A parable is a short story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one designed to illustrate or teach some truth, religious principle, or moral lesson.
Throughout the Gospels in the Bible, (the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) Jesus spoke to his disciples and crowds that gathered around him in parables when speaking about the Kingdom of God. Jesus explains the reasons for speaking in parables in the Book of Mark Chapter 4: 10-12,
10 But when He was alone, those around Him with the twelve asked Him about the parable. 11And He said to them, “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, 12so that
‘Seeing they may see and not perceive,
And hearing they may hear and not understand;
Lest they should turn,
And their sins be forgiven them.’”
I believe that John of Patmos wrote down exactly what was revealed to him in the vision from God. I also believe that in that vision, everything that God revealed to him was revealed in the parable form. For example, just as in the visions and parables in the Bible, everything John saw and wrote down was not intended to be taken literal but symbolizes or represents something that is to be interpreted.
1Corinthans 2:10 says, “10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.[c]14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.”
