The story of the rich man and Lazarus uniquely recorded in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 16:19–31) is one of the most enigmatic teachings of Jesus.  The story raises questions regarding the nature of death, the afterlife, and the punishment of sinners, and we have explored its meaning in another post, here.

In this post we will look at a more fundamental aspect of this story –  whether it represents the reporting of an actual event, as it certainly might appear to do, or if it simply represents a parable meant to teach one or more lessons.  The nature of the story is particularly important because if it is intended to be understood as being the reporting of an actual event, that must affect our understanding of the details of the story itself and the nature of the afterlife scenario that it describes.  

There are two main reasons why the story is sometimes seen as reporting a factual event rather than being simply a parable.  First, it is true that the Synoptic Gospel writers (there are no true parables in John’s Gospel) usually introduce the telling of a parable with words such as “Then Jesus told them a parable” (Luke 18:1), or they tell us in retrospect that something was a parable, as in “Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables” (Matthew 13:34).  But in Luke 16 there are no such statements that the story of Lazarus and the rich man was, in fact, a parable.

Secondly, the parables of Jesus are almost always generic – they do not utilize the names of actual individuals, but rather tell us of the actions of “a man” or “a woman” or even “a certain king” or whoever.  In Luke 16, however, Jesus specifically names the man Lazarus as the central character of the story, in line with his statements regarding other specific individuals such as King Herod or John the Baptist.

But against these two arguments it can be said that the gospel writers do not, in fact, always mention when a story is a parable.  Luke himself does not do so in recording the story of the rich man and his financial manager (Luke 16:1– 13) which does not utilize any personal names and is universally regarded as a parable.   Also,  although Jesus does not use personal names in his other parables, he did sometimes  include personal details and allusions that associate the story with an actual individual. Such are his parables about building a tower (Luke 14:28–30) and a king  waging war without proper preparation (Luke 14:31– 32), both of which can be clearly linked to specific rulers of that era although they are not actually named. 

Another aspect to consider is that Jesus frequently stressed the meanings of names –  as when he named Simon, “Peter.”  This attention to names and their meanings may play out in the story of Lazarus and the rich man because in its underlying Hebrew form, Eleazer, the name means “God has helped,” painting a powerful word picture of the identity of an individual who was shunned and rejected, yet whom God helped.

Finally, there is a convincing grammatical reason to understand this story as a parable. In recounting the parables of Jesus Luke often uses the Greek pronoun tis, “one” or “someone” (often translated “a certain …” in Bible translations). So, for example, he tells us that “A certain man had two sons” (Luke 15:11).   Luke uses exactly this pattern in introducing the story of the rich man and Lazarus: “There was a certain rich man …” (Luke 16:1), indicating that he was introducing not a reported event, but a parable. 

Taken together, these four reasons outweigh the fact that personal names are not usually used in the parables of Jesus and show that the story of the rich man and Lazarus is best understood as a parable in which the name of the only identified person  has relevance to the story itself.  This is an important conclusion as it means that we should not use the story in the formation of doctrine regarding heaven, hell, or punishment.  It is likely, in fact, that rather than revealing actual details regarding the afterlife (which would be unique in the whole Bible), the story of the rich man and Lazarus is simply a parable using the current understandings of the religious individuals with whom Jesus was speaking.

​If someone were to ask you to summarize the apostle Paul’s teaching found in his letters in the New Testament, what would you say?  ​Chances are, like most of us who know and love Paul's epistles, you would take a deep breath and launch into a somewhat complicated explanation of the nature of salvation, faith, law, grace, and a number of other core Christian doctrines.

But was Paul really just a “theologian’s theologian,” a “super-scholar” who concentrated on doctrine and the theory of Christianity above all else?  The answer, of course, is not at all. There are plenty of life experiences behind a great deal of what Paul tells us.  We only have to look, for example, at his first letter to the Corinthian church.  Paul has a great deal of practical guidance for Christians dealing with some of the problems and challenges of life. But we can go further than that. There is actually a practical side to most of what Paul wrote – we just don’t always see it.  

When we look at Paul’s epistles closely, we find that he frequently divides his material so that the first half of his letter stresses theological issues and the second half of the letter stresses their practical application. We can see this quite clearly in Romans, Galatians, Ephesians and Colossians, but the principle applies to most of his epistles.   In Ephesians, for example, the doctrinal portion of the letter (chapters 1-3) is followed by an ethical or Christian living section (chapters 4-6), and the whole epistle is structured around this balance.

But that’s not all.  When we focus on almost any section of the apostle’s writings, we find that he utilizes this balanced form of teaching continually.  We just have to learn to see the pattern.  In one half of his statements Paul often presents a theological fact, and in the other half we are given the application of that fact.  Usually, it is first the doctrine, then the practice.  In fact, at a technical level, Paul actually often balances two different forms of the same verb – first the “indicative” form stressing a fact, then the “imperative” form telling us what we must do about that fact.  But the overall pattern of fact plus application of the fact is very clear when we look for it.  Consider a few examples where the indicative factual statement is italicized and the imperative command is bolded:

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love” (Galatians 5:13).

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1).

Sometimes we have to continue reading for several verses to get to the practical application of a point, as in this example:

“For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.  Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature… ” (Colossians 3:3-5).

And sometimes Paul reverses the order – placing the practical application before the doctrinal fact – but if we keep the pattern in mind, we will see the balance is still there:

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32).

“Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (Philippians 2:12-13).

Whatever order he uses, once we see this pattern in Paul, every epistle becomes a clearly linked series of thoughts about what God has done and what we must do as a result.  But it is not just a way of teaching what we must do.  The “indicative-imperative dynamic,” as theologians call it, is just as much about helping us understand why we should do the things we need to do.

The balanced structure of teaching we see in these verses is certainly not something that was new to Paul – we find it occasionally in formally structured sections of instruction throughout the Bible. To take only two examples:

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me …” (Exodus 20:2-3).

“… Our Father in heaven, Your name be honored as holy” (Matthew 6:9 HSB).
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But Paul uses this structure more consistently than any other biblical writer.  If we look for it, we will find there is invariably a connection between what he tells us about what we should believe and the way we should live – between theology and morality, orthodoxy and orthopraxy, belief and practice, doctrine and living.

As we study his epistles, we should continually ask “What is the fact Paul is stating?” and “What is he saying we should do as a result of that fact?”  If we do this consistently, we will often see the point he is making far more clearly – and not miss the guidance he gives us.  Keeping this simple principle in mind can help us to navigate through Paul’s sometimes dense and even difficult writing (2 Peter 3:16) by better keeping up with his arguments and the significance of what he is telling us.

Paul wasn’t just about theology, and focusing on the practical side of his letters can often help us to better understand much of what he wrote. After all, it was Paul himself who said “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me--put it into practice” (Philippians 4:9).