Why did Jesus use parables? – Parables E1

Why did Jesus speak in parables? What does the parable of the shrewd manager actually mean?

In the first episode of our new series we delve into the significance of parables in the teachings of Jesus. We explore the definition of a parable, their use in other ancient societies and why Jesus chose to use them as a teaching tool. We then look at the parable of the shrewd manager and discuss the context, the audience Jesus was addressing, what it meant for Jesus' listeners and what it means for us today.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - Welcome to our new series
• (01:00) - What is a parable?
• (05:45) - How were parables used in Jesus' day?
• (10:18) - Why did Jesus use parables? (Matthew 13)
• (17:15) - Do we have things too easy today? Being shaped by Scripture
• (20:50) - Are we too familiar with the parables?
• (23:01) - The parable of the shrewd manager: Luke 16
• (25:06) - What is the context of this parable?
• (29:31) - What's the point of this parable?
• (34:53) - What is the result of the parable?

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Creators & Guests

Host

Esther King

Esther is part of Bible Society's Communications team.

Host

Mark Woods

Mark is a Baptist minister and sometime journalist, who now heads up Bible Society's comms team.

Host

Noël Amos

Noël is the editor of Rooted, Bible Society's devotional journal.

What is The Rooted Podcast?

Listen to The Rooted Podcast for in-depth conversations about the Bible and how we can apply it to our lives. Join the team behind Rooted, Bible Society's devotional journal, as we dig deeper into a theme or book of the Bible in each series and explore its message for us today.

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You're listening to The Rooted Podcast from Bible Society. In each series, we take a closer look at a theme or book of the Bible and explore its relevance in our lives today. This is our series on the parables. Hey everyone, welcome back to The Rooted Podcast. I'm Noelle and I'm joined again by Mark and Esther. We're here for another season of the podcast, which we're very excited about. This series is going to be on the parables.

The new rooted journal has just been released and it is the parables edition. So readers of the journal are studying Jesus's parables in the gospel. And we thought that we would look at those in the podcast. We also just want to have a conversation today about why Jesus used the parables, what is a parable, and how can we take the parables that we find in the gospels and apply them to our lives today. So that's what we're going to be looking at.

So we wanted to start the conversation by just asking what is a parable? I found a definition, this is the Merriam -Webster dictionary definition. A parable is a usually short, fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle. So we know that Jesus wasn't the only person using parables at the time and hasn't been since, that there are lots of different parables that you can find. But I guess...

this is applied to Jesus's parables basically. Do we think this is the same thing, that his parables were also short fictitious stories that illustrated a moral attitude or religious principle? Yeah, let's start with that. Is that how we're going to define Jesus's parables as we find them in the gospels? Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? One of the books that I looked at was, I'll name check her, it's Paula Gooder, who is a considerable biblical scholar and she wrote a book

on the parables. She says that one of the things to remember about parables is that no one statement is true of all of them. So I get the dictionary definition, but you've got some longer stories, you've got some which are just similes. The Kingdom of Heaven is like, for instance, it doesn't have to be a story. it's

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I think it's partly true, but sometimes it's just a kind of heightened use of language. It's drawing comparisons with things. Well, I think that taps into some of what I was looking into in terms of this question, because I was doing a bit of research about the Roman Empire and the culture at the time and things like education in the Roman world. And to sort of have a role in political or

legal life in the Roman Empire, it was really important that in your education you studied rhetoric, which is about, you know, persuading people of things, and also philosophy and ethics, that kind of thing. And I think that a parable is an example, perhaps, of a rhetorical device, a device that you can use to paint a picture, to persuade people of something, to help them see something, to take them on a journey.

that then hopefully leads them to responding in some kind of way. One of the interesting things I found about parables is that the word parable is actually it's almost a Greek word and it's parabole, which means something which is thrown alongside para alongside and boles that that's the thrown bit. And so it's one idea thrown along.

side another idea to sort of clarify or illuminate or whatever. And Matthew, Mark and Luke talk about Jesus and parabolae, parables. John never uses the word. John uses a different word, paromia, which is more like a figure of speech or a proverb.

