The 'Little Stories' of Jesus: A Study Guide to the Parables - Softcover

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In reading the Gospel writers’ accounts of the life of Jesus chronologically, we perceived that the narrative first offers an issue to the reader, through a challenge to Jesus (1). Jesus then, invariably, asks someone present what they think is a relevant answer to this challenging issue. After the simple response of a disciple, a Pharisee or other stander-by is given (2), Jesus offers an alternative explanation and principle, often quite provocative, to both those present at the time and, now, to the reader (3). Then, amazingly, Jesus actually demonstrates the principle he puts forth, most often in the form of a miracle or healing (4).When we read through the Gospels in a chronological Bible and partitioned the Gospel writers’ narratives into segments with these four elements, we found that the pattern was extremely consistent and reliable, and that it resulted in 32 “lessons”, that naturally broke into two sets of sixteen each, representing the initial and latter parts of Jesus’ ministry. Looking more closely, we discerned that if we grouped the lessons into clusters of four, we found a very credible sequence and progression of the presented teachings. Doing a study of the material framed in this manner produced remarkably new understandings for us and then for others with whom we shared this scaffold as a way to study the four Gospels. It actually seemed seamless in its cohesion and clarity, much like a masterly written technical manual.Since then, we have used this 16/16 and 4x4 scaffolding to look at prayer in the Gospels, and, in this work, to look at the parables presented in the Gospels. It turns out that the some 46 odd ‘little stories’ represented to have been spoken by Jesus can be nicely arranged into groups of four stories each and that four such groups create a coherent set of thematically related meanings. Indeed, when arranged thusly, the parables represent a sequence and progression not available when looking at individual stories alone. (See Patterns Illuminating How Jesus Opens the Heart: A New Passage Through the Gospels by Damian & Christina Vraniak; 2016 and The Lord’s Prayers by Damian & Christina Vraniak; 2017)

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