This week, Julia Allan walks through the Parable of the Two Sons (Matthew 21:28-32). Jesus presents this parable in the temple, the Tuesday of Holy Week, just moments after the chief priests demanded to know by what authority Jesus was teaching. In the parable, one… Read More »By What Authority?
This week, Dennis Allan talks through a short parable that Jesus tells immediately after being asked by his disciples to teach them to pray. Jesus responds to their request by teaching them the Lord’s Prayer, a prayer that’s meant to be an identity and mission-shaping… Read More »Prayer Shapes Us
Dr. Rafael Rodriguez walks through the Parable of the Good Samaritan. It’s a parable that asks what kingdom citizenship not only looks like, but requires of its people. Jesus, through this parable, makes it clear that life in his kingdom requires a tangible, even concrete… Read More »Loving Your Neighbor
This week, Pastor Shaq Hager walks through the parable of the unforgiving servant, a parable that asks, “How extravagant is our king’s forgiveness?” A servant owes an astronomical debt and the kind forgives all of it. That servant, then, turns around an requires someone repay… Read More »Extravagant Forgiveness
This week, Dr. Rafael Rodriguez explores Jesus’s parable of the vineyard and its tenants. Jesus tells the parable in the temple courts one day after overturning the tables. It’s a parable he shares in response to the question, “By what authority are you doing these… Read More »Ridiculous Grace
This week, Pastor Dennis Allan walks through the parable of the bags of gold (also known as the parable of the talents). Too often, we read this parable and think it’s about money, that it Christianizes the American Dream. That, in the kingdom, Jesus distributes… Read More »Stewarding Jesus’s Mission
A rich man, dressed in purple and fine linen lived in luxury every day. At his gate laid a beggar, longing to eat the food that fell from the rich man’s table. Then, both the beggar and the rich man die. The beggar is carried… Read More »When Wealth Makes People Invisible
This week, Dennis Allan walks through the Parable of the Barn Builder (or, the Rich Fool). In the kingdom, Jesus makes clear that the life that is truly life is now found in an abundance of possessions. The life that is truly life—namely, Jesus himself—is… Read More »Tear Down Your Barns
In the Parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector Jesus upends his original audience’s understanding of righteousness and justification. The Pharisee, who modern Christians view as being hypocritical and self-righteous, was a person revered by most ancient Jews. He was faithful, meticulous about his… Read More »Humility and Justification
When Jesus tells the Parable of the Great Banquet he is sitting at a table, at a Sabbath-day banquet, hosted by a prominent Pharisee. It’s in that context that he warns the Pharisees, the people who assume because of their religious performance, or because of… Read More »The Way Up is Down