Parable Ten Virgins Quotes

There is in true grace an infinite circle: a man by thirsting receives, and receiving thirsts for more.

Messianic banquet. Isaiah 25:6–8 provides the foundation for this banquet at which God will provide a rich feast for all peoples and remove the disgrace of his people. It became very popular at the time between the Testaments, and by New Testament times had become a prominent part of people’s thinking and expectation concerning the messianic age. A number of Jesus’ parables, miracles, and teachings, especially in Matthew, should be understood in that context (e.g., the Parable of the Wedding Banquet [Matt. 22:1–14] and the Parable of the Ten Virgins [Matt. 25:1–13]).

In the parable of the ten virgins, Jesus is clearly saying that prior to his return the whole church will be asleep (Mt. 25:5), not just the foolish virgins but the wise as well. This verse turned my thinking upside down. No matter how I looked at it, no matter what commentary I read, no one had an adequate answer for what this verse really says. Denomination Presidents, Seminary Professors, Pastors and everyone in the pews: Jesus is telling us that we’re all snoozing.

In keeping with prophetic convention, the near event—the destruction of the temple—served as a type (picture or foreshadowing) of the worldwide divine judgment that will come upon the earth at Christ’s return. The main themes of Jesus’s discourse, reinforced by the parables of the ten virgins and of the talents, are clear. Followers of Jesus will experience increasing persecution and tribulation leading up to the final day of judgment, but they must remain vigilant and persist in faith.

There is in John no account of a miraculous or virgin birth. It is inconceivable to me that at least the last author or editor of John had not heard of this story, since it had been introduced into the Jesus tradition some ten to fifteen years earlier. So we have to wonder why there is no allusion to it. Not only is there no supernatural birth story in John’s gospel, but on two occasions (John 1:45 and John 6:42) Jesus is referred to in a rather matter-of-fact way as “the son of Joseph.” In the Fourth Gospel John the Baptist never baptizes Jesus as he does in the first three gospels. All he does in John is bear witness to Jesus. In the Fourth Gospel there is no account of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness and no account of the transfiguration of Jesus when he spoke to Moses and Elijah. In the Fourth Gospel there are no short provocative sayings of Jesus, no parables and no version of the Sermon on the Mount. Instead, Jesus is portrayed as uttering long, sometimes convoluted theological dialogues or monologues. In the Fourth Gospel the story of the cleansing of the Temple is not associated with the final week of Jesus’ life as it is in all the other gospels. It occurs rather in chapter 2, near the beginning of his public ministry. In the Fourth Gospel the setting is mostly Jerusalem, with Jesus retreating to Galilee only to escape the hostile presence of the Judean authorities. In the three earlier gospels Jesus goes to Jerusalem only once, and that is for the Passover, at which time he is crucified. He is in Jerusalem for three Passovers in John. In the Fourth Gospel there is no description of the Last Supper. Nowhere in this gospel does Jesus share the Passover meal with his disciples in an upper room. In place of the institution of the Last Supper, this gospel tells us of the foot-washing ceremony and attaches all of Jesus’ teaching about the Eucharist to the story of the feeding of the five thousand in chapter 6. In the Fourth Gospel miracles are transformed into “signs,” which describe a dramatic truth that is breaking into human consciousness in Jesus. Most of the signs correlate very poorly with earlier miracle stories. In the Fourth Gospel there is no anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane and no prayer in which Jesus asks to be spared his fate. Instead Jesus is recorded as rejecting that synoptic tradition and saying that he was born for the purpose of being crucified (John 12:27).