What Do Jesus' Parables Mean? (Crucial Questions Series)

by R.C. Sproul

For instance, paralegals work alongside lawyers as helpers. And ballō means “to throw or to hurl.” So parable means something that is thrown alongside of something else. In order to illustrate a truth He is teaching, Jesus throws a parable alongside of it.

In the Greek language, there’s hearing, and then there’s obeying what you hear. Obeying what you hear means really hearing it—a hyperhearing or superhearing. When Jesus says, “He who has ears, let him hear,” He understands that some people might audibly hear His teaching, but it will not pierce their understanding or their hearts. So Jesus makes a distinction between those who hear and those who don’t hear.

And so the question we will ask as we consider these eleven parables is, what is Jesus’ single, important, central point? What lessons do these parables carry for believers?

He knows that when He returns He will find faith on the earth, not because we are so faithful, but because He is faithful to keep those whom the Father has given Him.

Scripture also tells us in Romans 1 that the two most basic sins of the fallen human race are a refusal to honor God as God and a refusal to be grateful.

Irreverence and ingratitude toward God are the most fundamental sins that define fallen humanity.

A professor once said to me that the sinner in hell would give everything he had and do everything he could to make the number of his sins in this life one less, just to get one ounce less torment.

Jesus was telling the people who were listening to His parable that if they didn’t listen to Moses or the Prophets, then when His Father raised Him from the dead, they still wouldn’t listen.

Unbelief is not an intellectual problem— there is sufficient testimony to God and His goodness in creation and in Scripture that everyone is without excuse if they refuse to worship Him. Rather, unbelief is a moral problem. Unbelievers don’t worship because they don’t want to worship. They don’t listen because they don’t want to listen. They don’t have ears to hear because they don’t want to have ears to hear.

We need to regularly audit our value systems to see whether our values line up with the values of God. We’re called to have the mind of Christ. That means we are to love what Jesus loves and to hate what Jesus hates. We pursue what Jesus pursues and flee from what Jesus flees from. That’s what the life of the Christian is all about.

We tend to think of all acts of nonjustice, everything outside the circle, as unrighteous or evil. But this is not true. Some nonjustice is evil, but there is another kind of nonjustice that is not evil: grace. Is there anything evil about grace? Of course not. Is there anything wicked about God’s being merciful? No. When God is gracious, He does not commit an injustice. But He does commit a nonjustice. So, those whom He elects and saves, sovereignly, receive His grace. Those who do not receive His grace receive justice. They receive exactly what they deserve.

The Pharisees were a group of men among the Jews who began their ministry in the intertestamental period.

These Pharisees devoted themselves to keeping the law of God in an effort to restore righteousness to the land and godliness to the people. But in a short period of time, they became so caught up with their desire to be righteous that they soon had confidence in their own obedience to the law rather than learning from the law what it was designed to teach them.

Did we do this particular work out of a heart that is 100 percent dedicated to God? We’re called to love Him with all of our hearts, all of our minds, and all of our strength. No one has ever done that, not for an hour or even a minute. So every deed we do is marred by the imperfection of our hearts.

Imputation means that our justification in the presence of God is grounded in a righteousness that is not our own.

Sometimes we ask a child in Sunday school, “What did Jesus do for you?” And the child will say, “He died on the cross for my sin,” and that’s true. But had Jesus just come down from heaven on Good Friday, gone to Golgotha, taken your sin upon Himself, and paid the price before a holy God, would that have been enough to redeem you? The answer is no. That would have been enough to take away your guilt and remove your punishment, but it wouldn’t supply you with the righteousness that God requires from every human being. That’s why Jesus had to be born. He had to live under the law. He had to live a life of perfect active obedience. In His obedience, He accrued for Himself perfect righteousness, and it’s that righteousness that is then transferred to the account of every person who puts his trust in Him alone.

As long as that Pharisee trusted in his own righteousness, he couldn’t be redeemed. If you’re trusting in your accomplishments and your goodness and your works, you’re no different from this Pharisee, who went home to his house unjustified. The one who went home justified was the one who rested on grace alone (see v. 14).

we are debtors who can’t possibly pay our debts. Every time I break God’s law, I become a debtor. My debt to Him is infinite. That’s why it’s foolish to think that we can work our way into heaven, because perfection is required of us. And if we sin just once, there’s nothing we can do to make up for that sin, because we were already required to be perfect. So we are debtors who can’t possibly pay our debts.

The Pharisees hated sinners. They couldn’t stand to see a sinner receive a blessing from almighty God. That’s the heart of an unconverted person.

There was this idea—and I’ve found it to be widespread throughout evangelical Christianity—that all you need is a loving and warm heart, and since justification is not by works, as Christians we don’t have to work. But how can anyone read the Gospels and not see the emphasis that our Lord put on productivity, or fruits?

By their fruits, you shall know them, not by their words, but by their stewardship of the faith that they profess to have (Matt. 7:19–20).