Parable Match
Pick a parable on the left, then its match on the right. Choose what you want to match on — the meaning, the key lesson, the symbol, the characters, the place or the reference.
Leaderboard
The twenty highest scores for this game, by day, week, month and all time.
About Parable Match
Parable Match asks you to connect a parable to its meaning, its key lesson, its central symbol, its characters, its setting or its reference — six different ways of holding the same story.
Roughly a third of Jesus' recorded teaching is in parables, and they are concentrated in the Synoptic Gospels. They are not simple illustrations with obvious morals; Mark 4:10-12 records Jesus explaining that parables both reveal and conceal, and the disciples regularly have to ask what one meant.
Most parables make one central point rather than encoding a meaning for every detail. Where Jesus himself supplies an interpretation — as with the sower in Mark 4:13-20 — that interpretation is the anchor. Elsewhere, Christians have long read some parables in more than one legitimate way, and treating every element as a symbol is where interpretation most often goes wrong.
Audience matters too. Luke 15 opens by telling us who was listening — tax collectors and sinners on one side, Pharisees and scribes grumbling on the other — and the three parables that follow are aimed squarely at that situation.
How to play
- 1.Choose what you want to match on: meaning, lesson, symbol, characters, place or reference.
- 2.Pick a parable on the left, then its match on the right.
- 3.Wrong pairings are explained, so you learn the distinction rather than just losing a point.
- 4.Raise the tier to work with less familiar parables.
What it reinforces
- Which Gospel records which parable.
- The central point of each story rather than a vague impression.
- The cast and setting, which often carry the meaning.
- The difference between parables that sound similar.
What to notice while you play
- Who Jesus is speaking to, and what has just been said or asked.
- Whether the Gospel writer supplies an interpretation, and whether you are adding one that is not there.
- Reversals — the character a first-century audience would not expect to be the hero.
- Parables that appear in more than one Gospel with different framing.
Taking it into your Bible reading
Read a parable with the verses immediately before and after it. In Luke especially, the setup line tells you what the parable is answering. Then ask what single point the story makes, and resist assigning meaning to every prop in it.
Reading a cluster together helps: the three lost-and-found parables of Luke 15, or the kingdom parables of Matthew 13, are clearly arranged as sets and interpret one another.
Passages to read
- Mark 4:1-20 — The sower, with Jesus' own interpretation attached.
- Luke 15 — Three parables of losing and finding, with the audience named at the start.
- Matthew 13 — A cluster of kingdom parables read together.
- Luke 10:25-37 — The good Samaritan, given in answer to a specific question.
Read these in full rather than as single lines. A game can only point at a passage; the passage itself is the thing worth your time.
Keep learning
- Match the Miracle — the acts alongside the teaching.
- Bible Trivia — broader recall across the Gospels.
- Learning Center — lessons on how to read parables carefully.
Go deeper into the teaching of Jesus with Bible Trivia or memorise his words in the Bible Memory Challenge.