The Do's and Don'ts of Teaching Parables (MacArthur)

If you want to have John MacArthur as a preaching professor on a regular basis there is only one D. Min program in the world you should enroll in (and that's TMS).  Drs. John MacArthur and Steven J. Lawson are the regular teaching faculty for the Master's Seminary Doctor of Ministry program.  This is one of the reasons why the revamped Doctoral of Ministry track at TMS now has 60 pastors/missionary students.  During one of Dr. MacArthur's final lectures this past summer he talked about the Do's and Don'ts of Preaching Parables.

“The word ‘parable’ (parabole) appears forty-eight times in the Synoptic Gospels (seventeen times in Matthew, thirteen in Mark, and eighteen in Luke).  It is entirely absent in John’s Gospel and is missing in the rest of the New Testament...”[1]  The word comes from two Greek roots: para (beside) and ballo (throw).  Literally, it means "to place alongside."  It suggests a comparison between two things that are alike in some way.

Regardless of what passage or genre one is studying, employing a consistent hermeneutic is the most important component of faithful interpretation.  The student of Scripture must never depart from the grammatico-historical hermeneutic in effort to manipulate the God-intended message of the text, for the meaning of Scripture is the Scriptures (2 Tim. 2:15).  According to MacArthur, Tim Keller misrepresented the major thrust of Jesus' Good Samaritan parable in his best-selling book The Prodigal God.  This kind of thing is not uncommon when it comes to parables.  Many apparently believe you can make parables say anything you want them to say; so long as your conclusions are biblical.  This is simply not true!