Bible Study series: Luke 11:5-13. Many times for the same need! You have to persist in your request, being grateful to God for even allowing you to enter his throne room to receive mercy and grace and help in your time of need.
Bible Study series: Matthew 13:51-52. Educated disciples can bring out old and new treasures.
Bible Study series: Matthew 13:47-50. Please be sure that you are a true citizen of the kingdom because people who seem to be in the kingdom actually cause sin and practice lawlessness. Angels will make the final determination.
Bible Study series: Matthew 13:44-46. The Parable of the Hidden Treasure and the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price. You have to give up all you have to get the better thing.
Bible Study series: Luke 10:25-37. These verses are important because they define what the greatest commandments are, and the parable is very beloved and admired.
Bible Study series: Matthew 13:36-43. As noted in the companion post, leave judgment of the world up to God. Don’t cut down the weeds that look like wheat. You may damage the wheat.
Bible Study series: Matthew 13:34-35. The hidden things are now being revealed to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Bible Study series: Matthew 13:31-33. The kingdom of God expands slowly, as it rescues people from the kingdom of darkness. Each redeemed life represents kingdom expansion.
Bible Study series: Matthew 13:24-30. We must leave judgment of the world in God’s hands. Let’s not presume to judge worldly people before God’s time.
Bible Study series: Matthew 13:18-23. Now we come to the interpretation. We need to see ourselves in the parable. Continue reading
Bible Study series: Matthew 13:10-17. You have to dig for the answers, showing your hunger for the kingdom. You must also have humility.
Bible Study series: Mark 12:1-12. This parable is about the Jerusalem and temple establishment. We should expect more confrontations, since he is now in Jerusalem. The establishment had already heard of him.
Bible Study series: Matthew 13:1-9. Where is your heart? Hard? Prepared? Let’s see.
Bible Study series: Luke 8:9-15. Are you hungry enough to dig into God’s word to mine its truths? Will you stay with your faith or walk away? Will you let Satan steal the word from your heart? Your soul is at stake.
Bible Study series: Luke 8:4-8. Where is your heart when you hear the gospel? Soft? Ready? Hardened? Anxious? Vulnerable to Satan?
Bible Study series: Matthew 9:14-17. God is doing a new thing.
Bible Study series: Luke 5:33-39. New wine in old wineskins?
Bible Study series: Mark 4:33-34. Parables keep everyone keen and reveal who leans in to pursue truth.
Bible Study series: Mark 4:30-32. Don’t despise small beginnings. Be patient for God to work.
Bible Study series: Mark 4:21-25. Several hard-hitting truths delivered with such few verses.
Bible Study series: Mark 4:13-20. The parable is profound, and he explains it to us.
Bible Study series: Mark 4:10-12. Are you hungry enough to dig for their meaning?
Bible Study series: Mark 4:1-9. Jesus introduces the parable, and then just a little later he will explain it.
Luke 18:9-14: Are we humble enough to admit our sins, or do we listen to religion and believe we do not have very many sins to confess?
Luke 18:1-8: We are challenged to pray and not give up, until we get an answer.
Luke 17:7-10: This parable challenges us to serve God even when we do not receive applause. Are we humble enough to serve him in this situation?
Luke 16:19-31: This parable is about doing good to the poor and needy. The parable challenges us not to be like Ebenezer Scrooge in Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. It also explains God’s justice on those who do not help.
Luke 16:1-13: This parable is difficult to understand.
Luke 15:11-32: The lost son’s father ran out to meet him and hugged him and kissed him, thrilled to have him back home.
In Luke 15:8-19 Jesus loves you so much that he will look everywhere for you.
In Luke 14:16-24, Jesus challenges a large crowd following him to count the cost to be his disciple. It ain’t easy.
In Luke 14:15-24, we are challenged to ask: How long can we reject the call to come into the kingdom of God?
In this parable (Luke 14:7-11), we must be careful about self-promotion, which is rampant in the American church.
This parable in Luke 13:6-9 is about Israel and Jerusalem and judgment on both. But can we learn lessons about our own unproductive discipleship?
In this parable (Luke 12:13-21), we are called to ask ourselves this question: How attached are you to your possessions?
In the Parable of a Friend in Need (Luke 11:5-8), Jesus teaches us to persist and be bold in prayer.
Jesus forgave a sinful woman in Luke 7:39-50. This parable teaches us about gratitude for God’s forgiveness.
Are you ready for the Lord’s return?
Parables are purposed to challenge us (among other things). As a kingdom citizen, are you ready to allow the kingdom of God do its work, overseen by God? It is his kingdom after all. Mark 4:26-29.
Are you prepared for final judgment?
This parable is often titled Parable of the Talents. Are you a productive kingdom citizen?
What kind of disciple are you? Wise or foolish? Are you prepared for the Second Coming?
Will you be faithfully serving God in your life when Jesus comes back? Will you do his will to the very end? If so, rewards are coming.
Do you believe the signs Jesus talked about in the first century can carry over to our days?
You have to be invited into the kingdom. God’s call to come in is going out to you right now.
The Jerusalem and temple establishment may have rejected Jesus, but God calls him his beloved Son and made him the chief cornerstone of a new temple.
The temple establishment and religious leaders get their comeuppance, in contrast to the commoners and expendables.
This is a story about God’s generosity. Do new converts get more grace than long-serving Christians, or does everyone get an equal amount of grace?
This parable will be a challenge for some of us. You must forgive, or your Father in heaven won’t forgive you. Serious!
God is searching for you, out of his love. He sent his Son to look for you. That’s how much he loves you.
We need the New Testament and the Old Testament.
After God’s great harvest, you will be judged. Are you a follower of Jesus? Are you found in union with him or away from him?
If you have to, sell everything you have to get into the kingdom. Don’t let your possessions prevent you.
Don’t miss out on the kingdom of God. Dig for it.
You must be born again to enter the kingdom of God (John 3:3, 5). When you do, your life a radical turn for the better.
The kingdom starts off small and grows slowly. Then it grows in your life and in millions of lives around the globe, individually. Through changed lives after the salvation of each person, the kingdom can influence society for the better.
This parable is about counterfeit disciples, satanic attacks by planting them inside the kingdom of God, yet we must not render ultimate and final judgment on them before God does. It also speaks of Jesus’ view of the end-times. It is not as complicated as the teachings of popular, end-time Bible prophecy teachers.
Will you let persecution or the anxieties of life steal or crush the word out of you? Or will you allow God to change your heart to become good soil? This is the most important parable for challenging our hearts to be receptive to Jesus and his gospel.
We could title this post: “God Is Doing a New Thing through Jesus.” That’s the basic meaning of this parable.
How do we know whether we are a wise of foolish builder in the kingdom of God? How do we become a wise one?
What does light mean in the kingdom of God? Does it produce good works? What is its source?
Here is a compendium of various commentators, who tend to reach one conclusion.
The parable may not cover the titled theological dispute in detail, but many interpreters believe it does. So let’s explore.
It is the major technique of Jesus’s teaching, right up there with his direct teaching. So how do we define it?
Here is a list of the principal works referenced or used at this site. More will be added as time goes on, so please check back.
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 