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The Power of the Parables of the Real Yeshua

 


Parables are often seen as the hallmark of Yeshua’s teaching. They are stories, some only a sentence or two long. His followers, like Yeshua himself, were Jews, and they knew that parables were more than children’s stories or restatements of common knowledge. However, very few of his private explanations have been preserved and that makes his parables mysterious and often difficult for readers today.

 

In my previous email I pointed out that Yeshua was a skilled teacher and interpreter of the Torah and the Prophets. He used parables to highlight important points in sections of the biblical texts he taught. So, the first thing we must do to understand his parables is identify the portions of the biblical texts from which he was teaching or interpreting. As an example of this, I used part of a parable from Matthew 25:34-37a:

 

“Then the King will say to those on his right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then those who did the work of TZEDAQAH will answer him . . . .’”

 

This is a parable about the Great Day of Judgment – the God will judge all humans. Everyone hearing Yeshua’s parable knew what Malachi 4:1 said about that day:

 

“All the arrogant, and everyone doing wickedness will be stubble.

‘On the day which is coming, I will set them ablaze,’

says Yahweh of hosts, which will not leave them a root or branches.”

 

The people who “inherit the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world” will be saved from being set ablaze on that day. The people that heard Yeshua knew that he used that parable to do the following:

 

1. Prompt them to see the world in a different way.

 

2. Challenge them to look into the hidden aspects of their own lives.

 

3. Bring to the surface unasked questions and reveal answers they have always known, but refused to acknowledge.

 

4. To remind, provoke, confront and disturb them, so they would focus on the actions they needed to take.[i]

 

The answers they had always known (#4) were linked to the words “for I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink . . . .” This phrase is linked to one of the most important words in the teachings of Yeshua – TZEDAQAH.

 

Yeshua was reminding, provoking, confronting

and disturbing them to do TZEDAQAH!

 

In 27 CE the phrase “do TZEDAQAH and be saved” was found countless times in the Jewish Scriptures that parents, scribes, prophets, and the rabbis taught. The first time it appears is in Genesis, in the story of Noah.

 

Noah did TZEDAQAH and Noah, his family, and a remnant

of the animals were saved from drowning in the Great Flood.

 

How did Noah know to do TZEDAQAH? Why did other people not know what Noah knew? In order to answer these questions, we must learn some important things about how to read the ancient Hebrew wisdom text of Genesis. Dr. Leon R. Kass provides the following insights.

 

1. There is a coherent order and plan to the text.

 

2. Every Hebrew word counts.

 

3. Juxtapositions are important. What precedes or what follows a given sentence or story may be crucial for discovering its meaning.

 

4. The teachings of the text are not utterly opaque to human reason, even if God and other matters remain veiled in mystery.

 

5. The stories are too rich, too complex, and too deep to be captured fully, once and for all. The pursuit of wisdom is an ongoing process that leads to new discoveries every time one revisits the text.

 

6. Genesis takes up and considers themes and questions of paramount concern to human beings always and everywhere. Wisdom regarding family and private life, regarding public and civic affairs, and regarding their place in and relation to the whole and their relation to the powers that be.[ii]

 

Now we are ready to visit the sections of Genesis and Isaiah that Yeshua interpreted and taught to his apostles and followers. Visit and bookmark the Real Yeshua Page on the BHC website. You will find PDFs of our Real Yeshua emails and related handouts that you may print and use in your discussions, studies and teaching your children. Click here to bookmark it.

 

Shalom.

Jim Myers

 

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[i] Short Stories By Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi By Amy-Jill Levine © 2014; HarperCollins Publishers, Broadway, NY; p. 4.

[ii] The Beginnings of Wisdom: Reading Genesis By Leon R Kass, © 2003; The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL; pp. 14-15, 19.

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