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A parable is a short story that incorporates everyday events to illustrate a spiritual principle. It typically involves a character facing a moral dilemma or making a questionable decision and then suffering the consequences. Jesus used parables to illustrate a parallel between some aspect of everyday life on earth and a greater spiritual truth in God’s kingdom. A parable has the aim of getting a single, emotional (or spiritual) point across. Those hearing the parable are supposed to get the main point, examine themselves, and then apply that point to their lives. Jesus didn’t teach the way that many philosophers and religious figures do, using jargon that only experts can understand and incorporating difficult or abstract ideas into His message. Instead, most of the time He taught using simple, down-to-earth stories drawn from first-century rural Jewish culture, which made His teachings accessible to common people. He used parables to make important points, and they were instantly memorable. Even today, though we are vastly removed from Jesus’ time and geography, once we’ve heard His parables, it’s hard to forget them.
Jesus represented the arrival of God’s kingdom into this world and the initiation of God’s rule in His people’s lives through the Holy Spirit. When telling these parables, Jesus was sitting in a boat at the north end of the Sea of Galilee.
Lesson 1: The Sower (Matthew 13:1-23). You have a responsibility to take the seed in deep, hold it fast, and give it a fair chance. When you do, you will find that it will bring forth fruit.
Lesson 2: The Lamp and Sowing-Harvesting (Mark 4:21-29)
Lesson 3: Weeds (Matthew 13:24-30). Wheat as it matures will bow its head, but weeds will not. The plants of good seed and weeds look alike and the only way to tell the difference is to wait until they are mature.
Lesson 4: The Mustard Seed (Matthew 13:31-35)
Lesson 5: The Hidden Treasure (Matthew 13:44-53)
Jesus represented the arrival of God’s kingdom into this world and the initiation of God’s rule in His people’s lives through the Holy Spirit. When telling these parables, Jesus was sitting in a boat at the north end of the Sea of Galilee.
Lesson 1: The Sower (Matthew 13:1-23). You have a responsibility to take the seed in deep, hold it fast, and give it a fair chance. When you do, you will find that it will bring forth fruit.
Lesson 2: The Lamp and Sowing-Harvesting (Mark 4:21-29)
Lesson 3: Weeds (Matthew 13:24-30). Wheat as it matures will bow its head, but weeds will not. The plants of good seed and weeds look alike and the only way to tell the difference is to wait until they are mature.
Lesson 4: The Mustard Seed (Matthew 13:31-35)
Lesson 5: The Hidden Treasure (Matthew 13:44-53)
Bible Events
Parable: FOUR TYPES OF SOIL
1. GROUND NEAR A PATH: in Jesus’ day often were narrow and they crisscrossed the fields. Jesus’ hearers would have traveled over such paths many times mostly on foot (or with a donkey or horse), and they knew that if a sower scattered grain near such a path, he would be almost sure to drop a few grains there. Lying in plain sight of hungry birds, these seeds would soon be eaten.
2. GROUND ON THE EDGE OF A FIELD: often pitifully poor and thin. Stalks of grain trying to grow in this rocky ground had a rough time of it under the scorching sun.
3. NEGLECTED GROUND: where thorn bushes and thistles would grow to considerable size. While the soil was good, it needed some cultivation!
4. GOOD GROUND: where a single seed could produce a vigorous, tall stalk with a nice head of new grain.
Parable Explained: FOUR TYPES OF HEARERS
Jesus took this familiar scene and constructed a parable around it to communicate an important message to His listeners. He explained that the field represented the world. The seed the sowers planted was the Word of God. The sowers themselves were the servants of God, and the soil represented the hearts of the listeners on which the Word of God fell.
Jesus explained that there are four different types of hearers (or “soil”).
1. GROUND IN THE OPEN: hear the Word, but it goes in one ear and out the other. They do not give it a chance to penetrate the surface of their hearts, so the Word never has a chance to grow in them. It just lies on the surface, ready to be snatched away by the devil. Because of this, it is of no benefit to them.
