Jesus was short on sermons, long on conversations; short on answers, long on questions; short on abstraction and propositions, long on stories and parables; short on telling you what to think, long on challenging you to think for yourself.
Jesus instructs not by means of the rule, but by means of the exception... Parables, paradoxes, hyperboles, and extreme commandments all disorient only in order to reorient us... I would say that what is reoriented by these extreme sayings is less our will than our...
The communal life envisioned in the vine metaphor raises a strong challenge to contemporary Western models of individual autonomy and privatism. At the heart of the Johannine model is social interrelationship and corporate accountability. The vine and branches...
As the parable of the Ten Virgins was about the happiness of the bridegroom at his wedding, so this one is about the ebullience of the lord's joy at throwing his money around. It is the theme of the divine party again, the party that lurks beneath the surface of...