Parables 101

The meaning seems plain enough to me:* People who repent towards the end of an ill-spent life (the "eleventh hour", as the text says) get the same heavenly reward as those who were obedient to God all along.* God can do that if he likes (it's his grace, after all).* People who've spent their lives being pious shouldn't bitch and moan because those who repent at the eleventh hour get salvation on what they consider easy terms. After all, it's no skin off their nose if other people get into heaven too, and they themselves thought the deal that they took was fair or they wouldn't have taken it.

Well, it makes sense of them. They become statements of Christian theology rather than pointless little stories about people who make poor economic choices for no particular reason. That's what makes them parables.

That's what makes it a parable. The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe doesn't mention Jesus, but it's still a Christian allegory. Is that relevant?

Yes, jar.C'mon.If there is one line in the Bible which is definitely an interpolation, that's it. No --- it's the context that makes me so certain that it is an interpolation.

The meaning seems plain enough if you ignore the stupid "explanation" of the meaning.It's a parable. Like all Jesus' parables which on the surface are about economics, it is not in fact advice about economics and should not be followed as such.What it's actually doing is presenting a paradox about grace and forgiveness. By their nature, all sins are sins against God. Therefore, we mere mortals have no moral right to go about forgiving people for their sins. That's downright blasphemy. And yet God prefers it if we do in fact do that. It's better than the alternative of not forgiving people their sins. He permits us to do so and wants us to do so even though we have absolutely no right to do so. This is what the parable means.

God's literary style sure has declined in the last two thousand years.