jewish parables

The Golden Table Leg

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Burying TreasureDo not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-21

(This story was adapted from a rabbinic parable.)

Once upon a time there was an old pastor who had served the Lord faithfully all of his life. He had an anointed ministry, and people found his prayers were powerful and effective. When he prayed for the sick, they often were healed. But with all of that, he was extremely poor, and he and his wife struggled daily to get by on almost nothing.

One day when they were out walking, after they had seen yet another person healed, his wife said to him, “God certainly must have prepared a rich reward for all of your years of work when you get to heaven, and he always seems to listens to your prayers. Why don’t you ask the Lord to give us just a tiny bit of your heavenly reward here on earth so that we don’t have to live in such terrible poverty?” The pastor thought this was a good idea, so right there the two of them asked the Lord to let them have a little something from what God prepared for them early, while they were still alive.

Immediately the sky opened above them, and a table leg made out of gold fell to earth right in front of them. They rejoiced and thought of all the things they could buy with this gift from God. The next morning, the pastor looked very troubled and his wife asked him what was wrong. The pastor said, “Last night I had a dream that we were sitting at a great banquet in heaven, and every family had its own table to sit around. But ours was missing a leg so that it tilted and wobbled terribly!” His wife sat down and considered this a long time. She finally said, “In that case, we must go quickly and ask the Lord to take back the gift he gave us yesterday.”

They prayed, and immediately the heavens opened, and the table leg rose back up into heaven. And this was the greatest answer to prayer of all.*

(I saw the point of this parable after I became friends with some pastors in Uganda who live in great poverty but have wonderful ministries. Where I live, there are many who do similar good work, but have a comfortable, prosperous life here in America. After seeing all the trials that my poorer friends go through, I think, personally, that the Lord will reward them for all the things they lived without in order to serve him.)

*Adapted from “The Two Legged Table” from the book Theology in Rabbinic Stories by Chiam Pearl, Hendrickson, 1997

Photo: Yelkrokoyade

The Manager’s Shrewd Idea

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

“There was a rich man who had a manager who was reported to him as squandering his possessions. He called him and said to him, “Give an accounting of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ The manager said to himself, `I know what I shall do, so that when I am removed from the management people will welcome me into their homes.’ He summoned each one of his master’s debtors, and he began saying to the first, `How much do you owe my master?'”And he said, `A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, `Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ “Then he said to another, `And how much do you owe?’ And he said, `A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, `Take your bill, and write eighty.’ His master praised the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly.”
– Luke 16:1-8, edited

This is another parable that is difficult for us – it seems like Jesus is saying that cheating your employer is a model for us to live by. Was that really what he was saying? Knowing more about the context of this parable may cast new light on Jesus’ message. (1)

Roman CoinsOne thing to note is that the rich man probably lived far away and employed the manager to keep track of his loan repayments. Loan managers, like tax collectors, were paid commissions from the accounts that they oversaw. Thus, the more they could collect from the debtors, the more they earned.

Biblical law stated that a Jew who received a loan could not be charged interest, so charging any more than the principal would have been an unlawful practice. But since it was difficult for the poor to find anyone who would loan money without some kind of compensation, historians think that loans were recorded for a higher amount than their actual value to circumvent the prohibition against charging interest. It would have been the difference that went to the loan manager, and if the loan manager was corrupt, he may have been greatly overcharging for loans as well as squandering his employer’s money.

With this extra information in mind, it casts this parable in a new light. The loan recipients may have hated the manager for his profiteering from the overcharges at their expense. When the loan manager lowered the bills, he may have been correcting the bills back to their true amount, and forfeiting his own pay. By doing this, he would have been “repenting” from the corruption that had been making enemies for himself. Even though it cost him monetarily, he would have gone from being hated to being loved by all the people he dealt with. Even his boss would look good in the eyes of the debtors. Indeed, this may have been the first honest act of his life, when he realized that he needed people’s friendship more than their money.

While we can’t be sure of this scenario, it does paint a different picture of the manager’s act. When he realized that “judgment” was coming from his boss, he straightened out his life so that he would not suffer forever for his corruption. We all know that we will be called to account for our lives, and we should all act wisely knowing that eternal dwellings are at stake.

(1) Historical data comes from a talk given by Dr. Randall Buth called “The Unjust Steward” from the Center for Study of Biblical Research (CSBR).

Photo: Portable Antiquities Scheme

Why Parables?

Lois Tverberg

WHy Parables?by Lois Tverberg

All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, and He did not speak to them without a parable. – Matthew 13:34

It comes as a surprise to some that Jesus did not invent the parable, but he was employing a traditional method of teaching that was used widely in first century Judaism. Because of this lack of knowledge, at some times in history Jesus’ words have been misunderstood. At one point, it was thought that parables were allegories – stories where each character is a hidden reference to a certain person or situation. For example, Augustine read the parable of the Good Samaritan as an allegory – the man traveling on the road was Adam, the man who helped was Jesus, the inn was the church, the innkeeper was Paul, etc. Among first century rabbis, however, this interpretation would have been foreign to the way a parable was told .

In Jesus’ culture, a parable was a story from human experience that helps explain a spiritual reality. It is the product of the language of Hebrew which does not have many abstract terms to describe God, so instead uses physical imagery, describing God’s “mighty hand and outstretched arm.” The rabbis used parables especially for theology – to explain why God does things the way He does. (1)

Why Parables 2Jesus, like other rabbis, teaches theology at a very high level by describing God as a king who throws a banquet and invites the outcasts, or a shepherd who looks for his sheep. Beyond just defining him, Jesus paints a picture of God’s character in vivid colors. His stories go beyond just defining and explaining, they elicit an emotional reaction. People can feel viscerally the irony of a majestic king sitting at a table with beggars and outcasts, and sense the shocking grace the king is showing them. And they can imagine the anguish that a shepherd endures and his great joy when he finds a lost sheep. This is exactly the point – Jesus was a passionate teacher whose goal was not just to give people an intellectual knowledge of God, but to teach them about God’s powerful love for them, and cause them to return that love to Him.

1 An excellent resource is The Parables: Jewish Tradition and Christian Interpretation, by Brad Young, Hendrikson Publishers, 1998.

Photo: Brooklyn Museum and Guercino