The Parables of Our Lord

What It's About

This is a sequence of expositions on the parables of Jesus in the Gospels, taken one at a time. Arnot sets each parable in its scene and then draws out what it teaches about God, human nature and the Christian life. The book grew out of the pulpit, so it reads as warm, illustrated preaching rather than technical commentary. It is among the best-known Victorian evangelical treatments of the parables.

Key Concepts

Arnot treats the parables as pictures drawn from everyday life, such as farming, trade, households and journeys, that carry spiritual truths. His recurring themes are grace and forgiveness, the cost of neglecting opportunity, watchfulness and readiness, humility, and the gap between outward religion and a changed heart. He favours vivid analogy and practical application over doctrinal debate. His approach is devotional and reflects mid-nineteenth-century Scottish Presbyterian thinking, so readers looking for modern critical scholarship will find it a different kind of book.

About the Author

William Arnot (1808–1875) was a Scottish minister, born in Perthshire and trained as a gardener before studying for the ministry at Glasgow. He served Free St Peter's Church in Glasgow, having joined the Free Church at the Disruption of 1843, and later the Free High Church in Edinburgh. He was widely loved as a "pictorial" preacher who found striking spiritual parallels in ordinary working life.