It's just another example of how John's vocabulary and ways of thinking about things are slightly different from those of the other three gospel writers. Also, there aren't many parables. In fact, am I right? Are there really any parables as such in John's gospel? The only ones that I found that some people think are is where Jesus talks about himself as the good shepherd in John 10. Yeah.

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That's the only ones that I found. But then some people think that's just Jesus talking about himself. That's not necessarily a story or an illustration. But yeah, so there's debate about that. He does say, I'm the vine and you're the branches, you know, and things like that in the Gospel of John. I do, but I think that's interesting what you've said, Mark, about it being, yeah, focus of speech, you know, because you could sort of say that that is a sister. It's just a slightly different technique.

to how we tend to view parables, but it's all, yeah, it's all using a technique to communicate something that's true about God, true about us, true about the world we find ourselves in. Yeah. It also makes it kind of difficult to define what a parable is in the gospels, because there are some times when Jesus, I'm thinking about the passage where he says, the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. know, foxes have dens. And for that, I mean, he is using an illustration there, but is that a parable?

Or is that just him using a metaphor? know, so I think also you'll find there lots of lists online of how many parables they are and they're all different because it's really hard to find out exactly. It depends on what you think. I wonder if you guys found anything in research about how maybe parables were being used in Jesus' day aside from how Jesus used them.

Yeah, I found lots of stuff that I didn't really know about before. So thanks for posing us that challenge, That was a good thing to do. So apparently the rabbis in Jesus' day used them very extensively and it was a very well established teaching tool. And we actually have about 4 ,000, something under 4 ,000 parables.

preserved from Jesus's day, so the first century, all of them written in Hebrew. And I thought I'd read you one because it's so interesting and it's so like a Jesus parable. So this parable is, a person whose knowledge is greater than his deeds, what is he like? A tree whose branches are many but whose roots are few.

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The wind comes and uproots and overturns it, but a person whose deeds are greater than his knowledge, what is he like? A tree whose branches are few, but whose roots are many. Even if all the winds were to come and blow against it, they could not move it. Now that is a first century rabbinic parable, which is so very like the parable of the wise and foolish

builders, is it not? So, you know, it was a very recognizable teaching tool. The interesting thing that I found from the source that I was looking at is the differences between them, because this one starts, a person whose knowledge is greater than his deeds. And knowledge in this case means knowledge of the Torah, knowledge of the Jewish law. When Jesus says the same sort of thing, he says, whoever hears these words of mine,

and does them. So he's claiming a sort of uniqueness. He's saying something which no other rabbi of the time ever did. So they were talking about the Torah, the Jewish law, he was talking about his own words. And I thought that was fascinating. That's so interesting. Especially when you think about that being in the Sermon on the Mount, which was a whole collection of sayings basically of his in which he says,

heard it said, but I say it's the same thing of him saying what I'm saying is taking is preeminent basically. And it's almost as though he's deliberately engaging with that rabbinic teaching tradition, isn't it? so, you know, the rabbi down the road might be saying this, but I'm saying this. And, you know, just listen to the differences between us.

Yeah, I think there's something aside from that sort of teaching tradition comment and the use of parables in that. And there's also something, some of the parables are more about kind of exposing something, it's, you know, maybe a rebuke, a correction, something like that, and painting a picture so that people can recognise what it is they're doing and how it's wrong. Well, I mean, an Old Testament example, I think, that I think of is when

