Whatever mistakes we make in reading and preaching the parables, let us not make the mistake of not making much of Jesus. He is the sower of the good seed of the gospel, the heaven-sent Son, the bridegroom of his church, the king upon his glorious throne, the final judge of all people everywhere, and so much more!

Suggestions for Preaching Parables
Every parable has a connection to the gospel. So, when you preach, don’t moralize (e.g., the point of the parable of the talents is that God rewards hard work; so, work hard!).1 Moreover, because the parables describe various parts of the gospel of the kingdom—the rule of Christ inaugurated in the incarnation and consummated in the second coming—set your sermons within the context of the whole gospel story (death and resurrection of Christ) and response (repentance, faith, and obedience). The parables feature what the whole of the New Testament covers: gospel need, gospel proclamation, gospel response, and gospel ethics. In your preaching, follow Jesus’s pattern.
Below are eight suggestions to help your homiletics soar. Or, at least get off the ground.
First, share what is truly important. If you are clearly given the main point of a parable in the text, or you have painstakingly discerned it in your study, share it with God’s people from the start and throughout. For example, Luke tells us in Luke 18:1 that Jesus taught the parable of the persistent widow “to the effect that they [his disciples] ought always to pray and not lose heart.” You need to unpack the symbolic relationship between the unrighteous judge and God and the widow and God’s elect, but not at the expense of sharing the point of those two characters’ actions. The sermon should be dominated by what is truly important, not by all the possible interpretations or twenty minutes of unraveling the symbolic details.
Second, take time to explain. You need to get to the point (see above), but not at the expense of making sure that all the important details in the parable are explicated. In most settings, we are up against two obstacles: (1) people who don’t use or hear parables on a regular basis, or at all, and (2) most biblical parables are “notoriously puzzling” and their “meaning is rarely transparent.”2 Be patient. Explain slowly and clearly. Illustrate.
Third, contemporize. One way to explain and illustrate is to retell a parable, or part of a parable, as a paraphrase and/or with a relevant and accessible story from today. As Blomberg advocates, “it will be both easy and helpful to include some modern equivalent to the biblical story in an introduction, in one or more illustrations interspersed within the body, or in a conclusion to the message. These contemporizations should work to recreate the original dynamic, force, or effect of Jesus’ original story. It is not true that narratives cannot (or should not) be paraphrased propositionally; it is true that good exposition should not do just that.”3
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Jesus prohibits a critical spirit, but does not forbid all use of the critical faculty. To follow Jesus, we must therefore discover why he says, “Judge not,” in Matthew 7, but says, “Judge with right judgment,” in John 7. Notice first that Jesus tells His disciples to make judgments in the very chapter that says “Judge not.” Later in Matthew 7, Jesus says, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them (vv. 15-16). That is, disciples must discern – must judge – who is a false prophet and who is a true one. 

I just read again what is most likely the most misused and abused passage in all of Scripture. And I also just read two obvious correctives to such lousy interpretations and understandings that immediately follow from it. I refer of course to Matthew 7. Verses 1-5 – especially v. 1 – are the ones routinely massacred, even by so many Christians. They are certainly quite well known:
Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
How many times have you heard it said – even by rather clueless Christians – that we must never judge? Yet if you press these folks and say that folks ARE to make distinctions between what is true and false, right and wrong, they will reply, ‘Oh, but that is different.’
Um, no it is not different. You cannot judge without being discerning and making distinctions. Whenever you discern and test and evaluate you are of necessity making a judgment. They go together – it is a package deal. Christians and non-Christians alike thus judge every single day – whether they are making a choice between a cappuccino and a flat white, or between one person and another for a marriage partner.
Judgment and discernment go together. And the very next verse in Matthew 7 makes this clear. Jesus goes on to say this in v. 6: “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.” Deciding who is a dog or a pig, and deciding what is holy, are all matters of judgment and discernment. – can’t be avoided.
But it does not stop there. Just a few verses later we get even more commands by Jesus to judge and discern. Verses 15-20 say this:
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
No one reading all of Matthew 7 can ever come away with the nonsensical notion that the Christian is not to judge. Quite the opposite: while the Christian is not to engage in HYPOCRITICAL judging (which is exactly the point of verses 1-5), the believer IS to constantly judge, discern, assess, test, and weigh things up. This is commanded throughout Scripture.
All sensible (and discriminating) expositors of Scripture of course understand this. They will not fall for the ‘do not judge’ silliness. Let me draw upon a few of them here. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in his Studies on the Sermon on the Mount says this:
If our Lord had finished His teaching with those first five verses, it would undoubtedly have led to a false position. Men and women would be so careful to avoid the terrible danger of judging in that wrong sense that they would exercise no discrimination, no judgment whatsoever. There would be no such thing as discipline in the Church, and the whole of the Christian life would be chaotic.
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There are rough seas ahead for those who desire to remain faithful.  Some have not realised this yet and are surprised such days are upon the Church.  They will learn and hopefully adapt.  Their souls will survive unscathed even if their minds and bodies do not. What should we do in the meantime?  By the grace of God, remain faithful. 

When the Apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, he told them (and us) that before the coming of the lawless one that God would “send a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” 2 Thessalonians 2:-11-12
How else can we explain how so many have abandoned basic Christian teaching and adopted false teaching?  Many of our bishops take pleasure in the unrighteous positions of the LGBT advocacy groups.  A greater number of parochial clergy openly embrace sins that a generation before would have been thought universally sinful nonsense.
This is not a millenarian rant.  This publication will make no prediction about the timing of the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. That said, how else can one explain why so many of our leaders cannot express basic Christian doctrine in a biblically faithful manner — other than we are in a time when God has decided to send a strong delusion to them?
Consider what comes from the mouths of so many in authority.  When they say something that is nothing short of heretical with a straight-face you might well ask, “Where in the world did he get that rubbish?”
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