focused on the central lesson. It’s not a good idea to try to milk meaning out of every incidental detail in a parable. Medieval theologians were notorious for that. They might expound for hours on the minute particulars of every parable, trying to find very detailed, symbolic, spiritual meanings in every feature of the story—sometimes while virtually ignoring the real point of the parable. That’s a dangerous way to handle any scripture. But it is an especially easy mistake to fall into when it comes