Deeper Truths: A series featuring lessons from Kenneth Bailey’s book, Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes
Lesson 10: The Parables of Jesus (pt 1 of 3)
Introduction: What is a parable?
Tonight we begin a 3-week series with which we will conclude our 12-week deep dive into the subjects and commentary of Kenneth Bailey regarding culture and Christianity, through his magnus opus, the book Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes. Tonight we are launching into a study of the parables of Jesus, and determine why he used them, how he used them, and what lessons we can learn in our takeaways as is our custom.
Parables are a curious literary reality. I believe they are designed to do two things: 1) to hide the Truth and to 2) unveil the Truth and convict people. Wait, you say, how can these both be true? For those who have ears to hear, the truths in the Bible are not only able to be heard, but they are also pleasant to the soul. For those who for one reason or another resist and reject God’s words as irrelevant and out-of-touch with the world of their day, the parables are designed to prevent their hearing. (Isaiah 6. 8-10, Matthew 13.11-13)
The ‘let me tell you a story’ of a grandfather to his grandchildren or a spiritual master to his apprentices… that’s what I see in parables.
Our book’s author Ken Bailey says that Jesus was a metaphorical and not a conceptual theologian. Let me explain his words. By conceptual, he means someone who is philosophical and uses the language and concepts (thus the adjective) of analysis. By metaphorical, Bailey means that “his primary method of creating meaning was through metaphor, simile, parable and dramatic action.” Modern Christian theology is more analytical, like the book of Romans; historical theology, certainly ancient theology, was more storytelling. That’s why some of us like the old stuff. That’s why I like teaching Genesis rather than Deuteronomy. Most of us prefer the book of Revelation with all its narratives and stories than 1st or 2nd Thessalonians. Stories sell. Analysis is good; stories preach way better, they say.
Who is Bailey?
I mentioned that Bailey loves the parables. You might think he’s a Civil engineer in the way he’s always looking at structure, but no, he was a Presbyterian minister, then Canon Theologian of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, and founded the Institute for Middle Eastern New Testament Studies in Beirut, Lebanon. He died 10 years ago. He spent 40 years teaching in the Middle East, offering unique insights into Jesus' parables and Paul's writings.
Who else writes about parables?
One of my favourite teachers in the Jewish world today is also a friend. She lives here in Nashville but is originally from Massachusetts. Her name is Amy-Jill Levine. She loves the parables of Jesus as well as we all do on this Zoom call, only at this point in her life, she doesn’t yet claim Yeshua as her Saviour and Messiah. What’s remarkable is that she was the chairman of the Religious Studies department at the historically Methodist university named Vanderbilt. And every serious Ph.D. student in religion had to go through A-J Levine.
She even says of herself, that on the ‘other team’, that is Jewish people who don’t follow Jesus, she is our best friend. And she may be right. Her husband Jay along with A-J and I have often sat together over a meal, knocked around the issue of Jesus and came out without scars.
I’m telling you about her because she helps to clarify parables and storytelling from a Jewish-only point of view. Bailey and I will use Christian info, as does John Mark Comer in his book named Practicing the Way. So now you are flooded with resources to consider and if you want to dig deeper into all this data, you are welcome to do so.
Amy-Jill’s books include The Misunderstood Jew (which is all about Jesus) and limiting ourselves to this topic, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi. Oh, and seven years ago she published a great children’s picture book on the Good Samaritan named Who is my neighbour?
Even though we have two more lessons after tonight in our 12-week series, I’m going to show you my Bibliography of recommended books at the end of tonight’s lesson so you can get further insights as soon as you’d like.
Levine’s Contributions
Levine’s distinctive contribution is her combination of Jewish context, literary sensitivity, anti-stereotyping critique, and restoring the disruptive edge of Jesus’ stories. In fact, I hear that from everyone about the parables. Parables were not supposed to be nice and easy stories. They were intended to target, to correct, to single out some folks, to make them uneasy about living life on their own terms. Amy-Jill pings that with regularity.
