Whiter Than Snow
Whiter Than Snow

Author: Paul David Tripp

Publisher: Crossway

Published: 2008-06-26

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 1433522349

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What do you do when you've really blown it? Is sin really as dangerous and is grace really as powerful as the Bible says they are? Is there such a thing as a new beginning? Sin and grace-these are the two themes of our lives. We all blow it and we all need to start over again. In Psalm 51, David tells his story of moral failure, personal awareness, grief, confession, repentance, commitment, and hope. And because David's story is every believer's story, Psalm 51 is every believer's psalm. It tells how we, as broken sinners, can be brutally honest with God and yet stand before him without fear. Whiter Than Snow unpacks this powerful little psalm in fifty-two meditations, reminding readers that by God's grace there is mercy for every wrong and grace for every new beginning. Designed for busy believers, these brief and engaging meditations are made practical by the reflection questions that conclude each chapter.

Short Stories by Jesus
Short Stories by Jesus

Author: Amy-Jill Levine

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2014-09-09

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 006219819X

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The renowned biblical scholar, author of The Misunderstood Jew, and general editor for The Jewish Annotated New Testament interweaves history and spiritual analysis to explore Jesus’ most popular teaching parables, exposing their misinterpretations and making them lively and relevant for modern readers. Jesus was a skilled storyteller and perceptive teacher who used parables from everyday life to effectively convey his message and meaning. Life in first-century Palestine was very different from our world today, and many traditional interpretations of Jesus’ stories ignore this disparity and have often allowed anti-Semitism and misogyny to color their perspectives. In this wise, entertaining, and educational book, Amy-Jill Levine offers a fresh, timely reinterpretation of Jesus’ narratives. In Short Stories by Jesus, she analyzes these “problems with parables,” taking readers back in time to understand how their original Jewish audience understood them. Levine reveals the parables’ connections to first-century economic and agricultural life, social customs and morality, Jewish scriptures and Roman culture. With this revitalized understanding, she interprets these moving stories for the contemporary reader, showing how the parables are not just about Jesus, but are also about us—and when read rightly, still challenge and provoke us two thousand years later.

The Gospel in Parable
The Gospel in Parable

Author: John R. Donahue

Publisher: Fortress Press

Published: 1988-01-01

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9781451411522

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Professor Donahue here argues that "the parables of Jesus" offer a Gospel in miniature, while at the same time giving shape, direction, and meaning to the Gospels in which they appear. "To study the parables of the Gospels is to study the gospel in parable." After surveying recent discussions of parable, metaphor, and narrative, Donahue examines and interprets the parables of Mark, Matthew, and Luke as texts in the context of the theology of each of these Gospels. Finally, he outlines what "The Gospel in Parable" looks like and offers suggestions for the proclamation of parables today.

Parables as Subversive Speech
Parables as Subversive Speech

Author: William R. Herzog II

Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press

Published: 1994-05-01

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1611642337

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William Herzog shows that the focus of the parables was not on a vision of the glory of the reign of God but on the gory details of the way oppression served the interests of the ruling class. The parables were a form of social analysis, as well as a form of theological reflection. Herzog scrutinizes their canonical form to show the distinction between its purpose for Jesus and for evangelists. To do this, he uses the tools of historical criticism, including form criticism and redaction criticism.

The Power of Parables
The Power of Parables

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2023-11-07

Total Pages: 491

ISBN-13: 9004680047

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The Power of Parables documents the surprising ways in which Jewish and Christian parables bridge religion with daily life. This 2019 conference volume rediscovers the original power of parables to shock and affect their audience, which has since been reduced by centuries of preaching and repetition. Not only do parables enhance the perspective on Scripture or the kingdom of heaven, they also change the sensory regime of the audience in perceiving the outer world. The theological differences in their applications appear secondary in view of their powerful rhetoric and suggest a shared genre.

The Parables of Jesus the Galilean
The Parables of Jesus the Galilean

Author: Ernest van Eck

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2016-08-09

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1498233708

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Who do we meet in the stories Jesus told? In The Parables of Jesus the Galilean: Stories of a Social Prophet, a selection of the parables of Jesus is read using a social-scientific approach. The interest of the author is not the parables in their literary contexts, but rather the parables as Jesus told them in a first-century Jewish Galilean sociopolitical, religious, and economic setting. Therefore, this volume is part of the material turn in parable research and offers a reading of the parables that pays special attention to Mediterranean anthropology by stressing key first-century Mediterranean values. Where applicable, available papyri that may be relevant in understanding the parables of Jesus from a fresh perspective are used to assemble solid ancient comparanda for the practices and social realities that the parables presuppose. The picture of Jesus that emerges from these readings is that of a social prophet. The parables of Jesus, as symbols of social transformation, envisioned a transformed and alternative world. This world, for Jesus, was the kingdom of God.

Encountering the Parables in Contexts Old and New
Encountering the Parables in Contexts Old and New

Author: T. E. Goud

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2022-08-25

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 0567706141

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The contributors to this book pursue three important lines of inquiry into parable study, in order to illustrate how these lessons have been received throughout the millennia. The contributors consider not only the historical and material world of the parables' composition, and focusing on the social, political, economic, and material reality of that world, but also seek to connect how the parables may have been seen and heard in ancient contexts with how they have been, and continue to be, seen and heard. Intentionally allowing for a “bounded openness” of approach and interpretation, these essays explore numerous contexts, encounters and responses. Examining topics ranging from ancient harvest imagery and dependency relations to contemporary experience with the narratives and lessons of the parables, this volume seeks to link those very real ancient contexts with our own varied modern contexts.