Parables are a bit like analogies with a certain tension. The parable’s function is to restructure our observation, or make us look at matters from a different perspective. In other words, stories and parables are gentle ways to wrap a message, sometimes even a hard or confrontational message. Parables carry an element of truth in them, by which you can judge your own actions. They also have a regulating function in the sense that you either want to comply with the message or you don’t. They are incentives and directives.

The parables on this site and the stories we use for Story Mail come from a private collection. This collection numbers more than 500 different long and short stories, which have been used intensively in the reading scene in the past thirty years. This collection is unique because it has been compiled with care and all the stories have a quality that is not always to be found.

It would be going too far to mention the source of all stories and in many cases this can no longer be retrieved as some stories date back to the beginning of our era and have been published in many books through the centuries. Nor do we try to examine the meaning of the stories, as you can read in the short parable opposite. In some stories the meaning is obvious, other stories are a bit more difficult to interpret.

The master often used parables and stories in his teachings. One of his pupils was once asked by somebody where his teacher got all those stories from. ‘From God,’ he replied. ‘When God makes you into a doctor, He sends you patients; when He makes you into a teacher, He sends you pupils; when He makes you into a master, He gives you stories.’