Customer Reviews

All the Parables of the Bible

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Although this may not be a ground breaking text with new and exciting theories, it is an excellent resource for anyone who wants to understand the parables of the Bible better. The book discusses parables in both the Old and New Testaments. You can look up the parable by the chapter and book that it appears in, and there is also a way to reference them by topic/subject.

I've used this commentary a lot in my Bible studies because it is very thorough and even handed. Lockyer breaks the parables down item-by-item, point-by-point, then summarizes the dominant critical interpretations of each one. Because his treatment is extensive, the commentary for a single parable will often run for several pages.

I appreciate the clarity that his summaries bring to the text. Also, he is careful to admit that we can over interpret things and for the most part, manages to avoid this tendency. He asserts his own interpretation for each parable, but not in a know-it-all fashion.

This book challenges me to think about what God wants us to learn through these stories. They are like little puzzles, and I am fascinated to think about all the different ways they can be interpreted. Also, this book has cleared up some parables that were downright confusing.

This book seems a little too literal and not spiritually revealing for my liking. Many Parables contain spiritual mysteries which I hoped would be explained simply. But this book doesn't bring those out. Instead it relates a lot of literal teachings to other scriptural concepts and that wasn't helpful to me.

Here's an example.

The Pearl

From my understanding "the Pearl" represents something beautiful created by something ugly through a lifetime of suffering. Like overcoming Christians or the Bride. Since the gates of the Kingdom of God in Revelation are 12 huge Pearls one for each gate it means that one enters into communion with God through much suffering and that agrees with scripture.

But the book explains it like this:
"The Pearl reveals God's ultimate victory in the presence of man's failure. As we shall see, when considering the parable in detail, the One who purchased the Pearl discloses "the glorious transmuting of the murderous hate of sinful humanity into redemption by the love of God."

What that means I have no idea but it sounds good.

I might have gained more from this book if I were a PHD I suspect.

Everyone else seems to like it though. So maybe it's just me.

got this for my daughter. she is very pleased with the clarity of the information in this book. and, you know, she is pretty picky so i am very pleased, too.

This is actually a very useful book for the study of Bible prophecy. It contains scholarly explanations for the imagery of many of the Bible prophets. I had seen it offered from another dealer for $1.98 as an introduction to Lockyer's "All" series. I had passed it by many times thinking it was just an expositon of the parables of Jesus Christ. But I did find it very useful in my study of Ezekiel as many of Ezekiel's prophecies are consdered "parables" by Lockyer. A really great book!

these books I ordered were awesome and I've already dove into then. They shipped very fast and arrived in great condition. Thank you.