parables

Given my obsession over interpretation, it's not often that I find video messages that I get all that excited about. What's even more rare, is that I'd be excited about a video project that was focusing on the parables, but, given the references they used to guide their work, Modern Parables seems to be the real deal.

So, some might ask why do I have greater concern about the parables than other texts? Well, there's this mass impression out there that these story lessons were told because they were simple stories that people could understand and remember. However, this doesn't jive with Jesus words in Mark 4:10-13:

And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that “they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.” And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?"

In other words, far from being easy to understand stories of everyday life, the parables take the everyday human experience and turn the world upside down. They don't speak of everyday life, they challenge it. This of course makes them incredibly difficult to understand correctly and, odds are, if you're thinking, "That one's easy!" then you've really missed the point.

To add to it, in Jesus' day, the people who seemed to actually understand the parables were the Scribes and Pharisees, the very people who rejected these teachings of Jesus.

All that being said, it does look like Modern Parables has done their work and done it well. It should be interesting to see what they come up with!