2. ROCKY GROUND: are easily swayed and have no persistence. They hear the Word, but because they don’t allow it to sink into their hearts, when troubles or persecution come their way they quickly fall away. Agriculturalists have learned that the care of the soil in which a seed grows is actually more important than the soil itself. The desert can be made to bloom with proper irrigation and enough fertilizer. Many soils have been treated and made to bring forth wonderful crops.
3. THORNY GROUND: represent hearers who allow worries and the things of this world (the thorns) to get in the way of receiving God’s Word. Thorns are bad because they choke the seed, and God says this choking can come about as a result of either poverty or riches. Because of this, we need to be wary of the “worries of this life,” which afflict those with great need, and “the deceitfulness of wealth” (Mark 4:19), which afflicts those at the other end of the spectrum, for such things “choke the word, making it unfruitful.”
Sometimes our companions, our work or our pleasures can also represent choking thorns and can cause unfruitfulness in our lives. We cannot have “two bests” in our lives—our best effort and our love cannot be divided. For this reason, we must clear out anything that takes our time and care away from our fellowship with God or distracts us from His purpose. We have to simply hack those things away!
4. GOOD GROUND: the ones who hear the Word, allow it to take root in their hearts, and produce a harvest for the Lord. The sign of a good garden, as we all know, is growth. Those who accept God’s Word and cultivate it in their hearts and minds allow this type of growth in their lives. They live a life “worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10).
LESSON
This parable illustrates how God works on the “soil” in our lives. Some farms may be abandoned when farmers tire of rocky soil or lack of water and the farms fall into disrepair. Where plows once had worked the land, rocks and weeds now prevail. Apple trees became stunted and broken, and berry bushes overgrown. How differently God deals with His farms! He keeps working with us, overturning and seeding down, clearing away the rubbish, until by and by a farm that once seemed hopeless begins to bear fruit again. When the same farms can later be taken over by undiscouraged people, the land revived and once again produced good crops.
Bible Events for Teachers & Older Students
Bible Events
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Bible Events for Teachers & Older Students
Start at three minutes and ten seconds and stop at four minutes and twenty seconds.
Bible Events
PARABLE OF THE WEEDS
In this parable, an enemy sows weeds in a field along with the good grain. The master of the field knows that uprooting the weeds would ruin the good grain, so he tells his servants to let them ripen together and then separate them at harvest time. Later, Jesus explains that the good seed represents the people of His kingdom, the weeds represent the people of the evil one, and that the harvest represents the end of the age. At that time, the angels will gather the grain and throw the weeds “into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”. Two lessons for this parable are:
1. God alone is competent to judge who is and who is not a true believer.
2. Church membership does not correspond to being “in” the kingdom of God.
Bible Events for Teachers & Older Children
Stop at one minute and five seconds
Parable of the good seed and weeds (stop at one minute and five seconds)
Bible Events
PARABLES OF THE MUSTARD SEED AND THE YEAST
In the Parable of the Mustard Seed, Jesus made the point that God is so powerful that only a little amount of faith in Him is needed to see big results. He immediately followed this with the Parable of the Yeast, putting a positive spin on yeast by showing how it is added to bread to cause the whole loaf to rise—which is a good thing. Later, Jesus put a negative spin on yeast, warning the disciples to be on guard “against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matthew 16:6). In this instance, the yeast is a symbol for hypocrisy.
Bible Events for Teachers & Older Children
Start at one minute and five seconds
Bible Events
THE PARABLES OF THE HIDDEN TREASURE AND THE PEARL
In these parables, a person finds something of inestimable worth (a hidden treasure and a pearl) and sells everything he has to obtain it. Put God’s kingdom first in one’s life
THE PARABLE OF THE NET
In this parable, fishermen rake in a big catch and then separate the good fish from the bad. Jesus says that this is how it will be at the end of the age, when the angels will separate the wicked from the righteous. The angels will throw the wicked “into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (13:50). This is similar to the point Jesus was making in the Parable of the Weeds
PARABLE OF THE NEW AND OLD TREASURES: Jesus states that “every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old”. This parable has two lessons;
1. Jesus affirms the old covenant (past, Old Testament),
2. Jesus affirms the new covenant (future, New Testament, the Church)
Bible Events for Teachers & Older Children
Stop at one minute and forty seconds.