I had a homiletics teacher, Steve Brown, who taught us, that if you have a thought in the study that you think is to bold or shocking to say in the pulpit, say it. I would not go that far. But Jesus, in his parables, did make some shocking statements or at least introduced the element of surprise. Craig Blomberg acknowledged this dimension of parables: “More often than not, there was a surprising reversal between the character a first-century Jewish audience would have expected to be the hero or good example and the one who actually turned out to play that role.”[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.”
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