Levine believes parables should be multifunctional by comforting the afflicted, afflicting the comfortable, and forcing listeners into self-examination. Or to put it another way: If you walk away from a parable entirely comfortable, you probably have not heard it correctly.
Probably her most influential contribution is that she argues that centuries of Christian preaching often caricatured Jews, mocked the Pharisees, or treated Judaism as spiritually inferior. She insists Jesus’ arguments often resemble internal Jewish debates rather than attacks from outside Judaism. This has shaped modern preaching and scholarship significantly.
If I read her correctly, she repeatedly insists that if a parable seems obvious, we probably missed it. The stories often contain ambiguity, moral discomfort, unresolved tension, and surprising reversals. So many do not have resolution. What happened with the elder brother? What did the rich guy with the barns do in the end? What was the story line the week after the Good Samaritan performed his beyond civic duty?
Instead of asking “What does each symbol mean?” she encourages asking 1) Why did Jesus tell this story? 2) Who is shocked? 3) Who feels exposed? 4) Why does this ending bother us?
Maybe surprised is a better word for Singaporeans, but A-J really wants us to ponder shock. She argues that many Christians have made the parables too sentimental, too allegorical, too anti-Jewish, and too familiar. Her goal, if I can simplify her thinking, is to make them strange again. They are not merely simple illustrations or heavenly stories with earthly meanings. She says many listeners today have heard the parables so often that they no longer feel their shock.
JM Comer
I mentioned John Mark Comer earlier. He’s another one whose writings I admire and appreciate. His main work, Practicing the Way, is almost a manual on apprenticeship and mentoring, otherwise known as discipleship in the world today. And he often appeals to the Jewish Jesus as well.
He has an emphasis that Jesus taught as a Jewish rabbi. This includes his teaching on discipleship/apprenticeship, first-century rabbinic culture, “follow me” language, formation through presence and imitation, and the normal oral teaching culture. This would certainly and naturally include parables because rabbis commonly taught through mashalim (story analogies)
Compared to Bailey, Comer’s style is much more contemplative and reflective, certainly much more so than technical academic exegesis. Comer is usually asking something like, “How does this story expose the way I’m living?” rather than “What is the precise Second Temple literary structure?” Those of you on this call who prefer the less academic analysis may really enjoy Comer.
A bit more about this good man. (https://johnmarkcomer.com/#made). He was a pastor in Oregon, USA, for 20 years and felt called to launch a discipleship and mentoring organization for pastors and all kinds of folks. He has written 7 or 8 books. He lives in the Los Angeles area now with his family.
Comer often argues that Jesus was not merely giving information but that he was reshaping desires, challenging assumptions, confronting cultural narratives, and forming disciples through imagination.
One of Comer’s recurring emphases is that many parables are fundamentally “Kingdom of God” stories. For example, the mustard seed, the hidden yeast, and the hidden treasure. It’s as if he’s teaching an alternative vision of reality.
Back to Bailey
I hope you enjoyed reading these final chapters at the end of our textbook. Bailey does a marvellous job, doesn’t he? In each parable, he will first unpack the rhetorical style, that is the structure of the alternative lines, and the chiasm that is almost universal. I’m a bit tired of that, but I do appreciate his commitment to seeing the poetry of them all.
Parables work so well because parables bypass defences. Sometimes a direct accusation creates resistance. Like calling a group of bystanders, “You brood of vipers” might not go down as easily as having a character in a parable speak that. Also, a story invites self-recognition.
That is why the prophet Nathan confronted David with a story before declaring, “You are the man.” Jesus often did the same thing. Consider the parable of the landowner and the just payments in Matthew 20. The listener walks into the trap voluntarily.
Did Jesus create a new motif? Not at all. In fact, ancient Jewish teachers used the following subjects: kings, banquets, vineyards, fathers and sons, debts, and weddings to explain Torah and ethics. Jesus fit naturally into that world.
