The Parable of the Merciful Father and His Wasteful Son

Last time, we saw how Jesus responded to a group of religious leaders who didn’t like the crowd he was attracting by telling them a series of parables about the “joy in heaven” at finding the lost. Over the next two posts we’ll look at the third of these parables, traditionally known as the Parable … Continue reading The Parable of the Merciful Father and His Wasteful Son

The Parables of the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin

Today we leave Matthew’s parables discourse behind and start another sequence of parables, scattered throughout the middle chapters of Luke. If Matthew’s were “parables of the Kingdom,” we might call these parables in Luke “parables of the lost and found.” And so, appropriately, today we’ll look at the first two of these, the Parables of … Continue reading The Parables of the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin

Scribes for the Kingdom (And the Matthew 13 Parables Discourse in Review)

So far we’ve looked at the seven parables that make up the ‘parables discourse’ in Matthew 13. But guess what? The conclusion of that discourse as a whole includes another parable, and it’s the oddest of the bunch. So today, we’ll be looking at that parable through the lens of the discourse as a whole. … Continue reading Scribes for the Kingdom (And the Matthew 13 Parables Discourse in Review)

The Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl

After explaining the Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat, Jesus ends his parables discourse with three rapid-fire parables. The third of these acts as a nice book-end to the discourse, so we’ll leave that for next time, but the other two will be our focus today. These are the Parables of the Hidden Treasure … Continue reading The Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl