house¬ 
 hold, and the servant who, because his master 
 delays his coming, beats the under-servants, and 
 eats and drinks and is drunken (xii. 41-48). Others 
 regard these as examples of ordinary metaphorical 
 discourse. So, too, passages like those about the 
 wise and foolish builders (Matt. vii. 24-27), the 
 children at play in the market-place (Matt. xi. 
 16-19), unclean spirit returning to his house, 
 finding it empty, swept and garnished, and bringing 
 into it seven other spirits worse than himself 
 (Matt. xii. 43-45), are taken by some to be parables, 
 but by others not so. Hence one estimate reduces 
 the number to 27, while another raises it to 50. 
 It is enough to say that we have from 30 to 33 dis¬ 
 courses of a figurative kind, which may be reckoned 
 true parables. 
 
 16. MINOR OR PARTIAL PARABLES.—With 
 this estimate of the number of genuine and complete 
 Parables, there are others which are best described 
 as Minor, Partial, or Riidimentarv Parables. These 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 25 
 
 germ-parables, as they may also be called, are of 
 great beauty and express great principles. To 
 this class belong the two short sayings about 
 the unwisdom of placing a patch of undressed cloth 
 upon an old garment, or putting new wine into old 
 skin bottles ; by which Christ illustrated the principle 
 that new life requires new forms, and that it would 
 be both incongruous and injurious to attempt to 
 combine the old prescriptions of the Jewish religion 
 with the new spirit of the Gospel. To this, too, 
 belongs the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, 
 which employs the figure of two house-builders, 
 the one founding his dwelling prudently on the 
 rock, the other rearing his carelessly on the sand, 
 as an illustration of the difference between the wise 
 and the foolish hearer of the word (Matt. vii. 24-27). 
 Of the same order is that saying about the children 
 at their sports in the market-place, who refuse to 
 answer either to the piping or to the mourning of 
 their playfellows—a figure of the wilful and in¬ 
 consistent conduct of the Jews of His own genera¬ 
 tion who would have neither John’s ministry nor His 
 own (Matt. xi. 16-19). So it is also with the dis¬ 
 course on the two servants, one who is found 
 faithful and engaged in duty when his lord cometh, 
 and who is consequently honoured; the other, misled 
 by his lord’s delay, and giving way to faithlessness, 
 oppression, and indulgence, who is consequently 
 punished—a figure of the blessedness of the ever- 
 dutiful, the increasing deterioration of character 
 which sets in when duty begins to be disregarded, 
 and the certain retribution that waits the abused 
 stewardship of life (Luke xii. 41-48). 
 
26 
 
 THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 17. THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE PAR¬ 
 ABLES. —It is a question of great interest whether 
 there is any such connection of principle, occasion, or 
 subject in our Lord’s parables as makes it possible 
 to arrange them in groups. Many attempts have been 
 made to classify them according to likeness of subject 
 or intention. Sometimes they are arranged in two 
 great groups as, e.g.^ into (i) those dealing with the 
 Nature and Development of the Kmgdom of God; 
 and if) those dealing with the Right Conduct of 
 Members of the Kingdom. But for the most part 
 a threefold division is preferred. Some, for ex¬ 
 ample, throw them into these three classes—(i) 
 those which describe the Kingdom of Heaven as a 
 Divine force; (2) those which describe it as a 
 Church founded by the divine forces of the Word ; 
 (3) those which describe the Members of the 
 Kingdom in their disposition, walk, and destiny. 
 Others group them into—(i) those dealing with the 
 Divine Kingdom, in its nature, growth and con¬ 
 summation ; (2) those dealing mainly with the life 
 of man ; and (3) those dealing again with the 
 Kingdom, but under the special aspect of its end 
 and the divine retribution connected with it. A 
 Swiss scholar divides them into—(i) those refer¬ 
 ring to the Kingdom of God in its preparatory 
 existence under the Old Testament economy ; (2) 
 those referring to its realisation in the Church, or 
 to the new dispensation in its foundation and con¬ 
 summation ; (3) those referring to the life of in¬ 
 dividual members in the Church. Similar is the 
 division into these three classes—(i) Parables treat¬ 
 ing of Messiah’s Reign in its Origin and its Progress, 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 27 
 
 given about the middle of His ministry ; (2) Parables 
 treating of Messiah’s Reign in its Consummation, 
 given towards the Close of His ministry ; (3) Inter¬ 
 mediate Parables, given by Luke (xiii.-xix.), and 
 treating mainly of the individual. Another classi¬ 
 fication which may be noticed is into—(i) Theoretic 
 or Didactic Parables, by which are meant those 
 spoken by Jesus, as Rabbi or Master with disciples 
 to instruct and train, and including those in Matthew 
 xiii. with some others; (2) Eva^igelic Parables, or 
 Parables of Grace., those spoken by Jesus in the 
 character of Evangelist preaching the Gospel of the 
 Kingdom to the poor, and including mainly those 
 recorded by Luke; and (3) Prophetic or Judicial 
 Parables, those spoken by Jesus as Prophet pro¬ 
 claiming the great truths of the moral government 
 and judgment of God, including those like the 
 Wicked Husbandmen (Matt. xxi. 33-41), and the 
 Barren Fig-tree (Luke xiii. 6-9). 
 
 18. THE CLASSIFICATION ACCORDING TO 
 HISTORICAL POSITION. —Something may be said 
 in favour of each of these classifications, as well as of 
 others not mentioned. But it is extremely difficult, if 
 not impossible, to find its fitting place for each Par¬ 
 able, if the principle of arrangement is taken to be 
 that of subject. A certain number of them have at 
 the same time a character distinct from others, some 
 dealing with the Kingdom of God itself, or the new 
 Society as a whole; others with individuals and 
 their relation to it. Some again have the tone of 
 mercy, forgiveness, and love, as is the case with the 
 Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, and many more ; 
 v/hile others have the tone of judgment, as is the 
 
28 
 
 THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 case with the Two Sons, the Wicked Husbandmen, 
 the Ten Virgins. It is also to be noticed that some 
 were addressed to the disciples, and others to the 
 multitude ; and that some were spoken in answer to 
 the questions of inquirers within or without the circle 
 of the disciples, others for different reasons. 
 
 It appears further that so many of them belong 
 to one period in our Lord’s ministry, and so many 
 to another ; also that so many are given specially by 
 Matthew, and so many by Luke. Thus those re¬ 
 corded in Matthew xiii. go together and belong to the 
 beginning of our Lord’s Parabolic Teaching. Then 
 we come upon a number, contained mainly in Luke’s 
 Gospel, which seem to have been spoken some 
 months later, and to belong chiefly to the period 
 between the mission of the Seventy and our Lord’s 
 last journey to Jerusalem. And again we have a 
 distinct group spoken at the close of His Ministry, 
 and belonging to the time of His last entry into 
 the Holy City. This being the case, it may be 
 enough to group them simply according to his¬ 
 torical position or occasion., so far as that can be 
 ascertained, without attempting any more elaborate 
 classification. 
 
 19. THE THREE HISTORICAL DIVISIONS.— 
 
 In this way they may be arranged in the three broad 
 divisions of Early., Intermediate, and Late, or 
 Parables of the First Period, the Second Period, the 
 Third Period. Those of the first of these groups are 
 connected with Capernaum and the Lake of Gen- 
 nesaret. In time they belong to about the middle 
 of our Lord’s ministry, or the period when it 
 began to move towards its end. They include 
 
THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 29 
 
 the seven which are given in Matthew xiii., with the 
 addition of Mark’s Parable of the Seed Growing 
 Secretly.^ or the Fruit-hearing Earth (iv. 26-29). 
 The first Gospel is our chief source for these 
 Parables, but there are parallels in the second and 
 third Gospels. Those of the Second or Inter¬ 
 mediate Group belong to a later stage in our Lord’s 
 Ministry, to the time between the Mission of the 
 Seventy and His final journey to Jerusalem. Our 
 source for these is the third Gospel. They have 
 no proper parallels in the other Gospels, except the 
 partial parallel between the Lost Sheep of Luke 
 XV. and that of Matthew xviii. 12-13. They in¬ 
 clude the Good Samaritan (Luke x. 30-37) ; the 
 Importunate Friend (Luke xi. 5-8) ; the Rich 
 Fool (Luke xii. 16-21); the Barren Fig-Tree 
 (Luke xiii. 6-9); the Great Supper (Luke xiv. 15- 
 24); the three in Luke’s fifteenth chapter—viz., the 
 Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, the Prodigal Son ; the 
 two in Luke’s sixteenth chapter—viz., the Unjust 
 Steward, and the Rich Man and Lazarus ; the 
 Unjust Judge (Luke xviii. 1-8) ; and the Pharisee 
 and the Publican (Luke xviii. 9-14); with the 
 addition perhaps of the Two Debtors (Luke vii. 
 41-43) ; and the Unprofitable Servants (Luke xvii. 
 7-10), if these are to rank as definite Parables. 
 
 Those of the third group belong to the final 
 stage of our Lord’s Ministry, the close of His 
 Teaching in Galilee, and the period of His last 
 entrance into Jerusalem. Our chief source for 
 these again is Matthew’s Gospel, but with import¬ 
 ant parallels in Mark and Luke. They are well 
 described as bearing the same relation to the 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 30 
 
 Earlier Parables that the Discourse of Judgment in 
 Matthew xxiv. bears to the Sermon on the Mount. 
 They include the Unmerciful Servant (Matt, xviii. 
 23-35) ) the Labourers in the Vineyard (Matt. xx. 
 1-16) ; the Two Sons (Matt. xxi. 28-32); the Wicked 
 Husbandmen or Vinedressers (Matt. xxi. 33-45 ; 
 Mark xii. 1-12 ; Luke xx. 9-18) ; the Marriage of the 
 King’s Son, or the Royal Wedding-Feast (Matt, 
 xxii. 1-14); the Ten Virgins (Matt. xxv. 1-13) ; the 
 Talents (Matt, xxv, 14-30) ; the Pounds (Luke 
 xix. 11-27). 
 
 20. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PARABLES. 
 
 —The Parables are of different characters or quali¬ 
 ties. Some are doctrinal, dealing with the deep truths 
 of the Kingdom ; others are prophetic, dealing with 
 the rejection of faithless Israel, and with the Last 
 Judgment. Some are theocratic, speaking of the 
 Divine Kingdom itself or of Messiah’s Reign ; 
 others are ethical, speaking of man’s duty gener¬ 
 ally. Some have the note of mercy ; others, that of 
 judgment. The Gospels, too, have their peculiar 
 characteristics, marking off the one from the other, 
 and these distinctive qualities of the Gospels are 
 reflected in the Parables which they severally select 
 for record. Mark, indeed, whose preference is to 
 report the mighty aUs of Christ, gives only a few 
 Parables, and these mostly in brief form. In addi¬ 
 tion to the one which is peculiar to himself, that of 
 the Seed Growing Secretly (iv. 26-29), he records 
 the Sower (iv. 3-8), the Mustard Seed (iv. 30-32), and 
 the Wicked Husbandmen (xii. 1-12). But Matthew 
 and Luke give each a much larger number, and 
 these are also mostly of distinct types. 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 31 
 
 21. THE PARABLES IN MATTHEW COM¬ 
 PARED WITH THOSE IN LUKE.— Matthew, as the 
 Evangelist of theHebrews, showing the fulfilment of 
 the Old Testament in the New, selects chiefly those 
 Parables which are didactic, theocratic, prophetic, or 
 judicial. His Parables speak of the “mysteries” of 
 the Kingdom of Heaven, of the passing away of the 
 old theocracy, the failure and rejection of the Jewish 
 nation, the final judgment. Luke, as the Evangelist 
 of humanity, selects for the most part Parables which 
 speak not of the “ mysteries of the Kingdom,” but of 
 the great moral duties, and Parables which breathe 
 mercy. He, too, has his Parables of judgment; but 
 mercy appears even in them. The judgment, for 
 example, which is pronounced on the Barren Fig- 
 tree, is tempered by the pleading of the vine-dresser 
 that it may be let alone for yet another year (Luke 
 xiii. 6-9). And as Luke is himself the Evangelist of 
 Jesus as the Friend of Sinners, the Evangelist also of 
 sympathy and compassion, the sympathy and com¬ 
 passion of God towards men and of men towards 
 each other, so his Parables for the most part have 
 the aspect of mercy and grace. It is to him, and 
 to him alone, that we owe the Parables of the Good 
 Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, and others in which 
 grace and mercy are the conspicuous qualities. 
 When these two Gospels, too, record the same 
 Parables, or Parables which are closely allied in sub¬ 
 ject, they do it each according to its own genius. 
 One who has an eye for those finer features of the 
 Gospels compares in this respect Matthew’s parable 
 of the Marriage of the King’s Son (xxii. 2) with 
 Luke’s parable of the Great Supper (xiv. 16). He 
 
32 
 
 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 points out how in the former “ all is of the theocracy; 
 roots itself in the hopes which the Old Testament 
 cherishes, in the promises with which it abounds, .. 
 and “how characteristic of this Evangelist is the 
 double doom—first of the open foe, and then of the 
 false friend.” On the other hand, all is so different 
 in Luke ; “ no longer a King, but simply a certain 
 man makes a supper; the two judgment acts fall 
 into the back ground; one indeed disappears alto¬ 
 gether ; while far more is made of the grace and 
 goodness of the giver of the feast, which lead him 
 again and again to send forth his servant that he 
 may gather in the meanest, the most despised, the 
 most outcast to his table.” (Trench). 
 
 22 . THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PAR¬ 
 ABLES.—These priceless words, with all their trea¬ 
 sures of heavenly wisdom on the new Kingdom or 
 Society, the grace of Christ, the Divine love and for¬ 
 giveness, the duty of man and the judgment of God, 
 deserve and demand the most patient and reverent 
 study. No amount of pains or prayer can be too 
 much to bestow upon them. But wisdom is needed 
 in the study of them, and there are two extremes 
 to be avoided in interpreting them. One extreme 
 is to make too much of their details ; the other 
 is to make too little of them. Each of the parables 
 is charged with its own lesson, and we shall under¬ 
 stand them best if we seek to ascertain what in 
 each case that is ; not endeavouring to find some 
 distinct and special significance in each of the 
 circumstances or descriptive touches. They have 
 been used for purposes for which they were never 
 intended, and have been rendered artificial and 
 
THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 33 
 
 unnatural by many who have neglected this 
 simple rule, and who have expended a mistaken 
 ingenuity in getting doctrine or duty out of the 
 pictorial setting of the discourse. In this respect 
 the parables have been likened to a “ splendid house 
 in which there must be passages, not for their own 
 sake, but to lead from one room to another ” ; to the 
 organ or harp in which there is much that cannot 
 be wanted, but which does not give the music ; or 
 to the arrow winged with feathers which seem slight 
 things and of a different make from the rest, “ but 
 are yet requisite to make the shaft to pierce, and do 
 both convey it to and penetrate the mark.” On the 
 other hand, it is not to be taken for granted that 
 there is never any special meaning in the details. 
 Christ Himself has shown us that in the great 
 parable of the Sower, the birds, the heat, and other 
 things are significant as well as the sower himself, 
 the seed, and the soils. 
 
 23. AIDS TO THE INTERPRETATION OF THE 
 PARABLES. —Christ’s parabolic teaching can some¬ 
 times be read in the light of His direct teaching on 
 the same or similar subjects. In some cases, as in 
 the Sower and the Tares, He has Himself furnished 
 us with the interpretation as well as with the parable. 
 In other cases He has appended words indicating the 
 lesson which He meant the parable to bear. Thus 
 He closes the parable of the Marriage of the King’s 
 Son with the sentence, “For many are called, but 
 few are chosen ” (Matt. xxii. 14); and that of the 
 Ten Virgins with the counsel, “Watch therefore, 
 for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein 
 the'Son of Man cometh ” (Matt. xxv. 13). in 
 
 c 
 
34 
 
 THE EATABLES OE OUR LORD. 
 
 other cases, again, the Evangelist himself prefaces 
 the parable by words pointing to the object with 
 which it was spoken. Thus Luke introduces the 
 parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the 
 Prodigal Son by an explanation which shows that 
 they were occasioned by the murmuring of the 
 Pharisees against Christ’s receiving sinners and 
 eating with them, and were intended as a defence 
 of His grace in so acting (xv. i, 2). The same 
 Evangelist puts into our hand the key to the parable 
 of the Unjust Judge by stating at the outset that it 
 was spoken “ to this eiid that men ought* always to 
 pray and not to faint” (xviii. i). So we are not left 
 without guidance from the Master Himself and His 
 Evangelists in the way to get at His meaning in 
 the parables. 
 
 24. THE CLUSTER OF SEVEN IN MATTHEW 
 XIII.—The Evangelists report our Lord’s parables, 
 sometimes singly, sometimes in groups. But no¬ 
 where have we so large a cluster of these costliest 
 fruits of His teaching as in the thirteenth chapter o 
 Matthew’s Gospel. It does not follow, however, that 
 parables which are recorded together were all spoken 
 on the same occasion. The three which make one 
 group of rarest charm and richest grace in Luke’s 
 fifteenth chapter, in all probability formed one 
 utterance of the compassionate Friend of publicans 
 and sinners. But it is not so clear that the seven 
 pearls of Christ’s parabolic discourse of which this 
 chapter of the first Gospel is the casket, were all 
 strung at one and the same time on one string. 
 Matthew is accustomed to bring together in his 
 narrative words and incidents which are kindred in 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 35 
 
 subject or in character, although they may belong 
 to different times. The Parable of the Sower comes 
 before the incident with the mother and brethren 
 in Luke’s Gospel (viii. 4-8). Those of the Mustard 
 Seed, and the Leaven are given in another connec¬ 
 tion by Luke (xiii. 18-21) than that in which they 
 appear in Matthew and Mark. We have also in¬ 
 stances of Parables such as those of the Talents, the 
 Pounds, and the Labourers in the Vineyard (Matt. 
 XXV. 14; Luke xix. 12 ; Matt. xx. i), which, while 
 closely related in subject, are not recorded together, 
 and were not spoken at the same time. Hence it 
 cannot be said with certainty that these seven were 
 all uttered in one discourse. They seem to belong, 
 however, to the same period in our Lord’s Ministry ; 
 and, whether spoken on the same day or not, they 
 have much in common in character and theme. 
 Some of them have so intimate a connection in subject 
 that we can see at a glance that they go together. The 
 Tares and the Drag-Net, for example, form one 
 pair within the group ; the Mustard Seed and the 
 Leaven make a second ; and the Hid Treasure and 
 the Pearl, a third. Matthew’s report of these Par¬ 
 ables is the fullest. Four of the seven, the Tares, 
 the Hid Treasure, the Pearl, and the Drag-Net are 
 recorded only by him. We gather also from verse 
 36 that the first four were spoken to the multitude, 
 the last three to the disciples. The first four, also, 
 as it would appear, were spoken by the lake ; the 
 last three in the house. 
 
 25. THE SOWER: ITS CIRCUMSTANCES 
 (Matt. xiii. 1-9 ; Mark iv. 1-9 ; Luke viii. 4-8).—As 
 the Changing of the Water into Wine at the marriage 
 
36 THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 in Cana of Galilee was the ‘‘beginning of miracles” 
 which Jesus did (John ii. ii), so the discourse on 
 the Sower was the beginning of the Parables which 
 He spake. As such, it is the great Pattern-parable. 
 It is one of three which are recorded by each of the 
 three Synoptists, the other two being the Mustard Seed 
 and the Wicked Husbandmen. It was delivered on 
 the same day (xiii. i), on which His “mother and 
 His brethren stood without desiring to speak 
 to Him ” (xii. 46). Thus it appears to belong to a 
 memorable day in our Lord’s Ministry, the day on 
 which, in answer to the blasphemous charge of the 
 Pharisees that He cast out devils by Beelzebub, 
 the prince of the devils. He spoke of the sin 
 against the Holy Ghost which shall not be forgiven 
 to men (xii. 24-32) ; the day, too, on which, perhaps, 
 occurred the miracles of the Stilling of the Tempest 
 and the Healing of the Gadarene demoniac (Mark 
 iv. 35-v, 20). The scene was the Sea of Galilee, 
 “ the most sacred sheet of water which this earth 
 contains,” and somewhere near Capernaum ; for in 
 that city most probably was “ the house ” in which 
 He had been discoursing, and which He had left to 
 find a larger audience by “ the sea-side.” Here at 
 first He “ sat,” taking naturally the attitude proper 
 to the Jewish teacher of those days ; but as the 
 people were so many. He betook Himself to the 
 boat for greater freedom. So picturesque were the 
 circumstances in which this first of all the Parables 
 was spoken—the boat, held by rope or anchor, swing¬ 
 ing with easy motion a little way out ; the eager 
 crowds standing on the shelving shore, straining to 
 catch the strange, attractive words , the water lap- 
 
THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 37 
 
 ping with soft rhythm on the pebbly beach ; and the 
 voice of the Master heard through it, Himself seeing 
 but the fringe of His audience, and being seen in His 
 sitting posture only by the nearest lines of hearers. 
 The figures in which He spoke to these listeners 
 were taken from everyday scenes, and may have 
 been suggested by what was immediately beneath 
 their eyes and His at the time. A scholar with a 
 rare gift of graphic narration thus describes what 
 met his view as he gazed on the probable scene of 
 this Parable : There was the undulating corn-field 
 descending to the water’s edge; there was the 
 trodden pathway running through the midst of it, 
 with no fence or hedge to prevent the seed from 
 falling here and there on either side of it or upon 
 it; itself hard with constant tramp of horse, mule, 
 and human feet. There was the ‘ good ’ rich soil, 
 which distinguishes the whole of that plain and its 
 neighbourhood from the bare hills, elsewhere 
 descending into the lake, and which, where there is 
 no interruption, produces one vast mass of corn. 
 There was the rocky ground of the hillside pro¬ 
 truding here and there through the corn-fields, as 
 elsewhere through the grassy slopes. There were 
 the large bushes of thorn—the ‘ Nabk,’ that kind 
 of which tradition says that the Crown of Thorns 
 was woven—springing up like the fruit trees of the 
 more inland parts, in the very midst of the waving 
 wheat.”—(Stanley). 
 
 26. THE SOWER : ITS TERMS.—The terms of 
 the Parable give us a picture of what might happen 
 at any time with the Galilean or Judean farmer in 
 the sowing of his fields. The tillers of the soil in 
 
38 THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 those times and lands dwelt together in villages, 
 and went forth ” from these to do their daily work. 
 The fields which they cultivated were often of mixed 
 quality, and neither fenced nor hedged as ours are. 
 They lay open, the boundaries being indicated by 
 stones set up for the purpose, and the pathway not 
 being separate from them, but running right through 
 them, with the wheat growing up to its edge. Thus, 
 when the man whose business it was to sow “ went 
 forth ” at the proper season to do his work, it was 
 certain that the seed which he scattered would have 
 very different fortunes. Some would fall upon the 
 “ wayside,” that is, upon the path that went through 
 the field, or along the boundary, and the fate of 
 such seed was clear. They could not penetrate the 
 soil, which was beaten hard by the tread of many 
 feet, and they would be crushed by the heel of the 
 passer by, or picked up and consumed by the birds, 
 whose instinct made them follow the sower in flocks. 
 Others would fall upon “ stony places,” or rather 
 upon “ the rocky parts,” such as occur on shelving 
 coasts, not places where the soil was simply mixed 
 with stones, but parts where there was a thin layer 
 of earth covering the solid rock beneath. The fate 
 of such seed would be different, They would get 
 into the soil a little way, and the very thinness of 
 the covering, and the force of the heat that would 
 reach them, would make them spring quickly, and 
 give the promise of a certain and rapid fruitfulness. 
 But all to no purpose. Having no depth of root, 
 the premature shoots would be too tender to bear 
 much, and, as soon as the sun rose, would first be¬ 
 come scorched, and then, being unable to draw suffi- 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 39 
 
 cient moisture from the scanty earth, would speedily 
 wither. Others would fall among thorns, or “ upon 
 the thorns” (as the Revised Version puts it), that 
 is, on thorny ground, or soil in which a crop of thorns 
 lay hid. The fate of such seed would diifer again 
 from that of the others. They would not only get 
 into the nourishing earth and have a quick, brief 
 growth, but would continue growing till near the 
 point of yielding increase ; but then their promise of 
 fruitfulness would be belied, and their life choked 
 by the thorns, which would grow up in deadly power 
 and density along with them. Others, however, 
 would fall on “ the good ground,” on soil clear of 
 the faults of these three, free of the hardness and 
 imperviousness of the first, the thinness of the second, 
 the foulness of the third ; and such seed would have 
 a better fate. Met by nothing to hinder them from 
 being taken in by the soil, from shooting, or from 
 growing even to the point of increase, they would 
 go on to fruitfulness. And their fruitfulness would 
 be of different degrees, according to the varying 
 measures of softness, depth, and cleanness. In 
 some cases the single buried grain would yield thirty 
 (and even in the present reduced condition of things 
 in Palestine men gather crops with thirty-three per 
 cent, of increase) ; in others sixty, in others even one 
 hundred. So we read of Isaac in Gerar, that “he 
 sowed in that land, and found in the same year an 
 hundred-fold” (Gen. xxvi. 12). And ancient writers 
 testify to the extraordinary fertility, of the Holy Land 
 as it once was, and speak of a yield of a hundred to 
 one, or two hundred and even more in the richer 
 soils. 
 
40 
 
 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 27. NOTABLE POINTS OF THE FIRST 
 PARABLE. —This pictorial discourse, therefore, has 
 the element of narrative which belongs to the true 
 Parable. In this case, however, it is the narrative 
 not of a single, remarkable incident, but of some¬ 
 thing that takes place from season to season accord¬ 
 ing to the laws of nature under the given circum¬ 
 stances. While it is known as the Parable of the 
 Sower, and is so called by our Lord Himself (xiii. 
 18), the most prominent things in it are the soils to 
 which the seed is committed and the reception 
 which it meets. Nothing is said of the sower him¬ 
 self beyond the fact that he sowed, and in His 
 explanation of the Parable our Lord makes no 
 mention of him. Hence the Parable is sometimes 
 called also that of the Divers Soils. It is to be 
 noticed, too, that the seed appears to be identified 
 both with the word which is communicated and 
 with the person who hears it. “The sower soweth 
 the word,” it is stated in Mark iv. 14; and so in 
 Luke viii. ii, “The seed is the word of God.” But 
 in the interpretation Christ says, “ This is he which 
 received seed by the wayside; ” or, better, as the 
 R.V. gives it, “ This is he who was sown by the 
 wayside” (Matt. xiii. 19). This is explained by the 
 fact that the two are in a certain sense one. In 
 nature it is the seed that reappears in the grain, and 
 so in grace it is the word that reproduces itself in 
 the person who receives it. In one way the seed is 
 the thing sown and the means of the result in the 
 harvest; in another way the seed sown is itself the 
 result seen in a different form in the harvest. “ As 
 the seed reproduces itself in the grain, so the living 
 
THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD. 41 
 
 truth . . . reproduces itself in the heart; and thus 
 as Christ is the Word of God, so every Christian is to 
 be a word of God, an embodiment of the truth which 
 he has received” (Abbott). But another notable thing, 
 and one touching the essence of the Parable, is the 
 ascending scale in the description of the four soils, 
 in respect both of their natures or qualities and of 
 their treatment of the seed entrusted to them. The 
 first hard, and therefore not allowing the seed to go 
 beyond the surface ; the second superior in point ot 
 receptiveness, yet providing for the seed only a 
 brief, deceptive growth; the third excelling the 
 former in respect of depth, and giving scope for the 
 seed’s life and increase, but under the doom of 
 arrestment at the very point of fruitfulness ; the 
 fourth surpassing all others, in giving all that is 
 needful for the full vitality and abundant produc¬ 
 tiveness of the seed. 
 
 28. THE IMPRESSION ON THE HEARERS. 
 —Obvious as the general meaning of the Parable 
 is to us, it was not seen by those who first heard it. 
 The multitude were incapable of taking it in. They 
 had sunk into the condition of their forefathers, 
 whom the prophet described as “ waxed gross ” of 
 heart, dull of hearing, blind to things spiritual 
 (Matt, xiii, 14, 15). They may have had the dim 
 feeling that the words referred somehow to them¬ 
 selves, but they found them “ dark sayings.” Even 
 to the disciples, who had some understanding, 
 so that their Lord could say of them, in contrast 
 with the mass, “ Blessed are your eyes, for they see ; 
 and your ears, for they hear” (Matt. xiii. 16), the 
 meaning was so far from being plain that they, and 
 
42 
 
 THE FA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 the Twelve themselves among the number, had to 
 get it explained to them by the Speaker Himself. 
 “ And His disciples asked Him,” Luke tells us, 
 “ saying, What might this parable be } ” (viii. 9). 
 “ And when He was alone,” says Mark, “ they that 
 were about Him with the Twelve asked of Him the 
 parable” (iv. 10). And Christ granted their request, 
 unfolding to them in private the application of His 
 words. And the application in the first instance 
 was to themselves and their fellow-Jews. 
 
 29. THE IMMEDIATE PURPOSE OF THE 
 PARABLE. —Their lack of understanding arose out 
 of false, pre-conceived ideas of the nature and the 
 destiny of the Kingdom of God. They looked for a 
 kingdom resembling those of earth, for a rapid 
 victory over all that opposed it, and for a quick, 
 triumphant progress of their Messiah to the con¬ 
 summation of His work. There was much in the 
 circumstances of the hour to encourage this expecta¬ 
 tion. The hostility of the ruling classes indeed had 
 declared itself, and there had been disappointments 
 in their Lord’s way. But the people kept by Him 
 in crowds, and popular enthusiasm had risen. The 
 disciples themselves were in danger of being 
 mastered by mistaken anticipations, the result of 
 which might be fatal to their faith and to the duty 
 which was to be theirs. And Christ spoke this 
 Parable in order to deliver them from deceptive ex¬ 
 pectations, and to instruct them in the fact that 
 His Kingdom was not to come, as they thought, 
 immediately and as by power, but by means of a 
 Divine message and Divine truths which would 
 take time to do their work in the minds and lives of 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD, 
 
 43 
 
 men, and would meet with different measures of 
 success according to the varying characters of 
 hearers and their diverse attitudes to the word of 
 the Kingdom. ‘‘The end of Jesus,” says one of our 
 best expositors, “ is first to show that He is under 
 no illusion in view of that multitude in appearance 
 so attentive ; nexc, to put His disciples on their 
 guard against the hopes which the present enthu¬ 
 siasm might inspire ; lastly, and above all, to fortify 
 His hearers against the perils to which their present 
 religious impressions were exposed ” (Godet). 
 
 30. THE LARGER LESSONS OF THE PAR¬ 
 ABLE (Matt. xiii. 18-23 ; Mark iv. 14-20; Luke viii. 
 11-15).—The Parable had its occasion, therefore, in 
 the circumstances of the hour, and its immediate 
 application was to the moral condition of the 
 disciples then. But it has larger lessons, lessons of 
 permanent and universal significance, and the terms 
 in which our Lord interprets it make this clear. It 
 means (i) that God’s way of establishing His King¬ 
 dom on earth is the simple way of bringing the word 
 which speaks of it home to men’s minds ; (2) that 
 this word is dependent for its results upon the 
 minds to which it is addressed ; (3) that these results 
 are as different as men differ in the reception which 
 they give to the word and in the qualities of heart 
 which determine that reception. How great these 
 differences are is shown by a fourfold classification 
 of hearers and results. The first and lowest kind of 
 hearer, the wayside hearer, is the man who is spiritu¬ 
 ally obtuse or insensible. The word reaches indeed 
 the ear of such a hearer, but not his heart. So it 
 passes away from him, and he is as if he never had 
 
44 
 
 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 heard it. The enemy of the word and of man has 
 in his case an easy victory. The “ wicked one ” 
 (Matt. xiii. 19), Satan” (Mark iv. 15), “ the devil” 
 (Luke viii. 12), cometh and catcheth away the 
 heavenly word. Imperviousness to Divine things 
 is the characteristic of this class, and the imper¬ 
 viousness is due to lack of the spiritual faculty. 
 The man “ understands it not,” or cannot “ take in ” 
 the mysteries of the Kingdom, his mind being 
 beaten hard to insensibility by the thoughts of 
 earthly things. The second type, the rocky-ground 
 hearer, who is indeed receptive of the word, and has 
 even joy in it, but only “ dureth for a while,” be¬ 
 cause he hath “ no root in himself,” is the thought¬ 
 less, impulsive, heady hearer, who exhibits an 
 enthusiasm and gives promise of a righteousness 
 beyond others, but whose superficial nature and 
 hasty faith are unequal to trial. When “ persecu¬ 
 tion,” “tribulation,” or, as Luke puts it, “tempta¬ 
 tion ” comes, he takes offence, and all his fair show 
 of piety withers. The third type, the thorny-ground 
 hearer, who is not only sympathetic to the word and 
 more constant than the other, but carries his reli¬ 
 gious profession far, and yet comes to nothing, is the 
 man of divided mind, who attempts to give a place 
 both to God and to Mammon, and therefore proves 
 a failure. In this case the power of the word is 
 defeated by worldliness in one or other of its three 
 great forms, the “ cares of this world,” or driving 
 anxieties about earthly things ; the “ deceitfulness 
 of riches,”—riches, that is to say, in their power to 
 delude as to the real value of things ; and the “ lusts 
 of other things,” the passion for honour, position, en- 
 
THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 45 
 
 joyment, good living, and the like. So this kind of 
 hearer attains to nothing satisfying in life or in ser¬ 
 vice. He “ becometh unfruitful ” (Matt. xiii. 22 ; 
 Mark iv. 19), he brings “ no fruit to perfection” (Luke 
 viii. 14). But the fourth type, the “good-ground” 
 hearer, who not only hears the word but “ takes it 
 in ” and “ keeps ” it, and allows it to work its perfect 
 work in him, and does all this with an undivided 
 mind, is the true child of the Kingdom, the Christian 
 of “honest and good heart,” who seeks first the 
 Kingdom of God, and cultivates its righteousness 
 with no by-ends or divided purpose. Such hearers, 
 and only such, attain to fruitfulness of life and ser¬ 
 vice ; and they do it as matter of course, because 
 they are the kind of men they are. They do it, too, 
 “ with patience,” as Luke expresses it (viii. 15), by 
 which is meant perseveringly ; and they do it in a 
 measure which, according to the degree of capacity 
 and diligence, rises from what is good to that which 
 is better, and to the still better. The first type is 
 seen in the Pharisee ; the second in the enthusiastic 
 Galileans, who “walked no more with Him” after 
 Christ spoke of the deeper and more trying things 
 of His mission (John vi. 66) ; the third in Demas, 
 who forsook Paul, “ having loved this present world ” 
 (2 Tim. iv. 10); the fourth in Nathanael, the “ Israel¬ 
 ite indeed in whom there is no guile” (John i. 47) ; in 
 Mary, who “ sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard His word” 
 (Luke X. 39) ; in the Bereans, who were “ more 
 noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they re¬ 
 ceived the word with all diligence, examining the 
 Scriptures daily, whether these things were so ” 
 (Acts xvii. ii). 
 
46 
 
 THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD, 
 
 31. THE TARES: ITS DISTINCTION FROM 
 THE SOWER (Matt. xiii. 24-30). —This Parable is 
 given by Matthew alone. It was spoken in the 
 same circumstances as the former. It was ad¬ 
 dressed to the same audience, the crowd of Gali¬ 
 leans on the shore. As in the first Parable, so here 
 again we have the figure of a sower sowing his field 
 with seed. The sower is again the Son of Man. 
 And again the experience of a farmer is used to 
 illustrate an important truth regarding the Kingdom 
 V of God. Otherwise, however, the two Parables differ 
 in several significant points, and they deal with dis¬ 
 tinct aspects of the Kingdom of God. For one 
 thing, the subject is introduced in a different way. 
 The common formula, and the one employed in the 
 case of the Sower, is “ The kingdom of heaven is 
 like.” But in the present case it is “ the kingdom of 
 heaven is likened ” (Matt. xiii. 24), or, more strictly, 
 “ was made like,” or “became like.” Here, there¬ 
 fore, our Lord deals, not with a general truth, but 
 with a definite stage in the history of His Kingdom 
 —a stage already reached, and ofie likely to cause 
 perplexity to His hearers. He had Himself come 
 and brought the Kingdom to a particular point, and 
 what was involved in this He proceeds to explain by 
 the Parable. A second difference is the view taken of 
 the seed. In the Parable of the Sower the seed was 
 the word, and it was considered both as the means 
 of securing the fruitful grain, and as the result, the 
 fruitful grain itself. Here the seed is a figure of the 
 persons or characters that are in view, and of these 
 only. A third difference is in the place where the 
 seed is deposited. In the Sower the soil into which 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 47 
 
 the seed is cast is the mind of the hearer; but in the 
 Tares it is the world itself. And a fourth difference 
 is in the expectation that is natural in the one instance 
 and in the other. In the Sower the attention was 
 directed to the difference in the soils, and it was 
 natural there to expect results differing accordingly. 
 But here the attention is directed to the kind of 
 grain sown, and to that as sown in a field which is 
 not described as of diverse qualities of ground. It 
 was pure wheat seed that was sown by the Sower. 
 It was natural, therefore, to expect a crop of pure 
 wheat, and it was a surprise to others, though not 
 to the Sower Himself, that a mixed crop was the 
 
 Qp4-iinl vAcnlf* 
 
 32. THe’tERMS of the parable.— The 
 narrative in the Parable is to be taken as teaching 
 in its completeness a great truth in the history of 
 the Kingdom of God. The opening sentence, “the 
 kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which 
 sowed,” does not imply that the point of the Parable 
 is only or mainly in what is said of the Sower, but 
 means broadly that the story as a whole is a figure 
 of something that holds good of the Kingdom of 
 God. Only good seed has been sown at the time, 
 and by the proper hand ; but by and by it appears 
 that evil seed must also have been sown secretly, 
 and by a malignant hand. The evil seed is called 
 “ tares,” which is an unhappy rendering. “ Darnel ” 
 comes nearer what is intended. But no English word 
 exactly suits the original, and so some propose to 
 give the Greek word simply an English turn and call 
 it zizan. What is meant is an Eastern plant, closely 
 resembling wheat, but of noxious quality when it is 
 
48 THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD, 
 
 milled and allowed to get into the bread, bitter to 
 the taste, producing nausea and vertigo, and, if in 
 large quantity, apt even to cause death. When it 
 grows up with the wheat its roots get intertwined 
 with those of the wheat, so that it is difficult to 
 pluck it up without injuring the latter or pulling it 
 up with it. It is so like the wheat that the people 
 of the East themselves and many good scholars 
 have taken it, though without sufficient reason as it 
 would seem, to be a degenerate kind of wheat or 
 barley, the result of unfavourable conditions, bad 
 seasons, and excessive rains. The likeness continues 
 till the wheat is in the ear, and then any eye can 
 see the difference. “ In those parts where the grain 
 has headed out,^^ says an experienced traveller, “ the 
 tares have done the same, and there a child cannot 
 mistake them for wheat or barley ; but where both 
 are less developed, the closest scrutiny will often 
 fail to detect them.” (Thomson, Ce?ttral Palestine 
 and Phmiicia, p. 395.) So it is said here, “ But 
 when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth 
 fruit, then appeared the tares also ” (v. 26). At 
 this point the fact became painfully patent to “ the 
 servants of the householder,” who knew that only 
 good wheat had been or could have been sown by 
 their master. They came to him in their astonish¬ 
 ment first with one question and then with another. 
 Their first anxiety, in which there is almost a shade 
 of doubt whether something out of the way had 
 happened with him in his sowing, is to know how 
 these tares had come there. His answer is em¬ 
 phatically that they are there by the act of an 
 enemy, and no other. Their second impulse is at 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 49 
 
 once to get his order to gather out the tares, that the 
 wheat may be had in its purity. He arrests them 
 by pointing to the danger of rooting up the wheat 
 itself with the tares, and to the fact that, though not 
 now, yet at last the time will come when it will be 
 safe, without risk of hurt to the wheat, to gather out 
 the tares, nnd when each will be dealt with accord¬ 
 ing to its quality. 
 
 33 - CHRIST’S INTERPRETATION OF THE 
 PARABLE (Matt. xiii. 36-43).—Christ Himself ex¬ 
 plains this Parable, as He did that of the Sower. 
 The explanation is given only to the disciples (pro¬ 
 bably including others besides the Twelve), the 
 people being now dismissed, and the Speaker having 
 returned to “ the house,” the one out of which He 
 had come when He made His way to the lake— 
 which may, perhaps, have been the one in Caper¬ 
 naum to which He was accustomed to repair, and 
 in which Peter dwelt (Matt. iv. 13 ; viii. 14). It 
 bore that by the Sower He meant Himself, the 
 “ Son of Man,” the title here used being His own 
 chosen name for Himself, the one that set Him 
 forth as the Saviour and Kinsman of men, express¬ 
 ing both His distinction from other men and His 
 identification with the race of man. It bore, too, 
 that by. the “field” He meant “the world,” the 
 whole realm of humanity, nothing less than that 
 being claimed by Plim for the purposes of His 
 work and the extent of His Kingdom. It explained 
 the two kinds of seed to denote two opposite quali¬ 
 ties of men—on the one hand, “ the children of the 
 Kingdom,” those who belonged to it and were of its 
 quality ; the other, the “children of the devil,” those 
 
THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 50 
 
 who drew from Him what they were in kind. 
 Further, it made it clear to the hearers that the 
 mixed condition of things which seems so strange 
 at present is neither of Christ’s purpose nor to His 
 satisfaction, but is the work of His and His Kins¬ 
 man’s enemy, the devil, who “ at once mimics and 
 counterworks the work of Christ ” (Trench); that it 
 is nevertheless to be borne with in the interest of 
 the righteous themselves, and that the time for its 
 rectification is not to be hastily anticipated by man ; 
 that the present system of things has its predeter¬ 
 mined end, and that this time of the end is the time 
 of the separation, when the two kinds of men who 
 have stood together for a period shall go each their 
 own way that they may stand in their own lot. 
 Christ declares this act of separation to be His own 
 act; the act proper to Him in His position as the Son 
 of Man—a stupendous claim to be made by the 
 Speaker, the Son of Man who had not where to lay 
 His head ! Nor are the terms in which He speaks 
 of the destinies prepared for the two kinds of men 
 less to be noted than the claim itself. The destiny 
 of them “ which do iniquity ” is expressed as that 
 of being “ cast into a furnace of fire,” where “ shall 
 be wailing and gnashing of teeth ”—words of most 
 solemn moment and unmistakable terror which, 
 while they point to nothing material or physical, 
 being strong figures of speech, are yet figures of 
 real, just, and terrible penalties of the after-life, 
 being familiar Jewish metaphors for the retributions 
 of Gehenna, the Hell of the Jews. The destiny 
 of the just, on the other hand, is then to “shine 
 forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father,” — 
 
THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 51 
 
 words of grace which do not simply express the idea 
 of a reward for the righteous, but the fact that the 
 time of their obscuration will then be past; and that 
 all that they were in the hidden glory of their nature 
 and life will appear in the clear radiance of a per¬ 
 fection not to be mistaken by any eye, not to be 
 confused with aught else. 
 
 34- THE SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.— There 
 are things in this Parable, as in others, which are 
 misunderstood when they are taken to convey dis¬ 
 tinct and separate lessons. One of these is the 
 phrase, “ when men slept,” which is sometimes inter¬ 
 preted as expressing the idea of carelessness or 
 negligefice. It is true that the time when one is 
 neglectful and at his ease is the time when evil finds 
 its opportunity. But that is not what is in view here, 
 the phrase meaning nothing more than “ at night,” 
 and indicating simply that the enemy sowed the 
 evil seed secretly.^ so that no one could know any¬ 
 thing of it at the time or for long after. The 
 question as to the scope of the Parable turns very 
 much on the sense to be given to the words, “ the 
 field is the world.” Some understand by this the 
 world as outside the Church and distinct from it; 
 in which case the Parable would speak only of the 
 commingling of good and evil men in common 
 society, and of that as a thing for Christians to 
 acquiesce in, with all the trials which it may bring 
 them. But the real scope of the Parable is some¬ 
 thing more definite than this. It looks not to the 
 mixture of Christians and non-Christians in the 
 outside world, but to the mixture of true Christians 
 and spurious Christians in the Kingdom of God 
 
52 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD, 
 
 itself. Many things go to show this to be the case ; 
 the selection, e.g.^ not of thorns or any similar 
 growth as the figure, but of the darnel^ the one plant 
 that is so like the wheat that the one is taken for the 
 other through a long period of their common exist¬ 
 ence ; the fact thatthepresenceof the tares is explained 
 as an ^^^r-sowing due to an enemy, a sowing on 
 the good seed—which suggests that what is in view 
 is something connected with the true, borrowing 
 their appearance and intruding among them ; and 
 above all, the decisive statement that at the end 
 these tares are to be “ gathered the kingdom"^^ 
 itself. The Parable, therefore, speaks of the mixture 
 of the true and the false in the Christian society 
 itself. What it deals with is the fact that this is 
 not an untoward accident, but a part of God’s plan ; 
 not a thing for us to stumble at or to attempt to 
 interfere with by wild and hasty action, but a thing 
 which God has His reason for suffering. And that 
 reason is no mere difficulty of distinguishing the 
 one from the other (for the tares are allowed for a 
 time to go on growing with the wheat even after 
 the difference is obvious), but concern for “the 
 children of the kingdom ” themselves, the risk of 
 checking their growth and hurting them while yet 
 unripe. The first thing, therefore, with the King in 
 this new Kingdom is the future of its genuine 
 children ; for which He bears with much and delays * 
 His judgment until they attain their destined purity, 
 ripeness, and fruitfulness. Beyond this the present 
 Parable does not look. Each Parable has its own 
 particular scope, to which it is limited ; and each 
 leaves questions unanswered which do not belong 
 
THE FJTABLES OF OUR LORD, 
 
 53 
 
 to its immediate purpose. The Parable ot the 
 Sower, being intended to treat only of the difference 
 in the kinds of soils, says nothing of the possibility 
 of any one of the soils becoming other than it is at 
 present. And in like manner it is not within the 
 scope or purpose of this Parable of the Tares to say 
 anything about the possibility of a change in the 
 plants themselves. But other words of the Lord 
 Jesus were spoken with the gracious object of 
 assuring us that it does remain possible for the 
 Tares to become wheat, for the counterfeit members 
 of His Kingdom to be changed into the genuine 
 and profitable. 
 
 35- THE MAIN LESSON OF THE PARABLE.— 
 The appearance of spurious and unworthy members 
 in the circle of Christ’s first followers would be a 
 surprise and a stumbling-block to His genuine 
 disciples. The Parable was spoken to arm them 
 against this mistake, and to instruct them in the 
 wisdom of patient waiting on God’s way and God’s 
 time. It does not deal directly with questions which 
 have been so variously and often so disastrously 
 answered in the course of history, questions re¬ 
 garding the exercise of discipline by the Church, or 
 the right of the State to secure by the civil arm the 
 purity of the Church. But in the words, “ Let both 
 grow together till the harvest,” it puts before us 
 a great principle, which should determine our atti¬ 
 tude and action in regard to all difficulties created 
 by the present imperfect condition of the Christian 
 society—the principle that patience is better than 
 heady, inconsiderate zeal in dealing with evil things 
 and unworthy men in the Kingdom of God. The 
 
THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 54 
 
 Parable,” says a foreign writer, “ shows the deep wis¬ 
 dom of Jesus, forbidding all violent attacks against 
 evil as an interference, not only with the Divine 
 order of judgment, but with the order of the earthly 
 development in good and evil.” Its great lesson is 
 one concerning the spirit or disposition to be 
 cherished in view of all the perplexities and diffi¬ 
 culties connected with the presence of corrupt 
 elements and unworthy members in the Christian 
 Community—the spirit, not of impatience or haste, 
 but of forbearance, endurance, and a hopefulness 
 which looks to the end. 
 
 36 . THE MUSTARD SEED: ITS PLACE AND 
 CONNECTION (Matt. xiii. 31, 32 ; Mark iv. 30-32 ; 
 Luke xiii. 18, 19).—This is one of the limited number 
 of Parables which find a place in each of the three 
 Synoptic Gospels. The terms also are very much 
 the same in the three records, only that, while 
 Matthew and Mark enlarge both on the smallness 
 of the seed and the magnitude of the growth, Luke 
 leaves the former unnoticed. The Parable is not 
 given, however, in exactly the same connection in 
 each of the Synoptics. The first two Gospels intro¬ 
 duce it in one paragraph with the Sower. Luke 
 on the other hand, brings it in after the narrative 
 of the “ woman which had a spirit of infirmity,” and 
 the indignation of the ruler of the synagogue be¬ 
 cause the healing work was done on the Sabbath. 
 Some suppose that this Parable and that of the 
 Leaven were spoken twice. However it may be 
 with this particular case, there is no improbability 
 in the supposition that these matchless parabolic 
 sayings of our Lord were delivered on more than 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 55 
 
 one occasion. The Mustard Seed, again, the 
 Leaven, and the Seed Growing Secretly make a 
 series of three, all treating of the Kingdom of God 
 under the aspect of its increase or p 7 'ogress. The 
 connection between two of these three, the Mustard 
 Seed and the Leaven, is so close that they obviously 
 form a distinct pair. They both deal with the future 
 of the Kingdom, the one with its increase extensively, 
 the other with its increase intensively. It should 
 also be noticed that, as regards the figure employed 
 in it, this Parable has interesting points of contact 
 with memorable words of the Old Testament 
 prophets. Daniel, e.g., had spoken of Nebuchad¬ 
 nezzar and the kingdom of Babylon, under the 
 image of a “ tree in the midst of the earth ” 
 (iv. 10-32). Ezekiel, also, had described the 
 Assyrian kingdom, and with it the Egyptian, under 
 the figure of a cedar in Lebanon (xxxi. 3-9) ; and 
 the same prophet had used the same figure of the 
 cedar tree, with the bringing down of the high tree 
 and the exaltation of the low tree, to set forth the 
 contrasted destinies of the haughty secular king¬ 
 doms and the Kingdom of God (xvii. 22-24). 
 
 37. THE MUSTARD SEED: ITS TERMS.— 
 The Mustard of which the Parable speaks is best 
 understood as the common mustard plant. The 
 terms, indeed, in which its growth is described may 
 appear at the first glance too large for this. It is 
 represented as becoming a tree with branches 
 capacious enough to make a resting-place and 
 a shelter for the birds of the air. This has been 
 felt to go so far beyond what is literally true of the 
 common mustard, which at its best is not a tree, but 
 
56 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 only a bush or herb, that some have thought that 
 what is intended must have been a Syrian tree, 
 known as the Khardal^ which grows to the height 
 of twenty-five feet, and is described by travellers 
 who know it as having “ a pleasant though strong 
 aromatic taste, exactly resembling mustard,” and as 
 producing, if taken in any quantity, “ a similar 
 irritability of the nose and eyes to that which is caused 
 by taking mustard.” It is very doubtful, however, 
 whether this tree really flourished, or could flourish, 
 in the districts about the Lake of Gennesaret. 
 Those well versed in such matters pronounce it 
 rather to have been “ one of the many tropical 
 plants whose northern limit is in these sultry nooks 
 by the Dead Sea, and which spread no farther 
 north.” The common mustard, in point of fact, best 
 fits the case, and the terms in which it is described 
 are to be taken, not as scientific terms (which would 
 have been out of place), but as popular terms, suited 
 to familiar Jewish ways of thought and speech. 
 It had two peculiarities which every eye could 
 notice. Its seed was so tiny that it was popularly 
 spoken of as the least of all seeds. Not that it was 
 absolutely so (for the seeds of the poppy and the 
 rue, for instance, were smaller still), but that it 
 was regarded as such among the common garden 
 herbs or plants that the Jew had ordinarily to 
 handle. It had become, indeed, a proverb among 
 the Jews, and our Lord Himself uses it in its common 
 proverbial force when He speaks of having faith “ as 
 a grain of mustard seed” (Luke xvii. 6). On the other 
 hand, its growth was so great as to appear to be out of 
 allproportion to the diminutive beginning. Travellers 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 57 
 
 describe it as growing to eight, nine, or even twelve 
 feet high. One tells us that he has seen it “ in the 
 rich plains of Akkar as tall as the horse and his 
 rider.” Another mentions that as he was looking on 
 some tall stalks, seven and nine feet high, “a bird 
 came and perched on a branch and sang.” The 
 point of the figure, therefore, is not the dispropor¬ 
 tion which holds generally between seed and out¬ 
 growth, but the disproportion that holds particularly 
 between the mustard seed and its outgrowth. Other 
 seeds, such as the acorn or the seedling of the cedar, 
 are small in comparison with the majestic result. 
 But there was something peculiarly strange and sur¬ 
 prising to the Jew in the case of the mustard, which, 
 being itself a mere herb, yet grew to dimensions like 
 those of a tree. So this common garden growth, 
 which any Jew could observe, was the fittest figure 
 of an increase so large as to seem incredible, pro¬ 
 ceeding from a beginning small even to utter 
 insignificance. 
 
 38. THE MUSTARD SEED : ITS MEANING.— 
 Though the Divine Speaker gave no explanation of 
 this Parable, its meaning is sufficiently clear. It 
 lies in the one quality of the mustard that is speci¬ 
 fically dealt with—its power of growth, and of growth 
 to vast dimensions, notwithstanding its diminutive¬ 
 ness in its initial stage. Other qualities of the mus¬ 
 tard—“ its heat, its fiery vigour, the fact that only 
 when bruised it gives out its best virtues,” are not 
 in view here, and, therefore, we cannot say that it 
 is intended to teach how the Kingdom is to prevail, 
 namely, by the truth of a crucified Redeemer being 
 made the “ power of God unto salvation ” (Trench). 
 
SH THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 Its object is to convey the fact that the Kingdom of 
 God has an assured future ; that, small and obscure 
 as it is in its beginnings, it shall yet cover the earth. 
 It is not certain that its scope goes beyond this 
 broad fact. It is possible, however, that something 
 is meant by the description of the “birds of the 
 air” as coming and lodgmg in the branches, whether 
 in the sense of nesting there, or (which is rather the 
 case) in the sense of perching there for food or 
 shelter ; especially as the prophets, who use the 
 symbol of the tree, have introduced the same 
 feature, Daniel speaking of “ thefowls of the heaven” 
 dwelling in its branches (iv. 12), and Ezekiel of “ all 
 fowl of every wing ” as dwelling in the shadow of 
 the branches of the goodly cedar (xvii. 23). The 
 latter prophet, indeed, in saying also of the Assyrian 
 kingdom that “all the fowls of heaven made their 
 nests in his boughs,” explains the sense of the figure 
 to be that, “under his shadow dwell all great 
 7 tat 7 ons^^ (xxxi. 6, 12). Here too, therefore, it may 
 be meant not only that the Kingdom of God, at 
 present so insignificant, has that in it which ensures 
 it a mighty increase, but that it will in due time take 
 the nations of the earth within it, and make them 
 sharers of its good. The opportuneness of the 
 Parable is obvious. The disciples needed it. For 
 the Kingdom of God, as they yet saw it embodied 
 in the Person of their Master, the lowly Nazarene, 
 and in a handful of poor Jews like themselves, 
 seemed a thing staggeringly insignificant and be¬ 
 neath all their expectations. They needed it all the 
 more that the Parables of the Sower and the Tares 
 had given so strong indication of the discourage- 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 59 
 
 ments and difficulties; of the Kingdom. These were 
 almost Parables of despair, as they have been 
 called, looking to which these men might have 
 formed the gloomiest anticipations of the future of 
 the Kingdom ; and this Parable was spoken to give 
 them the hope of a mighty, world-embracing victory 
 for the Kingdom, notwithstanding its present small¬ 
 ness, and all obstacles and disappointments. 
 
 39. THE LEAVEN (Matt. xiii. 33 ; Luke xiii. 
 20, 21).—This Parable is omitted by Mark; but is 
 given by Matthew and Luke, and given by both im¬ 
 mediately after the Mustard Seed. The leaven 
 commonly used by the Jew was a portion of old, 
 fermented dough, which was put into the new dough 
 before baking, and acted like our yeast. So it is here 
 said to be taken by the woman who was making the 
 bread, and hidden in the meal she was handling. 
 The quantity of meal is given as “ three measures,” 
 which made an ephah —perhaps about three or four 
 of our pecks. The leaven is further to be under¬ 
 stood as left, when once put into the meal, to do its 
 work of changing the tough, insipid mass, ferment¬ 
 ing it by its own fermentation, and making it light 
 and palatable. This it continues to do in secrecy 
 and quiet until the whole is leavened. The figure 
 is a simple and homely one, but of great suggestion. 
 
 40. THE LEAVEN : SCOPE OF THE 
 PARABLE. —As in other cases, so here, one great 
 truth is illustrated, and the illustrative thing is the 
 leaven itself. Other things in the Parable are there 
 only for descriptive purposes. The “ woman ” is 
 introduced simply because it is a woman’s work 
 that is in view ; not as a type of the Church, or the 
 
6o 
 
 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 Divine Wisdom, or the Holy Spirit as the Agent 
 of all renewal, as some misread it. So, too, the 
 particular number of measures of meal has no 
 significance. It has been taken as a symbol of the 
 completeness of the work in question, as pointing to 
 the three great constituents of the individual life— 
 body, soul, and spirit; or to the three great divisions 
 of society—the family, the State, the Church ; or to 
 the three great divisions of the human race—the 
 children of Shem, Ham, and Japheth; or to the three 
 great races known to those then addressed—Jews, 
 Samaritans, Greeks. But the mention of an ephah 
 or three measures in the case of Sarah’s kneading 
 (Gen. xviii. 6), in that of Gideon’s unleavened 
 cakes (Judges vi. 19), and in that of Hannah’s pre¬ 
 sentation of the child Samuel to Eli (i Sam. i. 24), 
 seems to show that this was a usual quantity for one 
 baking, it being customary to bake at once what 
 would serve for some days. The measures, there¬ 
 fore, appear to be given as three simply because 
 that was the ordinary quantity. The point, then, 
 on which the whole Parable turns is the leaven 
 itself, and that as a thing working within the mass, 
 and in due time changing the whole. The leaven, 
 indeed, being itself a sour or corrupt thing, appears 
 in Scripture usually as a symbol of evil. The 
 Israelites were forbidden to eat leavened bread at 
 the Passover season (Exod. xiii. 3), or to make even 
 meal offerings or sacrifices of thanksgiving of it 
 (Lev. ii. 11; Amos iv. 5, R.V.). So in the New Testa¬ 
 ment it is a symbol of the corrupt teaching of the 
 Pharisees and Sadducees (Matt. xvi. ii, 12), of the 
 hypocrisy of the former (Luke xii. i), of malice and 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 6i 
 
 wickedness (i Cor. v. 8), of evil influence (Gal. v. 9). 
 Hence it is urged by some that here, too, it must be 
 used in the evil sense, as a symbol and prophecy of 
 difficulties and obstacles coming upon the Kingdom 
 of God in the form of corruption, in doctrine and in 
 life, within itself. But even under the Levitical 
 law restriction in the use of leaven was not absolute. 
 The wave-loaves of fine flour were to be baken with 
 leaven (Lev. xxiii. 17, R.V.). The same figure, too, 
 is in various cases applied in very different senses ; 
 the lion, e.g., is an emblem at once of the devil 
 (i Peter v. 8) and of Christ (Rev. v. 5), and the 
 dove is a sign of two kinds of simplicity, good and 
 evil (Matt. x. 16; Hosea vii. ii). Further, our 
 Lord expressly declares here that the Kingdom of 
 Heave 7 t is that which He compares at present to 
 leaven. Thus the leaven is introduced here in 
 respect of its action for good within the mass. 
 
 41. THE LEAVEN : MEANING OF THE 
 PARABLE. —The Parable, therefore, deals again 
 with the future of the Kingdom of God. Its lesson 
 is that this Kingdom, so insignificant and obscure 
 at first as to be like a little bit of leaven hidden in 
 the quantity of dough, is yet a new transforming 
 force, which will ultimately permeate the whole 
 mass, and make it a new thing. It will do this 
 hiddenly and unobtrusively, yet certainly, so that 
 at last the result will be manifest. It will do this, 
 as leaven does its work, by diffusing itself without 
 noise or observation through the mass, and chang¬ 
 ing its character by imparting to it its own qualities. 
 Its application properly is to the transforming power 
 of the Kingdom of God in and upon society or the 
 
62 
 
 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 community. It is a just inference that what holds 
 good of the society holds good also of the indi¬ 
 vidual, and that the Kingdom of God, received by 
 a man, will in like manner renew his whole nature 
 and life. While addressed to the people, it was 
 meant for the special encouragement of the disciples. 
 It bid them hope that, small and unpromising as 
 the beginning seemed, and great as were the ob¬ 
 stacles indicated by those “ mysteries of the King¬ 
 dom of Heaven ” which were first opened to them 
 by their Lord, that Kingdom would yet expand, till 
 it took possession of society and renewed it. The 
 Mustard Seed, therefore, has its complement in the 
 Leaven. The one sets forth the Kingdom of God 
 as a visible body, a society growing from small to 
 great, and at last extending itself over the earth ; 
 the other sets it forth as a hidden spiritual force, 
 acting inwardly upon humanity, working from 
 within outwards, penetrating society more and more, 
 and at last making it like itself. 
 
 42. THE HID TREASURE (Matt. xiii. 44).— In 
 Matthew’s Gospel the Parable of the Leaven is fol¬ 
 lowed by a statement that on the occasion in view 
 “Jesus spake unto the multitude in parables ; and 
 without a parable spake He not unto them” (xiii. 
 34). The Evangelist sees in this, as in so many 
 things, a fulfilment of the Old Testament (xiii. 35). 
 He represents this action of Jesus as answering to 
 the announcement made by the prophet, in one of the 
 Psalms, of his purpose to speak in parable and dark 
 sayings of old in singing of the ancient history of 
 Israel and its meaning to his own generation (Ps. 
 Ixxviii. 2). The Parable of the Hid Treasure, then, 
 
THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 63 
 
 opens a new series. For we learn from Matt. xiii. 
 36 that it was spoken, along with those that follow, 
 not to the multitude, who were now sent away, but 
 to the inner circle of the disciples. It is so akin to 
 the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price that these 
 two again make a distinct pair. They illustrate an 
 entirely new aspect of the Kingdom of God, and 
 they do this each in its own particular way. They 
 set this Kingdom forth, not as a corporate thing, a 
 community or fellowship that is to extend over earth, 
 nor as an inward force that is to conquer and trans¬ 
 form society, but as a thing to be personally 
 acquired. And being addressed to the disciples, 
 who were already so far in possession of the King¬ 
 dom, they unfolded to them its incomparable worth 
 for each of them individually. The first of the two 
 turns upon a case of frequent occurrence in Eastern 
 life, the finding of treasure-trove. The unsettled 
 condition of society in Eastern lands, and the want 
 of those methods of investing money to which we 
 are accustomed, made the possession of property a 
 very precarious thing. It is said that rich men 
 often divided their wealth into three parts, using one 
 part for their daily maintenance or for trade, turning 
 another into jewels, which they could easily keep 
 about them, and burying the third in the ground. 
 In times of war, sudden raids, popular uprisings, 
 changes of rulers, and the like, it was customary to 
 hide one’s treasure in field or garden ; and in many 
 cases, in consequence of the death or absence of the 
 owner, or the loss of the marks of indication, the 
 treasure would remain hidden until some lucky 
 chance discovered it to some stranger. The idea of 
 
64 
 
 THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 hid treasure, therefore, had a great hold of the 
 Eastern mind ; magicians were supposed to be 
 capable of directing one to the coveted spot; and 
 men were so possessed by the thought of coming 
 thus easily into riches that they often gave up all 
 regular work in favour of this attractive quest. The 
 Old Testament refers to it in such passages, as Job 
 iii. 21 ; Prov. ii. 4. Nor is it unknown in our own 
 day. “There are many persons,” says one who 
 lived long in the East, “ digging for hid treasure all 
 over the land, and not a few spend their last farthing 
 in those efforts” (Thomson). 
 
 43. THE HID TREASURE: SCOPE OF THE 
 PARABLE. —The incident forming the groundwork 
 of this Parable, therefore, is one, the force of which 
 would be instantly caught by a Jewish audience. It 
 is the case of a man at work in a field, who suddenly 
 strikes buried wealth, sees at a glance its value, 
 and for joy at his unexpected good fortune goes at 
 once, eagerly and without delay, and parts with all 
 he possesses in order to secure it, because he recog¬ 
 nises it will be more to him than all else. The teach¬ 
 ing of the Parable is not to be sought in such of 
 its circumstances as the man’s hiding the treasure 
 again. He does this only in order to keep it safe 
 until he can make his title to it certain by purchas¬ 
 ing the field itself; and it is beyond the purpose of 
 this detail to take it to refer, eg.^ to the “ tremu¬ 
 lous fear ” which may be felt in the “ first moments 
 that the truth is revealed to a soul . . . lest the 
 blessing found should, by some means or other, 
 escape again” (Trench). Neither does any special 
 significance belong to the field itself, as if it were the 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD, 6 $ 
 
 symbol of Scripture or of the visible Church as the 
 depository of the truth. Nor is it in place to raise 
 any question about the morality of the man’s con¬ 
 duct in keeping his find a secret till he should have 
 law on his side. The man’s act is described not 
 with regard to its being right or wrong, but simply 
 as an evidence of his eagerness and determination 
 to make what has come so unexpectedly in his way 
 his own. The thing which the Parable is designed 
 to illustrate is the inestimable worth of the Kingdom 
 of God. This Kingdom of God, it means, is the 
 Chief Good of Man,—the one true blessing of life, 
 the thing which is of incomparably greater worth 
 than all things else, which each man must acquire 
 for himself personally, and which can be acquired 
 only by the sacrifice of other things. 
 
 44. THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE (Matt, 
 xiii. 45, 46). —The companion Parable is not less 
 fitted than the Hid Treasure to appeal to Jewish 
 hearers and set forth the Kingdom of God as the 
 one Supreme Good. For it turns upon the worth 
 of pearls, and in these ancient times and those 
 Eastern lands the pearl had a value surpassing all 
 our modern ideas. The ancient Roman writer, 
 Pliny, states that pearls held the first and highest 
 place among all things of price. It was not every 
 day that a perfect pearl could be obtained. But 
 when one was found, it fetched almost any price. 
 Queen Cleopatra is said to have possessed two 
 pearls which were worth each some ^80,000 of our 
 money. A certain class of men made it their busi¬ 
 ness to travel in quest of these rarities, and they 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 required to be sagacious, patient men, with an eye 
 trained to recognise the many small imperfections in 
 colour or in shape which took vastly from the value 
 of pearls. The Holy Land being in the line of one of 
 the great highways of commerce, the caravan of such 
 a merchant would be no infrequent spectacle in the 
 neighbourhood of the Sea of Galilee. The Parable, 
 then, puts the case of one of these skilled merchant- 
 traders, travelling from place to place in quest not 
 of any sort of thing that might pass for a pearl, but 
 of “ goodly ” pearls, pearls of rare purity and beauty. 
 At last he comes upon one which he sees to be 
 free from any flaw and of extraordinary value; 
 one altogether peerless. Resolved to make it 
 his own at any price, he at once sells all that he 
 has, not his store of pearls only, but his whole 
 possessions, and purchases it. The object of his 
 many anxious journeyings is at last attained, and 
 his business so far forth is finished. 
 
 45. SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.—This Parable 
 gives the same general view of the Kingdom of God 
 as the former one. It sets it forth as Man’s Supreme 
 Good, the final object of all his seeking. It illus¬ 
 trates again its incomparable value, describing it_as 
 a thing worth all that a man possesses. It presents 
 it further as something which one has to secure for 
 himself, not simply a fellowship or society which is 
 to extend over earth and in which he may be 
 included, nor yet simply a force within society the 
 transforming power of which may touch him as a unit 
 of the community; but as a thing which he has to seek 
 and acquire for himself, and which he can acquire 
 only by readiness to give up all else for it. That 
 
THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD. 67 
 
 the acquisition is spoken of in terms of a buymg is 
 in no sense inconsistent with the fact that the King¬ 
 dom is yet a gift of grace. The expression is not 
 strange to Scripture. In the Old Testament we 
 read of buying the truth (Prov. xxiii. 23), and of 
 buying “wine and milk without money and without 
 price” (Isaiah Iv. i). So in the New Testament, 
 the counsel of the Church of Laodicea is to buy of 
 its Risen Head “gold refined by fire” (Rev. iii. 18); 
 and in the Parable of the Virgins, the foolish five are 
 advised to buy for themselves the oil they need 
 (Matt. XXV. 9). In all such cases the figure looks 
 only to the human side of the transaction, and is not 
 intended to illustrate the Divine. So here the 
 purchase of the pearl is not meant to say anything 
 for or against the truth elsewhere taught, that the 
 Kingdom of heaven is a thing of grace which comes 
 to us only by the free bestowal of God. It points 
 simply to the disposition on man’s part which has 
 the promise of the Divine gift; and it means further 
 that where that exists, the gift will not fail to come. 
 The whole-hearted seeker is certain at last to find 
 the Kingdom. 
 
 46. DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE HID 
 TREASURE AND THE PEARL.— But while the 
 Hid Treasure and the Pearl both express the same 
 general truths, they do this with a difference. In 
 the one case the man is not engaged in the search 
 for treasure, nor is he even thinking of it, but is 
 occupied with other things, and comes upon it un¬ 
 expectedly. In the other, the man is seriously and 
 deliberately engaged in the quest for “goodly pearls,” 
 has made it the very business of his life, has traversed 
 
68 
 
 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 lands for the purpose. In the one we have a man 
 of whose aims no indication is given. In the other 
 we have a man of earnest purpose and lofty aim, 
 caring only for pearls of real worth, bent on getting 
 such, and able to appreciate the best when he sees 
 it. This, then, seems to be the point of distinc¬ 
 tion, that while the Kingdom of God is of inestim¬ 
 able value to all who find it, and a thing to be had 
 only in the way of self-sacrifice, it does not come to 
 all precisely in the same manner, or under the same 
 circumstances. To some it comes as a joyful sur¬ 
 prise ; to others as a success long desired, a wel¬ 
 come discovery long looked for. Some find it in 
 the midst of toil for other things, with thoughts pre¬ 
 occupied, and hearts not set upon it. Others find 
 it in the course of a distinct and earnest search for 
 it, when seeking in one thing and in another the 
 Supreme Good of life. The discoverer of the Hid 
 Treasure has his representatives in the Nathanaels, 
 seen of Christ under the fig-tree, all unknown to 
 themselves (John i. 48) ; in women like the Samari¬ 
 tan, to whom He reveals Himself while they have no 
 thought of His presence (John iv. 26) ; in the outcasts 
 of society and the aliens to the Church ; in the many 
 who have been made ignorant or indifferent by 
 miserable circumstance or uiibrotherly handling ; in 
 the victims of hopeless poverty, incapable of look¬ 
 ing beyond the present hour, to whom the know¬ 
 ledge of the Friend of Sinners and the light of better 
 things come when they dream not of them. The 
 finder of the Pearl has his representatives in the 
 Pauls, whose labours for righteousness are at last 
 crowned with the discovery of that for which they 
 
THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 69 
 
 count all things loss (Phil. iii. 8); in anxious students 
 of the prophets, like the man of Ethiopia, who sat 
 in his chariot and read and enquired (Acts viii. 
 27); in the souls in all lands and times, that have 
 been simple, sincere seekers after truth and the 
 chief good of man. 
 
 47. THE DRAG-NET (Matt. xiii. 47-50).—The 
 Parable of the Drag-Net so much resembles that 
 of the Tares that we might have expected Matthew 
 to place them together, as he does with the M ustard 
 Seed and the Leaven, and again with the Treasure 
 and the Pearl. Perhaps the Drag-Net is reserved 
 for the last place in the series, because it fixes the 
 eye so distinctly upon the end of the Kingdom, the 
 final consummation and judgment. The figure is 
 no longer that of a farmer with his seed, but that 
 of a fisherman with his net—a figure singularly 
 appropriate, if the Parable was spoken by the Sea 
 of Galilee. The net in question is the large net, 
 known among us as the seine.^ which is simply a modi¬ 
 fication of the name it has in Greek. The Jews had 
 their small hand-net, which is referred to when it 
 is said of Jesus that “he saw Simon and Andrew, 
 the brother of Simon, casting a net in the sea ” (or, 
 throwing it about in the sea) (Mark i. 16). But 
 here, as in the Miracle of the Draught of Fishes 
 (John xxi. 6), it is the big, hauling net, a net ol 
 great length, made to sweep the bottom of the 
 sea, part sunk by leads deep into the water, and 
 part kept floating near the surface by corks or 
 bladders. It was meant to gather fish in masses : 
 and, when let out to its full extent, its ends were 
 drawn together, and it was dragged to land with all 
 
70 
 
 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 that it enclosed. It took in everything that was not 
 small enough to get through its meshes, and when 
 it was hauled to shore the fishermen examined its 
 contents, keeping the sound and saleable fish, and 
 throwing away the offensive and worthless. In the 
 present case the net is described as including bad 
 fish as well as good. The term “bad,” which is 
 employed here, means, properly speaking, 'putrid^ 
 that is to say, fish which were dead before they 
 were caught, and which are, therefore, wholly unfit 
 for food. But here it may be meant to denote all 
 which for any reason were of no use or value. “ As 
 illustrating this expression,” says Canon Tristram, 
 “ we may observe that the greater number of the 
 species taken on the lake are rejected by the fisher¬ 
 men, and I have sat with them on the gunwale 
 while they wejit through their net^ and threw out 
 into the sea those that were too small for the market, 
 or were considered unclean.” It is this large drag¬ 
 net that is also referred to in “ the burden which 
 Ilabakkuk the prophet did see,” when he said of the 
 wicked man and the many oppressed ones that are 
 more righteous than he, “ he taketh up all of them 
 with the angle, he catcheth them in his net, and 
 gathereth them in his drag : therefore he rejoiceth 
 and is glad. Therefore he sacrificeth unto his net, 
 and burneth incense unto his drag; because by 
 them his portion is fat, and his meat plenteous” 
 (Ilab. i. I, 15-17)- 
 
 48. SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.—This Parable 
 is also one regarding the Kingdom of God. Its im¬ 
 mediate subject is not the Church, or any question 
 of discipline in the Church, but the condition of 
 
THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 71 
 
 things which is presented in the larger society of 
 the Kingdom of God as it exists now, and this 
 specially in view of its future. The kind of net 
 indicates the sweep of the Kingdom of God in its 
 present work. It leaves nothing out that can be 
 gathered into it; it gathers in masses \ and it gathers 
 “ of every kind,” by which is meant not of every 
 nationality or race, but of every sort and character, 
 of all different moral qualities. For the phrase, as 
 applied to the net, points not to the different scien¬ 
 tific species of the fish, but to their differences in 
 use and value. The subject, therefore, is so far the 
 same as in the Tares—viz., the present mixture of 
 good and evil, worthy and worthless, in the Kingdom 
 of God; and the fact that the separation is to be 
 made neither now nor by the hands of man. Were 
 there no distinction between the lessons of the two 
 parables it would be nothing strange. For it would 
 be natural that our Lord, as was the way with other 
 Jewish teachers, should give more than one illustra¬ 
 tion of the same truth. But there is a difference 
 between the two. Both convey the lesson of 
 patience and hope on the part of the disciples, and 
 both point to the final separation. But the net con¬ 
 centrates attention on the end. In the Tares much 
 is suggested of the obstacles and evil influences to 
 which the Kingdom of God is subject now. In the 
 Net little is said, or even hinted, of these things, 
 and the mind is taken direct to the final separation. 
 Our Lord’s own explanation, so far as He suggests 
 one, touches this point and only this. The great 
 fact of a judgment to come when the “net is filled,” 
 and the work appointed for the Kingdom of God to 
 
72 
 
 THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 do on earth is done, is the burden of the Parable. 
 The deliberateness of the judgment is perhaps 
 indicated by the figure of the men sitting down 
 to deal with the haul of fishes. This certain, de¬ 
 liberate sifting out, which is to follow the present in¬ 
 discriminate gathering, being thus the great subject, 
 the Parable makes a solemn and appropriate close 
 to Matthew’s series of seven. And its special lesson 
 was perhaps to the disciples themselves—a lesson 
 of warning to them not to presume on their present 
 association with Christ in His kingdom, but to look 
 to the sifting-time of the future, and labour so to 
 use their fellowship with Him now as to be able to 
 stand the test of that day. 
 
 49. THE SEED GROWING SECRETLY, OR 
 THE FRUIT-BEARING EARTH (Mark iv. 26-29). 
 —This Parable, which is given by Mark alone, and 
 is the only one peculiar to him, goes naturally with 
 the seven in Matthew xiii. It is one of the three 
 which speak of the mysteries of the Kingdom of 
 God in terms of a sower’s work. It takes in the 
 second Gospel the place occupied by the Parable of 
 the Tares in the first Gospel. It is entirely distinct, 
 however, from that Parable, and conveys a different 
 lesson. It is more akin to the Parable of the 
 Sower, and, when originally delivered, it may per¬ 
 haps have been spoken immediately after it. It 
 illustrates an aspect of the Kingdom of God hitherto 
 unnoticed, and of great importance to practical 
 duty and to just ideas of God’s ways. The picture 
 which it presents is that of a farmer who is supposed 
 to have done one bit of work which belongs to him 
 to do, namely, that of casting the seed into the soil. 
 
THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 73 
 
 This being finished, his part is done for the time 
 being, and he goes about in the ordinary routine of 
 existence, contentedly sleeping and rising, making 
 no attempt to hasten the growth of the seed, but 
 leaving it to the natural operation of the forces 
 hidden in the soil. Meantime, it passes through 
 changes, all unknown to him and all unaided by 
 him, under the spontaneous action of the earth 
 which has received it. It goes on growing thus, 
 without any interference on his part, through all the 
 stages of its natural development in blade, ear, and 
 full corn in the ear. It is for this last that he 
 first sowed and then stood aside as one who can 
 only wait; but so soon as the full corn appears, he 
 recognises that the time has come again for activity 
 on his part. At once, “when the fruit is ripe” 
 (R.V.), or “alloweth,” he “putteth forth the sickle” 
 (R.V.) The time of harvest having arrived, he 
 applies himself forthwith to the work of harvest. 
 No more familiar scene could have been selected 
 for the purpose of illustrating one of the deep “ mys¬ 
 teries of the kingdom of God.” Yet, though the 
 Parable is one of singular simplicity as well as 
 beauty, it is by no means easy to define its precise 
 point. Different views are taken of what part of the 
 Parable really makes its kernel, and different con¬ 
 structions are accordingly put upon its scope. So 
 it is variously described as the Parable of the Seed 
 Growing Secretly, the Parable of The Blade, the 
 Ear, and the Full Corn, or the Parable of the Fruit¬ 
 bearing Earth. 
 
 50. THE IMMEDIATE INTENTION OF MARK’S 
 PARABLE. —The heart of the Parable is the state- 
 
74 
 
 THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 ment that “ the earth beareth fruit of herself; first 
 the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear” 
 (R.V.). What is said of the farmer himself is by way 
 of contrast to this. His first action is nothing more 
 than the scattering of the seed, the simple act of 
 committing it to the earth. Then there is no active 
 intervention on his part till the time of harvest is 
 reached. In the long interval he takes the attitude 
 of one who looks on and waits ; not carelessly, or 
 with an idle, uninterested mind, but patiently and 
 hopefully, with the consciousness that his part is so 
 far done, that much must be left to the soil to do, and 
 that the end is certain. And the earth does what 
 it is expected to do. It does it spontaneously^ 
 without the application of any external force on 
 his side. It does it effectively, and it does 
 it continuously to the desired end ; so that, in 
 virtue of this unforced and unaided action of the 
 soil, the seed developes first into the blade, and 
 then into the ear, and at last comes back to the 
 expectant farmer as the ripe grain. The primary 
 thing here, therefore, is not the sower and his 
 sowing, and the point of the Parable does not turn 
 upon the question as to who is to be understood 
 by the “ man ” who casts the seed into the ground. 
 Neither do the seed and the forces which are 
 wrapped up in it make the immediate subject, al¬ 
 though it is true that seed and soil and sunshine 
 and rain must all co-operate to the attainment of 
 harvest. But the central thing here is the earth 
 itself, which receives the seed from the sower’s 
 hand, with the forces stored in it and the part 
 assigned to them in the making of the result. And 
 
THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 75 
 
 the Parable seems to have been spoken with the 
 immediate intention of rescuing the disciples them¬ 
 selves from another mistaken idea of the future of 
 the Divine Kingdom, which might act harmfully 
 upon their minds, and unfit them for their vocation. 
 It was natural to them, with their inherited Jewish 
 notions, not only to think that the consummation of 
 the Kingdom must come at once, but that it would 
 come by some forceful, conclusive act of Christ 
 Himself. By this simple, vivid Parable He inti¬ 
 mated to them that it was not according to the 
 analogy of other things either that the Kingdom 
 should be so speedily established as they imagined, 
 or that it should be brought to its completion by 
 any summary act of His. His part was to plant it 
 in the society of Israel; and this being done by His 
 Teaching and Preaching, its future had to be left 
 to the measured action of the moral forces which 
 operate in society. It was a new element or vital 
 principle which He was to introduce into the large life 
 of humanity. Being introduced, it was to be left to 
 work according to the laws which regulate life, and to 
 be acted upon by those other elements and influences 
 which make humanity what it is, and among which 
 it is cast. Its end was certain, but its progress 
 towards that end could not be hastened by external 
 means or acts of power. His part was to wait till 
 the course designed for it—a course which had to 
 follow its own spiritual laws—was completed. Their 
 part was in like manner to wait, giving way to no 
 exaggerated, impatient, or unreasonable anticipa¬ 
 tions of its future. 
 
 51. LESSONS AND RELATIONS OF MARK’S 
 
76 THE FA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 PARABLE.—The most pertinent lesson of the 
 Parable therefore is this,—that the Kingdom of God, 
 having nothing of the character of a secular or 
 political movement, but being a spiritual force im¬ 
 planted in humanity, submits itself to the action of 
 the moral and social forces inherent in humanity, 
 and works through these ; that we are not to expect 
 it to take possession of the world by some great 
 stroke of power, but to think of it as moving gradu¬ 
 ally towards its end according to laws of its own, 
 which are beyond our cognizance and our control; 
 that it is to win its triumphs, not by “startling 
 Divine interpositions, but as grain matures and 
 seeds grow under the fostering influence of Divine 
 Providence” (Broadus); and, therefore, that instead 
 of being anxious to see immediate results, or de¬ 
 spondent when they do not appear, we should 
 be patient and content to wait, hopeful of the 
 future, and trustful of the Divine Will which pro¬ 
 vides and controls the secret energies of the recep¬ 
 tive soil, no less than those of the seed. But the 
 terms of this Parable, simple as they are, are so 
 fertile and significant, that other lessons regarding 
 the course of God’s Kingdom, if not directly in 
 view, lie at least so close to its scope as at once 
 to present themselves. The idea of secrecy, for 
 example, is not, indeed, the prominent thing here. 
 Yet the Parable, in its general tenor, exhibits the 
 Kingdom of God as a thing which increases silently, 
 in ways not open to our inspection, by the operation 
 of forces which work inwardly and in quiet. It 
 suggests that, as in the case of all else that grows, 
 the progress of the Kingdom of God, whether in 
 
THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 77 
 
 society or in the experience of the individual, is a 
 gradual thing, passing through the regular, succes¬ 
 sive stages of blade, ear, and full corn in the ear. 
 It should teach us, further, that each of these stages 
 is of God’s ordering ; that each is good in its own 
 time, and has its own appropriate qualities; that 
 the blade, scarce to be distinguished from the com¬ 
 mon grass, is not to be despised in comparison with 
 the ear, nor the harsh ear to be contemned in com¬ 
 parison with the full, sweet corn; that we are not 
 to stumble at the order of growth, or look for the 
 mellow fruits of the ripened Christian life when it 
 is the time of the beginnings, or of things short of 
 maturity. The Parable does not touch the question 
 of the relation of grace to the action of men or the 
 growth of the kingdom. As it takes it for granted, 
 without mention, that fruit-bearing is dependent on 
 the sun and the rains of heaven, so it assumes the 
 fact, elsewhere illustrated, of the dependence of all 
 upon the grace of God. Like the Leaven and the 
 Mustard Seed, it looks to the secret energies to 
 which the result is due; but while in the latter of 
 these two Parables it is the energies latent in the 
 seed that are in view, here it is the energies latent in 
 the earth itself. It is thus the proper complement 
 to the Sower, and, as such, it is a Parable of en¬ 
 couragement and hope. For while the Sower speaks 
 of obstacles and failures which attend the fortunes 
 of the seed that is sown, this Parable speaks of 
 the seed, when once deposited in the proper soil, as 
 finding there forces to help its growth, and as certain 
 to come to its maturity and fruitfulness, although by 
 laws which may not act according to our expectations. 
 
78 
 
 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD, 
 
 52. THE PARABLES OF THE SECOND 
 PERIOD. —We come now to those Parables which 
 we have called the Intermediate Parables, or Par¬ 
 ables of the Second Period, We owe these, as we 
 have seen, almost wholly to Luke. Their great 
 characteristic is that they address themselves by 
 preference to the illustration of love, forgiveness, 
 grace, and condescension. With one exception 
 (that of the Wicked Husbandmen), they are given 
 only by Luke ; and how much should we have lost 
 but for this Gospel of the beloved physician, the 
 companion of Paul ! All the Evangelists, it is true, 
 delight in reporting Christ’s words and acts of grace. 
 But it is most distinctive of Luke to select for his 
 narrative those incidents and discourses which 
 speak most eloquently of Jesus as the Friend of all 
 sinners, even the most depraved, the Associate and 
 Healer of all souls, even the most sick and wounded. 
 It is Luke who tells us of the wonder of the people 
 in the synagogue of Nazareth at “ the words of grace 
 which proceeded out of His mouth” (iv. 22, R.V.); 
 and it is Luke, above all others, who presents the Son 
 of Man as the Physician whose joy it is to give access 
 to Himself to the most diseased and sunken, that 
 He may do the physician’s work among them. So 
 it is among the Parables peculiar to the third 
 Gospel that we find those which best deserve to be 
 described as “ the very poetry and quintessence of 
 the gospel of pardon and of Divine love” (Bruce). 
 And the grace of their form matches the grace of 
 their contents. They are of inimitable simplicity, 
 tenderness, and beauty. 
 
 53. THE TWO DEBTORS (Luke vil 40-48).— 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 79 
 
 In none is the genius of the series now in view more 
 conspicuous than in the first in the order of Luke’s 
 narrative. It is a Parable of gi'aee in a supreme 
 sense, its only rivals in this being the three in Luke 
 XV. It was spoken to correct the hard judgment of 
 one who mistook at once the grace of a penitent’s 
 act and the grace of the Saviour’s condescension. 
 As Jesus sat at meat in the house of a Pharisee 
 called Simon, in a place unnamed, an interruption, 
 which was as grateful to Him as it was an offence 
 to His host, took place by the entrance of a woman 
 who had led a profligate life in the city. Who she 
 was is not further told us. The privacy which she 
 herself would have sought veils even her name. 
 For notwithstanding the recurrence of the name 
 Simon (one of the commonest among the Jews), and 
 the general likeness between the two scenes, we can¬ 
 not take her to be one and the same person with 
 the woman who gave a similar expression to her 
 love on the occasion of the anointing which is 
 recorded in the other Gospels, and who is named 
 Mary by John (Matt. xxvi. 7; Mark xiv. 3; John 
 xii. 3). The description of the leading figures in the 
 two cases (in the one, a Pharisee; in the other, 
 a leper: in the one, a sister of Lazarus, and a 
 member of the holy family of Bethany; in the 
 other, a “ sinner ”), and other differences forbid it. 
 This stricken penitent, knowing that J esus was in 
 Simon’s house, and acting on the irresistible 
 impulse of intense love and gratitude to One 
 who had befriended her and turned back the 
 current of her miserable life, burst in upon the 
 company, and in a passion of contrite, thankful, 
 
8o 
 
 THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 reverent feeling, took her place behind Him as 
 He reclined at table, wetting His feet with the 
 hot streams of her tears, wiping them with the 
 rich tresses of her hair, kissing them fervently, 
 and pouring on them precious unguent from an 
 alabaster cruse held in her trembling hand. If it 
 was a surprise that an adherent of the scrupulous 
 order of the Pharisees should have gone so far as to 
 have Jesus at his table, it was no less a surprise, 
 (notwithstanding the Eastern freedom which thought 
 nothing of the uninvited coming into the room and 
 seating themselves by the wall, and even mingling 
 in the conversation of host and guests), that a 
 woman of evil reputation should make her way into 
 the dining-room of such a respectability of the town 
 as Simon evidently was. His Pharisaic proprieties 
 were altogether disconcerted by the woman’s action, 
 and not less by Christ’s attitude to her. It seemed 
 to him that his Guest did not recognise the kind of 
 woman who stood so near Him unrepulsed ; and, 
 therefore, that he was no prophet, it being the Jewish 
 belief that the discerning of spirits was one of the 
 gifts of the true prophet. 
 
 54. SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.—It was in 
 reply to these unuttered thoughts of His host that 
 Jesus spoke this brief and gracious Parable about 
 two men who were alike in debt, though in 
 different sums, who were alike frankly forgiven, 
 who also were alike expected to show gratitude. 
 The debts are modest as compared with the 
 vastness of the sums named in the Parable of 
 the Unmerciful Servant. In the one case it was 
 only a matter of fifty pence or denarii, about thirty- 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 8i 
 
 five shillings—though much more than that if the 
 relative purchasing power of money then and now 
 is taken into account. The other was ten times as 
 much. But both debts being ungrudgingly remitted, 
 and it being taken for granted that gratitude is 
 inspired by favours, the question was which of the 
 two men should show most regard for the generous 
 creditor. This question Jesus put pointedly to 
 Simon, and drawing from him the confession that 
 he who was forgiven most should love most, He 
 made him pronounce judgment at once on his mis¬ 
 apprehension of the woman’s act, his doubt of Christ 
 Himself, and the stinted honour he did his Guest. 
 The point of the Parable is in the sentence, “ her 
 sins, which are many, are forgiven ; for she loved 
 much ; but to whom little is forgiven, the same 
 loveth little ” ; the point of which is not that she 
 was forgiven because she loved, but that she loved 
 because she was forgiven. Her act was misjudged 
 by Simon, because he neither took it in that this 
 notorious woman was a forgiven penitent nor under¬ 
 stood the logic of forgiveness. Christ declared her 
 to be a forgiven sinner, and her act to be the result 
 and evidence of her forgiveness. So He placed the 
 liberty which the woman took, to the offence of the 
 scrupulous Pharisee, in the light in which alone 
 it could be rightly regarded; while He likewise 
 justified Himself in not repelling her intrusion or 
 refusing her homage, and laid bare the secret of 
 Simon’s failure. The Parable, therefore, indicates 
 that all penitent sinners, even the most abandoned, 
 are assured of the Divine forgiveness, and that it is 
 
 Christ’s glory to receive and welcome such. But 
 
 F 
 
82 
 
 THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD, 
 
 its most direct lesson is that the deeds of God’s 
 contrite ones, and the ways of Christ Himself, need 
 a heart that knows the Divine grace to understand 
 them. And the law of that grace, it teaches us, is 
 this—that love is the issue of forgiveness, and the 
 measure of-love the evidence of the measure of 
 forgiveness. The Pharisee knew nothing of the joy 
 or might of penitence and pardon, and nothing, 
 therefore, of the joy or might of love. He had been 
 stinted, cold, and condescending in the reception 
 given to Christ, neglectful of the finer courtesies of 
 hospitality. The “ sinner ” had been lifted from the 
 depths of degradation and shame to the joy and 
 liberty of a new life, and her love was like the grace 
 she had experienced. The chill decorum of the 
 Pharisee had omitted the attentions of water for the 
 feet (Gen. xviii. 4; Judges xix. 21), the kiss of 
 peace (Gen. xlv. 15 ; Exod. xviii. 7), the anointing 
 of the head with oil (Ps. xxiii. 5), attentions paid, if 
 not to every guest, yet to those who were highly 
 regarded. The inspiration of the large love born 
 in the heart of the outcast so largely forgiven, offered 
 tears for the forgotten water; kisses, ardent and 
 multiplied, for the feet, instead of the salute of greet¬ 
 ing on the cheek; the tresses of her hair for the 
 towel of custom; a costly unguent lavished on His 
 feet for the common oil which politeness furnished 
 for the head. 
 
 55. THE GOOD SAMARITAN (Luke x. 28-37).— 
 The second of the Parables peculiar to Luke, accord¬ 
 ing to Luke’s order, is described as a typical Parable 
 rather than a symbolic. That is to say, it is one 
 which instructs not by some figure or symbol taken 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 83 
 
 from the world of nature or from custom, but 
 by an example of the thing in view. Neither 
 the time nor the place of its delivery is stated. 
 But it belongs probably to the period of the 
 Perean ministry, and it had its occasion in the 
 attempt of a certain “ lawyer ” (that is to say, one 
 whose office it was to expound and apply the Mosaic 
 Law) to “ tempt ” Christ, or put Him to the test, by a 
 question as to what he^ this religious official so 
 familiar with Divine things, should have to do in 
 order to inherit eternal life. The man’s object was 
 less to receive instruction for himself than to 
 measure the Master and draw from Him some 
 reply which might lay Him open to correction. 
 Christ, reading his intention, answered him as He 
 did the rich young ruler (Matt. xix. 16-22) by a 
 counter question—one which threw him back upon 
 himself and his own knowledge of the Law. Point¬ 
 ing perhaps to the phylactery which he wore and 
 the words to be found there. He asked what was 
 written in the Law itself, and how he understood it. 
 The lawyer replied by repeating two passages 
 (Deut. vi. 5 ; Lev. xix. 18) which Christ Himself 
 elsewhere gave, in response to the question of 
 another lawyer, as His definition of the first and 
 great commandment (Matt. xxii. 35-40; Mark xii. 
 28-34). Defeated in his purpose to entangle Christ 
 in something conflicting with the Law, yet unwilling 
 to confess himself beaten, and anxious to “justify 
 himself” or set himself right before others, the 
 lawyer ventured on a second question, as if all the 
 difficulty of fulfilling the Levitical precept of love 
 to one’s neighbour lay in understanding who one’s 
 
84 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 neighbour was. Instead of offering a verbal defini¬ 
 tion of the term, Christ gave an example of what the 
 Law meant, by putting the case of a man to whom 
 neighbourly help was denied where it might have 
 been looked for, and obtained where it might have 
 been less expected. The man was going down from 
 Jerusalem to Jericho, which lay in the Jordan 
 Valley some 600 feet below the level of the Mediter¬ 
 ranean Sea. For a large part of its course the road 
 led through a dangerous pass infested by “ robbers 
 (as it* should be) or brigands. A band of these 
 desperadoes, sallying forth from the shelters of the 
 defile, fell upon the traveller, stripped him of all he 
 had, even to his clothes, and left him naked and 
 mercilessly wounded. As he lay half dead in this 
 dreary ravine,—the scene of deeds of violence which 
 earned for it the name of Adu 7 nmim (Joshua xv. 7 ; 
 xviii. 17), the Pass of Blood .,—a priest, a servant of 
 the Law which enjoined mercy even to a beast 
 (Exod. xxiii. 4, 5), happened to come that way. He 
 saw the traveller’s misery, but in face of it all 
 passed by on the other side,” as if it were no affair 
 of his. He was followed by a Levite, another, 
 though inferior, servant of the Temple. He also 
 caught sight of the helpless man, and looked upon 
 his misery. But he, too, like the priest, passed on 
 without further concern. But in the happy coinci¬ 
 dences of the day a third wayfarer appeared, a 
 Samaritan, one of the mongrel race hated of the 
 Jews. And what neither priest nor Levite had 
 done, this stranger did, and did it royally, to the 
 wounded man, because he was a man and one in 
 direst need. When he saw him he felt for him. 
 
THE PJTABLES OF OUT LOPE. 
 
 85 
 
 stopped his journey, went up to him, attended to his 
 wounds, gave up his own ass to him, and brought 
 him to an inn—in this case something better than 
 the common caravanserai which provided only bare 
 shelter. Nor did his charity cease there. He looked 
 after him in the hostelry, and, on departing next 
 morning, left a sum sufficient for immediate needs 
 (two denarii, the wage of a labourer for a couple of 
 days), with a promise to pay what else should be 
 required. 
 
 56. SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.— It has been 
 said of this Parable that it has been “ the consolation 
 of the wanderer and the sufferer, of the outcast and 
 the heretic, in every age and country ” (Stanley). Its 
 lesson is obvious, and it is given in a way to cast the 
 questioner back on his own conscience. Having 
 finished the tale of the three men, Jesus asked the 
 lawyer which of them “ was neighbour,” or proved 
 himself neighbour, to the sufferer; and, getting 
 from him an answer which covered the principle of 
 neighbourly relation. He bade him go and act a like 
 part, instead of staying on captious questions. The 
 story was so told by our Lord as to give a practical 
 rather than a formal reply to the query, explaining 
 how the lawyer was to show himself neighbour to 
 another rather than who was neighbour to him, and 
 leaving the rest as matter of evident inference. It 
 meant that love solved all such questions, and that 
 if we had the spirit which the Law enjoins towards 
 others, we should know nothing of the “ nicely- 
 calculated less or more ” in deciding who our neigh¬ 
 bour is. So the Parable teaches that our charity is 
 due to our fellowmen as such, without distinction 
 
86 
 
 THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 of race or religion ; that he is our neighbour whoso¬ 
 ever has need of us ; that “ it is not place but love 
 that makes neighbourhood” (Wordsworth). With 
 justice, therefore, is it described “as a conscience in 
 the heart of Christendom condemning inhumanity, 
 breeding shame of cowardice and selfishness, and 
 prompting to deeds of kindness by a heavenly 
 yet sober and practicable ideal of benevolence” 
 (Bruce). 
 
 57. THE FRIEND AT MIDNIGHT (Luke xi. 
 5-8).—This Parable, otherwise called that of the 
 Importunate Friend.^ or that of the Selfish Neigh¬ 
 bour.^ follows a request for instruction in prayer. 
 Our Lord had been praying in a place unnamed, 
 and one of His disciples, who had heard those holy 
 pleadings so unlike the formal Jewish way, was 
 prompted to ask Him to teach them to pray. In 
 response, Jesus set before them a guide and a model 
 in the Prayer of Prayers, the Lord’s Prayer, which 
 Matthew records as part of the Sermon on the 
 Mount. Luke, bringing together things with a 
 common subject, introduces in this connection a 
 further statement made by our Lord on the subject 
 of prayer, especially regarding its spirit and its 
 answer. The Parable begins with a question 
 which puts a case, and asks the hearers how 
 they would have acted in the circumstances. It 
 is the case of a man who has an unexpected 
 demand made upon his hospitality by the arrival 
 of a traveller at midnight, when there is nothing 
 in the house to set before him. The host, to 
 whom as to every true Jew the law of hospitality 
 is sacred, sees nothing for it but to go, late as it is. 
 
THE PA TABLES OF OLTP LORD. 87 
 
 to the house of a friend, and ask him to lend him 
 three loaves—a quantity enough to help him credit¬ 
 ably over the difficulty. He finds the man in bed, 
 and is met by a rude reply not to pester him, backed 
 up by excuses taken from the inconvenience of get¬ 
 ting up, unbarring the door (a more troublesome 
 thing than with us), and disturbing the children. 
 But the petitioner hears as if he heard not, and con¬ 
 tinues pressing his request until the churlish neigh¬ 
 bour is conquered by his pertinacity (literally, his 
 shamelessness)., a pertinacity which sinks all feel¬ 
 ing and all restraint in the sense of the urgency of 
 the circumstances ; and in order to be done with it, 
 rises and gives him not merely something, but as 
 much as he wants. 
 
 58. SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.— It is a homely 
 scene in an unpretentious house, where parents and 
 children are at rest in the same room and the same 
 bed, the bed here being probably the '"'‘divan or 
 raised platform, which often filled nearly half a room 
 in a Jewish or Eastern house” (Plumptre). The 
 disturbance of their slumbers, which is pictured by 
 our Lord, was a thing common enough in lands 
 where it was customary to travel late for the sake of 
 coolness, and where inns were so few that the way¬ 
 farer had often to trust himself to private hospitality. 
 Christ puts the case in order to draw from it an 
 inference, and He gives it with authority—“ I say 
 unto you.” The framework of the Parable may 
 suggest that intercessory prayer is immediately in 
 view. Its instruction, however, applies to all prayer. 
 It deals implicitly with the question of delays and 
 seeming denials in the answer to prayer; and 
 
THE PARABLES OP OUR LORD. 
 
 S.S 
 
 especially, as we may gather from the sequel and 
 the mention of the gift of the Holy Spirit there (xi. 
 9-13), with the needs of the individual life and the 
 apparent lack of progress in the business of the 
 Kingdom of God there. It suggests that delays or 
 denials in the matter of prayer have their reason not 
 in God’s reluctance, but in our unpreparedness or in 
 the deep things of His counsel for our good and His 
 Kingdom’s cause. It teaches, that the spirit of 
 successful prayer is the spirit of persevering prayer ; 
 and second^ that true prayer has its answer assured, 
 however it may seem deferred. It is an instance of 
 reasoning from the less to the greater. If urgent, 
 continuous prayer prevails with a selfish, indolent, 
 churlish man, how much more must it prevail with 
 the Most High God, who cares for us with a Father’s 
 love? 
 
 59. THE RICH FOOL (Luke xii. 16-21).—This 
 Parable is preceded by a statement on what occa¬ 
 sioned it. A certain man, impressed by what he 
 had heard and seen in Jesus, appealed to Him in 
 a disputed question of property. People went to 
 the scribes, the custodiers of the law, with such 
 matters. This man addressing Jesus as a Rabbi, 
 thought to interest Him and turn His authority to 
 account in a grievance he had against his brother, in 
 the matter of an inheritance. Jesus rejected the 
 appeal as pointing to something outside His proper 
 work, and warned the petitioner against the covetous 
 spirit which makes and maintains such disputes. 
 In illustration of the folly of covetousness in this 
 or any form, He told this story of a rich man’s 
 embarrassment and mistake ; the counsel which he 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. Sg 
 
 took with himself over the difficulty of dealing with 
 crops so plentiful as to exhaust the capacity of all 
 his store-houses; his resolve to pull down these 
 inadequate barns and build others large enough to 
 take in the most liberal crops of the most liberal 
 season, and to store all his goods ; his expectation 
 (expressed in the form of an invitation to his sou/, 
 the seat of appetite and feeling) to give himself 
 wholly to ease and enjoyment when the strain of all 
 this building and storing is over; and then the 
 sentence of God, the sudden requiring of that same 
 “soul” to which so much was vainly promised, 
 the death coming swiftly as the chastisement of his 
 folly, the scattering of all his treasured goods. 
 
 6o. SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.— This man 
 committed himself to three great mistakes. He 
 mistook his life, imagining that it consisted in the 
 abundance of his possessions, whereas neither the 
 happiness of life nor even the mere continuance of 
 existence could be guaranteed by that. He mistook 
 his worldly means, hoarding where it would have 
 been wise to bestow, not discerning that the barns 
 for his superfluity were “ the bosoms of the needy, 
 the houses of the widows, the mouths of orphans 
 and children ” (Ambrose). He mistook his future, 
 presuming on length of days when that same night 
 was to be his last. The Speaker of the Parable Him¬ 
 self gives its lesson when he adds these solemn words, 
 “ So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is 
 not rich toward God.” It is the peril of the spirit of 
 greed, the retribution of the selfish use of one’s 
 means. The man who reserves for himself what he 
 possesses is entangled in the folly of him whose 
 
90 THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 story is so vividly, so terribly told in this brief 
 Parable. The loss of his soul, the dissipation of his 
 gathered wealth—this is his end. But the man who 
 makes a merciful and beneficent use of what he 
 possesses is rich toward God, and has a treasure in 
 heaven secure against change and death. 
 
 6i. THE BARREN FIG-TREE (Luke xiii. 6-9). 
 —Certain persons had brought our Lord the report 
 of a ruthless punishment, unrecorded elsewhere, in¬ 
 flicted by Pilate on some Galileans. Jesus takes the 
 opportunity of warning His informants not to mis¬ 
 judge these Galileans as the Jew was too apt to do, 
 but to consider that they are themselves involved in 
 the common sin of the nation, and certain to be 
 involved in the nation’s doom, unless they repent. 
 He Himself refers to another instance, also reported 
 only here, of exceptional calamity, and repeats the 
 warning. Then He speaks this Parable which 
 enlarges the scope of what He has said on repent¬ 
 ance, and adds to its solemn definiteness. The 
 case imagined is that of a fig-tree planted in a vine¬ 
 yard. The law of Deuteronomy (xxii. 9), which 
 forbade the sowing of a vineyard with divers seeds, 
 did not apply to a case like this ; and the expres¬ 
 sions indicate the peculiar care bestowed upon the 
 tree. It was pla 7 ited., not a chance-growth ; and it 
 was planted in a place to which it had no title, in a 
 vbieyard .,—in the corners of which, as travellers tell 
 us, a fig-tree is not uncommonly found, where also 
 the soil is favourable to it. Having thus placed it 
 the owner was entitled to look for fruit of it, but his 
 just expectations were disappointed. Three succes¬ 
 sive years he had come in vain—a period sufficient 
 
THE FA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 91 
 
 to prove it hopelessly barren. Now He judges it 
 not only useless, but an encumbrance, occupying 
 ground which might be turned to more profitable 
 account. He will cut it down, and give its place to 
 another plant. But his purpose is stayed by the 
 intercession of the gardener, who would yet again do 
 all that can be done for it, in the hope that next year 
 it may come to better things, but also with the 
 acknowledgment that, if it fails then, it can be 
 endured no longer. 
 
 62. SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.— It is a Parable 
 of judgment upon Israel, but of judgment only in 
 the last issue, and not untempered with mercy. The 
 Jewish nation, elsewhere {e.g., Psalm Ixxx.) com¬ 
 pared to a vine, is here the Fig-tree in a vineyard ; 
 the variation in the comparison indicating perhaps 
 that Israel has no prescriptive right to the position 
 of privilege. The three years point to the space 
 of time during which God, who has so singularly 
 cared for Israel, has looked for what He has 
 never found in Israel, from the time when first 
 He gave it its position in the vineyard of His 
 Kingdom on to those days of Christ. And now, 
 the barrenness of the nation being proved, its God 
 might justly transfer its place to the Gentiles. But 
 Christ wins for it yet a further space for repentance. 
 His ministry is still its opportunity. But, if that also 
 is rejected, the Divine long-suffering is exhausted, 
 grace can do no more, the doom will come on 
 persistent impenitence, the nation will perish and 
 its privilege be given to another. 
 
 63. THE GREAT SUPPER (Luke xiv. 15-24).— 
 This Parable was spoken in the course of hos- 
 
92 
 
 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 pitalities in the house of a Pharisee of position, 
 which drew from Jesus words of strong admonition. 
 When He paused one of the company broke in with 
 the exclamation, “ Blessed is he that shall eat bread 
 in the kingdom of God.” The man betrayed to 
 Jesus his superficial idea of the Kingdom, his 
 Pharisaic thought of it as a privilege secure to such 
 as he, his Pharisaic ignorance of the moral condi¬ 
 tions of inheriting it. He turned to him, therefore, 
 and laid bare the folly of the Pharisaic attitude to 
 the Kingdom of God, by this pungent story of a host 
 who makes a great banquet and is disappointed in 
 the guests he has first in view. The supper is 
 termed a “ great ” supper, because of the numbers 
 intended to partake of it, and many are actually 
 called. As appears to have been the way, at least 
 with men of rank, two calls are sent—a preliminary 
 one conveying the invitation, and a later intimating 
 that all is now ready. The first call seemingly is 
 received with satisfaction. The second, which 
 means that they shall give up what they are en¬ 
 gaged with and act upon the host’s grace, is declined 
 with sundry apologies. Their excuses are taken 
 from things lawful in themselves and in their own 
 place. They differ in terms, as the things differ 
 which engross the men for the- time, in field, or 
 mart, or house ; and the last of the three is blunter 
 and ruder than the others. But the men are wholly 
 at one in begging off, and their excuses all express 
 the same satisfied immersion in worldly interests, 
 the same preference of these to the host’s grace. 
 The host is naturally wroth when the report of this 
 is brought him. Resolved to be done with these 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 93 
 
 ingrates for ever, he sends his servant at once into 
 the streets and lanes of the city, and brings to his 
 table “ the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and 
 the blind”—guests whose only difficulty with the 
 call is their sense that it is too good for them. All 
 being gathered, he is informed that “yet there is 
 room.” But in his just indignation he will not 
 reserve even those last vacant places for the men 
 who have dealt so discourteously with his invitations. 
 He sends a second time and further afield, out of 
 the city altogether, away into the highways and 
 hedges of the country parts. His table is filled with 
 those whom his servant has found in these remoter 
 places, and has compelled to come in by overcoming 
 their strangeness and diffidence. And the men of 
 his own city who were the first called are left finally 
 without. 
 
 64. SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.— This Parable 
 is of the same order as the former, being a Parable 
 of judgment on the chosen nation. It is even of 
 more awful moment than it. For the Parable of 
 the Fig-tree speaks of judgment in the form of the 
 destruction of Israel’s national existence, and it 
 speaks of that doom as capable of being averted 
 even then by repentance. But the Parable of the 
 Great Supper speaks of judgment in the form of 
 exclusion from the blessings of the Messianic grace, 
 and says nothing of the possibility of a place being 
 yet open to Israel. The Supper is a figure of the 
 rich grace which was to come to men by Christ 
 The Jews are those whom God designed to be its 
 first participants. The first call is the earnest which 
 the Jews had under the Old Testament, in contrast 
 
94 > ' the parables OF OUR LORD. 
 
 with the Gentiles outside the theocracy, of the 
 coming grace ; andVtbis ^they used only as a thing 
 of privilege, a note of superiority. The second q^ll 
 is the token of the realisation of that grace and of 
 Christ’s actual institution of the Kingdom which 
 is not of this world; and this they put away from 
 thern because of its demands of repentance, faith, 
 gmt^oXldKness-, and cor^se^ration. The place in the 
 promised Kingdom of God,'therefoije, which they 
 refuse, passes away from them. It goes to those 
 who are of the same city with them, and yet not of 
 it, to the homeless men of the streets and lanes, to the 
 classes despised by the Pharisees, to the publicans 
 and sinners, instead of the nation as such, and its 
 leaders and official classes. And it goes to others 
 even than these—to those who are in no sense of 
 the city, to the men of the outside highways and 
 hedges, to the outcasts of the Gentiles. But for the 
 men of the city, the nation chosen of God, the 
 people for whom this grace is first prepared and 
 who refuse it in impenitence and in the pride of 
 privilege, there is exclusion. 
 
 65. THE LOST SHEEP (Luke xv. 3-7).—At a 
 certain point in our Lord’s ministry there was a 
 general movement on the part of the less reputable 
 classes towards Him. The graciousness with which 
 He not only admitted such people to His presence, 
 but even ate with them, was an offence to the 
 Pharisees and Scribes. The murmurings of these 
 hard Jews at an attitude so unlike their own to 
 publicans and sinners, formed the occasion of three 
 Parables, inimitable in their sweet simplicity, which 
 are given together in one matchless chapter of 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 95 
 
 Luke’s Gospel, and were probably spoken at one 
 time. All three are addressed »to' those censorious 
 representatives of official Jewish religionism. In 
 the first, Jesus invites them to put themselves in the 
 position of the owner of a goodly flock of sheep who 
 is in danger of loss. He pictures the man missing 
 one sheep, only one out of a hundred, and for its 
 sole sake leaving the ninety^japd nine untended for 
 a time in the wil.derne 5 s,'and following the lost one 
 without pause till he finds it; and not only so, but 
 laying it fondly on his shoulder when it is recovered, 
 and carrying it carefully home, grudging neither 
 toil nor trouble on its account, rejoicing over it 
 indeed with a gladness in which he must have 
 his friends and neighbours sympathise and share 
 with him. 
 
 66. SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.— Matthew also 
 has a Parable of a Lost or Stray Sheep which runs 
 in very similar terms (ch. xviii. 12-14). It is given, 
 however, in a different connection, and with a dif¬ 
 ferent purpose. The point of Matthew’s Parable is 
 God’s care over the least. That of Luke’s is Christ’s 
 grace to the lost. This one is spoken as Christ’s 
 defence of Himself and His condemnation of the 
 Pharisees. It shows how the recovery of lost ones 
 is His most proper work. Is there one among 
 them, He asks these murmurers, who would not act 
 as the owner of those sheep acts ? Is not such 
 longing to regain the erring prompted at once by 
 the shepherd’s feeling for the sheep and by interest 
 in what is one’s own t If such pains are thought 
 becoming in the case of a strayed sheep, how much 
 more in that of a lost soul? For a sinner wander- 
 
95 THE PJTABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 ing in his sin is loss to Christ; and greater loss to 
 Him by far than a missing sheep is to its owner. 
 It means, too, that in thus doing a Saviour’s work 
 He should have their sympathy instead of their 
 murmurs ; and this is made sharper still by the 
 words which are spoken directly of the estimates of 
 a higher Court than that of earth. Speaking for 
 the moment from their own point of view, and 
 assuming them to be what they took themselves to 
 be—righteous men needing no repentance. He tells 
 these Pharisees that the very thing of which they 
 think so poorly is the subject of joy in heaven, and 
 of greater joy in the case of a single penitent sinner 
 than ninety and nine such men as they are can 
 inspire. The sympathy of heaven with the love 
 that seeks and recovers the lost is the last rebuke 
 of their murmurings, the highest vindication of His 
 grace to the outcast. 
 
 67. THE LOST COIN (Luke xv. 8-10).—The 
 same truths are illustrated by the figure of a woman 
 who loses a piece of money. What pains will she 
 take to recover it, lighting a lamp to see into the 
 darkest corners, sweeping the house, leaving no 
 nook unexplored ! And when her search is crowned 
 with success, will she not rejoice and expect her 
 neighbours to enter into her gladness ? How much 
 more should the Saviour have the sympathy of men 
 in His longing by all means to save lost souls, and 
 in His joy over the recovery of even one such soul 
 —a joy shared by the angels, though denied by 
 these Pharisees. A life-like picture ! An appeal 
 not to be gainsaid ! 
 
 68 . SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.—Some dis- 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 97 
 
 cover meanings in this simple vivid Parable which 
 are beyond its real purpose, taking the house., for 
 example, as a figure of the Church, and the woman 
 as a figure of the Holy Spirit. Some, too, think 
 that there must be some clear distinction between 
 this Parable and the preceding, and find it in the 
 idea of the image of God in erring man as sug¬ 
 gested by the imprint of the sovereign’s head on the 
 coin, or in something equally far-fetched. If there 
 is a difference, it is rather in the comparative values 
 of the objects lost, in one case a sheep and one of a 
 hundred, in the other case a single coin and one out 
 of ten. The slender value of the missing coin, a 
 drachma (equal only to some 8d. of our money), 
 and the insignificance of the woman’s whole pos¬ 
 session, only ten such drachinae., may be an index 
 of the worth even of small souls in Christ’s eye, and 
 the seemliness of joy over the recovery even of one 
 such. But the difference is more in the form of the 
 Parable than in its purpose. Repeating the appeal 
 to the joy of angels, but omitting the comparison 
 between the one penitent and the ninety and nine 
 good persons, it illustrates the same great verities of 
 Divine love and grace as the former Parable. 
 
 69. THE PRODIGAL SON (Luke xv. 11-32).— 
 The third of the series is akin to the former two in 
 subject, but has distinct features of its own. Those 
 take the form of a question. This one has the form 
 of a narrative. And the narrative has a wealth of 
 circumstance and a tenderness of feeling which 
 make this the Chief of Parables. According to the 
 Hebrew law (Dent. xxi. 17), the elder son had a 
 double portion of the inheritance, and here the 
 
 G 
 
98 THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 younger son asks (demanding rather than request¬ 
 ing) immediate possession of the third which makes 
 his legal share. The father consents, and the son 
 soon lets it be seen what he has had in view. “ After 
 a few days ” he turns his back upon his home, weary 
 of its pure restraints, and goes off with all his 
 property into a “ far country,” where he shall be free 
 to follow his own ideas of life. He has his brief 
 time of mad indulgence, and then the day of dis¬ 
 illusion comes. He is soon at the end of his means, 
 and just then a famine sweeps over the country of 
 his wilful choice : the land has nothing to offer him, 
 its people help him not, and he sinks into such 
 abject misery that he sells his liberty to keep him¬ 
 self from starvation. But he stoops thus low only 
 to have his misery increased. He is sent to a 
 service most hateful and most degrading to a Jew— 
 the feeding of swine ; and so biting is his want that 
 he is fain to cram himself with the wretched pro- 
 vender given to these unclean beasts—the “ husks,” 
 the coarse, unsatisfying fruit of the carob tree, or St 
 John’s bread, also known as the locust-tree, common 
 in Palestine north of Hebron, and shedding im¬ 
 mense quantities of hard, horn-shaped pods, the 
 food of beasts, and at times of the abject poor. So 
 he stands in all this misery, a famished slave, 
 unaided, unpitied—“no one gave to him.” Then 
 the thought of his forsaken home, and the super¬ 
 fluity which even a hired servant enjoys there, rises 
 on him in his extremity, and provokes the resolve to 
 return and humble himself, and confess his sin 
 against God and his father, and crave to be taken 
 back, though only to the place of one of these 
 
THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 99 
 
 servants. But when he is yet far from his home, 
 and his courage perhaps fails him to approach, he 
 is anticipated by his father, who has been looking 
 for him in his yearning, and now welcomes him with 
 a passionate love which makes the intended confes¬ 
 sion stop short of the crave for a servant’s place. 
 The stole or upper dress, the best in the house, and 
 the other things of honour {cf. Gen. xlv. 22 ; Esther, 
 iii. 10, 11 ; viii. 2, 8 ; Song of Songs vii. i), the 
 signet-ring and the shoes which the attendants are 
 bidden bring forth and put upon him, are the signs 
 of his restoration to the standing of a son ; and 
 the banquet which is ordered (and “ on every 
 farm,” says an expositor, “ was the calf that was 
 being fattened for the feast-day; Jesus knew rural 
 manners”) is the token of the father’s joy over the 
 recovery of one who had been lost to him. But 
 the figure of the elder brother now appears. As he 
 returns from his toil in the field he hears the music 
 and dancing, and learning their occasion, he is 
 possessed by jealousy and rage. He refuses to go 
 in, though his father leaves the feast to bid him come 
 and share in the general joy. He speaks bitter words 
 about the unequal treatment meted out to himself 
 and to the profligate, the brother whom he re¬ 
 pudiates. But the father meets his upbraidings with 
 the loving consideration with which he had met the 
 errors and repentings of his younger son, and re¬ 
 minds him of the place he has always had in the 
 home and in his own fellowship, and of the fitness 
 of the joy which he grudged over the recovery of 
 one who had sinned and suffered. 
 
 70. SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.--This “ Crown 
 
lOO THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 and Pearl” of all the Parables repeats the lesson 
 of the former two. But it does it in a yet larger way, 
 with a pathos, a human interest, a divine suggestive¬ 
 ness all its own. Those Pharisaic murmurers are 
 made to see themselves in this elder brother in all 
 the unloveliness of their hard, unfilial spirit. If the 
 former Parables show them how they ought to have 
 acted, this one shows them, it is rightly observed, 
 how they had acted. Hereby Jesus again justifies 
 His ways of grace with the disreputable and sinful. 
 But here we have the story of a lost son instead of 
 that of a lost sheep or a lost coin^ and this makes the 
 moral interest and the moral appeal of the Parable 
 more immediate and more personal than in the 
 others. Here, too, we have the figure of a father 
 welcoming back an erring child to the child’s posi¬ 
 tion, and so this Parable speaks to us as no other 
 does of the attitude of God, the heavenly Father, to 
 the sinful, and of the joy with which He receives the 
 returning penitent. Having a living man, too, for 
 its subject, it tells, as the former two cannot tell, the 
 secret of the sinner’s inward experience—his lust for 
 independence, his self-will and folly, his misery, his 
 penitence and self-humiliation and self-confession, 
 the return of the filial feeling. And in all this it is 
 the largest and most uplifting revelation of the 
 Fatherhood of God in all its love and grace. 
 
 71. THE UNJUST STEWARD (Luke xvi. 1-9).— 
 This Parable is connected in subject or in occasion 
 with the former three. If it was spoken at the same 
 time as these, then it will appear that the disciples 
 to whom it was addressed included many publicans 
 and sinners (xv. i). As the former three, too, were 
 
THE EATABLES OF OUT LORD. 
 
 lOI 
 
 spoken directly to the Pharisees and Scribes, the 
 disciples being listeners, this one was spoken directly 
 to the disciples, the Pharisees and Scribes being 
 listeners. The story is that of a rich man and his 
 steward—the latter being an official entrusted with 
 the management of a great estate, and possessing 
 full authority over it. He is charged with squander¬ 
 ing the property, perhaps by his personal extra¬ 
 vagance. His master, believing the charge to be 
 true, calls him to account and intimates his dis¬ 
 missal. Unable either to work or to beg, the man 
 has to think of some way of meeting the gloomy 
 future. At last he hits upon a plan. He will make 
 friends of the men he has been dealing with, and 
 who are debtors to the estate—whether contractors, 
 or middlemen, or traders, or tenants who have 
 received large quantities of material products on 
 promises of payment not yet discharged. He calls 
 them before him, and bids each tell the amount he 
 owes. Having thus made them feel their position 
 as debtors, he instructs them to enter their obliga¬ 
 tions at greatly reduced figures. He makes these 
 changes in the bills not in the way of forgery, but 
 in the exercise of his ample administrative authority. 
 He gives different proportions of reduction, half the 
 number of baths (i Kings vii. 26, 38) of oil (the bath 
 amounting to about nine gallons, if taken to be 
 equal to the firkin of John ii. 6), one-fifth the 
 number of cors (the cor being about eight bushels) 
 of wheat. He makes these differences perhaps to 
 give himself “ the air of acting simply by favour and 
 personal preference, seeking in this way to strengthen 
 the feeling of obligation to his person” (Goebel). 
 
102 
 
 THE FA TABLES OF OUT LORD. 
 
 He will have it done quickly, because the time of 
 his stewardship, when alone this is possible, is so 
 short. So he further wastes his master’s goods in 
 the hope of making friends who will stand by him 
 in his adversity. He does it all in a way to benefit 
 these debtors without making any immediate gain 
 for himself. He does it openly, too, so that his 
 master knows it. And his master commends, not 
 the dishonesty, indeed, of his action, but its shrewd¬ 
 ness, its clear-sighted, quick-witted adaptation to 
 the making of a good future. 
 
 72. SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.— The interpre¬ 
 tation of this Parable has been greatly disputed, 
 and much difficulty has been felt with the selection 
 of a dishonest man, in any sense, as an example to 
 Christian people. But the general purpose of the 
 Parable is clear. It is a lesson on the use of our 
 worldly means—a lesson the more seasonable if 
 publicans and sinners were among the “ disciples ” 
 who heard it. It meant that they should prove the 
 sincerity of their sense of the Divine grace by an 
 unselfish employment of what they possessed. The 
 Steward is classed by our Lord (verse 8) with the 
 children of this world,” those whose interests and 
 thoughts are limited to earth ; and the wisdom 
 which is commended is described as holding good 
 only “in their generation,” only with regard to 
 worldly men and the things of time. But from this 
 our Lord argues the wisdom that should all the 
 more characterise “ the children of light,” those of 
 His own Kingdom, whose thoughts and interests 
 rise above earth and time. Using the Chaldean 
 word fnammon for wealth. He bids them so use their 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 103 
 
 means as to make themselves friends by it in the 
 other world when the time comes that “ it fails,” as 
 the R.V. gives it, instead of ‘‘ye fail” in verse 9. 
 Who precisely are to be understood by the “ friends ” 
 who are thus to be won, whether the term is a figure 
 of God Himself, who alone can admit to heaven, or 
 points to men benefited on earth, and pictured as 
 welcoming their benefactors to heaven, is not cer¬ 
 tain. But the lesson is unmistakable. It is that our 
 means are to be used with a view to the eternal 
 future, not selfishly but to the good of others ; and 
 that this unselfish, charitable discharge of the great 
 trust of our means in time will have its reward with 
 God, and follow us for good into the heaven which 
 is here significantly described as “ eternal tents.” 
 
 73. THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS (Luke xvi. 
 19-31). —Of this Parable it is said that it “is not 
 like a type, which a man cannot read until it is 
 turned, but like a manuscript, which delivers its 
 sense directly and at first hand ” (Arnot). Its 
 imaginary narrative is so graphic that it reads like 
 bits of actual life. In strong realistic terms it gives 
 the story of two men, represented as near neighbours, 
 yet absolutely apart in lot and life. The one is left 
 unnamed, the other gets the significant name of 
 Lazarus, the Old Testament Eleazar, meaning God 
 is my Help. The burden of the Parable is the 
 contrast between the two men—a contrast which, 
 showing itself in their career in time, follows them 
 through death into the hereafter. And what is said 
 of Lazarus is intended to throw into stronger relief 
 all that is said of his rich despiser. On the platform 
 of the earthly life we see a man of unstinted wealth 
 
104 
 
 THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 which he spends in self-indulgence, show, and 
 luxury. His ordinary attire is the richest that can 
 be procured. His outer garment or cloak is of the 
 kind of which royal gifts are made (Esther viii. 15) 
 —wool dyed in the costly Tyrian purple. His 
 inner garment or tunic is of the fine linen of Egypt, 
 scarce less costly, the white raiment of the priests 
 (Exod. xxviii. 39). His ordinary fare is a sumptuous 
 feast; he lives in gay carousal “ every day.” And 
 lying at his gate, obtruding his misery on his notice, 
 but all unhelped and unregarded, is a beggar, the 
 victim of a fell disease, so poverty-stricken that he 
 would be glad to get what falls from the careless 
 table within ; so abject, forsaken, and helpless that 
 (last stroke added to his wretchedness !) the dogs of 
 the streets, to the Jew most hateful, make free to 
 lick his sores with their unclean lips. So the two 
 live, and in time the end comes to each. The 
 beggar dies first, and then the rich man, of whom it 
 is added that “he was buried”—his pomp and 
 luxury lost to him thus for ever. But beyond this 
 each has also his lot, in the other world. The 
 beggar and outcast of this world in that world is in 
 “Abraham’s bosom”—a Jewish expression for the 
 fellowship and felicity of Paradise. Fortune’s care¬ 
 less favourite here is “ in torments ” there in Hades ; 
 so wretched that he becomes a petitioner for the 
 help of Lazarus, for so small a boon as a drop of 
 water from the tip of a wetted finger. So complete 
 is the reversal of lots in the other world, so perfect 
 the adjustment of destiny there to the moral condi¬ 
 tions of the two lives here. 
 
 74. SCOPE OF THE PARABLE. —The purpose 
 
THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD, 
 
 105 
 
 of the Parable is suggested by its occasion. The 
 Pharisees had heard the solemn words on the ser¬ 
 vice of Mammon. Being “lovers of money” they 
 “ scoffed ” at the speaker as if they were above such 
 warnings (xvi. 14, R.V.). Jesus exposed them as 
 men who sought to make themselves just in the eyes 
 of men, while in their secret heart they were unjust 
 and dishonourers of the Law of which outwardly 
 they made so much. And in connection with this 
 He spoke this Parable with respect to the selfish, 
 covetous spirit seen in them. It is not its imme¬ 
 diate object, therefore, to teach a large doctrine of 
 the intermediate state or of the future life. It 
 proceeds indeed on the broad truths that there is a 
 future life ; that in that life there will be a just reward 
 for good and a just retribution for evil; and that 
 these awards cannot be undone or changed. But it 
 goes no farther than this. The rich man’s petition 
 in favour of his poor brethren is not an evidence of 
 a change of character taking place in the other 
 world. It is an expression of natural family feeling, 
 which has behind it the complaint that if more had 
 been done for the man himself in his earthly life by 
 the God of Grace, he might not have come into this 
 condition. So the Parable speaks of the Jew as 
 having in Moses and the Prophets light enough to 
 show him the way of duty and of life. It teaches 
 thus the sufficiency of the present means of grace, 
 and the truth that, if these fail with a man, no 
 portent, not even the visit of one from the dead, will 
 succeed with him. But its great and immediate 
 lesson is akin to that of the former Parable. It is 
 the condemnation of the covetous spirit and the 
 
io6 THE FA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 careless, indulgent life. It is the broad moral 
 lesson of the just retribution that waits the twin sins 
 of selfishness and unmercifulness. 
 
 75. THE UNJUST JUDGE (Luke xviii. 1-8).— 
 The opening verse declares the purpose of this 
 Parable. The Law decreed the appointment of 
 judges in the cities through all the tribes, and strictly 
 forbade the wresting of judgment, respect of persons, 
 or taking bribes (Deut. xvi. 18-20). One of those 
 urban judges, but one shamelessly corrupt, as 
 Eastern judges too often have been, is here supposed 
 to be appealed to by a widow, who being of the 
 same city naturally goes to him for justice. The 
 Jewish Law, mercifully recognising the helplessness 
 of widows, made special and repeated mention of 
 their case (Exod. xxii. 22-24 > Deut. x. 18 ; xxiv. 17). 
 This one comes again and again with her cry to 
 have justice done her against one who oppresses 
 her. But “for a while’’ (R.V.) this unscrupulous 
 judge, who cares nothing for God or for man, heeds 
 her not. Yet at last her importunity succeeds 
 where everything else fails. She comes so persist¬ 
 ently that the man fears she will “ wear him out ” 
 (R.V.), or even come to blows with him (as the word 
 rendered “ weary me ” literally means), and to be 
 done with her he attends to her rights. 
 
 76. PURPOSE OF THE PARABLE. — This 
 Parable resembles that of the Importunate Friend 
 (Luke xi. 5-8), in teaching the duty and the reward 
 of perseverance in prayer. It is again an instance 
 of reasoning from the less to the greater. If a 
 pleading that will not accept denial prevails even 
 with an unscrupulous judge, how much more must 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. ic; 
 
 earnest continuous prayer be sure of its answer with 
 a God of perfect righteousness ? But the present 
 Parable differs from the former in inculcating this 
 patient, constant prayerfulness with special refer¬ 
 ence to Christ’s Coming and the trials of His 
 disciples in the interval. Because the day of recom¬ 
 pense seems to tarry long and there is much to 
 suffer, men may be tempted to become weary of 
 prayer. But God cannot forget His elect ; and 
 persevering prayer will be answered by their reward 
 at Christ’s Return. 
 
 77. THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN 
 
 (Luke xviii. 9-14).—Prayer is again dealt with in 
 this Parable, but as illustrating a certain spirit. 
 There were fixed hours for prayer in the Temple, 
 and the forecourt was the place. So it is that two 
 men are represented as going up to the Temple at the 
 same time and for the same purpose. They are men 
 of very different kinds, however, and their prayers 
 are different. The one, an adherent of the strict 
 religious class, takes up a position apart, and speaks 
 loftily to God of his freedom from sins (especially 
 those against property and purity) to which others 
 are prone, of his unlikeness to the man who came up 
 with him, of his superior attention to all legal re¬ 
 quirements. If the Law prescribes fasting once a 
 year (Lev. xvi. 29), he fasts twice a week ; if it asks 
 a tenth of the increase of fields and herds as holy 
 unto the Lord (Lev. xxvii. 30-32), he gives 
 tithes of all his property. The other, a member 
 of the disreputable body of tax-gatherers, odious 
 for their extortions, humbly keeps behind, with 
 downcast look smites his breast in painful sorrow 
 
io8 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 for his sin, and can only cry to God to be pro¬ 
 pitious (as it means) or merciful to him “ the sinner.’’ 
 Yet Jesus declares this despised, grief-pierced peni¬ 
 tent to have gone down “justified rather than the 
 other,” to be of a better standing with God, to be re¬ 
 cognised as righteous rather than he. The Parable 
 is addressed to certain persons (probably hearers 
 who had the Pharisaic spirit, though not themselves 
 Pharisees) who were guilty of the two great vices of 
 holding themselves to be righteous, and scorning 
 others as unrighteous. It teaches that the way to 
 acceptance with God is by the opposite spirit, 
 the contrite spirit which thinks of its own sin, not of 
 the sins of others, and looks humbly to God’s grace. 
 It is the foundation of Paul’s doctrine of justifica¬ 
 tion not by works of law, but by faith which excludes 
 boasting. 
 
 78. PARABLES OF THE THIRD PERIOD— 
 THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT (Matt, xviii. 
 21-35).—Before He left Galilee for the last time 
 Jesus spoke to the disciples on the duty of forgive¬ 
 ness. His words prompted Peter, who knew some¬ 
 thing perhaps of the distinctions made by the 
 Rabbis in the precepts of the Law which bore on 
 such matters, to put a question regarding the extent 
 to which this grace of forgiveness was to be carried 
 in the case of repeated offences. Jesus answered 
 that it was practically a duty without limitation, its 
 measure being not his seven times, but seventy times 
 seven. At the same time He took occasion to make 
 it clearer that such is the law of His Kingdom by 
 this narrative of a great King who, judging it time 
 to receive from his “ servants ” (officials evidently of 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 109 
 
 high rank and extensive powers) a full account of 
 their administration of his property, finds one who 
 had to confess to an enormous debt of ten thousand 
 talents (from ^2,000,000 to ^2,400,000)—Haman’s 
 estimate of the gain to come by the destruction of 
 the Jews (Esther iii. 9). Under the laws of ancient 
 nations, the Jews among others, the creditor might 
 sell the debtor himself, his property, and even his 
 family {cf. 2 Kings iv. i) in order to recover his 
 own. The King is to let the law take its course, but 
 is overcome by the entreaties of the debtor. The 
 man pleads for patience, for time, and he will pay 
 all. The King grants him more than he asks—not 
 a respite only, but complete remission. But when 
 the man so generously dealt with is out of the King’s 
 presence, he falls upon a fellow-servant who owes him 
 a paltry sum of a hundred denarii (something like 
 seventy shillings), takes him by the throat, demands 
 instant payment, spurns his petition for a respite, 
 and having no power to sell a fellow-servant, casts 
 him mercilessly into prison. The unfeeling man is 
 reported by his aggrieved fellow-servants to the 
 King, who in his just wrath recalls his pardon, and 
 delivers him to “ the tormentors,” “ the roughest 
 class of prison-attendants ” (Goebel), to be detained 
 in miserable, hopeless confinement till he can ac¬ 
 complish the impossible by discharging his vast 
 debt to its last farthing. So Jesus exhibits the evil 
 of an implacable, unforgiving spirit, and teaches that 
 this sin means the loss of grace and the certainty of 
 the just and irreversible judgment of God. 
 
