Understanding parables and understanding the Bible are inseparable. Saying that another way: To understand the Bible is to understand its parables, and vice versa.

Physical & Spiritual

Parables are two dimensional stories. There is the story itself which is often a simple folk story. This part of the story belongs to the physical realm because it is heard, seen or read with the physical senses. But parables also contain an inner moral lesson.  The concealed moral message is associated with the spiritual realm because it can only be understood with the spiritual eyes of your heart i.e., “I pray that the eyes of your heart  may be enlightened.” (Ephesians 1:18a) It is this spiritual knowledge (better thought of as understanding) that Jesus referenced when He often concluded a parable by saying, “He who has ears to hear let him hear.” What He was saying was that the one who would understand His parable was the one who had the right spiritual receptors. This is the person who has a heart that seeks after God and His ways, who lives according to the two great commandments to love God and your neighbor as yourself. In these post New Covenant times, it is the one who is born again through repentance and who has received a new heart with which to hear and see the things of the spiritual realm which includes the hidden moral lessons of the Bible’s parables.

The Bible is really a huge parable that contains a vast number of parables. The words printed on the pages of the Bible are the physical part, and the understanding of the parables, as received by revelation from the Holy Spirit, is the spiritual element.

It is absolutely critical that you see the Bible as being a parable. Parables bring life to the Bible. It is through parables that the Holy Spirit is able to reveal everything about our God who is without beginning or end. It is because of parables that the Holy Spirit can lead you to the story of David and Goliath and make it relevant to your situation at the very moment you read it. That is to say, this is how believers, be it an individual or a group of any size, receive edification from the Bible.

Those whose hearts have not been changed will only ever see the physical part of the Bible and its parables. The written word is of course the truth, but it is not all the truth. The whole truth of God is never-ending because God is never-ending. Therefore, the printed words of the Bible are only a small part of God’s truth. The rest of the truth is contained within the parables and it is placed into a believer’s heart through their spiritual eyes and ears. A person without a rejuvenated heart can only receive understanding of the Bible that  comes from his or her own mind, and the mind is fleshly. “Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen [not of the Holy Spirit but his imagined insights], inflated without cause by his fleshly mind.” (Colossians 2:18) You can be certain of this:

Those who have not repented and become born again will never see or hear the whispered directions of the Holy Spirit revealing the endless truth of God.

The psalmist explains:

12 But man in his pomp [one who is fleshly and not been born again] will not endure; he is like the beasts that perish.

13 This is the  way of those who are foolish, and of those after them who  approve their words. Selah.

14  As sheep they are appointed for Sheol; death shall be their shepherd; and the  upright shall rule over them in the morning, and their form shall be for Sheol to consume so that they have no habitation.

15  But God will  redeem my soul [I will be born again] from the  power of  Sheol, for  He will receive me.  Selah.

16 Do not be afraid  when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house is increased;

17  For when he dies he will  carry nothing away; his glory will not descend after him.

18  Though while he lives he  congratulates  himself — and though men praise you when you do well for yourself —

19   He shall  go to the generation of his fathers; they will never see  the light [the whole truth of God’s word].

20   Man in his  pomp, yet without understanding, is  like the  beasts that  perish. (Psalms 49:12-20)

Critically Important

Now that you’ve seen the importance parables play in Bible understanding, you shouldn’t find it odd that so much of the world we live in points to this phenomenon. There’s the duality of the universe, the two-sided nature of all things. Then there is the principle of two and only two realms in all of creation … that of the flesh (physical) and that of the Spirit (spiritual).

Human beings have dual natures … physical (our bodies) and spiritual (our hearts and souls). Jesus Christ (the man who walked the earth) also had a dual nature … He was a man (physical) and He was God (spiritual). When a person repents and is born again, he or she receives a new spiritual nature. The original nature that was in sync with the fleshly realm is replaced with a heart and soul corresponding to the realm of the Holy Spirit. In other words, a born-again person has become a new parable.

In this article, I have been trying to illustrate the concept of parables in different ways because of how necessary it is for you catch the vision of the importance of parables. The disciples had a difficult time understanding Jesus, because they weren’t on board with the parable concept. An interesting discourse took place after Jesus washed the disciples’ feet at the conclusion of the Last Supper. Jesus begins to speak to them of His going away, and the emphasis shifts to the relationship between Jesus and the Father. Let’s follow along.

