The kingdom of Heaven is like...
In this article, we will take a deeper look at insights to be gleaned from the parables of Jesus.
Why did Christ always start these parables in this way? Why not just cut to the chase? And more importantly, what can we learn from them? Well, Christ often spoke in parables for a few reasons. This is one such reason for doing so:
”He actually answers that question Himself, or gives one answer to it, when He tells the parable of the sower, and the soils and His disciples don’t get it. They come to Him and say, “What was that all about?” and He explains it to them.
He says, “I’m giving these explanations to you because you’re my disciples. But one of the reasons I tell these parables is because when I tell the parables, it actually makes clear whether people really grasp the meaning of the kingdom or not” (see Matt. 13:11-17, Mark 4:10-12, or Luke 8:9-10).
I don’t know if it’s said so often these days, but there was a time when people constantly said to ministers, “You should tell more stories like Jesus so that we can understand.” But Jesus didn’t tell these parables so much so that people would understand. They were really test cases of whether they understood the gospel that He preached in other words. When you think about it, that’s the case.”
Why did Jesus speak in parables?
It’s pretty clever and cuts through much of the red tape in today’s culture.
How much more efficient could we be reaching the lost if we utilized this approach to the gospels as well as witnessing?!
There are numerous olden approaches to modern problems that I’d say we effectively miss the boat concerning efficient solutions. In many cases, we lose a lot of the contextual meaning of what Christ was, in effect, working to accomplish by telling the parables this way.
With the parable of the ten virgins in mind, let’s look at it for what it truly is: Ten virgins parable - The Rapture!
”In our story, notice that the virgins got tired and fell asleep. In the Bible, to fall asleep can also be a reference to dying. After they fell asleep, they were awoken by a cry that rang out. When that cry came, those who were ready went into the banquet with the bridegroom, and those who were not ready got locked out. This is a picture of the rapture. Consider what Paul said in Thessalonians. You may notice some parallels.
“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord, himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” – 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17”
Now think about the modern-day approach to discussing the gospels. There’s a stark difference. However, some churches excel at keeping the context and meaning alive.
Let’s look at some of the negatives first, though. Most churches in today’s culture only discuss the gospels on Easter day or Easter weekend; they go through the Riga more, talking about Christ’s death and resurrection. They try to condense it all into, at most, a 2-hour sermon. Which honestly ends up feeling forced.
Or if you’re a bigger church with a whole town for a congregation. You do the “cliche Easter program.” And while that is well-intentioned and practiced. It becomes something that it shouldn’t be. I am lucky to belong to my church because they make Easter a special time, as it should be. But without glamorizing it. It’s not cliche, and it’s not hokey.
As an American populace, we often take things of significance and turn them into a big glamorized production, or we destroy the original meaning and context of such a pivotal moment. We see this no more evident than when we travel to other countries less fortunate than our own, in such a place as a third-world country or even a fifth-world country. Or even just a country where the government is without a constitution backing it, such as in America. And it becomes utterly evident that we are in many ways a spoiled nation; likewise, we have absolutely no concept of what “struggling” truly means. Now, is it true that there are starving people in America? Yes, it’s true. But we have programs to help those in need, such as wic, snap, and welfare. So it’s essential to realize that most people qualify for such supplemental programs. This means they aren’t actually “struggling”; they are simply poor or ill-equipped to survive in our modern capitalistic economy. Struggling would be having absolutely no access to clean water and food for you or your child. Struggling would mean your child is in danger of dying from starvation. That’s genuinely struggling.
Now I don’t point these distinctions out to say people in America need to “buck up, buttercup.” There are poverty-stricken families; there are families who can’t afford to get their kids new clothes for the school year. But we need to consider what struggling entails and not shortchange those truly struggling day to day to provide even the basic necessities for their children; when I was in other countries seeing these things firsthand and saw the in-your-face situations—and coming to terms with the realization that things likely would not get any better for them. It made me realize how rich and well-off I genuinely am. At that moment, it squashed the “#firstworldproblems” I had in my head complained about on occasion.
