Students sit on Jalyn's throne and rule on eleven citizens of Endel. The docket is shuffled on purpose. Seven end in Affabel and four in Lone, which breaks the pattern most students form after the first three cases.
Tell them two things and nothing more. First, they are the judge, not the defendant. Second, they will be asked to name the Scripture their ruling rests on, so a hunch is not going to be enough. Do not tell them the ratio of outcomes. The surprise is the lesson.
Roughly 30 to 40 minutes for all eleven cases. Progress saves in the browser, so a student who runs out of time can finish later on the same device. The verdict record prints or saves as a PDF for submission.
Two stations are marked n/a: the parable states the verdict but never names the station. Those cases are scored on the verdict alone.
| Citizen | Verdict | Station or measure | Governing text | New name |
|---|
The docket order separates each pair so the second one lands after students have already committed to a rule. These are where the discussion lives.
Two restaurant owners. Both generous, both publicly admired, both in Affabel. One is governor of ten districts; the other is a plumber in the flatlands. Externally almost identical. Ask the class to name what actually separated them, and do not accept "one gave more" as the answer, because Social gave in public and often.
Two teachers. Both damaged students, and Motivator's former students are in Lone because of what he taught them. One is saved; one is in the deepest hole in the parable. The difference is not the size of the damage. Push until someone names it.
The invisible secretary and the popular mayor. Ask what each of their performance reviews would have said in Endel, then what changed between that review and this one. Nothing about either life changed. Only the light it was read in.
Seven days of obedience against a lifetime of profession. Handle Faint Heart carefully: she is a genuine victim and the parable says so. The question is not whether her wound was real but what she did with it for the rest of her life.
The abrasive convert everyone found tiresome, and the charming believer everyone liked. Ask whether anyone docked Brutal for being annoying, and where in the Book that criterion appears.
This is usually the most productive thing on the record page. Students who ruled consistently harsher tend to be picturing a God who is looking for a reason to convict. Students who ruled consistently gentler tend to be picturing one who does not really mean the warnings. The parable refuses both. Consider collecting the tallies and putting the class distribution on the board before you discuss anything else.
The parable is Protestant in origin and its Hall of Justice and Hall of Life map loosely onto particular judgment. Worth naming for students: the Catholic tradition holds the same two things this activity is built on, that our works are judged (CCC 1021-1022, 2 Cor 5:10) and that grace, not merit, is what saves (CCC 1996-2001, Eph 2:8-9). What the parable adds, and what Trent and the Catechism both affirm, is that the reward of the saved genuinely differs. Purgatory is the piece the allegory has no room for. That absence is worth pointing out rather than papering over.