Customer Reviews

The Parables of Jesus (William Barclay Library)

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It is difficult to find the words that adequately convey the power and impact of William Barclay's writings. I believe that he was the finest commentator of the New Testament in the 20th century. This book is one of the crown jewels of his over 70 publications. Barclay's knowledge of the Greek language, the Jewish culture and religion, and the Roman occupation during the New Testament era is phenomenal. Furthermore, he has the unique ability to convey this immense knowledge in a manner which is very easy for any reader to understand. William Barclay has the ability to convey to the reader not only what that passage meant to the people to whom Jesus spoke to 2,000 years ago, but what those passages say to us today. On countless occasions, I have felt that Barclay was speaking to me personally as he discussed the relevance of the passage in his commentary. His insights have brought me to tears at times; he has both challenged and inspired me. William Barclay's writings have truly changed my life. Barclay's clearest message is to convey the unconditional love of Jesus for all people.

The best way to convey the power of Barclay's writing is to convey two examples:

(1) "The basis of God's judgment is our reaction to the needs of others. God will not some day ask us to recite the creed, or put us through an examination in scripture knowledge, or investigate the orthodoxy of our theology. The one question which is basic is: 'What did you do to make life easier for others?' And again, that question is not based on the great contributions to human welfare which the newspapers report and the history books recount, but on our action and interaction upon the people with whom we come into contact every day."

(2) "No one can ever have hurt Jesus so much as Peter did and yet when He rose from the dead Jesus sent a message to Peter to tell him that He still believed in him. The very fact that Jesus believes in us should fill us with a new self respect and a new determination not to fail him...so long as we keep on trying to follow and serve Christ, however inadequately, we are never shut out; but when we refuse to make the effort we can in the end shut ourselves out and pass the final judgment on ourselves."

Each chapter is a magnetic sermon on each parable. Barclay's writing provides both scholarly insight and spiritual direction. There have been many books written on the parables, too many of which overanalyze the parables to the nth degree and which forget the basics. Barclay's is a more common-sense approach for the common man which keeps the lessons simple, straightforward, and illuminating. -wgl-

...that any layman can understand. We can read Jesus' story about the wheat and the tares in Matthew 13:24-30 and understand that in the end, there will be a separation between the fruitful plant and the poisonous one; Barclay adds illumination to the story by describing the three different ways that the tare (the darnel plant) could be separated from the wheat when it was full grown, and then going on to make application about why Jesus told this simple, powerful story.

A strong humanistic ethic runs through many of his applications - Barclay tends to minimize the miraculous in favor of both hard work and dependence on God as harbingers of the kingdom. This book was originally developed for use with students - you'll hear Barclay's "teacher voice" in the moral tone of the applications, as well as the care in explaining each parable's background.

The book is in desperate need of updated organization. Originally published in 1952, the table of contents lists each parable only by identifying phrase (The story of the wheat and the tares is listed in the table of contents only as "When it is grown"). There is no index at the back of the volume, either. These omissions can make the book a bit difficult to use if you're not familiar with the key phrase in the table of contents.

Even with those criticisms, I found this book very useful as a reference when I was writing my books on the parables (Parablelife: Living the stories Jesus told in real time - 2005, FaithWalk publishers and Uprooted: Growing a Parablelife from the Inside Out - scheduled for release in Fall 2006 - both available on amazon.com). If you're a pastor or Bible study leader, you may find Barclay's book a helpful addition to your parable collection.

This text has some great nuggets of wisdom, but is a very hard read. You must have your Bible in hand to read this book; it's next to impossible to follow it if you are reading it on the train without your main tool. But perseverence is recommended!

An excellent book and very well written and it's easy to understand Barclay's explanations. I like his simple way of conveying the stories which Jesus used to teach the common person. You don't need to be a bible scholar to grasp the meaning of these parables.

This is a layman's guide that is pretty well outdated in terms of current scholarship. Having said that, no one writes with more enthusiasm and zeal than Barclay. His book gives you lots of interesting material to ponder and is still a good buy for your bookshelf. Just not something that I would recommend for a Seminarian or clergy that is still active in ministry.

This is a great book for studying the parables of Jesus. Barclay takes the scripture and puts it in context of Jesus' time. He then takes the parable and shows how it applies in more current times. The parables come to life in the application of the principles as they apply to life today. Well worth reading as a group or individually.
Excellent for gaining a greater understanding the of the New Testament.

This book by the late William Barclay is quite infomative...that is until I read the chapter on The Parable of the Good Samaritan: the author made a few unacceptable and baseless assertations. He insisted that the lonely traveller who was robbed was RECKLESS in travelling alone. There is absolutely no basis for making this interpretation. Travelling alone doesn't mean that the person HAS TO BE reckless. This opinion is entirely the author's personal one.
The next part of the parable's interpretation is even more absurd: the author blantantly assume that the Buddha and Prophet Muhammed would not lift a finger to help that robbed traveller had he met them. I wonder where on earth the author got this idea from? Had the author still be alive today, this is what I'll say to him: You don't do Christ any good by slandering the Buddha and Prophet Muhammed.
In conclusion, this book is written by a bigotory 'holier-than-thou' minister.