christian living on Parables

Jacob was on his way back to face his brother Esau whom he had wronged, and he wrestled with the angel until the break of day.  When the angel tried to free himself from Jacob’s persistent grip, Jaco...

One of my daughters has been singing a song about Jesus that contains the line “Jesus was a story-tellin’ man.” When I first heard that line it seemed a bit flip, as so many contemporary Christian son...

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once told a parable to illustrate the urgency of the gospel message—and the need for all believers, not just clergy, to share it. A traveling circus in Denm...

The key to interpreting most allegories [i.e., parables] lies in recognizing what a small handful of characters, actions or symbols correspond to and then fitting the rest of the story in with them.

Rabbis spoke of parables as handles for understanding Torah; before parables no one understood the Torah, but when Solomon and others created parables, then people understood.

The question for each parable is: How did Jesus seek to change attitudes and behaviors with this parable?

In this excerpt, the French monastic leader Frere Pierre Marie, shares an interpretation of Jesus as the true prodigal son—bringing all of us home with him: He, who is born not from human stock, or ...

The Parable is a form of speech that has a style all of its own. It is a way of saying something that requires the imaginative participation of the listener. Inconspicuously, even surreptitiously, a p...

A Special Kind of Story Most Christians have some idea of what a parable is. Ask an adult Sunday school class and you might hear: “It’s a story!” Another might chime in, “with a moral message!” Mer...

The child became a man and the man became a preacher whose sermons were full of commonplace things: seeds and nets, coins and fishes, lilies of the field, and birds of the air. Wherever he was, he had...

The thrust of the parables is to subvert the distorted myths in which people live their lives. To understand what we mean by “living in a myth” just think of a couple of our own contemporary myths. Ta...

The entrance into Jerusalem was an acted parable. It gave the faithful the sign they had been waiting for. It inaugurated the Master’s final mission to his people and was a fitting prelude to the days...

The Danish philosopher, Kierkegaard, tells a parable of a theater where a variety show is proceeding. Each show is more fantastic than the last, and is applauded by the audience. Suddenly the manager ...

Pearls were of much greater value in Jesus’ time than they are today. Queen Cleopatra is reputed to have had two pearls which together were worth around 15 million denarii. A denari was roughly a day’...

Several years ago I was conducting a seminar in the interpretation of Scripture in a theological seminary…Our topic that day was Jesus’ parables…One of the priests, Tony Byrnne, was a Jesuit missionar...

The biblical writers and reciters make extensive use of metaphors, parables and dramatic actions. Jesus does not say, “God’s love is boundless.” Instead, he tells the story of the prodigal son. He doe...

The kingdom of God manifests itself in the modest changes in our attitudes and in the little improvements in our behavior that no one may notice, including ourselves. These are the mighty works of God...

The kingdom is present not in grandiose accomplishments, but in showing practical love in humble ways, day after day, and in refusing to allow our failures and disappointments to hide God’s love from ...