Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi

A parable requires no external key to explain what its elements mean; an allegory does.

For the women, the parable offered a mirror of family dynamics, not an allegory about God, Christians, and Jews.

Sunday morning has become in far too many settings the occasion for a pep talk rather than provocation;

Given the late onset of menstruation, the early onset of menopause, frequent pregnancies, and the likely cessation of the menstrual cycle during lactation, it may well have been the case that men—who are impure after ejaculation—were more often impure than women.

Only Jesus insists on loving the enemy: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” He may be the only person in antiquity to have given this instruction.

the parable asks: Can we assess what is of ultimate value in our own lives, not simply in terms of relativizing, but in terms of ultimate concern? More,

Lack of education is not the same thing as hatred; misinformation is not the same thing as slander.

once we count, we need to act. Finding the lost, whether they are sheep, coins, or people, takes work. It also requires our efforts, and from those efforts there is the potential for wholeness and joy.

“Everything that needed to be said was said, but not everyone had said it.”