Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 91:362 (Apr 1934)
Article: The Parable of the Nobleman and the Earthly Kingdom Luke 19:11-27
Author: Henry Clarence Thiessen

BSac 91:362 (Apr 34) p. 180

The Parable of the Nobleman and the Earthly Kingdom
Luke 19:11-27

Henry Clarence Thiessen

The Parable of the Nobleman contains important truth for our times. It indicates perhaps more clearly than any other of our Lord’s parables that when He returns He will set up an earthly kingdom in which His servants will reign with Him.

In studying this parable we need not concern ourselves with the details found in the somewhat similar parable, that of the Talents, in Matt 25:14–30. Little sympathy is now shown for Strauss’ theory, that Luke combines in his parable elements of the parable of the husbandman (Luke 20) and the talents (Matt 25). Calvin, Olshausen, Meyer, Weiss, Ewald, Bleek, and Jülicher maintain that the parable of the talents and that of the pounds are one and the same; but they do so at the expense of the reputation of the evangelists. Edersheim finds it difficult to believe that they are two different parables, but concludes that it is “perhaps safest to assume” that they are different.1 Alford accepts them as two different parables and rightly says on the view that they are one and the same: “If so, we must at once give up, not only the pretention to historical accuracy on the part of our Gospels, but all idea that they furnish us with the words of our Lord anywhere: for the whole structure and incidents of the two are essentially different.”2 Trench,3 Godet,4 Bruce,5 and

BSac 91:362 (Apr 34) p. 181

Plummer,6 also hold that the two are different parables. Plummer has a full discussion of the problem. Among other things he says: “Out of about 302 words in Matthew and 286 in Luke, only about 66 words or parts of words are common to the two.”7 We conclude, therefore, that they are two distinct parables and that the details of the parable in Matthew have no bearing on the interpretation of the one in Luke.

In coming to the interpretation of the parable, we should remember to note the historical occasion and aim of it, the nature and properties of the things employed in the similitude, and interpret “the several parts with strict reference to the general scope and design of the whole.”8 To neglect any one of these three canons of interpr...