Klyne Snodgrass has done this decade and maybe the next two the favor of condensing 35 years of teaching the Parables of Jesus into "just" 800 pages or so, in Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus.
This is the book almost every seminary graduate will wish he or she had had when studying the parables. I do, and I wish I had had it the past 40 years. There are classics on the Parables, to be sure, such as the one by Jeremias
The Parables of Jesus 3rd revised edition (simplified in his
Rediscovering the Parables), but none were as comprehensive as this one.
Two features make Stories with Intent remarkably easy to read. First, all the chapters on the parables themselves follow the same basic outline, but it is the vertical white space that makes the outline stand out and the discussion particularly easy to follow. Secondly, all the advanced discussion is in the end notes, so that the reader who needs to follow up can and the reader who prefers not to can just keep reading.
In addition, the chapters on the parables themselves end with a section called "Adapting the Parable" (just before "For Further Reading)." The former describes the significance of the parable for today, in somewhat wider ways than mere "application," though that it included, too. Often Snodgrass makes a pithy remark--almost a wisdom saying in its own right--to end that section. For example, "Once again, the note of joy, as an essential feature of the kingdom, cannot be neglected. Where joy is absent, the kingdom is absent" (concluding "The Lost Coin").
One of the most unusual features of the book is that, for each parable discussed, it sets Jesus' parables in the context of the ancient world by prominently citing or paraphrasing parables or similar sayings from the Old Testament, Graeco-Roman authors, early and later Jewish/Rabbinic sources, and early Christian writers. For example, introducing the background of The Lost Coin, he cites Dio Chrysostom complaining that people who pay no attention to time and money still become distressed at losing 1 drachma [1 day's wage for a male laborer, 2 days' wage for a woman, he tells us later].
I recommend that you read the first two chapters first before dipping into the chapters on individual parables, so that you will understand his approach and some technical terms that keep coming up in the later chapters, for example, "nimshal" (Hebrew or Aramaic for "explanatory interpretation"), defined early in the book and used fairly often later on (but with no subject index, ... well, hard to find its meaning presented).
One interpretive principle he stated resonated with me: "... the realization that introductions such as 'The kingdom is like a man' (or a woman or seed, etc.) do not compare the kingdom to the characters or objects but to the whole process of the narration. ... We will see over and over that the whole narrated process in in view, not just the first item mentioned" (p. 29).
If you are looking for the best book available on the Parables of Jesus and you have the skill to use it, this is it. You don't need a seminary degree to understand it, but there are times when it would make it easier for you. For most readers, it is like a gold mine, but they will have to dig a little to use it. Finally, you will want your Bible at hand and open to follow up on the passages he cites and, for sure, to read the parables under discussion.