Why do parables work? Modern readers often reduce the message of the parables to “be nice,” “share,” “forgive more,” or “help poor people.” But Jesus’ parables are often disruptive and confrontational. Many were aimed directly at religious hypocrisy, spiritual blindness, pride, power, and the rejection of God’s kingdom.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son is not merely “God loves everyone.” It is also an indictment of the elder brother spirit — the resentful religious insider. That story in Luke 15 is my favourite story in the entire Bible and will be the final lesson in our 12 weeks study, which will take place in a fortnight. How’s that for forward roll?
I’ve already mentioned a few of these but let me put them in one section. There are six wrong ways to read the parables.
1) Turning every detail in each story into a secret code. That is over-allegorizing. For example, in our story tonight, the Good Samaritan who assists the fallen Jew on the road… some interpreters make the inn to be the church, the oil to be the sacraments, the donkey to be the Body of Christ, and the innkeeper to be Paul. This may be a fun exercise in preaching, and to be fair, stories allow for a wide range of interpretation, but staying within the context, and taking away the main point—that’s the idea. Most parables are built around one central shock, one main reversal, or one core truth. The details support the story; they are not usually independent symbols.
2) Reading each as if it were Aesop’s Fables or a simple moral tale. Jesus’ parables are often disruptive and confrontational. Many were aimed directly at religious hypocrisy, spiritual blindness, pride, power, or rejection of God’s kingdom.
3) Ignoring the Jewish context. By design these take place near weddings, or the Temple, among thieves on the road to Jericho, in a vineyard, with kings and subjects.
4) Forgetting that some parables are designed to hide truth rather than to display it for all to see.
5) Reading them individualistically. Probably since we are products of the Enlightenment we don’t think communally. We think “how does this help me by myself” or even a little wider “How does this affect my wife or my kids.”
6) Finally, flattening the shock value. In the parables we often see insiders becoming outsiders and visa versa. We see heroes who are ‘not us’ but doing things only ‘we’ would do. We see rich people losing everything. Even religious experts failing miserably. Let the shock come and last. Don’t walk away too soon.
Now as I said, we will cover over the last three sessions about 9 of my favourite parables, but not all tonight. In fact, we may only cover the Good Samaritan tonight and leave the other 8 for the other times.
Chapter 22 in our text features the story of the Good Samaritan from the Gospel of Luke chapter 10. The situation of the parable is a conversation with an unnamed lawyer. This man approaches Yeshua and asks him an odd question. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” That’s odd on a couple of levels. One, no one can do anything to gain an inheritance. Either you are a member of the family to whom distribution is coming or you are not in that family. If you are a member, then inheritance is naturally yours. So, what must you do? Nothing, obviously, unless you are not a family member, and now you want to buy something, to pay someone off, so that your eligibility is much improved.
Does Jesus answer the man? Not at all. But he poses a question back to the lawyer. What is written in the Torah? How does it read is a question for a lawyer, not a layman.
Some read this answer of Jesus as ‘how to inherit life? Keep Torah!” But that’s exactly not what he’s saying.
So, the lawyer answers with two commandments to fulfill. The old ‘Love God with everything’ and ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ The lawyer smiles and thinks he’s got it. After all he technically is doing that already in his humble estimation.
And honestly, Jesus in the earlier section with the 70 is demonstrating both loves as well, i.e. an intimate love of the Father (.21-22) and love for people by sending the 70! (.1-16)
But then why would the lawyer be asking these questions if he were assured about his eternal station in life?
I believe the lawyer is seeking eternity but also is working on a strategy to trap Jesus in legal terms. I believe he sees something different in the disciples. We read earlier in chapter 10 of Luke that even Jesus was elated and prayed with gladness to the Father. The 70 had returned with victory stories about their adventures in representing Jesus. Jesus in verse 20 tells them not to rejoice about the spiritual warfare battles that they had won, but rather “rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.” That’s the context in which the lawyer asks his questions. Look at verse 25 and again in verse 29. In each before the question, Luke puts an editorial comment. In verse 25 Luke says the lawyer “put Jesus to the test” and in verse 29, he says the lawyer was “wishing to justify himself.”
