The Parables of the Kingdom

[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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We may first ask, how far the evangelists themselves help us to relate the parables themselves to their setting. It might be thought that the place in which a parable comes in the order of the narrative would give a decisive clue. But in the first place, the evangelists sometimes give the same parable in different settings; and secondly, recent research has tended to show that the materials of the Gospels were at first transmitted in the form of independent units, the framework being supplied by the evangelists who wrote not less than a generation after the time of Jesus. While I think myself that this judgment needs qualification, and that more of the framework was traditional than some recent writers suppose, yet it is clear that we cannot without question assume that the setting is which we have a parable is it original setting in history. It is only where something in the parable itself seems to link it with some special phrase of the ministry that we dare press the precise connection. More often we shall have to be content with relating it to the situation as a whole.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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Apart, however, from the setting of the parables in the narrative, the evangelists sometimes, though by no means always, give an indication of the intended application. These usually brief applications stand on a different footing from the elaborate allegorizations of the Sower, the Tares and the Net, and they deserve more attention. It is, however, necessary to ask how far such applications can be regarded as original. The tendency of some recent writers from Jülicher to Bultmann is to discount them all heavily. But it would be well not to go too far in this direction. To begin with, parables with applications (no less than parables without applications) occur in all our four main Gospel strata. While therefore any particular application may be the work of this or that evangelist, the primitive tradition underlying the variously differentiated traditions from which our Gospels are derived, was certainly acquainted with applied parables.

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[John Reece]

The Antichrist Legend

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Moreover, in many cases the application shows by its form that it had an organic connection with the parable itself from the earliest stage that we can trace. Thus in the parable of the Two Houses the application is so interwoven with the story, in Matthew and Luke alike, that it could not be eliminated without rewriting the story completely. And observe that the application thus suggested is not general but particular. We have not a simple contrast between hearing and doing. The actual listeners to the words of Jesus then and there will be as foolish, if they do not follow them, as a builder who chooses a site on floodland, with no foundation.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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Again, the parable of the Children in the Market-place is followed immediately by a passage which by its form shows that it is a part of the same tradition:―

"John came neither eating not drinking, and you say,
He is possessed.
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say,
See, a glutton and a drinker,
A friend of publicans and sinners!

