I think there can be no question but what many, at least, of the stories about bodhisattvas are there to provide role models for human beings. They play a role in the ever-present tension between what already is and what is yet to be. To the extent that we have even lifted a single finger to point to the truth, we are already bodhisattvas. But how much more so those who faithfully follow the Lotus Sutra, that is, devote their lives to bodhisattva practice. And to encourage us in that direction there are stories of wonderful bodhisattvas.

Yes, people do pray to Kwan-yin for help, and Kwan-yin takes on whatever form is needed to be helpful. But while that story may present the hope of divine blessing, it is there primarily to show us what we should be. If Kwan-yin has a thousand arms with a thousand different skills with which to help others, we too need to develop a thousand skills with which to help others.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, Appropriate Means as the Ethics of the Lotus Sutra, Page 386

The way in which you and I can develop our buddha-nature is by following the Buddha-way, doing what buddhas have always done, namely, following the way of bodhisattva practice. It is absolutely central to the Lotus Sutra, I think, that Śākyamuni Buddha is, first of all, a bodhisattva. We are told that he has been doing bodhisattva practice, helping and leading others, for innumerable kalpas. Whenever the enormously long life of the Buddha is described, it is not meditation that he has been doing, at least not primarily, but teaching and leading and changing others, thus turning them into bodhisattvas.

Because all the living have various natures, various desires, various activities, various ideas and ways of making distinctions, and because I wanted to lead them to put down roots of goodness, I have used a variety of explanations, parables, and words and preach various teachings. Thus I have never for a moment neglected the Buddha’s work.

Thus it is, since I became Buddha a very long time has passed, a lifetime of unquantifiable asamkhyeya kalpas, of forever existing and never entering extinction. Good children, the lifetime which I have acquired pursuing the bodhisattva-way is not even finished yet, but will be twice the number of kalpas already passed.

But the Buddha and those with the title of bodhisattva are not the only bodhisattvas. Śrāvakas are also bodhisattvas. That is why there are plenty of them in every paradise, or paradiselike Buddha-land described in the Lotus Sutra. Most śrāvakas, of course, don’t know they are bodhisattvas, but they are nonetheless.

What you are practicing
[the Buddha says to the disciple Kāśyapa] Is the bodhisattva-way.
As you gradually practice and learn,
Every one of you should become a buddha.

And, of course, most importantly, you and I are bodhisattvas. No matter how tiny our understanding or merit, no matter how trivial our practice, we are, to some extent, perhaps tiny, already bodhisattvas. And we are called to grow in bodhisattvahood by leading others to realize that potential in themselves.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, Appropriate Means as the Ethics of the Lotus Sutra, Page 384-385

There are obviously many ways of reading the Lotus Sutra, including, I suppose, several legitimate ways, by which I mean ways reasonably consistent with or based upon the text itself. Without trying to argue for such an interpretation here, I will simply share with you that I see the text as being primarily soteriological. That is, I think its main purpose is not to teach Buddhist doctrines or refute other interpretations or forms of Buddhism, but to incline the reader’s heart, and especially behavior, in a certain way. There are, for example, numberless claims in the sutra to the effect that everyone, be they poor, not very bright, female, even evil, absolutely everyone without exception is destined to become a buddha. I take it that this is not just a proto-buddha-nature doctrine, though it is that, and not just a metaphysical assumption, though it does express an underlying metaphysics. What is intended primarily, I think, is that you and I understand that we can become Buddha-like because we have that capacity already within us simply by virtue of being alive. This capacity or potential is in everyone. It does not have to be earned and it cannot be taken away. But it does need to be developed.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, Appropriate Means as the Ethics of the Lotus Sutra, Page 384

The story of Devadatta is very instructive [in the discussion of Hōben]. Its message is that even our enemies, regardless of their intentions, can be bodhisattvas for us if we regard them as such. In this sutra, Devadatta, the embodiment of evil in so much Buddhist literature outside of the Lotus Sutra, is thanked by the Buddha for being helpful. “Thanks to my good friend Devadatta, I was able to develop fully the six pāramitās, with pity, compassion, joy, equanimity,” etc. The Buddha learned from his experiences with Devadatta, making Devadatta a bodhisattva, but we are not told that this was in any way a function of what Devadatta himself intended. Good intentions may be good in their own right, but they are not what is all important or even most important in a bodhisattva. What is more important is effectiveness, effectiveness in leading others to the Buddha-way, and thus to their salvation.