So why is any of this important? Well, its value is intrinsic to the overall basis: What do we believe? And how do our surrounding area and circumstances shape our theology? Let’s discuss that for a little bit. We sit in our pews or seats, and week after week, we hear about the scriptures… We hear about what god can and has done and the life God wants for us. And we sit there in our often heated building or our air-conditioned sanctuaries. In our nice church clothes, sipping our coffees or teas, without the threat of the doors being banged down and each one of us carried off to be interrogated or imprisoned. And then, we close the service and go out into the world to carry on with whatever we have planned for the rest of the day. We think about how genuinely exceptional that service was for XYZ reasons.
We also never process how blessed we are in America to freely and openly worship our almighty God… And then we try to witness to someone from our lofty seats. Bear in mind there’s nothing wrong with having things, and there’s nothing wrong with being well-off. But we have to counter that with the humble realization that God could take all that and more away from us in an instant. So we must remember to utilize God’s blessings to best witness to the less fortunate, the oppressed, the mistreated, and more.
We look at such biblical figures as Job; Job was a person in the bible, specifically the old testament, who had everything taken from him… and yet! He still called upon, prayed to, and trusted in his heavenly maker.
”Job is one of the most famous people in Scripture, yet he is rarely listed as a favorite Bible character. The central figure in the book of Job, Job's intense suffering supplies the framework for the primary theme of the book, which deals with the role of suffering in the life of a believer.”
“Except for Jesus Christ, no one in the Bible suffered more than Job. For months he endured intense affliction with open sores covering his entire body. His entire wealth and livelihood were wiped out in one afternoon. Simultaneously, Job suffered the loss of seven sons and three daughters. During his troubles, he remained stubbornly faithful to God, but surprisingly, Job is not even listed in the Hebrews "Faith Hall of Fame."
Job in the bible.
So why is that? Why is it that the runner-up to Christ’s suffering, Isn’t commonly addressed when relating to everything he dealt with in his life? Well, there may be no good answer to that question. But we have to conclude that sometimes life doesn’t offer the solutions we’d like to hear regarding traumatic seasons in our lives. And yet other times, you realize that God is interceding on behalf of the saints and is figuratively slapping you upside the head to get your attention.
”Okay, lord, I hear you!”
You may never hear a booming voice from the heavens like the Apostle Paul, who was Saul, or a burning bush like Moses, or even a prophetic dream, like Joseph. But I can with nearly 100% certainty tell you that if people are interceding on your behalf or someone directly related to you and a particular instance with enough people are praying through and in his will! It’s going to come to pass! So buckle up, buttercup. It’s going to get real!
We also have to realize that the prayers of the saints carry a lot of weight. As Johnny Cash so poignantly put it, “You can run on for a long time, but sooner or later, god’s gonna cut you down,” and that’s not just for unbelievers. You can be someone who never misses a Sunday, and you could’ve gone through Sunday school and know all the children’s stories. But if you’re going out on your own. Eventually, God’s going to catch up with you. Or maybe you’re on the opposite side of the tracks and never went to church a day in your life growing up. But you came to Jesus later in life, If you’re not living in God’s will for your life. and or you try to do your own thing. God’s going to catch up with you there as well. Jesus never promised us an easy life as believers of the one true God, and He never said you’ll always be happy and bad times will never come knocking at your door, contrary to any TV evangelist and the like.
But instead, you will have eternal rest in paradise with our maker and creator.
So to draw back to the original question, Why does Jesus speak in parables and give illustrations, frequently starting with “the kingdom of heaven is like?” Well, it isn’t because he’s trying to trip people up. It’s because he wants to gauge the capacity and the ability to comprehend the gospel for what it truly is. Not that they would understand the actual parable. But that they would grasp or comprehend the significance and meaning behind the parable.
In another way of saying it. If you’re trying to understand what ten virgins going to a dinner party has to do with anything, you’ve missed the boat of what Christ was working to communicate through that parable.