Parables are in part allegorical; that is, they contain fictional elements that are symbolic of real people and situations. But that is not to say they are not realistic. It is their realism that gives them life and makes them applicable to every place and time of our lives.
There is no doubt that the parables of Jesus lend themselves to almost indefinite reflection and application, but why do they capture the listener’s attention in the first place? They are folk literature, originally oral. Indeed, they are the touchstone of popular storytelling through the ages.
Virtually the first thing we notice about the parables is their everyday realism and concrete vividness. “It is ‘things’ that make stories go well,” writes P.C. Sandes of the parables; here “everything . . . is concrete and vigorous. Everything is described in solid terms.” The parables take us into the familiar world of planting and harvesting, traveling through the countryside , baking bread, tending sheep, or responding to an invitation. The parables thus obey the literary principle of verisimilitude (“lifelikeness”), and a perusal of commentaries always uncovers evidence of how thoroughly rooted in real life the parables are. There is no fantasy in the parables of Jesus—no talking animals or imaginary monsters, only people such as we meet during the course of a day. The parables reveal “an amazing power of observation.”
This minute realism is an important part of Jesus’ parables. On the surface, these stories are totally “secular.” There are few overtly religious activities in the parables. If we approached them without their surrounding context and pretended that they were anonymous, we could not guess that they were intended for a religious purpose. An important by-product of this realism is that that it undermines the “two world” thinking in which the spiritual and earthly spheres are rigidly divided. We are given to understand it is in everyday experience that spiritual decisions are made and that God’s grace does its work.
—Leland Ryken, How to Read the Bible as Literature (Zondervan, 1984), 139–140.
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Posted in: Bibliology · How to Read the Bible as Literature · Leland Ryken
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