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David has sinned with Bathsheba and is it the prophet Nathan comes to him and paints this picture of like a little lamb that's stolen or know taken and misused and David is outraged at this story he sees the injustice what has been done wrong but then Nathan says well you're that man and I think that some of the parables do that and obviously if you look at

sort of the prophetic books, quite often there are stories or analogies or pictures that are painted or the prophet will act something out in a very sort of dramatic and visual way to expose something about the behavior of the people of God. So I think, yeah, within the Jewish tradition and at the time, the teachings of Jews at the time of Jesus that

parables were certainly used. don't know though, I don't know outside of the Jewish tradition how parables were used. What we wanted to look at next was a bit about why Jesus used them. So we're seeing, you know, they're used in rabbinic tradition in the Old Testament, but why did Jesus want to use them? So we wanted to look at Matthew chapter 13, which is the parable of the sower. We wanted to look at this because this is the

moment in the Gospels where the disciples come to Jesus and they say, why are you speaking in parables? And he gives them an answer. So we thought as we're asking the same question, why did Jesus speak in parables? We thought we would look at this passage. It's Matthew 13, 10 through 17. I'll read it here in the NIV. The disciples came to him and asked, why do you speak to the people in parables?

He replied, the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. This is why I speak to them in parables. And then here in verse 13, he's quoting from Isaiah and he says, though seeing they do not see, though hearing they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah.

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You will ever be hearing but never understanding. You will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people's heart has become calloused. They hardly hear with their ears and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn and I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear. For I tell you many prophets and righteous people long to see what you see but did not see it.

and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. So that's Jesus' long -winded response to their question. But Esther, what you just said I thought was interesting, because this is a quote directly from Isaiah, and it's from Isaiah 6, which is Isaiah's commissioning when the Lord says, I want you to go speak to these people, and the message that you give them, they're not going to listen to. So it's really interesting that Jesus pulls from that passage.

to explain what he's doing as well. And when you think about it, he's in a similar position. He's a prophet who has a message that isn't going to be listened to. Well, I think it's interesting though, because in Isaiah 6, straight after he said that, Isaiah asks him, for how long, Lord? And the response is, until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted, and it kind of goes on. And it's this picture of

It's taking us to, the truth will be shared. Some people will respond, some people won't. Some people turn and repent and others won't. And it kind of gives that picture of, yeah, I guess an ultimate judgment in the end right back in Isaiah. I think what it's, he uses that language and he's saying, look, the kingdom of God and God's purposes now are the same. We're coming to this point and it's the same message.

I've come to bring good news to set the captive free, all of that. And some people will respond and some people won't. And the interesting thing to me is the link between that responsiveness or lack of it and the parables, because it seems to me that the point about a parable is that a lot of the time the meaning isn't

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obvious. mean, sometimes it probably is, but you know, parable like the sower, for instance, you've got to do a bit of work to understand it. And I think we're going to look at this in some detail at a future point, aren't we? But it's something that you can read again and again and again. And every time you read it, you'll see something else in it. And

I think that one of the things about parables is that you have to work at understanding them and you have to approach them prayerfully and with humility and you have to put the time in, you've got to put the effort in, you've probably got to talk with other people about them. And there's a kind of spiritual effort there which not everybody is inclined to put in.

And you could just read something and think, well, that's a pretty story, and just walk on by and basically dismiss it. And maybe that's got something to do with this element of responsiveness, whether people respond or not, which links back to what you were saying, about the context in Isaiah. This explanation in Matthew 13, because it says you've been given basically

or it's been revealed to you the secrets of the kingdom. can find, I think some people are a bit triggered by that word secrets, or they're excited by it. But sometimes the teaching can maybe go a bit off track or people, if something is presented clearly, you're like, well, it doesn't seem mysterious enough because they're secrets of the kingdom. So maybe that's just too obvious and there's something I'm missing. I think as well, just some people get hung up a bit as well on the world.

Why do I understand and other people don't? Why have my eyes been opened and other people, even if they're listening in good faith like I am, but they're going to remain unable to see. I think we can get bogged down in questions about that. I wondered if you wanted to say anything about that at all, if you had any thoughts. I think it's interesting because Jesus seems quite, I don't know if comfortable is the word.