I cannot bring myself to doubt that the earliest tradition contained this application of the parable to the people in their attitude to Jesus and John. It is clear that any attempt to work it out by way of an allegorical equivalence of terms breaks down. You cannot say, Jesus and His disciples are the piping children, John and his disciples the mourning children; the picture does not fit. But the picture of petulant children who quarrel about their games suggests the frivolous captiousness of a generation who would not see the movement inaugurated by John and brought to such an unexpected pitch by Jesus was a crisis of the first magnitude, but wasted their time in foolish carping at the asceticism of the one, and good companionship of the other. They fiddled while Rome was burning.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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Thus there are cases where, without necessarily solving the possibly unanswerable question whether we have the ipsissima verba of Jesus, we may have confidence that the application of the parable came down with the parable itself in the earliest tradition, and therefore shows us at the least how the parable was understood by those who stood near the very situation which called it forth.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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On the other hand there are grounds for suspecting that in many cases the application was not a part of the earlier tradition, but was supplied by the evangelist, or by his immediate authority, representing no doubt current exegesis in that part of the Church to which he belonged. It is noteworthy that sometimes a parable occurs without application in one Gospel and is supplied with one in another, as for example, the parable of the Lamp occurs in Mark and Luke without any application, but in Matthew is followed by the injunction, "In the same way your light must shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father in heaven." Again, sometimes a different parable occurs in two or more Gospels with different and even inconsistent applications, as, for example, the parable of the Savorless Salt. We must suppose that Jesus intended some one definite application; hence either one, or more probably both, of the applications are secondary.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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Sometimes different applications are supplied even by the same evangelist. Thus to the very difficult parable of the Unjust Steward (Lk. xvi. 1-7) the evangelist has appended a whole series of "morals"" (i) "the sons of this age are more prudent in relation to their own time than the sons of light," (ii) "make friends by means of unrighteous wealth," (iii) "if you have not been honest with the true riches." We can almost see here notes for three separate sermons on the parable as text.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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It is possible that the clause with which the parable itself appears to close was the application in the earliest form of tradition. The reporter of the parable added, "The Lord (Jesus) commended the unjust steward because he acted prudently." In that case we can relate the parable to its setting in this way. The story tells of a man suddenly faced with a crisis which may mean utter ruin to him. Realizing the seriousness of his position, he does some strenuous thinking, and finds out a drastic means of coping with the situation. The hearers are invited to make the judgment: this man, scoundrel as he was, at least had the merit of taking a realistic and practical view of a crisis. They would reflect that, as Jesus was constantly urging, they themselves stood before a momentous crisis. Surely, He would have them conclude, it was only common sense to think strenuously and act boldly to meet the crisis. This seems to me to be the most probable application of the parable, and in that case, the evangelist's further comment, "The sons of this age are more prudent than the sons of light," is apt enough.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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On the other hand it is possible that the clause, "The lord commended the unjust steward" is actually part of the parable. The 'lord' is then the character in the story, the defrauded master, and the statement that he commended his fraudulent steward is so palpably absurd that it provokes the hearers to deny it vigorously. In fact it is a strong way of putting the question, "What think ye?" In that case we must relate the story to its setting in this way. Here is a man who feathered his nest by sharp practice, and actually expected to be commended for it! Who then among the hearers, or among people known to them, were acting in this way? Possibly the Sadducaic priesthood, who made a merit of keeping in with the Romans by concessions which they had no right to make. Possibly the Pharisees, who by a little easy almsgiving sought to make of their ill-gotten riches a means of winning the divine favor. It is clear that in this case there was no certain clue to the application of the parable even when it reached the evangelist Luke, and that he was given a variety of current interpretations.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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I shall presently try to point out certain changes in the historical situation which have led to the re-application of parables in senses not originally intended. In any such case we must carefully scrutinize the parable itself, and attempt to relate it to the original situation, so far as we can reconstruct it. From this will follow the conclusion regarding its original meaning and application, which may be guided by the following principles: (i) the clue must be found, not in ideas which developed only with the experience if the early Church, but in such ideas as may be supposed to have been in the minds of the hearers of Jesus during his ministry. Our best guide to such ideas will often be the Old Testament, with which they may be presumed to have been familiar. Thus the images of a vineyard, a fig-tree, harvest, a feast and others had associations which could escape no one brought up on the Old Testament. (ii) The meaning which we attribute to the parable must be congruous with the interpretation of His own ministry offered by Jesus in explicit and unambiguous sayings, so far as such sayings are known to us; and in any case it must be such as to fit the general view of His teaching to which a study of the non-parabolic sayings leads. A preliminary task, therefore, will be to define, so far as we can, the general orientation of the teaching of Jesus.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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Among the parables reported in the Gospels a certain number are introduced with some form of words such as "The Kingdom of God is like..." This introductory formula may be regarded as giving the "application" of these parables. In Mark two parables are so introduced, those of the Seed Growing Secretly and of the Mustard Seed. In Luke again there are two, the Mustard Seed and the Leaven. As these two occur in Matthew with the like introduction, we may take it that they stood in the common source ("Q") of the first and third Gospels. In Matthew there are eight other parables introduced in this way. One of them, the Great Feast, is given in a different form in Luke, where it is not explicitly applied to the Kingdom of God. The others are the parables of the Tares, the Hid Treasure, the Costly Pearl, the Drag-net, the Unforgiving Servant, the Laborers in the Vineyard, and the Ten Virgins. It appears that this form of introduction was a favorite one with the First Evangelist, and it may well be that he has made use of it in some cases where it was absent from the earlier tradition. As we have seen, the evangelists use a certain freedom in applying parables. But he has not used it indiscriminately, for the majority of the parables which he reports have no such introduction.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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The two expressions, "The Kingdom of God" and "The Kingdom of Heaven," the latter of which is peculiar to the First Gospel, are synonymous, the term "heaven" being common in Jewish usage as a reverential periphrasis for the divine name. The term "kingdom is in English somewhat ambiguous, but it naturally suggests a territory or a community governed by a king. The Greek term βασιλεία which it translates is also ambiguous. But there can be no doubt that the expression before us represents an Aramaic phrase well-established in Jewish usage, "the malkuth of heaven." Malkuth, like other substantives of the same formation, is properly an abstract noun, meaning "kingship," "kingly rule," "reign" or "sovereignty," The expression "the malkuth of God" connotes the fact that God reigns as King.* In sense, though not in grammatical form, the substantive conception in the phrase "the Kingdom of God" is the idea of God, and the term "kingdom" indicates that specific aspect, attribute or activity of God, in which He is revealed as King or sovereign Lord of His people, or of the universe which He created.**

