Jesus was, above all, a storyteller. When he wanted to explain who God is, what the Kingdom is, or how to love one's neighbor, he almost never defined. He compared. "The Kingdom of heaven is like…" — and along came a sower, a mustard seed, a man who found a treasure in a field. That is what a parable is about: an everyday scene carrying a spiritual truth.
The Gospels preserve about forty of these stories (the number varies according to the counting criterion). Together, they form the core of Christ's teaching — and, not by chance, they are the material that shows up most in your club's worships, in the Bible classes, and on the tests of the PBE, the Sabbath School Bible Program.
This guide gathers the main parables with the biblical reference of each one and, most importantly, the lesson each one carries. At the end, a practical section on how to use them with your unit. Content verified on 23/07/2026 in the sources listed at the end, among them the book Christ's Object Lessons, by Ellen G. White.
What is a parable, anyway?
The word comes from the Greek parabolé, which means "to place one thing beside another" — to compare. That is exactly what Jesus did: he set side by side something everyone knew and a truth no one could see on their own.
It's worth marking the difference, because it confuses a lot of people. A parable is not an episode of Jesus' life, like the multiplication of the loaves or the healing of the blind man. Those are narrated facts, things that happened. The parable is a teaching in the form of a story — an invented comparison to illuminate a point. The sower of the parable is not a specific man Jesus met; he is any sower, to speak of any heart.
Ellen White opens the book Christ's Object Lessons explaining this method with a phrase that sums it all up: in Christ's parables, "the unknown was illustrated by the known." The things of nature and of common life became windows into the truths of heaven. A seed taught about faith. A vineyard, about the people of God. A father running to embrace his son, about forgiveness.
If you want the other side — the narrated facts of Christ's life, and not the comparative teachings — see the Bible stories. Here the subject is the genre of teaching: the stories Jesus told, not the ones he lived.
Why did Jesus teach in parables?
The Gospel of Matthew is direct: "without a parable spake he not unto them" (Matthew 13:34). It was not an occasional device — it was Jesus' way of teaching the multitudes. But why?
First, because a parable sticks. An abstract argument is forgotten on the way out; a good story stays. Years later, the fisherman still remembered the sower casting the seed, and the memory brought the lesson along with it. Jesus used what a person saw every day so that they would never again look at it the same way.
Second, because a parable reveals and hides at the same time. Whoever came with an open heart understood and was transformed. Whoever came only to criticize heard a pretty story and left without being disturbed — the truth stayed stored away, waiting for the day that heart would soften. The parable respects each person's timing.
Third, because truth told this way disarms. No one defends themselves against a story. When the prophet Nathan wanted to confront King David, he told a parable about a stolen little ewe lamb — and David condemned himself before he realized it. Jesus did the same: the person judged the character and, in the shock, saw that they were judging themselves.
What are the parables of the Kingdom of God?
A good part of the parables begins with the same formula: "The Kingdom of heaven is like…". They explain, little by little, how God's government works — that it starts small, grows from within, and one day separates the true from the false. Most of them are gathered in Matthew 13, the great chapter of parables.
The best known opens the block: the Sower (Matthew 13:3-23). The same seed falls on four grounds — the wayside, the rocky, the midst of thorns, and the good soil — and what changes is not the seed, it's the soil. The lesson is about your heart as it hears the Word: hardened, shallow, choked by worries, or prepared to bear fruit.
The others complete the portrait of the Kingdom:
| Parable | Where it is | What it teaches |
|---|---|---|
| The Sower | Matthew 13:3-23 | The fruit depends on the heart that hears, not on the seed |
| The Wheat and the Tares | Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 | Good and evil grow together until the harvest; the judgment is God's, not ours |
| The Mustard Seed | Matthew 13:31-32 | The Kingdom starts tiny and becomes enormous |
| The Leaven | Matthew 13:33 | Grace works from within, in silence, transforming everything |
| The Hidden Treasure | Matthew 13:44 | The Kingdom is worth more than everything you have |
| The Pearl of Great Price | Matthew 13:45-46 | Whoever finds Christ gladly gives up all the rest for him |
| The Net | Matthew 13:47-50 | In the end, there will be a separation between what is useful and what is not |
Notice the movement: it begins with a seed cast into the earth and ends with a separated harvest. It is the whole Kingdom in miniature — from the first sprout of faith in the heart to the day of the great separation.
Read alsoSundown worship: how to open and close the SabbathThe parables of forgiveness: why is Luke 15 so beloved?
If there is a chapter that should be read in every unit at least once a year, it is Luke 15. Three parables in a row, told all at once, all about the same thing: what was lost and the joy of finding it again.
A sheep goes missing out of a hundred, and the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine to look for it (Luke 15:3-7). A coin is lost among ten, and the woman turns the house upside down until she finds it (Luke 15:8-10). And then comes the greatest of all: the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32).
The younger son asks for his inheritance, spends it all far from home, and ends up feeding pigs, hungry. When he decides to go back, rehearsing an apology, he finds the father already running toward him — because the father waited for him every day. There is no sermon, no punishment: there is an embrace, a ring, a feast. That is the image Jesus chose to explain how God receives whoever returns. Not as a judge with folded arms, but as a father who runs.
There is a second son in the story, and he is easy to forget: the older brother, who did everything right and stayed out of the feast, angry. Jesus leaves the parable open on purpose. The question that remains is for the one who hears: are you the one who came back or the one who complains about the grace given to the other?
On the same theme of forgiveness, it's worth reading the parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Matthew 18:23-35): a servant is forgiven an enormous debt and, on the way out, presses a fellow servant over a tiny debt. The lesson is hard and simple — whoever was forgiven by God cannot deny forgiveness to their neighbor.
What does the Good Samaritan teach about our neighbor?
A lawyer wanted to test Jesus and asked who his "neighbor" was, expecting a narrow definition. Jesus answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), and turned the question inside out.
A man is robbed and left half dead on the road. A priest passes by and turns aside. A Levite passes by and turns aside. Both were religious people, people who ought to have known. The one who stops is a Samaritan — precisely the foreigner the Jews despised. He tends the wounds, pays for the lodging, and promises to return.
In the end, Jesus does not answer "who is my neighbor?". He asks: which of the three made himself a neighbor to the fallen man? The lesson shifts the whole axis. Neighbor is not a category of people you choose to love — it is what you become when you stop to help whoever is in need, without checking whether they belong to your group. Loving your neighbor, here, has hands and costs money.
Two other parables sharpen that same thread of compassion and justice. The Rich Fool (Luke 12:16-21) fills his barns, plans years of rest, and dies that very night — the lesson is that hoarding for oneself and not being rich "toward God" is folly. And the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) shows a man who saw the beggar at his door every day and never moved. His sin was not doing evil; it was doing nothing.
The parables of Jesus' return: watch and serve
In the last days before the cross, Jesus told parables with a different tone — all pointing forward, to the day when he would return. Two, told almost together in Matthew 25, sum up the message.
In the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1-13), ten young women wait for the bridegroom with their lamps. Five took extra oil; five did not. The bridegroom delays, they all doze off, and at midnight the call comes. The five who were prepared enter the feast; the others are left out, because they went to buy oil at the wrong moment. The lesson is watchfulness: spiritual preparation is personal and cannot be borrowed at the last minute. "Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour."
Right after come the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30). A master travels and entrusts his goods to three servants — five talents, two, and one — each according to his ability. The first two invest and double them; the third buries his out of fear and is rebuked. The lesson is stewardship: God gives each one gifts and opportunities, and calls for their use, not their amount. The servant with one talent was condemned not for having little, but for having done nothing with the little.
Put the two together and you have the balance of the Christian life while the Lord has not yet returned: to watch — keeping the lamp lit within — and to work — investing what was received. Neither only waiting with folded arms, nor only running without devotion.
A third, a short one, closes it well: the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:9-14), two men praying in the temple. One lists his virtues; the other, without lifting his eyes, only asks for mercy. Jesus says it was the second who went home justified. Before God, what counts is not the résumé, it's the broken heart.
How to use the parables in club worship and in the PBE?
Here comes the practical part, because a parable was made to be told, not just read in silence. In your club they pay off more than almost any other material — and each one fits into a ten-minute worship.
A recipe that works with any unit:
- Read the parable aloud, in full. Don't summarize. Jesus' text is already the best version. Ask someone from the unit to read — it puts the kids inside the story.
- Ask a question, not a sermon. "Which of the four grounds do you look like today?" pays off more than ten minutes of explanation. The parable was designed to provoke the question; let it work.
- Connect it to a requirement or to a real situation in the club. The Talents speak directly to the use of gifts in the unit. The Good Samaritan, to a community service project. The Prodigal Son, to that Pathfinder who disappeared and you want back.
For the PBE, the tip is different: parables come up a lot when the year studies a Gospel, and the most common mistake is confusing one with another or swapping the reference. Build a simple table with the unit — name of the parable, chapter and verse, lesson in one sentence — just like the one further up in this guide. Memorizing the lesson together with the reference fixes both things at once. And watch out for the classic traps: the lost sheep appears both in Luke 15 and in Matthew 18; the wheat and the tares has two parts (the parable in Matthew 13:24-30 and the explanation in 13:36-43).
To go deeper, the book Christ's Object Lessons, by Ellen G. White, dedicates a chapter to each of the main ones. It is accessible reading and excellent for preparing a series of worships for the whole year — one parable per week, and you won't repeat a theme for many months.