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But he's surely not trying to make these parables explain everything. He's not trying to make them clear. He's not trying, like in a way they're not evangelistic. He's not trying to say to people who are turned away from him, I'm going to create the perfect parable so that they turn to me. It's almost as if he's accepting the fact that for some people this is going to bring them closer and for some people it's not. Yeah, I don't know. I guess that's what I think is.

almost seems quite comfortable with that. Yeah, I agree with that. I think it's kind of an acceptance of reality really. I don't think we're talking about, you know, ideas of predestination here or anything like that. It's not that some people are just, you know, do what you want. You're never going to hear or understand properly. So it's not as if he's deciding who's going to listen to him and who isn't. It's just that's the way things are.

So it's more a comment on just the nature of reality and how things happen. I think the other thing that I was going to say, just about the idea of working on Scripture, the idea of working on Scripture, and I think there is something really valuable here. In a way, we don't want things to be too easy for us. And I think, and I'm going to sound like a dinosaur here, I know, and I apologize for that, but I think we've got used to having things

really easy in terms of being able to access and retrieve information. I mean, the paper I found about the rabbinic use of parables in Jesus's time, that was a few minutes Googling and I found these really interesting things and pre -internet, I wouldn't have been able to do that. I'd have had to go to my bookshelf and get down a book and I probably wouldn't have had the right book. So I just wouldn't have known it. But actually retaining things,

and letting those things shape my mind and really sort of internalizing things. I think that requires a different level of attention than you get just by quickly Googling the answer to a question that you're asking. And I use Google search engines all the time, all the time, all of us do. But, you know, I think it has a downside in that doesn't kind of

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It doesn't kind of shape us as much as really paying close attention to the text and wrestling with it and, you know, trying yourself to work out the answer instead of Googling the answer. it's so true. This is so, so true. And it makes me think of Psalm 1, you know, I meditate on his law day and night or the blessed person does. Makes me think of Psalm 119, the psalmist is there saying,

you know, I love your law or I delight in your law. And it's that idea of, guess, if you extend the word of God as beyond just the law, but the whole word of God, we're really encouraged, yeah, to meditate on it day and night and to really get stuck into it, to study it, to be thinking about it when we walk around, when we lie down at night, you know, at dinner.

with our families or whoever we eat with to be discussing it. And that to me is part of that working on scripture and not just being like, this is a source of answers that I retrieve only when and as I need them. But we're meant to be immersed in it and as you say, shaped by it. So I don't think that makes you a dinosaur. I think too, the parables lend themselves to that. The parables almost make you have to do that because

They aren't straightforward. But also, the people at that time would have had to have gone through that process because I think the parables would have been very surprising to them because Jesus had come as this Messiah and he was announcing this kingdom. And to them, this kingdom probably looked very different. looked like overtaking the Romans, coming out of oppression, being freed by the Messiah. But now their Messiah has come and he's saying, the kingdom is like a mustard seed.

that would have had, you'd have to have taken that and gone, that's not what I was expecting. And now you have to think about what is he talking about? What does that mean? So the parables really lend themselves to hard work, don't they? Not just understanding easily. They do. But that brings me back to something that Paula Gooder wrote in her

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book about parables and that actually our highly effective editor Jack was talking about when we were thinking about this meeting actually and that is that they're all pretty familiar to us and for church -going Christians who probably read these things hundreds of times maybe heard dozens of sermons on them they become very familiar and you know Jack was talking about us maybe needing to find modern parallels

to the parables, things that sort of put them into our context rather than in a first century agricultural lifestyle context. And Paula Gooder in her book talks about the need to defamiliarize ourselves from them and then refamiliarize ourselves in a different way. So I think letting them say fresh things to us is really

key to engaging with them properly. Yeah, I think it's a great point. So we've had a bit of a discussion about, know, Jesus was using the parables to reveal some things to people. also, you know, they hid some things from people who weren't willing to listen. He was announcing his kingdom. We asked you guys, what is something that you want to learn about the parables or what's a question that you have about the parables? And overwhelmingly, the response was

that you wanted us to look at the parable of the shrewd manager, which is in Luke 16. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to take some questions that we have that we think are good to approach every parable with, or most of them anyway, and we're going to just go ahead and look at this parable and ask some questions of it and see what we come to. It's in Luke 16, and just to give you a bit of an overview of the parable, if you haven't read it recently, there is an employer and an employee