 79. THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD 
 (Matt. XX. I-1 6).—This Parable appears to have 
 
no 
 
 THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 been spoken when Jesus had left Galilee and was on 
 His journey through Peraea. It seems to have been 
 intended also to illustrate the enigmatical saying, 
 “ But many that are first shall be last; and the last 
 shall be first,” which made part of Christ’s reply to 
 Peter’s question as to what they, the Apostles, who 
 had forsaken all for Him, were to have in His 
 Kingdom (Matt. xix. 27-30). It closes indeed with 
 a similar sentence, “ So the last shall be first, and 
 the first last.” (R.V.) It gives the story of a 
 householder who goes out at early morning, the 
 beginning of the Jews’ day, and hires certain 
 labourers to do work in his vineyard, agreeing to 
 pay them the usual day’s wage, a denarius. But three 
 hours after this, and again at the sixth hour and the 
 ninth, he hires others in the same way, agreeing to 
 pay them not a specified sum, but a fair wage. So 
 late even as the eleventh hour he goes out once 
 more, and, finding some still unemployed, not for 
 want of will to work, but for lack of opportunity, he 
 sends them also into the vineyard. At the end of 
 the day he proceeds to pay them. But he begins 
 with those last hired, and who consequently have 
 done least work, and through his overseer he gives 
 these men, in the presence of all the rest, a full day’s 
 W'age. Those first hired, when their turn comes, 
 expect a larger wage, and when they get only the 
 deiiarius they murmur, thinking it now an unequal 
 remuneration for their longer and heavier service. 
 The master meets their murmurs by reminding one 
 of them that he, the hirer, has acted justly, having 
 given all that he engaged to give ; that he is at 
 liberty to do what he wills with his own ; and 
 
THE PA/CABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 Ill 
 
 that misjudgment of his kindness implied the evil 
 disposition of jealousy in the other. 
 
 8 0. SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.— The Parable 
 is one of difficult and disputed interpretation. It 
 deals with the call of God to work in His Kingdom ; 
 for the “vineyard” is elsewhere a figure of that 
 Kingdom (Is. v. i, 7 ; Jer. xii. 10). ' It deals especi¬ 
 ally with the reward of service in it. It doss not mean, 
 however, that Heaven will be the same to all, that 
 all who work in the Kingdom of God will have the 
 self-same reward, or that there will be no equitable 
 recognition hereafter of varieties in the measure 
 of service done here. Nor is the point of the 
 Parable in the mention of the hours^ as if it referred 
 to the different times, youth, manhood, old age, at 
 which men receive God’s call. Its meaning is 
 rather this—that there will be different degrees of 
 just reward for different degrees of service ; but that 
 these will not be according to the appearances of 
 things. The adjustment of reward to service will 
 not be according to the visible measures of length 
 and magnitude, but according to the invisible 
 measures of opportunity, spirit, motive. So some 
 that are first in service as it is seen by men, may be 
 last in the heavenly reward, and some that are last 
 in the one, may be first in the other. 
 
 81. THE TWO SONS (Matt. xxi. 28-32).—This 
 Parable is the condemnation of the chief priests and 
 elders. These attacked Christ by questioning His 
 authority. He silences them by a counter question 
 regarding John’s baptism (xxi. 23-27). He then 
 proceeds with this simple, but suggestive story of a 
 man and his two sons. The father bids first the 
 
112 
 
 THE PA TABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 one and then the other go and do some work in his 
 vineyard. The first replies with a blunt refusal, but 
 by and bye regrets it, and goes. The other responds 
 with what seems a hearty but for all that fails to 
 go. Having put the case, Jesus asks which of the 
 two sons did the father’s will, and obtains the proper 
 answer. The Parable is meant to expose the in¬ 
 sincerity of these official religionists, and the 
 remoteness of their ways from the will of God, in 
 comparison even with those of notorious sinners— 
 publicans, harlots, and the like. There were those, 
 like these latter, who at first refused God’s call, but 
 afterwards yielded to John’s preaching, and changed 
 their lives. But these proud Jewish leaders, with 
 a great show of zeal for God’s Law, gave it only a 
 hollow and ineffectual homage. John came to them 
 “in the way of righteousness,” their own way of 
 legal obedience. Yet at heart they went not with 
 him, nor did they change their mind and in sincerity 
 accept his testimony even when they saw others, 
 who had been strangers to the Law, believing him. 
 
 82. THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN (Matt. xxi. 
 33-41 ; Mark xii. 1-9 ; Luke xx. 9-16).—Like the 
 preceding one, this Parable seems to belong to the 
 second day after our Lord’s triumphal entry into 
 Jerusalem. It is given by each of the Synoptists, 
 and from Luke (xx. 9) we gather that it was ad¬ 
 dressed to the people as well as to the chief priests 
 and elders. In terms which recall Isaiah’s fifth 
 chapter, it speaks of a householder, and the vineyard 
 which he had planted. Having provided it with a 
 fence for its protection against beasts, a wine-press, 
 and a tower or lookout for its security against 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 113 
 
 robbers, he made it over to the control of certain 
 husbandmen during his absence on a considerable 
 journey. Returning at the end of the season he 
 sent first one body of servants, and then a second, 
 more numerous or of higher rank in his service, to 
 get the fruits which were due. But all that they 
 received was cruel handling, beating, stoning, death. 
 Last of all, unwilling to give up hope of these out¬ 
 rageous men, he even sent his son, his only son, the 
 son of his love. But with no avail. Thinking that 
 if the heir were got rid of, there would be less diffi¬ 
 culty in keeping hold of the vineyard, they seized the 
 son, cast him out of his own inheritance, and killed 
 him. Having told the story thus far, Jesus turned 
 upon His hearers, those priests and leaders especi¬ 
 ally, and asking them what the natural sequel would 
 be. He drew from them their own condemnation in 
 the admission that forbearance so long continued, 
 and grace so wonderfully shown, could only be fol¬ 
 lowed at last by the destruction of these wicked men, 
 and the transferring of the vineyard to others who 
 would use it better. 
 
 83. SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.— The Parable 
 is a prophecy of the rejection of the nation and the 
 judgment of its leaders. It is a mirror in which 
 leaders and people alike are shown themselves in 
 their privilege, their sin, and their doom. It revives 
 their past—their position as the theocracy, put in 
 trust of the Kingdom of God on earth ; the Divine 
 grace and forbearance of which their history bore 
 witness; their repeated rebellions and abuse of 
 privilege ; their mishandling of God’s messengers, 
 
 one after other on to John : their rejection of Hiiu- 
 
 H 
 
114 THE EATABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 self, their Messiah. And it announces the end 
 which must come to all this obduracy and misuse 
 of grace—the judgment that will overtake themselves 
 and their nation, and the passing of the Kingdom of 
 God from them to the Gentiles. 
 
 84. THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING’S SON 
 (Matt. xxii. 1-14). —This Parable also belongs to the 
 early days of Passion week. It was spoken pro¬ 
 bably in the hearing not only of the Jewish leaders, 
 but of other listeners of different kinds, and when 
 the former were thinking of Christ’s arrest. In so 
 many things it resembles the Parable of the Great 
 Supper (Luke xiv. 15-24), that it has often been re¬ 
 garded simply as another version of it. There are, 
 however, important differences, e.g.., in the fact that 
 the subject now is a king, in the kind of feast, in the 
 introduction of what looks like a Parable within the 
 Parable in what is said of the guest without a wed¬ 
 ding garment. While the same broad truths, too, 
 are set forth in both, they are presented in distinct 
 ways and different proportions. The ground-work 
 of this Parable is the idea of a wedding-feast. Thus 
 it unites “ the two favourite images under which the 
 prophets of the Old Covenant set forth the blessings 
 of the New, and of all near communion with God, 
 
 . . . . that of a festival and that of a marriage” 
 (Trench). Messengers are sent to call the invited 
 guests, but the guests decline to come. A second 
 and more imperative call is also made light of by 
 the mass, who are pre-occupied by their own affairs 
 in field or mart; while the rest even inflict outrage 
 and death on the king’s servants. His wrath is now 
 kindled, and he destroys the offenders and their 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 ”5 
 
 city. He fills his table with a multitude gathered 
 indiscriminately from the thoroughfares ; and when 
 all are seated, he comes in to survey the scene. In 
 the mass of guests thus brought in without distinc¬ 
 tion, he is surprised to see one who violates the laws 
 of propriety and decorum by appearing in common 
 attire. He demands of the man how he has ven¬ 
 tured in without the appropriate wedding dress, that 
 being probably provided by the host himself. The 
 intruder can answer nothing, and is thrust into the 
 cold and darkness outside the banquet-room. 
 
 85. SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.— This too, is a 
 Parable of Judgment. It is a picture of the recep¬ 
 tion given by these Jews to the call of God. The 
 call had come to them bv Christ Himself and His 
 disciples, and it had been refused. It was to come 
 to them a second time by His Apostles when He 
 Himself was rejected. A second time it would be 
 repudiated and its messengers shamefully entreated. 
 Then would come the Divine judgment on their 
 obduracy. The Parable is thus a prophetic Parable, 
 in a larger sense than that of the Great Supper. For 
 while the latter speaks mainly of the present, this 
 one looks mainly to the future. It is also more 
 distinctively a Parable of judgment. For while the 
 Great Supper also speaks of judgment, its chief 
 burden is grace, and judgment is a subordinate note. 
 But in this one the great subject is judgment, and 
 not only the judgment of the nation but that of the 
 individual. It means that not all who are gathered 
 into the Kingdom of God as it appears on earth 
 are of the Kingdom ; that the final condition of 
 admission is the possession of the character that 
 
ii6 
 
 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 suits the Kingdom ; that the judgment of God enters 
 the Kingdom itself and deals with the individual 
 there, separating the unmeet from the meet and 
 finally excluding the former from His own fellow¬ 
 ship and His Son’s joy. 
 
 86. THE TEN VIRGINS (Matt. xxv. 1-13).— 
 After His last visit to the Temple, on the Tuesday 
 before His Passion, Jesus set out to return, as was 
 His wont, to Bethany. On the way He sat down 
 on the IMount of Olives, and in answer to the ques¬ 
 tion of the disciples delivered His great discourse 
 on the last things. They had asked Him what 
 should be the signs of His own coming and of the 
 end of the world (Matt. xxiv. 3), He had answered, 
 that the day was unknown to man or angel, and 
 had charged them for that reason to watch and to 
 be ready (Matt. xxiv. 42, 44). It is in this connec¬ 
 tion that the Parable of the Virgins is introduced, 
 and with the same injunction to watchfulness it con¬ 
 cludes. No Parable surpasses this one in beauty 
 or in a pathos which becomes tragic. Nor in any is 
 there a greater contrast between the simple and 
 familiar things which make its story and the magni¬ 
 tude of the truths illustrated. “A few country 
 girls arriving too late for a marriage, and being 
 therefore excluded from the festival, is not in itself 
 a great event; but I know not any words in human 
 language that teach a more piercing lesson than 
 the conclusion of this similitude” (Arnot). It turns 
 upon the evening wedding-procession, which was a 
 great feature in the ceremonies of Jewish marriages, 
 The usual practice seems to have been for the 
 bridegroom, accompanied by his groomsmen, to 
 
THE PARABLES OP OUR LORD. 
 
 iij 
 
 proceed on the evening of the wedding-day to the 
 bride’s house and bring her to her new home, the 
 bride with her maids joining the procession, and 
 the wliole concluding with a feast in the bride¬ 
 groom’s house. It is not clear, however, that this 
 is the order supposed in the Parable, and the custom 
 itself may have been varied, especially in the case 
 of a bridegroom coming from a distance. Attention 
 is fixed simply on the going forth of a number of 
 maidens, probably the recognised bridesmaids, to 
 meet the bridegroom, without particular indication 
 of where or how they met, or where the procession 
 took them. It seems truer to the tenor of the 
 Parable, however, to suppose them to be gathered 
 at the bride’s house, in readiness to meet the bride¬ 
 groom in a body, than to think of them as joining 
 the procession separately, each from her own home, 
 when it is already on its way. They are of two 
 kinds, however, five wise and five foolish. Each 
 comes provided with her lamp (a simple vessel fixed 
 to the top of a pole, and holding only a small quantity 
 of oil), which it was necessary to have in the dark, 
 unlighted Eastern streets. But the wisdom of the wise 
 is seen in this, that with the lamps they bring oil, each 
 one for herself, sufficient for all contingencies ; and 
 the folly of the foolish lies in this, that they bring no 
 oil’or insufficient oil, by want of forethought or by 
 careless reliance on others. The bridegroom’s 
 arrival is unexpectedly delayed, and the alertness 
 of all flags. They begin to nod (as the term tor 
 “ slumber ” means), and at last they sleep, all of 
 them. Suddenly, at midnight itself, when all are 
 least expectant, there is the shout that the bride- 
 
ii8 THE EATABLES OE OUR LORD. 
 
 groom is at hand. The wise start from their sleep, 
 feed their lamps, and are ready on the instant. The 
 foolish see their lamps going out, fail in borrowing 
 the oil which they need from their companions, go 
 in hasty quest of a supply, and return only to find 
 the door shut, and themselves denied recognition 
 by the bridegroom. 
 
 87. SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.— The point of 
 the Parable is suggested by the charge to watch by 
 which it is preceded and with which it closes. Its 
 broad lesson is not to be confused by seeking dis¬ 
 tinct spiritual meanings in the oil^ the sleepy and 
 other details. Even the figure of the bride and the 
 marriage itself are entirely in the background. 
 The burden of the Parable is readiness for the 
 Lord’s coming, particularly in view of its present 
 delay, the suddenness with which at last it will 
 be realised, and the finality which it means. It 
 illustrates the need of constant watchfulness with 
 a view to this. But it speaks specially and 
 more broadly of what makes the preparedness for 
 that decisive event. Under the figure of a wedding- 
 festival it sets forth the joy of the perfected Kingdom 
 of God. Under that of the burning lamp, it exhibits 
 the personal meetness in character, the light of holi¬ 
 ness, without which none can enter that blessed¬ 
 ness. It represents this meetness also as a thing 
 of individual concern, which each must seek and 
 acquire for himself, and none can borrow from 
 another. For while there is the company of the 
 ten, “the complete virgin-choir that is to receive 
 the bridegroom and take part in the marriage” 
 (Goebel), each has her own lamp and must feed it 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 119 
 
 with her own oil. And it sharpens its great lesson 
 of the wisdom of sedulously seeking this personal 
 meetness, and the folly of neglecting it or trusting 
 to anything but it, by pointing to the impossibility 
 of suddenly remedying its want at the decisive end, 
 and to exclusion from the final joy of God’s King¬ 
 dom as the inevitable doom of all who fail in it. 
 
 88. THE TALENTS (Matt. xxv. 14-30).—Spoken 
 in immediate connection with the Ten Virgins^ this 
 Parable also looks to Christ’s Coming and the duty 
 of readiness for it. It puts the case of a man 
 who, having to take a journey, entrusts the manage¬ 
 ment of his property to his own servants, men, 
 therefore, whom he can trust in his absence. He 
 commits his property to them, however, in unequal 
 proportions, to one five talents (the talent amount¬ 
 ing to £'111 or ;^24o), to another two, to a third 
 one ; and this he does not arbitrarily, but with a 
 view to their several capacities, giving to each just 
 as much or as little as he has reason to suppose him 
 able to manage. The servants are then left forth¬ 
 with and completely to their own responsibilities. 
 The first trades diligently and doubles his sum; 
 the second does the same with his smaller trust; 
 the third indolently buries his talent in the ground. 
 The master returns and takes account of their trusts. 
 The first is commended for his faithfulness, is re¬ 
 warded by being set over many things, and is invited 
 to enter into his master’s joy; that is, he is raised 
 from the position of servant and made his master’s 
 associate in the joy of lordship. The third pleads 
 his fear that his master, whom he regards as one 
 accustomed to seize the benefit of what he does not 
 
120 THE PARABLES OE OUR LORD, 
 
 toil for, would leave him no better for his labour, 
 and thinks he does enough when he gives back 
 intact what he had received. The folly of his 
 excuse is exposed, his talent is taken from him (not 
 to be appropriated, however, by the master whom 
 he thought hard, but to be added to the reward of 
 the good servant), and he himself is thrust out. 
 
 89. — SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.— The Parable 
 deals with the need of faithfulness and diligence in 
 the Lord’s service in view of His Return. Each of 
 His disciples is put in trust of the word and interests 
 of His Kingdom in this time of His absence. Each 
 receives precisely that measure of trust which he is 
 capable of discharging. Each is rewarded according 
 to the intrinsic value of his service, as work is related 
 to capacity, the man who makes the most of his 
 little being honoured equally with him who makes 
 the most of his much. Each also is judged for his 
 unprofitableness^ and his disregard of his master’s 
 interest. So it teaches that the non-use of Christ’s 
 trust to us has its condemnation as well as the 
 misuse. 
 
 90. THE POUNDS (Luke xix. 11-27).—The Par¬ 
 able of the Talents has a companion Parable in the 
 Pounds, which also belongs to our Lord’s last days, 
 though to a somewhat earlier time than the former. 
 It was delivered in Jericho, when Zacchaeus had 
 received Him, and after He had spoken of the 
 publican as a son of Abraham, and of Himself as 
 the Son of Man, “come to seek and to save that 
 which was lost.” The figure here is taken from a 
 case sufficiently common under the Roman Empire 
 then—the case of creating a Kingship over a 
 
THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 I2I 
 
 dependent state. A man of noble birth is supposed 
 to have to make a long journey in order to be 
 invested in such a position. He calls his ten ser¬ 
 vants together and gives each one mina (equal 
 to from to £% 15s.) to trade with in his 
 absence. He does this, as it would seem, 
 simply as a test of their fidelity ; for the sum 
 is small. He proceeds on his way, but has 
 to encounter the hatred of his fellow-citizens, 
 who attempt a vain protest against his elevation. 
 On returning he finds that one of his servants has 
 gained ten minae by his one, and a second five, 
 but that a third has kept his pound unused in a 
 napkin. The faithful are rewarded, and the wicked 
 is condemned as in the Talents. Here, as there, 
 too, the unused viina is taken from the slothful 
 servant, and given, spite of the surprise expressed 
 by the bystanders, to him who had gained ten, and 
 is given on the same principle, that capacity brings 
 larger capacity, that non-use brings loss, that not to 
 employ a trust or grace is not to have it. But here 
 we have the double punishment—the destruction of 
 the hostile fellow-citizens, and the deprivation of 
 the wicked servant. 
 
 91. SCOPE OF THE PARABLE.— The occasion 
 of the Parable was the idea of those who then 
 heard our Lord, that “ the kingdom of God should 
 immediately appear ” (v. 11)—an idea stimulated by 
 the exciting events of these days, the crowds and 
 the miracle at Jericho. This Parable was His 
 correction of this false expectation. It intimated 
 His approaching departure from earth, and the 
 trial-time between that and His Return, which 
 
'122 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 would test the fidelity of His servants, and give 
 opportunity to the hostility of His rejecters. It was 
 prophetic of His Return as the time of reckoning 
 for all—the time of judgment for His rejecters (the 
 Jews), of punishment for the faithless among His 
 disciples, of glorious reward for those who stood 
 the test. It meant also that in this interval His 
 servants are called to work as well as wait; and 
 that all faithful work shall be recompensed accord¬ 
 ing to its measure. It differs from the Talents in 
 that the one mina gains in one case ten, and in another 
 five minae ; while the five talents gain five, and the 
 two gain two. The truth which it teaches, there¬ 
 fore, is that different measures of service with the 
 word and the things of God’s Kingdom, if they result 
 from a larger or smaller use of the same trust, will be 
 recognised by different degrees of reward ; while in 
 the Talents the principle is that equal measures 
 of service resulting from different capacities or 
 opportunities will be recognised by equal rewards. 
 
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