03/19/2014 PARABLES
Luke 6:43-44 "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers...." [New International translation]
Summary
JESUS spoke and taught in parables. He used simple stories to illustrate a spiritual or moral point.
Parables cause one to use our "inner" nature. For example, parables generally evoke a visual picture "in our mind's eye." There is usually a story, with characters or familiar objects that we can visualize. Like snowflakes, no two visual pictures are the same. Each of us brings our own life experience to visualizing the parable story. Our past experience serves as a backdrop to what we "see" or "do not see" when we paint our mental pictures.