And the employee is accused of not handling his employer's money very well. And the employer calls him in and he says, I'm going to fire you basically because you're not doing a good job. And the employee says, what am I going to do? I can't do manual labor. I'm too ashamed to beg. here's what I'll do. I'm going to make some friends who will welcome me into their homes. He says,

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and I'm going to do it before I get fired. So what he does is how he makes these friends is he calls in people who owe his employer money and he says, how much do you owe my employer? And they tell him and he cuts their debt. He says, okay, well, you owed him a hundred gallons of olive oil. Now you owe him 50. He does this and the employer finds out about it and he comes to him and he says, he actually commends him. And he says, wow, you acted shrewdly.

And then this is Jesus' summary at the end. says, the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. That is this very strange parable. And then Jesus says some more stuff at the end. I am going to pass this off to you guys.

pretty much right from the start because I am very confused about this. I've read some commentaries on it and I read it several times since we've been preparing for it and I'm coming away feeling baffled. But we have some questions that we wanted to ask. So the first one that we thought is good to ask when we're looking at parables is what is the context of this parable? So in what situation is Jesus telling this story?

we see in the Gospel sometimes he's sitting at a table at dinner with people and he randomly tells a parable, sometimes he's speaking to crowds, sometimes he's speaking to Pharisees. And so I guess our first question as we're looking at the parable of the shrewd manager is what is the context that we find this parable set in? Okay, so I think the context is that it says that Jesus is talking to his disciples, so the primary message is to his inner circle, these people that he's gathered around himself, and he's forming into

his followers. So they're the primary audience, but we can see from later on that there are other people maybe on the fringes of the group, maybe on the fringes of the gathering, because it mentions the Pharisees who were overhearing this. So that's the immediate context, basically. And I think one of the interesting things about this is just to try and tease out a little bit of the

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context sort of within the story as well. So you've got this, well, one of the common traits I was looking at called him a clever rascal. One of the issues here is that this man did have authority to make this kind of decision. So the creditors obviously were, I mean, they were loving it because they were getting considerable portions of their debts kind of written off. But the master,

was in a really difficult position because if he found out what this man was doing, as obviously he would do in the end, and overruled him and went back to the creditors and said, well, actually, no, you still owe me the full amount. He's a kind of double loser really, because it makes him look like an idiot because he's hired this scoundrel in the first place. And the other thing is that it puts him in extremely bad odour with the creditors because, of course,

they think that this man is acting on the master's authority and so they're going to get away with only paying half of what they owe and he comes along and says no you still owe me the full amount and so he looks like not just a foolish person for hiring this bad manager in the first place but also a greedy and grasping person for insisting on the whole payment. So the clever rascal or the shrewd manager

has played a very good hand indeed. And I think that's why the master commends him. He's not commending him for being dishonest. He's commending him for being clever, even if it's at his own expense. So that's some of the background to it, I think. Yeah, sure. I mean, he doesn't then go and rehire him and say, I forgot how shrewd you were. Come back. He's still fired.

he's recognizing something. And then he slightly shifts the focus onto, know, in those verses that you read, Noel, where he kind of says, for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. So there's a comparison there, isn't there, between worldly behavior and attitudes and the sons of light, which I guess is referring to the people of God. And I think

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something that I looked at in terms of the context. And I'm not sure whether Jesus necessarily, you know, one after the other told these parables or whether that's Luke putting this gospel together and putting these stories together. But before this, you've got the parable of the lost sheep, that's in Luke 15, the parable of the lost coin. Then it goes to the parable of the prodigal son. And then you get to, you know, the start of

chapter 16, he also said to the disciples. So it seems like Luke is signaling somehow that he at least is making a connection between some of these stories. See, I, that's a really interesting interpretation. And I had come to a different view altogether, to be honest, because I'm not convinced that it relates to the

