Preachers, in their call to preach the Scriptures, are not only charged with the responsibility of speaking its truth but of speaking in such a way that people of this age and culture understand. To do this, the preacher builds a bridge between todays people and the gospel of both testaments. For some, this task is more difficult than for others. Preaching to those living in an inner-city housing project is far removed from an outpost mission in the two-thirds world. Each community has its own way of thinking and attaches different values to symbols of its own making. For those called preach to a generation raised on MTV and late-night comedians or those rooted in various economic culturesfrom governmentsponsored jobs overseen by union bosses to entrepreneurial dot-com companiesor generations stretching from high school students to "freedom fifty-fivers," the task is enormous. When one adds to that the complexity of a radical shift in underlying intellectual and cultural assumptions, the task of preaching becomes even more complicated.

A guide to preaching the parables that shows how to first interpret the parables, then proclaim their significance.

Craig Blomberg surveys the contemporary critical approaches to the parables--including those that have emerged in the twenty years since the first edition. This widely used text has taken a minority perspective and made it mainstream, with Blomberg ably defending a limited allegorical approach and offering brief interpretations of all the major parables.

Starting with some observations relating to shifts in ecclesiology and identifying them as a move beyond contextualization to syncretism this work goes on to assess the feasibility of preaching in a postmodern culture which rejects both the idea of absolute truth and authority used as power. It traces the historical and philosophical development of postmodernism. The Enlightenment project is deemed to have failed and Christianity is perceived as an oppressive metanarrative. In a world that is becoming increasingly sceptical and where preaching practitioners are becoming disillusioned this book offers some guidelines about preaching to postmoderns. In a relational age rationality is impotent, but the author distinguishes between authoritative and authoritarian preaching allowing hope for the survival of the homiletic task. Humility is presented as preferable to certitude and persuasion is redefined. The author suggests using an inductive mode of communication as a means of engaging postmodern listeners. He signposts a way forward in the labyrinthine complexity of the new paradigm and demonstrates that the homiletic task is still feasible. Thus this book will be of interest to teachers and students of theology as well as pastors desiring to develop a new apologetic strategy.

In this splendid introduction to the elusive rhetorical device central to the New Testament picture of Jesus, Charles Hedrick explores the nature of the parable and its history of use. He asks basic questions such as, what is a parable? is Jesus really the author of the parables? and what does a parable mean? and then reviews a range of sources--from Aesop's fables to modern New Testament scholarship--to answer them. He also surveys the various ways the parables have been approached in literary criticism throughout history, giving specific examples of each method and delineating their strengths and weaknesses.

Long argues that the literary form and dynamics of biblical texts can and should make a difference in the kinds of sermons created from those texts, not only because of what the texts say but because of how they say it. He presents a methodology for taking the literary characteristics of biblical texts into account in the text-to-sermon process and then applies that methodology in separate chapters on preaching on psalms, proverbs, narratives, parables, and epistles.

Peter Rhea Jones has spent the majority of his career studying and teaching the parables. Studying the Parables of Jesus is a primer on the historical and -literary approaches to biblical study. It informs and inspires in dialogue with contemporary methods and contemporary meanings. It provides an introduction to the methods of interpretation of the parables as well as an opening chapter on the recent history of interpretation. The chapters of exegesis approach a select group of parables for a more intensive analysis. While reserving much of the technical details for the endnotes, the text includes -discussion of critical issues and alternative opinions. Questions and exercises are appended at the close of each chapter for personal use or classroom -discussion.