Originally posted in August 2017

I love to read, and for recreation I like to read mysteries.  One of my favorite authors is Jane Haddam.  In her book Cheating at Solitaire the victim as well as several of the suspects are celebrities of the Kim Kardashian variety.  Trying to explain the public’s fascination with the lives of these people, one of the characters says,  “Human beings were narrative animals. They liked stories.  Their brains were hardwired to think in stories.  Nothing sounded true to them if it didn’t fit into a story.”  Now a character in a mystery novel is not the same as a neuroscientist, nevertheless the statement rang true with me.  It was part of the reason I liked mysteries.   President Reagan also came to mind.  He was known as a good communicator, and one of his techniques was to choose and tell a pertinent story.

I’m sure that you’re thinking the same thought that came to me — that Jesus was the ultimate story teller.  His parables were so well chosen, so well told, and so well explained that his audiences of ordinary people were able to absorb the revolutionary ideas he was teaching.  The parables were so important to his message that they were included virtually intact in the Gospels, which were written decades after His death.  The Gospels didn’t just say, “Jesus told a story about a son who had taken his inheritance and moved away.”  Rather, they told the entire story.  We are thankful they did, for the parables still speak to us today.  To find out how the Parable of the Prodigal Son speaks to you today, read Luke 15:11-32 and remember:  God loves YOU unconditionally.

Jim