Parables...attract attention by their pictorial or paradoxical language, and at the same time their indirect approach serves to tease and provoke the hearer. It would be possible to hear a parable as no more than an interesting story or a striking bon mot, and entirely to miss the point. Parables offer images and riddles which we must work out for ourselves if we are to understand and respond. Parabolic teaching is not given on a plate. It demands perception and careful thought, and it challenges to appropriate action.
RT France, Divine Government, SPCK, p.30
