Parables trivia, with the parable on the page.

In the parable of the prodigal son, what does the father order to be brought when his son returns home?

1. The fattened calf
2. The best wine
3. The signet ring of his uncle
4. Bread and water

"And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate."Luke 15:23

The fattened calf — kept specifically for a major celebration — is part of three quick gestures of restoration: the best robe, a ring (signaling restored sonship), sandals (signaling free man, not slave), and a feast. The father isn't reluctantly forgiving; he's running, embracing, and celebrating before the son finishes his rehearsed apology.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, who was beaten and left for dead on the road to Jericho?

1. A Samaritan merchant
2. A man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho
3. A Levite priest
4. A Galilean fisherman

"A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead."Luke 10:30

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho dropped 3,000 feet over 17 miles through bandit-friendly terrain. Jesus' choice of a Samaritan as the hero — a member of the religious group Jews regarded with contempt — turns the lawyer's question "who is my neighbor?" inside out. The story redefines neighbor not by ethnicity or proximity but by mercy in action.

In the parable of the sower, what represents the word of God?

1. The soil
2. The seed
3. The sun
4. The harvest

"The sower sows the word."Mark 4:14

The parable of the sower is one of the few Jesus explicitly interprets. The seed is the message; the four soils — path, rocky, thorny, good — represent four kinds of hearers. The point isn't agricultural advice but spiritual diagnostic: what kind of ground is your heart? Only one of the four soils bears fruit, and the call is to be it.

In the parable of the mustard seed, what does the small seed grow into?

1. A field of wheat
2. A grove of olive trees
3. The greatest of garden plants, with birds nesting in its branches
4. A cedar of Lebanon

"It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."Matthew 13:32

The parable explains the trajectory of the kingdom: small and unimpressive in its beginning, vast in its eventual reach. The image of birds in the branches deliberately echoes Ezekiel 17 and Daniel 4, where great empires are pictured as trees giving shelter. Jesus is saying his kingdom will be that kind of tree — but it starts as a seed.

In the parable of the ten virgins, why were five of them shut out of the wedding feast?

1. They wore the wrong clothing
2. They arrived too early
3. They had no oil for their lamps when the bridegroom came
4. They were not on the guest list

"And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut."Matthew 25:10

The parable is one of three in Matthew 25 about the second coming. The contrast is between wise and foolish, not between believing and unbelieving — all ten are virgins, all ten have lamps, all ten fall asleep waiting. The difference is preparation. Jesus' point: readiness for his return is not something that can be borrowed at the last minute.

In the parable of the talents, what does the master say to the servant who buried his one talent?

1. "Well done, good and faithful servant."
2. "You wicked and slothful servant."
3. "Welcome home, my friend."
4. "Take your wages and go in peace."

"But his master answered him, 'You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed?'"Matthew 25:26

The third servant's defense — "I was afraid" — and his decision to bury the talent are condemned not because he lost the money but because he failed to risk anything with it. A talent was a unit of immense weight (75 pounds of silver). The parable presses the point that the kingdom is entrusted to its servants for productive use, not preservation, and accountability follows.

In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, what did the rich man ask Abraham to do for him after death?

1. Transfer him to heaven
2. Send Lazarus to dip his finger in water and cool his tongue
3. Give him another chance at life
4. Strike his brothers with fear

"Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame."Luke 16:24

Even in torment, the rich man still treats Lazarus as a servant — "send Lazarus" — never speaking to him directly. Abraham's reply that a "great chasm" has been fixed between them, and that those who refuse Moses and the Prophets will not be convinced even by a resurrection, is a striking foreshadowing of Jesus' own coming rejection.

In the parable of the wheat and the weeds, who is responsible for sowing the weeds among the wheat?

1. A drunken servant
2. The wind
3. The owner himself, to test the harvest
4. An enemy

"He answered, 'An enemy has done this.' So the servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?'"Matthew 13:28

Jesus explains the parable in the same chapter: the field is the world, the good seed are the sons of the kingdom, the weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy is the devil. The owner refuses to pull the weeds early — at harvest time, the angels will sort them out. The parable answers a perennial question: why is the world a mix of good and evil if the King is sovereign?

In the parable of the unforgiving servant, the king forgave him a debt of how much?

1. Thirty silver coins
2. One hundred denarii
3. Ten thousand talents
4. A single shekel

"When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents."Matthew 18:24

A talent was about 6,000 denarii (a denarius was a day's wage). Ten thousand talents was therefore roughly 200,000 years of wages — an absurd, deliberately unpayable sum. The servant then chokes a fellow servant over a hundred denarii (about four months' wages). The parable answers Peter's question about forgiveness with a math problem: you have been forgiven beyond calculation; act accordingly.

In the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, what did the owner pay each worker, regardless of when he started?

1. A loaf of bread
2. A denarius
3. A shekel of silver
4. A talent of gold

"After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard."Matthew 20:2

A denarius was a fair day's wage for a laborer. Those hired at the eleventh hour received the same as those who bore the heat of the day — and the early workers grumbled, exactly as Jesus' first hearers would have. The parable, set between two statements that "the last will be first," confronts merit-based religion: in the kingdom, generosity is not injustice, and grace is not earned by length of service.