The Parables of the Tower Builder and the Warring King #38

The Parables of the Tower Builder and the Warring King are two paired stories Jesus told to a large crowd that was traveling with him. A man building a tower and a king going to war each must first sit down and count the cost, and Jesus applies both to anyone who would follow him. They appear only in the Gospel of Luke (14:28-33) and are the classic passage on counting the cost of discipleship.

The Parables

Jesus asks which of his hearers, wanting to build a tower, does not first sit down and figure out whether he has enough to finish it. If he lays a foundation and cannot complete the work, everyone who sees it will mock him and say, “This man began to build and was not able to finish” (Luke 14:28-30). He then asks what king, going to face another king in war, will not first sit down and consider whether he can meet with ten thousand soldiers the one coming against him with twenty thousand. If he cannot, he sends a delegation while the other is still far away and asks for terms of peace (Luke 14:31-32). Jesus concludes, “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:33).

Context

Luke says that large crowds were going along with Jesus when he turned and spoke to them (Luke 14:25). He had just said that anyone who comes to him and does not “hate” father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life cannot be his disciple, and that anyone who does not carry his own cross and follow him cannot be his disciple (Luke 14:26-27). The language of “hate” reflects a Semitic idiom of stark comparison, and Matthew’s parallel phrases it as loving family more than Jesus (Matthew 10:37-38).

The two parables come right after the great banquet, in which the invited guests make excuses, and they answer the enthusiasm of the crowd with a sober warning. A tower might be a watchtower in a vineyard or a farm building, and unfinished foundations were an obvious sign of failure. The king’s small army facing a larger one was a familiar situation in ancient politics.

Meaning

The main point is that discipleship is costly and that Jesus does not want a following built on unexamined excitement. Christ is not asking for a calculation to avoid commitment but for honesty about what commitment involves.

The second parable is read in more than one way. Some interpreters treat it as a parallel to the first, another illustration of counting the cost. Others see the king who seeks peace as a picture of coming to terms with God before it is too late. Both readings lead to the same conclusion in verse 33, that a disciple must be willing to give up everything that competes with Christ.

Christian traditions differ in how they apply the call to renounce all. Some, including monastic orders in Catholic and Orthodox churches, have understood it as a literal calling for certain people, while others take it as a demand for an inward readiness that all believers must have.