This is John at the Bible Project, and this is the last episode of our discussion on how to read the parables.

In this conversation, we're going to look at some strategies for taking the ancient parables of Jesus and adapting them to our modern life.

It seems to me that we owe it to him to give us much attention to how we translate them into our own cultural context,

which means I think adaptation. You can watch Jesus adapting parables in the gospels, right? A version of it in Matthew and a version in Luke will be a little bit different.

And so if you get the main idea, I think it ought to inspire new creative adaptations of the parables in our own settings.

We're also going to look at one of my favorite parables, the parable of the dishonest and shrewd manager.

In this parable, a manager finds out that he's going to get fired by his master.

And so before he leaves, comes up with a plan. He calls up all the people that owe his master money, and he cooks the books for their benefit.

And when the master finds out what this guy did, the narrative says he was a dishonest manager. Jesus is perfectly clear.

But it's like a joke that has a twist at the end. Instead of getting taken to court, the manager says, you're still fired, but you're going to get ahead.

So I think it's because the master commends him at the end. That's what leads us maybe to think, oh, this is a parable of praising certain kinds of behavior, namely dishonesty.

What is going on here? Why did Jesus tell this parable? And if we can understand it, how can we apply its wisdom?

Thanks for joining us. Here we go.

We are going to finish this conversation about how to read the parables. Parables of Jesus.

The parables of Jesus. Specifically. Specifically. Yeah, that's right. There's lots of other parables in the Bible.

In fact, we've now started this conversation so many days ago. I don't remember the word parable. Oh, no.

Did we talk about the word parable? The word parable. How is it that I'm not bringing this up until the very last episode?

Maybe it's perfectly timed. Okay, it's a compound Greek word. Parable is from the Greek word parable.

What's that called when it's just you're saying the word in English? That's the Greek word. Well, it's a transliteration.

Transliteration. Parable is a transliteration of the Greek word parable. It's compound. Parable is a Greek preposition next to.

And then ballet comes from a verb to cast sometimes or to set, to set on the long side.

To set on the long side. Yeah, so it's a little parable and it knows itself. Yeah, that's right. It's a figure of speech.

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