According to Luke 18:9, Jesus spoke this parable to the self-righteous (that’s always someone else, but not me, right?). And while, in the parable, both men went into the temple to pray, it is really not about prayer. The primary lesson of this parable is pride versus humility. Prayer is simply the example Jesus uses to teach us that important lesson.

The Pharisees were the strictest sect of the Jews and they sought to be righteous in all aspects of their lives. There is, of course, nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact, we all ought to seek righteousness in our lives. That pleases God. It was their self-righteousness that the Lord condemns and their tendency to look down on others.

The tax collectors (publican, KJV) were considered traitors by most Jews, since they worked for the Roman government. They were often dishonest and often pocketed any extra money they could extort from citizens.

The Pharisee, therefore, was well respected in society and probably considered to be a religious leader. The tax collector would have hated by almost everyone (everybody, that is, except Christ).

The Pharisee’s prayer is found in verses 11-12. But, it was not really a prayer. It was a list of accomplishments reminding God of how good he was, especially when compared with others. He wanted to make certain God knew how fortunate He was to have this Pharisee on His side.

The tax collector’s prayer (verse 13) was a humble plea for forgiveness. He acknowledged his guilt before God and simply asked for pardon. He even “stood afar off,” symbolizing his separation from God because of his own disobedience. He knew he was a sinner.

The tax collector went home forgiven, because that was what he had asked for. The Pharisee did not, because he had not asked for forgiveness and, in reality, didn’t think he needed forgiveness.

This should teach us that God approves of humility and despises arrogance and pride.

You are not the center of the universe; it does not revolve around you and your happiness. The sooner we all realize that we are utterly dependent on God, the better off we will be.

Sometimes we all need to be brought back down to earth, don’t we? We can get pretty full of ourselves. “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).

So, the choices are humility and pride. Which one would you say more characterizes your life? Be honest, because God know the truth.

--Roger Hillis

Recorded in Luke 15:11-32, the Parable of the Prodigal Son is perhaps the most famous of all the parables. It is the third parable in this chapter, following the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin.

Luke 15 has been referred to as “the gospel in the gospel,” since it tells us of the love of our Heavenly Father for lost souls. It is a word picture describing the truth of John 3:16 that “God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son.”

A man had two sons and the younger one decided he didn’t want to live at home and follow his father’s rules any more. So he asked for his part of the inheritance, which was unusual, of course. Normally, one does not inherit something from anyone until that person had died. But the Father grants his request (perhaps this is symbolic of our free will and God’s willingness to allow us to make really foolish decisions).

The young man heads off to a far country (any place away from his father). This is a parabolic picture of sin. The consequences of his choice are significant and severe. He soon wastes all of his inheritance with wild and ungodly behavior. His friends, no doubt abundant when he had plenty of money, quickly desert him. Unable to survive for long, he gets a job feeding pigs. It would be difficult to imagine a lower state of being for a Jewish male. But sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you look up.

Brought to his senses by his memory of the things he had learned from his father, repents (“when he came to himself”), and walks home in shame and disgrace. His loving father sees him coming from afar and runs to meet him (something quite undignified for Jewish father). He welcomes him home and throws him a party.

The older brother, who has stayed at home and served and obeyed their Father, is not at all happy to see his younger sibling. He is jealous of the love the Father still has for his foolish and rebellious child. Jesus is driving the lesson home to the envious tax collectors and sinners (verses 1-2) who didn’t understand why Christ spent time with sinners.

This is usually called the parable of the prodigal son and he is an important character in the narrative. Some have rightly referred to this as the parable of the lost sons, emphasizing that the older brother was just as lost as the prodigal, although he had remained at home. But, in the final analysis, this is a parable about the loving Father.

There is no one that God does not love. Think of the worst people you have ever known. Think of those who have committed great crimes against society and their fellow man. Think of those who have hurt you the most and whose downfall or destruction would probably bring you great pleasure. By the way, while you are at it, you might think about your own sins, in rebellion to God and His love. God loves every soul.

