The following is a stained glass window depicting The Parable of the Rich Fool by Arthur J. Dix, 1898. From St John’s church, Bowness-on-Windermere, England:
Hosted by Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication
Stained glass is not just highly decorative, it’s a medium which has been used to express important religious messages for centuries. Literacy was not widespread in the medieval and Renaissance periods and the Church used stained glass and other artworks to teach the central beliefs of Christianity. In Gothic churches, the windows were filled with extensive narrative scenes in stained glass — like huge and colorful picture storybooks — in which worshipers could ‘read’ the stories of Christ and the saints and learn what was required for their religious salvation. (Source: Victoria and Albert Museum )
Following is a 1973 painting of the JESUS MAFA project, a response to New Testament readings from the Lectionary by a Christian community in Cameroon, Africa. Each of the readings was selected and adapted to dramatic interpretation by the community members. Photographs of their interpretations were made, and these were then transcribed to paintings:
From Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. Image retrieved March 23, 2026. Original source: librairie-emmanuel.fr.
Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 12:17:
Noongar: “He began saying, ‘I don’t own a big house for keeping my grain. What can I do?'” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Uma: “He said in his heart: ‘What am I going to do? It no longer fits in my storehouse for me to store the fruits of my farming/My storehouse is no longer big enough for me to store the fruits of my farming.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Then he said in his liver, ‘What shall I do now, for I don’t have enough room to store all the crops/all my plants yielded?” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And that person thought, ‘What am I going to do with all of my harvests? Because I cannot get them all in my bodegas, and I have no other place to place them’.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “So he said to himself, ‘What perhaps will I do? Because here-now my granaries are lacking as a place-for-me-to-store all that I am harvesting.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “There was one year when what he harvested was too much for his containers. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘where else can I put into?” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Barclay Newman, a translator on the teams for both the Good News Bible and the Contemporary English Version, translated passages of the New Testament into English and published them in 2014, “in a publication brief enough to be non-threatening, yet long enough to be taken seriously, and interesting enough to appeal to believers and un-believers alike.” The following is the translation of Luke 12:15-21:
Jesus stood up and warned the crowd, “Don’t be greedy!
Wealth won’t get you where you want to go.”
Then he told them this story:
“At harvest time a rich man had an abundant crop,
but he didn’t have enough room to store it all.
After thinking things over for a while,
he finally decided to tear down his old barns
and build super sized storage bins.
“Once I do this,” he smiled and said to himself,
“I’ll have enough set aside for years to come.”
So he decided to live his life to the max.
But as he celebrated, the voice of God thundered,
“Stupid fool! Tonight you die. Then who will get it all?”
Jesus concluded by saying,
“This is what happens to people who pile up wealth
without weighing the thunderous judgment of God.”
Living Water is produced for the Bible translation movement in association with Lutheran Bible Translators. Lyrics derived from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®).
kai dielogizeto en heautō ‘and he debated with himself,’ durative imperfect. For dialogizomai cf. on 1.29.
hoti ouk echō pou sunaxō tous karpous mou lit. ‘for I have not where I shall store my crops,’ i.e. ‘I have no place to store my crops.’
sunagō (cf. on 3.17) here ‘to store.’
karpos ‘fruit,’ here in the plural of grain/corn crops.
Translation:
He thought to (or, within) himself, or, ‘he deliberated,’ ‘he asked (in) his heart,’ or simply, ‘he thought.’
What shall I do, or, ‘what am I to do.’ Some idiomatic renderings are, ‘what-now my-tactics’ (Malay), ‘how am I to devise now’ (Balinese), ‘how the plan’ (Javanese).
Nowhere to store …, or, ‘no place where I can put-away…’ (Sranan Tongo), ‘not enough place for-storing…’ (Tae’). Some versions (e.g. Tae’ 1933) use the more specific term rendering “barn” in v. 18.
My crops may have to become, ‘the crops (or, the produce/yield) of my farm/fields’ (e.g. in some Indonesian languages).
Quoted with permission from Reiling, J. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1971. For this and other handbooks for translators see here . Make sure to also consult the Handbook on the Gospel of Mark for parallel or similar verses.
So: This verse begins with a Greek conjunction that is often translated as “and.” Some English versions, such as the English Standard Version, translate it that way. The Berean Standard Bible (and the NET Bible) translate it as So in order to show that it introduces the result of what 12:16b described. It was because the rich man harvested such a good crop that he needed to decide what to do with it. Other versions, such as the New International Version and Good News Translation, do not translate this conjunction. In some languages it may be more natural to make this connection explicit. For example:
So/Then he thought to himself -or-
Because of this, he thought to himself
he thought to himself: The Greek expression that the Berean Standard Bible translates as he thought to himself means that the man reasoned or discussed in his own mind what he ought to do. Other ways to translate this idea are:
He thought (God’s Word) -or-
He said in his own mind -or-
He wondered -or-
He asked himself
Notice that the man did not conclude his mental discussion until 12:18–19. Because of this, it may be natural in some languages to indicate in 12:17a that he “began to think.” For example:
He began to think to himself (Good News Translation)
Use an expression that is natural in your own language to describe a person thinking about what to do when he is not sure.
See the General Comment on 12:17–19 at the end of 12:19b for a way to translate 2:17–19 as indirect speech.
What shall I do: This is a rhetorical question that expresses uncertainty. The rich man was asking himself this question. He was not certain where he would put all the grain.
Some ways to translate this uncertainty are:
• As a rhetorical question. For example:
What should/can I do?
• As a statement. For example:
I wonder what I should do.
Translate this uncertainty in a way that is natural in your language.
12:17b
since I have nowhere to store my crops: This clause implies that the man did not have enough space to store the large harvest of grain or other crops that had grown that year. In some languages it may be necessary to make this explicit. For example:
I have no ⌊more⌋ place to store my crops.
It is also clear from 12:18b that the man stored his crops in barns. If it is not natural in your language to use an expression such as nowhere to store, you may use a specific term such as “barns” or “granaries.” For example:
My barns/granaries are not enough to store/put all my crops. -or-
My crops will not fit in my barns/granaries.
Use a term or expression that fits with the term that you use for “barns” in 12:18b.
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