1 “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.

2 In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.

3 If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

4 And you know the way where I am going.”

5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” [Thomas is thinking of a physical place.]

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.

7 If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.”

8 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” [Philip wants physical proof.]

9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? [To see the man, Jesus, is to see the Father because Jesus and the Father are in covenant, they are one, united.]

10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? [this is an indication covenant] The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me [another indication of covenant] does His works. [Jesus received the words He spoke from His Father residing within Him. Believers today receive words of truth from the Holy Spirit who resides within them.]

11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me [that’s covenant language]; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.

12 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who [repents and] believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. (John 14:1-12)

Jesus said He was the way, the truth, and the life. He wasn’t just a way, but He was and is the way itself. He was saying to the disciples that He wasn’t just the man they had been looking at with their physical eyes for more than three years … there was, in fact, more to Him than His physical being. They were looking at Him the whole time they were with Him, but they weren’t seeing Him with the sight necessary to see His spiritual side. They saw Him only as the person they saw with their physical eyes … a physical body. Jesus knew that they weren’t going to follow a man for very long or with much dedication. His followers would have to see the spiritual Jesus also … God, the Son … the only begotten of the Father … if they were to keep His commandments and change the world. Those who see Jesus as the Son of God will follow Him to the ends of the earth. If more Christians understood parables and how to see their inner part, many more would see the spiritual side of Jesus, and they would follow Him with the utmost dedication.

The next words from the mouth of Jesus (verse 7) really confuses the disciples. Jesus says that seeing Him is the same as seeing the Father, and that He and the Father are one. Philip expresses all of their confusion and asks Jesus to stop being so evasive … if He would just show them the Father they would understand what He is saying.

Jesus doesn’t do what Philip requests. Instead, He restates that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. Had He fulfilled Philip’s demand, the disciples would have known the mystery of Jesus, but they would not have understood since they did not see Him with their spiritual eyes. This is the same reason Jesus taught with parables and did not explain them to the people. He did explain the parables to the disciples just as the Holy Spirit for believers does today.

33 With many such parables He was speaking the word to them, so far as they were able to hear it;
34 and He did not speak to them without a parable; but He was explaining everything privately to His own disciples. (Mark 4:33-34)

Jesus tells them in verse eleven that they must believe that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. He told them that the Father was in Him and that He and the Father were one, but they did not understand. The didn’t understand even after He was crucified and appeared to them on several occasions. In fact, they failed to understand even up to the day Jesus ascended into heaven before their eyes.

4  Gathering them together, He commanded them  not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for   what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me;

5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized  with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

6 So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:4-6)

The eyes of the disciples’ hearts continued to be shut until the Holy Spirit was poured out on them on the day of Pentecost. And as you might expect it was Peter who was emboldened to proclaim what he had heard from the Holy Spirit.

 14 But Peter, taking his stand with  the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: “Men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words. 

15 “For these men are not drunk, as you suppose,  for it is only the  third hour of the day; 

16 but this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel: 

17 ‘And it shall be in the last days,’ God says, ‘That I will pour forth of My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams;

18 even on my bondslaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of My Spirit and they shall prophesy. (Acts 2:14-18)

Peter declares that what the people are witnessing is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as prophesied by Joel. However, Joel said nothing about the sound of a rushing wind, fire resting on the disciples heads or their newfound ability of speaking in unknown languages. The only way Peter could have made a connection between what was happening and what Joel prophesied was by a revelation from the Holy Spirit. And that is when their spiritual eyes and ears were opened and they understood what Jesus had been telling them. And that is the way disciples of Jesus currently understand the parables of the Bible.

The Holy Spirit speaks to people today, He unlocks the secrets of the parables, yet so many Christians neither believe nor do they understand. They experience the Bible only through the words on the pages. It’s a physical experience only. What a sad commentary this is for those who believe they know all the truth when they know only the words on the pages of the Bible.

I pray you are coming to realize that parables are without a doubt the most important things you will ever understand.

May God richly bless you with an abundance of understanding,

Peter Giardina