Craig L. Blomberg in his Preaching the Parables noted: “Preaching a parable is a novice preacher’s dream, but often an experienced preacher’s nightmare .... At first glance, the parables appear familiar and straightforward, but thoughtful students soon realize they have fallen into a quagmire of interpretive debates.”[1]
Read moreJesus the Master Storyteller (of parables)
People love good stories. Children, for sure, love stories and ask for the same story to read over and over again. I don’t know how many times I have read Alice in Wonderland to our boys. I would finish reading a story, and they would say, “Read it again, Daddy.”
Jesus, however, did not tell stories just to entertain; He preached biblical stories, parables, to persuade! Donald Grey Barnhouse was a great sermon illustrator who used illustrations to persuade his congregation to be doers of God’s Word. He said, “All of life is an illustration of Christian doctrine.”
Read moreThe Historical/Grammatical Hermeneutic, Part Two
Martin Luther believed that “The entire Old Testament refers to Christ and agrees with Him.” Sidney Greidanus, in Preaching Christ from the Old Testament, wrote that in spite of his warnings against allegorical interpretation, Luther continued using this arbitrary method of interpretation. Ironically, while Luther left some limited room for allegorical interpretation, he apparently had no use of typological interpretation, for, as David Dockery puts it, typology with its foreshadowing “annulled the historical presence of Christ in the Old Testament.” The Antioch School “saw shadowy anticipation of what was to come. This meant nothing to Luther. To him, the Old Testament was not a figure of what would be, but a testimony to what always holds true between humankind and God” (Dockery, GTJ I4/2 (1983) 193.[19]
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