--Roger Hillis

“Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, ‘This Man receives sinners and eats with them’” (Luke 15:1-2).

With these words, one of the most beautiful chapters in the Bible begins. Verse 3 continues on and says, “So He spoke this parable to them, saying:” Although the text says, this parable, Jesus actually delivers three parables, the lost sheep (verses 4-7), the lost coin (verses 8-10), and the lost sons (verses 11-32). While the illustration is different in each, the main lesson is the same. God loves the souls of the lost and wants all people to be saved (1 Timothy 2:3-4).

First is the parable of the lost sheep. In the story, a shepherd watching over 100 sheep realizes that one of them has wandered away. He leaves the 99 “safe” sheep and goes to search for the one which is lost. He continues to look for it until he locates it and then brings it back triumphantly and adds it back into the fold.

Verses 6-7 give us a “behind the scenes” look at heaven’s response when a lost soul returns to God. The parable is reminding us how much the Lord loves us and how much “joy” there is in heaven when “one sinner” repents.

His second example is a woman who owns ten coins and loses one of them. Some have suggested this might refer to a piece of jewelry that had ten coins in it as decoration (much like diamonds or other jewels) and that the loss of one piece makes the entire thing worthless. Or it might simply be speaking of her personal worth of ten coins. Either way, the lesson is that the lost coin meant a great deal to her and so she turned on the light, swept the house and searched carefully until she recovered the coin.

And again, Jesus lets us know that this lost coin, now found, represents “one sinner who repents.”

We should never underestimate the value of one soul. The Savior taught us, in another setting, that one soul is worth more than the whole world (Matthew 16:26).

That should cause us all to make certain that our own soul is in a right relationship with God. If it isn’t, not much else matters.

It should also help us, as Christians, to remember once again the value of the souls around us who do not know our Lord. Will we be like the scribes and Pharisees who hated the lost or like the Lord who loves all souls and want them to be saved?

--Roger Hillis

This is a parable that only Matthew records for us and it is found in Matthew 22:1-14.

Jesus begins by comparing the “kingdom of heaven” to a certain king who prepares a wedding feast in honor of his son. It is important to realize that “the kingdom of heaven” is not talking about heaven itself. That is a common misunderstanding. Matthew often uses that phrase, kingdom of heaven, where the other gospel writers use simply “the kingdom” or sometimes, “the kingdom of God”

All three of these phrases are references to the spiritual kingdom of the Lord on the earth, which beginning on Pentecost (Acts 2) is speaking of the church. It is a kingdom that is “not of this world” (John 18:36), meaning it is not a worldly, military kingdom. It is in the hearts (“within you” – Luke 17:20-21) of those who would submit their will to the King of kings, Jesus Christ. In instituting the Lord’s Supper, Christ promised the disciples that He would commune with them in this memorial when “the kingdom of God comes” (Luke 22:18). That’s why the Lord’s Supper is often referred to as communion (see also 1 Corinthians 10:16).

The wedding feast/marriage itself represents the invitation to all people to come to the Lord. Some are unwilling to come at all. Some make excuses and do not come. But many do respond to the invitation of the king. “And the wedding hall was filled with guests.”

Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heaven laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). It is His will for everyone to be given the chance to obey Him and become a part of His spiritual kingdom. That is another reason we must tell everyone we can of the blessings of becoming a child of God. “And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?” (Romans 10:14). Many will reject the Lord’s offer, but there are those who will “come and see.” Notice that the King destroyed those who rejected His offer (verse 7). Shouldn’t that encourage us to warn our lost friends and give them the opportunity to be saved?

There is also the interesting lesson from verses 11-13 about a man who came to the wedding but was not properly dressed. This is teaching us that we must live properly after becoming a Christian or there will also be a punishment for us. This is a warning from God that we must take our discipleship seriously and not play around with sin. It also shows us that “once saved, always saved” is false doctrine.

