Growing up in church and Christian schools, I was taught that Jesus's parables were basically about how we should live. To be sure, many of the parables do show us God's standard for our lives, but they also reveal how we have failed to live up to that standard, and how God in his infinite mercy has done for us what we could never do for ourselves. My friend Jared Wilson shows how Jesus used parables to illustrate the upside-down and counterintuitive ways of God compared to our ways. We see how the parables are not a witness to the best people making it up to God, but rather a witness to God making it down to the worst people - meeting our rebellion with his rescue, our sin with his salvation, our guilt with his grace, our badness with his goodness. Thanks for the reminder, Jared. I keep forgetting that this whole thing is about Jesus, not me.
-Tullian Tchividjian,
Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Jared Wilson's new book is a punch in the gut. Gone are the tame, bedtime-story versions of the parables we've been told in the past. Instead, Wilson invites us to see them afresh with all of their explosive, imaginative power.
-Mike Cosper,
Sojourn Community Church, Louisville, Kentucky
In showing us the parables of Jesus for what they are (and are not), Jared Wilson invites us into a deeper understanding of their author and the kingdom he came to establish. The Storytelling God teaches us to read and reflect upon the parables with great care, and rightly so. The parables, and this book, point the way to life abundant.
-Scott McClellan,
Irving Bible Church, Irving, Texas
My own bookshelf has precious few commentaries on the parables and this will definitely fit nicely into that gap. In fact, this book is actually two books for the price of one. Part devotional commentary and also doubling as a solid gospel tract. This book serves the gospel straight up on a plate. His chapter commenting on the gospel and the poor is worth the price of the book alone. Clear, straightforward, biblical, gospel-centered writing. Definitely recommended reading.
-Mez McConnell,
Niddrie Community Church, Edinburgh
With a characteristic combination of wit and wisdom - humor and sobriety - Wilson grabs your attention, fixes it upon Christ, and keeps it there for the duration of the book. Readers in search of a pastoral introduction to biblical parables that is rich with real-life applicability can gladly make room for this volume on their bookshelf.
-Stephen T. Um,
Citylife Presbyterian Church, Boston, Massachusetts