*Thus Exod. xv. 18, "The Lord shall reign for ever and ever," is paraphrased in the Targum of Onkelos, "His malkuth stands for ever and ever." (Dalman, Worte Jesu, 1890, p. 79.) "There can be no doubt," says Dalman, "that in the O.T. as in Jewish literature, malkuth as related to God always means 'kingly rule' and never 'kingdom'." It seems best, however, to retain the traditional expression, "the Kingdom of God," bearing in mind that the word "kingdom" carries in this case the sense of "kingly rule."
**The question may be raised whether the frequent modern use of the term "The Kingdom," as an abbreviation for the full phrase found in the Gospels, does not betray an unconscious presumption that the primary idea is that of an ordered society, which may be a kingdom of justice, or of brotherhood, or the like, though since we look to God for help to "bring in" or "build" such a kingdom, we may call it the Kingdom of God. In a book by the American labor leader Bouck White, The Call of the Carpenter, written to claim Jesus as a "proletarian" prophet, the author says, ingenuously enough, "The modern reader can perhaps grasp the 'Kingdom of Heaven' as Jesus used it―so far as a single phrase can embody it―by substituting for it in every case another term, 'The kingdom of self-respect.'" It is noteworthy that when a Jew spoke of "the kingdom" without qualification, he meant the secular government; e.g. Pirqe Aboth, iii, 7, "Everyone who receives upon him the yoke of Torah, they remove from him the yoke of the kingdom and the yoke of the worldly occupation," Whatever social application may be given to the teaching of Jesus, the essentially religious idea of God reigning in the lives of men and in human society lies at the bottom of it all.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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In Jewish usage contemporary with the Gospels we may distinguish two main ways in which the Kingdom of God is spoken of.

First, God is King of his people Israel, and His kingly rule is effective in so far as Israel is obedient to the divine will as revealed in the Torah. To submit oneself unquestionably to the Law is "to take upon oneself the malkuth of heaven." In this sense "The Kingdom of God" is a present fact.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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But in another sense "The Kingdom of God" is something yet to be revealed. God is more than King of Israel; He is King of the whole world. But the world does not recognize Him as King. His own people is in fact subject to secular powers, which in the present age are permitted to exercise malkuth. Israel, however, looks forward to the day when "The saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom," [Daniel vii. 18] and so the kingship of God will become effective over the whole world. It is with this intention that pious Jews in the first century prayed (as they still pray), "May He establish His Kingdom during your life and during your days, and during the life of all the house of Israel."* In this sense "The Kingdom of God" is a hope for the future. It is itself the eschaton, or "ultimate," with which "eschatology" is concerned.

*Kaddish in the Jewish Authorized Daily Prayer-book, translated by S. Singer, authorized by the Chief Rabbi, and published by Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1908, p. 86.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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As such, the idea is capable of entering into association with various views of the "good time coming" as set forth in prophecy and apocalyptic. The hope may be a temporal and political one. Thus in the Eighteen Benedictions* we have the prayer:

"Bring back our judges as at first, and our rulers as afore-times, and be Thou King, over us, O Lord, thou alone."

*Shemoneh Esre; text in Dalman, Worte Jesu, pp. 299-301, after Schechter in Jewish Quarterly Review, 1898, pp. 564-659.

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