The difference in the questions is clear. The first question is about trapping Jesus with a legal statement that could be used in a court of law, but the Master has already taught the two great commandments. (Matt. 7.12, Luke 6.31), so he repeats those. And like Paul would later teach, the Law is not the problem in our relationship with God. The Law is good (1 Tim. 1.8), but it’s our inability to measure up that is the problem. We all fall short of God’s standards (Romans 3.23) and desperately need something else to repair our broken relationship with God. (Romans 7.13-20) Torah observance will not save anyone, nor get anyone the inheritance of the Kingdom of God.
So as a lawyer which has to do with his understanding and teaching of Torah, he now realizes he needs more clarity and definition of terms and asks Yeshua a followup question. “Who is my neighbour?” This makes sense that the lawyer is trying to justify himself. He probably does a bit of pro-bono work or considers himself a kind and neighbourly person. But as Luke declares him to be self-justifying, and Jesus knowing what kind of person the lawyer really is, tells the Good Samaritan story. That’s a lot of background before we begin to understand or even just to hear the parable. But as Comer and Levine both tell us in commentary, buckle your seatbelt for some serious shock and discomfort.
Bailey as is his custom first demonstrates the chiastic layout of the story with 7 ‘scenes’ that shape it. Scenes 1 and 7 use similar language (robbers take possessions; Samaritan provides possessions). Scenes 2 and 6 equate (Priest fails to attend, Samaritan attends to the fallen). Scenes 3 and 5 match (Levite passes by, Samaritan approaches). The culmination is the pinnacle in scene 4 where the Samaritan takes full care of the fallen.
OK, that’s structure. Now let’s dig deeper.
What happened? The man is likely Jewish although there is no mention that clarifies that. But he’s assaulted, beaten, left naked, wounded, could appear dead, unless a passerby had investigated. The phrase ‘half dead’ is likely our term ‘unconscious.’ What a sad state! OK, who will help this man? Who will ‘be neighbourly’ to this fallen man?
Three folks walk by. One by one, and perhaps they were not unrelated. First, the priest. He is walking back from Jerusalem to Jericho. That’s a normal route taken by priests after their term of service. A priest fulfilled his two one-week rotational duties like modern day firemen or policemen, care givers in the hospital, etc. When their duties ended at the Temple, they went back home until the next season of duty, and Jericho was only 45 kilometres away. A bedroom community we might say. We expect the priest to care for the fallen man but think about this. If the man were dead, and the priest touched him, the priest would self-contaminate. (Leviticus 21) That would mean his duties could not be performed for another week and if he really were on duty, that would have caused problems. If the fallen man were not Jewish other issues would have arisen. What if this were a sting operation, and the robbers were still nearby? The priest was a wealthy man and socially elite and could have put himself in harm’s way. So many possibilities of problems. As a result, the priest determined that this was not safe and he walked on the other side.
The second man. The Levite. You might remember that there are three divisions in Judaism: Levites (all the sons of Levi), priests (sons of Aaron who was also a Levite), and the rest of the people (laity, Israelites). Those classes are still extant today. I’m an Israelite. In synagogue a Cohen (a priest) is still chosen first in the Bible readings, a Levite second, and then the rest of us to fill the roster.
So, this 2nd man is a Levite. Bailey thinks he could have been walking with the priest as the Levites attend to priests in Temple service. Whoever he is, he similarly dismisses the situation and the wounded man and crossed the street. Short. Sweet. Empty of love.
