Don't Cheapen the Treasure

"The deal is all of Christ for all of your nothing. Don't cheapen the treasure with your currency. Come and buy the unsearchable riches of grace with your poverty of spirit. That is all he will accept."

From The Story-Telling God: Seeing the Glory of Jesus in His Parables, by Jared Wilson (Kindle version, location 585)

Covers Everything

"When we 'get saved,' we aren't just receiving the redemptive thing God is doing in our lives,; we are also embracing the redemptive thing God is doing in the world. Having the eyes to see salvation this way helps us to see worldly treasures as pitiful. It is the kingdom of heaven that is a treasure worth selling everything to own, because the kingdom of heaven covers everything and is our everything."

From The Story-Telling God: Seeing the Glory of Jesus in His Parables, by Jared Wilson (Kindle version, location 541)

Right Side Up, Upside Down

"In turning everything right side up, Jesus is putting a great many things upside down. As we survey his message and ministry in the four Gospels, we learn that he is consistently subverting values and expectations, and yet he is simultaneously fulfilling the essence of the desires at the root of these values and expectations,"

From The Story-Telling God: Seeing the Glory of Jesus in His Parables, by Jared Wilson (Kindle version, location 456

Stories of Mystery

"Once upon a time, a king came to earth to tell stories, and the stories contained the mystery of eternal life."

From The Story-Telling God: Seeing the Glory of Jesus in His Parables, by Jared Wilson (Kindle version, location 435)

Rebellion Against Rebellion

"Jesus is turning something upside down, and for that the angry crowd wanted to turn him upside down.

But really Jesus is turning something right side up. And when we read the parables he employed to teach the crowds throughout his ministry, we could do a lot worse than to see them as narrative portraits of rebellion against rebellion. The rightful king has landed, and he is leading an insurrection against the pretenders to his throne."

From The Story-Telling God: Seeing the Glory of Jesus in His Parables, by Jared Wilson (Kindle version, location 140)

The Sugar of the Earth

This "lost parable" is not quite the way I remember Matthew 5:13, but what do I know?

And Jesus spoke to them and said,

“You are the powdered sugar of the earth. As sugar is sprinkled on cakes and cookies to make them attractive and exceedingly sweet, so you shall make my church the most delightful confection the world has known. For the children of this world have an insatiable sweet tooth, and you shall satisfy those who hunger and thirst for empty calories.

“You shall sprinkle sugar on my words so that every bitter morsel is disguised beyond recognition.

“You shall fill your gatherings with nectarous delights, amusements that thrill the crowds, so that all who participate may leave energized by the sugar-high of my Spirit.

“You shall make your church program a veritable display window of sugary treats, so that all who pass by may salivate and be drawn to purchase your pleasures and be satisfied.

“Do not ever let your sugar lose its sweetness. for then your neighbors will see the true taste and texture of your lives — the salty and the sweet, the bitter and the bland — this mixture you deem so unpalatable.

“And what will attract them then?”

Maybe I'd better go back and re-read the original.

Putting On Batman - A Parable of Righteousness

From Matt Schneider at Mockingbird comes this story of a modern day want-to-be super-hero.The material below is his stuff, not mine.

Perhaps you’ve seen the recent viral images on Facebook and the like of Batman being pulled over on Route 29 in Silver Spring, Maryland for having no tags. The images made me laugh, but I didn’t think much of it until my wife sent me an article published earlier this week in The Washington Post titled, “Who is the Route 29 Batman?” Believe it or not, the curious case of Lenny B. Robinson sheds some light on the topic of imputed righteousness.

The article is worth reading in full, but the skinny is that Robinson is an independently wealthy divorced man who spends his free time and spare money on dressing up like the Caped Crusader, driving his black Lamborghini made to look like a Batmobile, visiting sick children Washington and Baltimore area hospitals:

Batman began visiting Baltimore area hospitals in 2001, sometimes with his now teenage son Brandon playing Robin. Once other hospitals and charities heard about his car and his cape, Batman was put on superhero speed dial for children’s causes around the region. He visits sick kids at least couple times a month, sometimes more often. He visits schools, too, to talk about bullying. He does not do birthday parties.

His superhero work is limited to doing good deeds, part of a maturation process in his own life. In his earlier years, he acknowledges that he sometimes displayed an unsuperhero-like temper and got into occasional trouble with the law for fights and other confrontations. Putting on the Batman uniform changes and steadies him.

“Eventually, it sinks in and you become him,” Batman told me. “It feels like I have a responsibility that’s beyond a normal person. And that responsibility is to be there for the kids, to be strong for them, and to make them smile as much as I can.” He understands that might sound corny, but he doesn’t care.

Of course, the metaphor ultimately is only partial; obviously I am not talking about God declaring us righteous on account of Christ. But there are parallels: putting on Batman (compare to “putting on Christ”) allows Robinson—who is then recognized as the real Batman by everyday people, children most especially—to become righteous in the ways the character Batman is regarded as righteous despite being an ordinary and undeserving guy underneath all that fancy black leather and neoprene.

This happened in Montgomery County, MD, where I used to live. Holy Parable of Righteousness, Batman! And no Joker anywhere in sight.

Extreme Makeover – Heaven Edition

Any fans of the TV show Eextreme Makover- Home Edition" out there.

Stephen Altrogge at "The Blazing Center" presents that show as a parable of heaven at Extreme Makeover – Heaven Edition

Parable of The Prodigal God

The following quote comes form Tim Chailles' review of Tim Keller's new book:The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller at the Discerning Reader

Traditionally, readings of the parable of the Prodigal Son have focused on the younger son and is reconciliation with his father. We learn from such readings that God is willing to receive all those who wander from him. Yet too often we overlook that third character --the older brother. Were the story only about the father and the younger son we would expect that the Pharisees, among those who first heard Jesus tell this parable, would react with joy. Yet we know from Scripture that they walked away in disgust and disbelief. Why? Because the parable pointed to them as examples of the older son. As Keller says, Jesus' purpose in this parable "was not to warm our hearts, but to shatter our categories."

He begins by ensuring the reader has a sense of Jesus' original audience as he taught this parable. There were two groups near Jesus at the time. The first was tax collectors and sinners while the second was composed of Pharisees and teachers of the law. The tax collectors and sinners correspond to the younger brother--people who left the traditional morality of their families and social groups and engaged in what others would consider wild living. The religious leaders, on the other hand, correspond to the older brother, representing the moral and obedient who have never turned from the traditions of their culture and religion. Where the first group seek God through some kind of self-discovery, the second group seeks him through a type of moral conformity. Jesus' message is that both of these approaches are wrong and in this parable he offers his radical alternative. "There are two ways to be your own Savior and Lord," says Keller. "One is by breaking all the moral laws and setting your own course, and one is by keeping all the moral laws and being very, very good."

While Keller focuses attention on both of the brothers, he gives more time to the elder brother. He wants the reader to know that a self-imposed standard of morality is not the same as truly knowing and following Christ. He wants those who are outwardly religious to search their hearts to see if there is an inner surrender that goes along with the outward conformity. He challenges Christians with the fact that churches tend to be havens for the older brother kind of believer. "Jesus' teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners doesn't have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren't appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we'd like to think."

Okay, I need to read this book. Someone get me an Amazon gift card for Christmas already so I can.