It is their “only” salvation because outside of the Buddha-way there is, and can be, no other way. If an act is salvific it is good, and if it is good it is bodhisattva practice, and if it is bodhisattva practice it is included in the Buddha-way. Whatever else it is, the Buddha-way is good and includes everything good, that is, everything that leads to salvation.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, Appropriate Means as the Ethics of the Lotus Sutra, Page 383

Apparently, some people think that Buddhist ethics is primarily a matter of what is inside oneself; that it is primarily a matter of consciousness and compassion. But there is hardly a hint of this in the Lotus Sutra. The ideal, in the Lotus Sutra too, is a combination of wisdom or insight, compassion, and practice. The entrance to the Great Sacred Hall at the headquarters of Risshō Kōsei-kai in Tokyo, for example, is dominated by huge pictures of three bodhisattvas: Mañjuśrī, Maitreya, and Samantabhadra, representing wisdom, compassion, and practice, and the three parts of the Lotus Sutra in which these three are thought to be prominent. In the Lotus Sutra itself and in Lotus teaching, the three are interdependent and perhaps in one sense equally important. It can, for example, be said that practice can lead to enhanced wisdom and compassion. But it is clear that the flow has to be primarily the other way, toward practice as a consequence of wisdom and compassion. Thus, in contemporary jargon, the Lotus Sutra is very results-oriented. Of course, it is important that the father of the children in the burning house and the father of the poor son are concerned about their offspring and want to save them, and it is important that they are smart enough to figure out a way to save them, but it is most important that they are successful in saving the children.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, Appropriate Means as the Ethics of the Lotus Sutra, Page 382-383

What we are told repeatedly in the sutra is not that these acts are skillful, though they may be, but that they are appropriate, appropriate to the condition of the hearers. It is because people are different and their situations are different that the buddhas, as the rain nourishes the great variety of plants according to their different needs, feed the Dharma according to what is needed. One could argue, of course, that knowing that an appropriate thing is needed and being able to perceive the situation well enough to figure out an appropriate action is itself skillful. And so it is. But it is nevertheless the case that what is emphasized is not so much the skill as it is the appropriateness. This is why I think “appropriate means” is the best translation for hōben in the Lotus Sutra.

What is it that makes something appropriate? At the end of the story of the burning house, the Buddha asks Śāriputra whether the father has lied or not, and Śāriputra responds that the father had not lied, and would not have lied had he given the children even very tiny carriages. Why? Simply because the device worked. The children got out of the house in time to save their lives.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, Appropriate Means as the Ethics of the Lotus Sutra, Page 382

What is wrong with “expedient”? Briefly, it is deeply rooted in an ethical frame of reference which is about as diametrically opposed to the ethical perspective of the Lotus Sutra as one can get. The Random House Unabridged Dictionary has as its second definition of “expedient. conducive to advantage or interest, as opposed to right.” Moreover, “expediency” is defined as “a regard for what is polite or advantageous rather than what is right or just; a sense of self-interest.” Though one could argue that this term does not have to carry such freight, the fact of the matter is that it is deeply embedded in a biblical ethics which is essentially deontological because it is rooted in notions of divine commandment and human obedience. In John 11:49-50, for example, we find:

And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. Nor do you consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation perish.

And in several places, in the King James version at least, Saint Paul uses the term “expedient” to mean “profitable” to oneself. The Bible, of course, had a major impact on what terms mean in English.

Thus, a very basic meaning of “expedient” is an act which is done in spite of principle in order to benefit oneself. It is rooted in an ethics and in a vision of reality in which there is a radical, unbridgeable gap between principles and self-interest. Though they may be internalized, principles are given, by God or Nature, or the metaphysical structure of reality. Principles are lawlike, and thus their disobedience requires just punishment. To do the expedient thing is to ignore or go against what is right in order to gain some selfish benefit.

But this is exactly what, according to the Lotus Sutra, hōben cannot be. It is part of the very definition of hōben in the Lotus Sutra that it is always for the benefit of someone else. Not in this sutra, or in any other that I know of, is there even a single example of hōben in which the doer forsakes some principle for his or her own benefit.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, Appropriate Means as the Ethics of the Lotus Sutra, Page 380