parables in the previous chapter about the lost sheep and all that kind of thing. I think it has more in common with, say, the parable of the unjust judge who only does what he's supposed to do because the woman who's demanding justice just keeps on and on with him. And in that parable, the unjust judge is not God. It's one of these how much more

parables really. You know, a human judge you might have to go on and on at before they do what they're told. But God is generous. God is not like an unjust judge. God is a just judge. So I think that this is one of those stories. So I don't think the master is God in the story. I think the point of it is in verse

eight, where the master commends the servant because he's shrewd, because he's, you know, a clever rascal. And I think the point is just to say to the disciples, well, you should be as clever and enterprising at using money to do good as this man was using money to do bad.

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So it's a way of Jesus saying, don't let money control you. You control money and you use it for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Don't use it just to make yourself rich, as this man did. What do you think, Mark, about verse nine? I like what you've said. What do think about verse nine where he says, I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourself so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwelling.

What do you think about eternal dwellings? I'm not sure I want to be too literalistic about that, to be honest. I think it is more about, I mean, you could say serving the purposes of the kingdom of heaven. And if you do that, you will have an eternal reward, something like that. But it is a, it's,

Kind of a weird verse to have just there, I think. do think it's interesting with where this account in Luke goes next. You know, in this is verses like 10 to 13, because the focus there definitely does seem to be on money and God and not being able to serve two masters. So that idea, I think going back, sorry, to verse nine, where it's...

know, one thing, worldly wealth or let's call it unrighteous wealth, as it does in the ESV translation, that will pass away. You know, you can have that for a while and you can use it for good purpose or not. But it's not going to last. It's not those treasures of heaven that moth can't destroy, that it doesn't rust, it doesn't decay. So I think there's a valid interpretation in that, you know, the things of the kingdom.

But then he goes on to be maybe slightly more explicit, I think, talking about dishonesty and how if you're dishonest with very little, or sorry, this is verse 10, one who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much. So if you think back to the rich man entrusted the manager with something, and then it says, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.

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If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust you with true riches? And if you've not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you what is your own? So this is a much more, it takes you from the story to maybe a bit of application to say, look, how do you recognise yourself in this? Are you dishonest or are you faithful? And who is your true master? What are you chasing after?

What do you hate? What do you love? What are you devoted to and what do you despise? I think maybe these are interpretations or, you know, the things that Jesus might have said at another time which are relevant to this and that Luke has put them there because it seems to me they are kind of separated off, aren't they, from the core of the parable?

It's not something that Jesus often does or usually does give that interpretation at the same time. But I think it does expand on it, doesn't it? It does sort of put it into context. And I think it does make it clear that it's really talking about money as well and our uses of money and the way that we're not to let money grip us in the way that shrewd rustle does. Another question that we thought is good to ask about parables, what is the result of the parable?

Basically, do we see people turn to God? Do we see people turn away from Jesus and what he's saying? Here we have verse 14, the Pharisees who loved money heard all of this and were sneering at Jesus. And then he has a response to them, doesn't he? Well, that's interesting, isn't it? Because if you see yourself in the parable, as David did in Nathan's parable, either you will be convicted and convinced and you will repent.

or you'll just sneer as these Pharisees do. So you're presented with a choice really when you see yourself in a parable. Am I going to listen to this and change my life or am I not? Yeah, and Jesus says to them, well, you're those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. So, okay, ridicule me all you want, ridicule this example, but God knows what's in your heart and you know what you're masking with that ridicule.

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Well, there you have it. There's our best shot at this parable of the shrewd manager. That's all that we're going to have time for today, but I really enjoyed that. Next week, we're going to continue talking about the parables. We're going to follow along the structure of the rooted journal that has just come out, and we're going to start by looking at parables that speak specifically about the nature of God's kingdom. So we're looking forward to that. So we will see you next week. In the meantime, if you love the podcast,

Make sure to give it a rating, leave us a review. We also have a survey that would be so helpful if you would fill that out for us as we try to make the podcast even better. And that's all. We will see you next week for another episode.

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