The Parables: A Preaching Commentary (Great Texts) [Paperback]

Paul Duke (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0687090490 | ISBN-13: 978-0687090495 | Publication Date: July 2005

Many resources have been written to offer assistance in exploring and understanding the lectionary texts for the purpose of preaching. However, few have sought to provide this kind of preaching commentary on texts that do not follow the lectionary's group

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Abingdon Press (July 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0687090490
• ISBN-13: 978-0687090495
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,656,095 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As if for the first time--again, August 10, 2005

By 

Annemarie Kidder (MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Parables: A Preaching Commentary (Great Texts) (Paperback)

This is a gem of a book on the art of interpreting the Gospel parables by a master word smith and New Testament scholar. Paul Simpson Duke, former preaching professor and long-time homiletician, cracks open the obscure and mundane in which parables have largely been preached and interpreted by taking the reader back to the original setting of a first-century audience. With witty, imaginative, and careful scholarship at his fingertips, he establishes a well-crafted lens or frame through which to read and to hear-as if for the first time again. What is the larger context of this parable in relation to others in the same Gospel, he asks; what are parallel or similar parables corresponding with this one in the other Gospels, what keys might be used in unlocking its meaning and relevance for today? Preparing us through a brief discussion of the parable's context and structure, he then allows us to take our seat in the theater of an early audience and to listen, truly listen, to the words flung our way. Like a judicious stage director, Duke pulls back the curtain and reveals a cast of characters dressed as attention-grabbers and tainted by previously unnoticed idiosyncrasies, odd behavior, and a reprehensible or inexplicable attitude. Each parable discussion also contains a closing reflection on homiletical tricks of the trade, the do's and don'ts in communicating with authenticity, which only someone can offer who has preached the lectionary for decades--and as effectively as he has.

This book is not for the desperate preacher hunting for a quick thematic line. It is for those who have been suspecting a richer, fuller meaning of the parables all along; those who have grown dissatisfied with their own interpretive shortcuts and commentary tools, and who are at last willing to sit down and try on a set of glasses and stick in a hearing aid that will make them see and hear better-and their congregations too.