Christianity retold
The Donations is based on Matthew 13: 47-50
God’s nation is like a charity shop that gets all kinds of donations. When there’s a full load, the volunteers sit down and sort through them. They keep the useable stuff, but throw the unusable out.
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Forcing New and Old Together is from Mark 2: 21-22
The main ‘problem’ with these two mini parables is that they’re now the ‘old’ and we’re the ‘new’! They’re both good candidates for retelling, because they’re almost impossible to understand without explanation. So, people listening today might get the idea that there’s some kind of problem putting old and new together, but what they might not realise is that Jesus swaps the problem item between the two parables.
[Read more…] about Commentary: Forcing Old and New Together (Mark 2: 21-22)Forcing New and Old Together is from Mark 2: 21-22
No one repairs an antique chair with a plastic leg. Why? Because the new leg will just make the chair worse, so you end up repairing it again! And no one puts a new processor into an old laptop, either, because the old processor is soldered in! If you put a new one in, you’ll likely wreck both the motherboard and the new processor.
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The Unproductive Biotech Company is based on Luke 13: 6-9
The Unproductive Biotech Company is based on Luke 13: 6-9
A woman had given a biotech company both seed capital and a space in her science park. She came to look for some sign of progress, but didn’t find anything. So she said to her manager, “For three years I’ve been looking for some product from this start-up and I haven’t found any. Stop its funding! Why should it be using up my resources?”
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The Rich Idiot is based on Luke 12: 16-20
This is a parable that can still be understood without explanation. Farmers still exist and they still have bumper crops. They still rebuild their barns (though nowadays, they’d probably be rebuilding them into self-catering holiday homes). There are a few points we’d miss (if the rich fool is discussing things with himself, he’s got no friends), but even a modern, urban audience will still ‘get’ the main point.
So why retell?
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