Life on Planet Earth on Parables

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Metaphors, Parables and Dramatic Actions

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Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 5:14-16

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...

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No More “Been-To’s”

Author

Eugene Peterson

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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...

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Author

Mark Lutz

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 4:18, Matthew 3:16, Mark 1:10

Jesus showed his solidarity with the poor through his teaching, parables and lifestyle. It is no coincidence that in his very first recorded message he referenced the poor… Imagine God incarnate makin...

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Never Give up

Author

James Boice

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Scripture

Matthew 13:, Exodus 14:21-31, Daniel 3:13-30 , 1 Kings 18:20-40, Luke 15:11-32, Psalm 23:

In the second century before Christ the great rival to Roman power in the Mediterranean world was Carthage, the Phoenician city-state located on the north African coast. It had been founded in 822 B.C...

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Author

Thomas Keating

Keywords

Scripture

James 1:22-25, Philippians 2:3-4, Romans 12:2, Ephesians 4:22-24, Colossians 3:12-14, Galatians 5:22-23, Matthew 25:21

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...

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Pearls of Great Price

Author

Jacob Traeger

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 13:45-46, Proverbs 3:13-15, Isaiah 55:1-2

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’...

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Emotions are Divine: Why Pastors Need Biblical Permission to Feel

Author

David Lamb

Keywords

Scripture

John 11:35, Psalm 5:5, Psalm 6:1, Psalm 78:58, Psalm 78:40, Psalm 18:19, Psalm 25:6, Psalm 5:7, Exodus 20:5, Exodus 22:23, Isaiah 15:5, Luke 15:null, Genesis 23:2, Genesis 42:24, 1 Samuel 1:10, 2 Samuel 1:11-12, 2 Kings 8:11-12, 2 Kings 22:18-20, Mark 14:72, John 20:11, Acts 20:37, Revelation 5:4

When the Professor Weeps: A Personal Story About ten years ago, I was teaching a course on the psalms for my seminary students in the midst of a personal health crisis. It wasn’t in my notes, but I ...

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There and Back Again, A Human Tale

Author

Alan Jones

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 15:11-32

Let us begin with a question. Do you really know how to enjoy the world? Do you know how to enjoy yourself? One of the greatest parables in the New Testament has to do with the search for enjoyment an...

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No Such Thing as Atheism

Author

David Foster Wallace

Keywords

Atheism

In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the ...

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The Emperor Has No Clothes

Author

Andy Crouch

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Nakedness is the subject of one of the most famous folk parables of power: Hans Christian Andersen’s tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” A vain emperor is visited by two “weavers” who promise that their...

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Adapted from the Parable of the Sower

Author

Dustin Ray

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 13:18-23, Jeremiah 17:8, Colossians 3:16, Hebrews 4:12, Psalm 119:11

Pastor: “Hear then the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what wa...

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Mary & Joseph were Poor

Author

Ashley Hales

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 2:22-24, 2 Corinthians 8:9, Isaiah 9:6-7, Philippians 2:6-8, John 1:14, Isaiah 61:1

They were poor. We know this because the two young turtledoves Joseph and Mary brought was the smallest offering they were allowed as devout Jews and yet the largest they likely could afford. With tw...

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Author

Frederick Buechner

Keywords

My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours... it is precisely through ...

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Sermon Illustration Tuesday (1.15)

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Shame

Arthur Conan Doyle, the ingenious creator of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, once found great humor in a practical joke he played on 12 famous friends. Each of these men was virtuous and highly respect...

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The Dickensian Approach to Storytelling (Or, Rather, the Biblical Approach)

Author

Mark D. Roberts

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:, John 1:1-3

Sometimes great stories introduce the protagonist in the very first paragraph. In Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, for example, we are immediately introduced to Pip, the central figure of the nov...

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Virtues and Vices Can Offer Fresh Perspective

Author

Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung

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Reaching back to the tradition of virtues and vices can also give us fresh eyes and expose new layers of meaning in our reading of scripture. Before I read Aquinas on sloth, I would have associated it...

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Save My Soul, Good Gardener, based on the Parable of the Sower

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 13:1-23, Luke 8:4-15, Mark 4:1-20

Save my soul, Good Gardener Evil flies in wanting to steal my hope Work piles up, insecure boulders ready to crash, leaving no room to root My faith begins to wither as does our relationship Distract...

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Adapted from multiple scriptures on Light and Darkness

Keywords

Scripture

John 12:35-36, John 8:12, Isaiah 60:1-3, Isaiah 60:5, Isaiah 60:1-3

Leader: Jesus said to them, "The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you." People: Arise, shine; for your light has come, an...

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Mountains: 2, John 4:7-26

Author

Allen Thompson

Keywords

Scripture

John 4:7-26, 1 Corinthians 2:12, 1 Peter 12:12-23, John 6:1-15, Galatians 4:21-31, Psalm 42:7, Psalm 121:null

New Testament Mountains Like the Old Testament, the New Testament has plenty of references to mountains. There’s the Sermon on the Mount, obviously. Jesus often went onto hills or mountains to pray...

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Author

John Donne

Keywords

Place

We think that Paradise and Calvary, Christ’s Cross and Adam’s Tree, stood in one place; Look Lord and find both Adams met in me; As the first Adam’s sweat surrounds my face, May the last Adam’s blood ...

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Author

Frederick Buechner

Keywords

It is a world of magic and mystery, of deep darkness and flickering starlight. It is a world where terrible things happen and wonderful things too. It is a world where goodness is pitted against evil,...

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The Curious Incident of the Fig Tree

Author

Eunice McGarrahan

Keywords

Scripture

Acts 1:8, Romans 6:4, Colossians 1:10, Matthew 7:16-20, Galatians 5:22-23, Luke 13:6-9

My mom studied horticulture and could make a dead stick grow leaves. I do not have her genes. So what I am telling you know comes from sources who do know about fig trees. Here’s what they tell me. Fi...

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Author

Dame Edna Everage

Keywords

I don’t compare myself to Jesus, but there are spooky similarities.

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Let Us Not Turn the Cross Into a Metaphor

Author

John Updike

Keywords

Let us not mock God with metaphor, analogy, sidestepping, transcendence; making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded credulity of earlier ages: let us walk through the door. …………………………...

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Lord, high and holy, meek and

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 16:24-25, Philippians 1:21, Romans 8:18, Matthew 23:12, James 4:10, Psalm 23:4

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights; hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory. Let me lear...

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Author

G. K. Chesterton

Keywords

The diction used about Christ has been, and perhaps wisely, sweet and submissive. But the diction used by Christ is quite curiously gigantesque; it is full of camels leaping through needles and mounta...

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Author

N. T. Wright

Keywords

Many first-century Jews thought of themselves as living in a continuing narrative stretching from earliest times, through ancient prophecies, and on toward a climactic moment of deliverance which migh...

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Distancing Ourselves with our Simplistic Plotines

Author

Shannon K. Evans

Keywords

If my testimony of the gospel revolves around a plotline of, “I used to struggle with this, but God gave me the victory and now I’m free/healed/saved/fill in the blank,” I have immediately distanced m...

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Author

Thomas à Kempis

Keywords

Every creature will be to you a mirror of life and a book of holy doctrine.

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Author

Bernard of Clairvaux

Keywords

He rightly reads scripture who turns words into deeds.

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