Additional Study Material - “He Spake Many Things unto Them in Parables”

The word parable is Greek in origin and means a setting side by side, a comparison. In parables divine truth is presented by comparison with material things. The Hebrew word, mashal, which parable is used to translate, has a wider significance, and is applied to the balanced metrical form in which teaching is conveyed in the poetical books of the Old Testament. See Matt. 13:35.

Most teachers, especially those in the Middle East, have used some form of parable in their instruction, but none so exclusively as Jesus at one period of His ministry. During part of the Galilean ministry the record states that “without a parable spake he not unto them” (Mark 4:34). From our Lord’s words (Matt. 13:13–15; Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10) we learn the reason for this method. It was to veil the meaning. The parable conveys to the hearer religious truth exactly in proportion to his faith and intelligence; to the dull and uninspired it is a mere story, “seeing they see not,” while to the instructed and spiritual it reveals the mysteries or secrets of the kingdom of heaven. Thus it is that the parable exhibits the condition of all true knowledge. Only he who seeks finds.

•••