So, who should be next in the story? An Israelite. But surprise! It’s a Samaritan. That’s a person who is not welcome in Jerusalem or in the usual story. Hated might be a good word for the relationship with ordinary Jews of the First Century. The Samaritans are the half-breeds, the leftovers from the 8th century BCE capture of the northern 10 tribes mixed with their Assyrian captors. Those mixed-race people were returned to Northern Israel as a way of conquest by Assyria. So, we could say the full breeds looked down on the half-breeds. Racism is in view clearly.
Who would make a half-breed the hero of the story? Wait, the listener would say, “You must mean a poor Jewish man, right?” Nope, Jesus chose the hero to be one who is an outsider. Because the actions of the Samaritan are more important in the answer to the lawyer’s question than his race. Who is my neighbour? The one who acts neighbourly!
Don’t get caught up in the symbolism of the clothing, the donkey, the inn, etc. Get caught up in the extravagance of the Samaritan to a person he doesn’t even know. He goes out on the limb, collects him, fetches him to the inn, pays a significant amount for room and board, and promises to return and finish the task. Two denarii sounds minimal to us, but it’s over a week’s worth of supply!
Bailey says the “story is open-ended.” That’s usual for parables.
The point is not the exact detail. That’s where parables are only illustrative. Don’t get caught in the weeds of unnecessary similes. What’s the point? Jesus makes that clear in verse 36. “Which of these men do you think proved to be a neighbour to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?”
The answer is clear, and hard to declare. The lawyer doesn’t use the term that Jesus used. He doesn’t say, “The Samaritan.” That would have been scandalous for him to say. How dare he attribute godliness to the half-breed. No, the lawyer says, “the one who showed mercy.” (.37)
In answer to the lawyer’s first question (.25) of his own obligation of his duty, to obtain eternal life, Jesus makes clear that love of neighbour includes ‘the other.’ And that means people who don’t look like, smell like, eat like, live like you do. Jesus has already taught that in the Sermon on the Mount. “If you love only those who love you, what reward do you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matt. 5.46)
Oh, one final and powerful point many make. Jesus’ answer contains a bit of self-revelation. Who is the Samaritan? The outsider, the one who is biologically unknown from the powerful and the elite of Jewish society. And who is the one who attends to the least of these? Who is the one who pays the penalty, the promises of care long after the scene in which we are introduced to him? That’s Jesus himself!
He is the One who is not the priest, not the Levite, just an ordinary, well, even an outsider. We don’t know his genealogy, his credentials. He pops on the scene and attends to the hurting and the rejected. He cares for the people, one by one. And that includes you and me. Amen?
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Final Summary Thoughts from tonight:
1) Parables are designed to trigger conversations and to make the people with wrong behaviour or wrong attitude feel guilty and to change their ways
2) Parables tell one major thing each time, but individuals have various takeaways depending on their own status with the story and the storyteller
3) Jesus is the consummate Good Samaritan, the outsider who saves to the uttermost
4) No man can attain to eternal life by duty or religious activity. God is a gracious giver of the gift of eternal life.
5) Racism against any person because he is born of a people group that is different than me is ignorant and out-of-biblical bounds.
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Recommended Books (through lesson 10)
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Life Together, Harper One, 1978.
Brother Anthony, The Bread of God, Vantage Press, NYC, 1975.
Comer, John Mark, Practicing the Way, Penguin Random House, 2024.
Hamilton, Adam, Faithful: Christmas through the eyes of Joseph, 2022.
Jackson, Dave and Neta, Living Together in a world falling apart, Castle Rock, 1974.
Levine, Amy-Jill, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi, HarperOne, 2014.
Levine, Amy-Jill, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus, HarperOne, 2007.
Levine, Amy-Jill, Who is my Neighbour? Flyaway Books, 2019.
Nee, Watchman. Sit, Walk, Stand. CRC. 1970.
Ortlund, Dane, Gentle and Lowly, Crossway, 2010
Wright, Christiopher, Knowing Jesus through the Old Testament. IVP Academic. 1995.
Yancey, Philip, What’s so amazing about Grace? Zondervan, 1997
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