He means parables as in the story of Jesus's teaching meaning more than one thing. For example the story of the sower who sowed seeds, some fell on stony ground, some fell on good ground , some where eaten by the birds. Basic translation is that the sower is the man preaching the word of God, some of his preaching falls on deaf ears, some people take it in and accept it, some accept it but then other things in life take it away. The parables are used so that the Bible would not be outdated we can still relate to the Bible even though it was written 2000 years ago. the second point he was making about the different lengths of time spent in hell is totally wrong and should not be taken seriously.