The Jews were given the first opportunity to obey the gospel. Some did; many did not. Then the gospel went into the whole world (the book of Acts tells us much of that story). Again, some obeyed and some rejected the message. As the song says, “the gospel is for all.” The same is true today.

--Roger Hillis

This parable is perhaps one of the most well-known teachings of the Lord. There are hospitals and other healthcare organizations named Good Samaritan. Even those who may not be aware that this parable is in the New Testament will refer to someone who helps another person as a good Samaritan.

Only Luke records this story of Jesus; it is found in Luke 10:25-37.

Among those who know the parable, many are probably not knowledgeable of the interaction between Jesus and “a certain lawyer” that preceded the telling of the story. This lawyer was testing Him, which was a common occurrence in the Lord’s ministry. People were constantly trying to catch Him in some inconsistency that they could then use against Him.

The lawyer begins with a good question, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (verse 25). Christ asks him, in essence, “What does your Bible say?” The man then responds with what Jesus called in another place, the two greatest commands. Love God with all your being and love your fellow man.

But the man wanted to “justify himself.” And so, he asked one more question, about who should be considered his neighbor. That’s when the Savior told the parable.

The interesting thing about the parable is that the one person you would least expect to help someone in need is the one person who did help. This twist in the teaching is possible because of the tremendous hatred the Jews had for anyone who was not a fellow Jew.

The Gentiles were unclean, uncircumcised and the Jews despised them. They called them dogs and other such derogatory terms. And Samaritans, if possible, were even worse. They were half-breeds, part Jew and part Gentile. Useless and unworthy of any spiritual consideration was the Jewish opinion of Samaritans. Yet, the Samaritan was the one who helped the man in need (by the way, he is never actually called “the Good Samaritan”).

We note that the Bible also praises a Samaritan in the account in Luke 17:11-19, where ten lepers were healed and only one, a Samaritan, returns to thank Jesus.

Maybe the Lord is trying to teach us that every person has a soul and is important to God and needs salvation and that we should not pre-judge people based on their racial or cultural background.  What do you think?

--Roger Hillis

Found In Luke 19:11-27, this parable of our Lord is similar to the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30.

In the parable, a “certain nobleman” is the lead character. He is obviously a man of wealth and power. He goes to a far country “to receive for himself a kingdom.” This would indicate to us that he was a person of royalty, as a king he would be the most powerful man in that kingdom.

He is also a man of wealth, as we see that he has many servants. It doesn’t say that he called all of his servants, although that would be a lot of servants anyway. But rather, the text says that he called ten of his servants, which would indicate that he actually had many more than that, but just used ten of them in this business venture.

He gave them each a mina. Like the parable of the talents, this refers to an amount of money that he distributed. Unlike the parable of the talents, where three men were given money, “each according to his ability,” in this story, ten men receive one mina each.

“A mina was about three months’ wages, so its value was considerable. They were to invest the money while he was gone” (The Bible Knowledge Commentary, New Testament edition, Walvoord and Zuck, page 252).

As with the talents, these servants were expected to invest this money wisely and to increase its value. That’s what people who work for others are expected to do. They are to take what they are given and to make more money for their employer.

“This Parable of the Ten Minas sums up Jesus’ teaching to the disciples. Each disciple had duties given to him by Jesus, and each was to carry out his responsibilities. But parable was addressed not only to disciples. It was also addressed to the nation at large, to show that it too had responsibilities. If the nation did not turn to Jesus, it would be punished” (ibid, page 252).

Why would some of the servants (at least one is specifically stated, only three of the ten are addressed) not do what they should have with their master’s money? The answer he gave was that he was afraid of doing something wrong with the mina, so he didn’t do anything with it. Was that a reason or an excuse? The nobleman was not pleased, leading us to conclude that it was a poor and rejected excuse.

The question for us is, what are we doing with what the Lord has given us? Are we serving Him faithfully with our time and abilities or are we trying to make excuses for not doing so? Is Jesus really the Lord of your life or are you just taking up space and wasting your life? Read Luke 19:27 again for the chilling conclusion to this parable.

--Roger Hillis

This parable is found in Matthew 21:33-46 and parallel passages include Mark 12:1-12 and Luke 20:9-18.

The story is simple, as most of the parables are. A wealthy landowner buys a vineyard, builds a guard tower in it and goes away, leasing the vineyard to vinedressers. When he sends servants to collect his share at the harvest time (after the vinedressers have been paid their fair wages), the vinedressers mistreat and kill various messengers. The landowner then sends his son whom they also kill, so he destroys the vinedressers and leases the property to others.

In verse 45, the chief priests and Pharisees realized that Jesus was referring to them and wanted to kill Christ, but could not because “the multitudes” considered Him to be a prophet.

In the midst of this parable, the Lord quoted from Psalm 118:22-23. “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

This Messianic psalm is quoted numerous times in the New Testament and, in each case, refers to those who did not accept Jesus to be the prophesied Messiah of Old Testament scripture.

In Acts 4:11, it is used to refer to those rulers and elders of Israel who were condemning Peter and John, as well as the rest of the apostles, for healing a lame man in the name of Jesus (the healing itself took place in Acts 3:1-11).  The apostles were using this miracle to confirm their message of resurrection from the dead (4:1-2). The Jewish leaders could not deny that a powerful miracle had occurred (4:16) but they did not want the news of the healing to spread any further.

In 1 Peter 2:7, this Old Testament passage is quoted also, along with two others that taught the same lesson, Isaiah 28:16 and Isaiah 8:14. Peter mentions those who rejected Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah and refers to them as being “disobedient to the word.” Anyone with an open mind and an open heart should have easily recognized that Jesus was exactly who and what had been foretold in the old covenant.

This passage, and the others mentioned above, as well as many others we have not listed, should convince us that the doctrine of premillennialism is false. That theory is based on the view that Jesus came to establish an earthly kingdom, but was unable to do so because He was unexpectedly rejected by His own people (John 1:11). God knew all along that most of the Israelite people would not accept and obey the Christ when He came into the world. God also foreknew that Jesus would not only be rejected, but killed by those unbelievers. As a matter of fact, the passage is Psalm 118 goes so far as to say, “This was the Lord’s doing.” He did not make them reject Jesus, but He knew they would and He used their disbelief and rebellion to fulfill His plan of human redemption.

--Roger Hillis

This parable of Christ is found in Matthew 21:28-32.

The context of the parable is telling. It begins in verse 23 when Jesus comes to the temple and is immediately confronted by “the chief priests and the elders of the people.” They are upset about His actions of the previous day when He had cleansed the temple of the moneychangers and those who sold doves. They were not there to help others; they were helping themselves and turning the house of prayer into a den of thieves. Jesus cleared them out (the Bible says He “drove them out”). The Jewish leaders didn’t like that.

So now they ask the Messiah “By what authority are You doing these things? And who gave You this authority?” Fair questions. He asks them the source of John’s baptism in response. If they are willing to answer His question, “from heaven or from men,” they will have the answer to theirs. God in heaven both authorized John’s work and the actions of Jesus.

Their unwillingness to answer the question causes the Lord not to answer their queries. It wasn’t that they couldn’t answer His question; they didn’t want to because of what that would mean for them. The truth was that John came from God and they rejected him as the forerunner of the Messiah. Now they are in the process of rejecting the Messiah Himself.

So when they refuse to answer, Jesus teaches them a simple lesson about repentance. Two sons are given a task by their father. One says he won’t do it but then repents and does it. The other says he will but then doesn’t. Jesus asks them one more question, “Which of the two did the will of his father?” It was the one who repented and obeyed. And that was what the Lord expected of them.

That is also the point of the episode embedded in this chapter about the fig tree (verse 17-23). A fig tree is to bear figs (fruit for God). When this one did not, the Lord rebuked it and it withered away. A fig tree with leaves on it should bear fruit also. This one failed and was destroyed. We are to serve God, not just make a good appearance. If we are not bearing fruit for our Lord, we need to repent and do the will of our Father.

Do I need to repent and obey God? I must ask myself that question all the time. Do you need to repent and obey Him? I hope you will think about that. This earthly story with a heavenly meaning demands it.

--Roger Hillis

In addition to the parables of the sower and the tares, there are five shorter parables in Matthew 13. They are the mustard seed, the leaven, the hidden treasure, the pearl of great price and the dragnet.

The Mustard Seed (verses 31-32)

The emphasis in this parable is that the kingdom of the Lord (His church) would begin small and grow until it had covered the whole earth. Christ would teach, in another setting, that “where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). If only a few Christians live in a community, if they will band together in love and unity and faithfulness to God and His word, great things can happen. It also shows us that when we do seemingly small and insignificant things for God, He can accomplish much through our efforts. All too often, we are hesitant to do the little things, perhaps because we are looking to do bigger things. We should learn that the small things we do in the kingdom can make a big difference in peoples’ lives and in their eternal destiny

The Leaven (verse 33)

Some people believe this is teaching the same lesson as the mustard seed, that something small can grow and become bigger. And perhaps that is true. But it is also possible that He is warning us about the malevolent influence of seemingly small and insignificant wrong deeds we may do. They too can grow and become worse and worse as time goes on. In the church and in our personal lives, sin may start small but it grows and the consequences can be very serious indeed.

The Hidden Treasure (verse 44)

In another one verse parable, Jesus is telling us to appreciate the value of the Lord’s church/kingdom. It is a special blessing indeed for us to be a part of the spiritual body of Christ and we must never denigrate its worth. The church was designed in eternity past in the mind of God (Ephesians 3:9-11) and it was so valuable to Him that it cost the blood of His Son (Acts 20:28).

The Pearl of Great Price (verses 45-46)

Similar to the hidden treasure parable, this one tells us that we should be willing to give up anything and everything to be a part of the Lord’s kingdom. This is a “counting the cost” lesson to remind us that nothing is more important than seeking first the kingdom (Matthew 6:33; Luke 14:25-33).

The Dragnet (verses 47-52)

This parable tells us that some bad people will become a part of the church (not intentionally, of course but through deception) and that God will separate the wicked from the righteous at the final judgment.

--Roger Hillis

Parables are inspired illustrations of spiritual principles. They teach us eternal lessons from our Creator. They help us to see truth more clearly and understand more deeply what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

Our parable in this study is found in Luke 18:1-8.

There are two characters in the parable. The first is an unjust judge who did not fear God and who did not respect other men, that is, he did not care what others thought about him. The second is a widow who comes pleading for justice. She was helpless on her own and could never have received what was fair and right without help from another. She asks him, “Give me legal protection from my opponent” (NASV).

The reason the judge is called “unjust” is that the widow deserved this legal protection and he had failed to provide it for her. He refused to do the right thing initially and was lazy, corrupt, and indifferent to the sufferings of others.

Of course, we serve a just God. Christ is not pointing out a similarity between the two, but rather a difference. Everything this judge was (unjust, reluctant to help, selfish), God is not. God will always do the right thing. He will respond to our patient, persistent and heartfelt prayers (Hebrews 4:16).

There are two major lessons for us to learn from this parable.

The first one is about persistence; He is telling us not to give up.

The second lesson is that we should expect results from our prayers. Too often we pray but don’t really believe it will make a difference. James tells us to pray in faith (James 1:6-8). Jesus said the same thing in Mark 11:22-24.

Sometimes God says no or not right now or He answers our prayers differently than we wanted. But in His wisdom, God knows what is best and when is best.

Why did the women keep asking? What if she had quit asking? Do we quit asking too soon sometimes? Those are some important questions we need to ask ourselves.

Notice how the Holy Spirit began this chapter: “Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray, and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1). Don’t grow discouraged; keep praying in faith (Luke 18:8).

--Roger Hillis