Ok, thought I would share some of these interesting parables with you all.....well, to whom ever wants to listen....better make that ''Read''!
Since the time of the primitive Christian Church, parable has been the term for a story told by the Lord Jesus Christ to illustrate His teaching.
The Greek root-word, parabole, means comparison. So a parable is a spiritual lesson of a story developed by comparison to everyday life.
The Lord's parables draw memorable details from nature, human, social, economic, or religious life of His time. Characteristically, all oral
teachers of the eastern cast of mind teach by comparisons and riddles, using homely images to stir curiosity and reflection.
So His parables use images from life in this world to discover spiritual truth.
The Savior also told sacred insights in parables for three practical reasons. First, His parables were hard for many listeners to grasp, but His
listeners could recall the vivid details from ordinary life long enough to discover the wisdom behind the allegory.
Second, the Lord Jesus Christ told parables to make men expect a double meaning, and to make them want to discover the fullness of the divine plan for
their conversion.
Because the Church and Kingdom that our Lord founded differ so sharply from the Jewish expectation of the Messiah at that time, that the Lord's
teaching had to be cautious and indirect.
His parables use allegory to compare the recognizable world to the start, development, mixed character, and final triumph of Church and Kingdom.
What may seem simple to us, of course, was a intriguing riddle to His contemporaries. And third, the Lord used the parable format because His
followers could not readily forget or misinterpret the commonpiace images.
The parable format preserves the purity of Christ's teaching in distinct but evocative images.
Narrative parables have another advantage over oral lecturing. Parables teach how to live by divine law both in private and in public.
Christ's parables have lost no clarity, immediacy, or beauty during 20 centuries across many civilizations in many translations. In all settings,
His parables show the unified spiritual and physical worlds.
"Books and words, created quite recently, yesterday and the day before," writes Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, "have become outdated, have
fallen into nonexistence.
They no longer say anything to us; they are dead. But these ingenuous stories, so simple in appearance, live on, full of life.
We listen to them, and it is as if something happens with us, as if someone has glanced into the very depth of our life and said something which
relates only to us, to me."
The Lord's parables have Old Testament traditional roots, uttered with the perfection and beauty on the lips of the God-Man.
The parable of the prodigal son, for example, touches on people in all times and places.
Our careful interpretation distinguishes its essential and accidental details. The typical parable teaches one truth that may be shared by other
parables. A few parables have several truths to teach.
more here.....on the meaning ...Can we learn anything from these?
In fact, I believe that more can be learnt about life here, then out in the real world!
Better to be prepared then not to!
stmaryofegypt.org...
www.stjohndc.org... 
