 | The Parables of Jesus |
Source: Bought through Half.com.
Book Description from Back Cover:
Good news for the needy. Bad news for the power brokers. Jesus came into the world announcing a new order where Satan is overthrown and broken relationships are restored. Jesus' most vivid portraits of this new kingdom are found in the parables.
David Wenham explores the splendor and subtleties of Jesus' world-changing message, offering a nontechnical but comprehensive look at dozens of Jesus' stories. Bringing them to life by explaining their first-century religious and social setting, Wenham never fails to illumine their significance for today.
My Review:
The Parables of Jesus looks at the cultural and historical background to Jesus' parables to help readers better understand what he was trying to convey. Each chapter discussed a group of similar parables (usually in the same groups as they're found in the gospels). The author gave the cultural background to the parable and how the people of Jesus' time would have understood the point he was making. He also referred to other verses in the Old and New Testaments that have the same theme or which help us to understand the meaning of the parable.
The tone was casual, and his points were easy to understand. This book did help me to better understand the parables, and I thought his points made sense and were insightful. At the end of the book, he had an appendix that contained articles on the reliability of the parables (i.e. how likely they accurately portray what Jesus really said and taught), what a parable actually is and the various ways they have been interpreted through history, and why Jesus taught using parables.
Overall, I'd highly recommend this book to those interested in better understanding the parables or in learning more Bible background information.
If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.
Excerpt: Amazon has a "Look Inside" preview for this book.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment