The Power of a Parable

A parable is a short story with many truths that always drive home the word of God. The rabbis and Jesus loved to use parables to teach valuable life lessons. The rabbis would say when you understood a parable, “you have heard it, and you have heard it; you have seen it, and you have seen it.” In a nutshell, there’s two ways to see something, and there’s two ways to hear something.

In this Old Testament parable, God sent the Prophet Nathan to rebuke King David, who had just committed adultery and murder. Nathan tells King David about a rich man who has cattle and property. There was also a poor man with one beloved lamb that was precious to him and a special part of the family. When the rich man had a visitor, instead of taking one of his own cattle to slaughter, he took that one precious lamb from his poor neighbor, killed it, and fed it to the visitor. 

After hearing this, King David stood up full of outrage and wrath, and said, “This man shall be arrested and executed!” You see, David heard, but he didn’t hear. He saw, but he didn’t see. He understood what was just and right, but he didn’t understand that he indeed was the evil man Nathan was describing. 

Friend, any message from the parables is not for our neighbor, the other political party, or our coworkers, but for ourselves. When the Lord speaks to you through His word, the first place we ought to go is the mirror, and say “Lord, how can I learn from this?” If you were a disciple and you understood for yourself, Jesus or the rabbi would say to you, ”you’ve seen and you’ve seen, you’ve heard and you’ve heard.” Blessed are you, for this was revealed by the Holy Spirit.