Thank you for joining us for our five days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. This is Day 854 of our trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday. Due to my heavy travel schedule this week, I will be switching from our regular daily topics, and instead, I will be reading through the parables of Jesus.
Jesus’s parables are seemingly simple and memorable stories, often with imagery, that all convey messages. Scholars have commented that although these parables seem simple, the messages they convey are deep and central to the teachings of Jesus. Christian authors view them not as mere similitudes, which serve the purpose of illustration, but as internal analogies in which nature becomes a witness for the spiritual world.
Many of Jesus’s parables refer to simple everyday things, such as a woman baking bread, a man knocking on his neighbor’s door at night, or the aftermath of a roadside mugging. Yet they deal with major religious themes, such as the growth of the Kingdom of God, the importance of prayer, and the meaning of love.
In Western civilization, these parables formed the prototype for the term parable; and in the modern age, even among those who know little of the Bible, the parables of Jesus remain some of the best-known stories in the world.
We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. Our parable for today is taken from Matthew 25:1-13 and is about…
Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. The five who were foolish didn’t take enough olive oil for their lamps, but the other five were wise enough to take along extra oil. When the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
At midnight they were roused by the shout, “Look, the bridegroom is coming! Come out and meet him!”
All the bridesmaids got up and prepared their lamps. Then the five foolish ones asked the others, “Please give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out.”
But the others replied, “We don’t have enough for all of us....
