I’ve been studying Jesus’ use of figurative language, and I’m not very surprised to discover that He employs almost every known figure of speech—and there are a lot of them! Metaphor and simile are common in Jesus’ teaching, as in His phrase, “The kingdom of God is like …” But now here are some other literary devices that may be less familiar.
Back by popular demand, here’s a piece I published several years ago, which will be included in my new collection of parables. The relevance of this one becomes more and more apparent with each passing day …
In 1989 I published a collection of parables entitled The Furniture of Heaven. Now here’s a parable from a new book I’m working on.
We all know the parable of the birds, in which a man on Christmas Eve sees a flock of birds huddled in the snow, cold and miserable. He tries to entice them into his warm barn, but being afraid, they want nothing to do with him.
This story was published nearly forty years ago in my book The Furniture of Heaven & Other Parables for Pilgrims. I wonder if it rings any bells for you today?
Here’s a little piece from the new book I’m working on, a collection of parables. It has a few twists and turns, so hang on!
Reverend Hiram Chipdale, lead pastor of the First Church of Technology in L.A., was well known for his many experiments in integrating Christian theology and worship with virtual reality.
One day all the gods got together to see who could come up with the best plan to save the world.
Every year at Passover the boy Jesus and His family made the trek to Jerusalem to observe the festival. The gospel of Luke records a famous account of one of these trips, when Jesus was twelve and held the elders in the Temple spellbound with His wisdom.
Sick and tired of how my life was going, I decided to hire a new manager.