Category: Series: Luke 15 – Kenneth E. Bailey
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Connecting the Luke 15 Parables (Part 2)
[Previous] Jesus chose a shepherd, a woman, and a father as the central characters in his Luke 15 parables. Is there any significance to the selection of these three characters? Kenneth Bailey would suggest that there is. There are several metaphors for God in the Psalms, but they divide into two categories: Inanimate and animate.…
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Connecting the Luke 15 Parables (Part 1)
[Previous] I wrote in an earlier post that Jesus’ parables were not intended to make “a point.” They were theological constructs that invite us to enter an alternate reality. Bailey describes the parables as theological clusters where several theological realities are represented as a package. Each of the three parables has its own cluster, and…
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Parable of the Lost Coin (Part 2)
[Previous] Here is Kenneth Bailey's description of the parable's parallelism. INTRODUCTION "Or what woman having ten silver coins, 1. LOST if she loses one of them, 2. FOUND does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 3. REJOICE 9 When she has found it, she calls together her…
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Parable of the Lost Coin (Part 1)
[Previous] Kenneth Bailey suggests that the "Lost Coin" parable (Luke 15:8-10) is actually a retelling of the "Lost Sheep" parable with some important nuances. 8 Or what woman having ten silver coins [drachmas], if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? The…
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Parable of the Lost Sheep (Part 2)
[Previous] Kenneth E. Bailey shows that the parable is a combination of straight parallelism with an inverted parallelism in the middle. 1. YOU 4 "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep 2. ONE and losing one of them, 3. NINETY-NINE does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness A. LOST and go after the…
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Parable of the Lost Sheep (Part 1)
[Previous] We have just explored the "Parable of the Compassionate Father" in Luke 15:11-32. It is time to back up and review what led to this parable. 1 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow…
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Theological Implications of “The Parable of the Compassionate Father” according to Kenneth Bailey
[Previous] Kenneth E. Bailey lists eleven major theological implications of "The Parable of the Compassionate Father" (Luke 15:11-32) in Finding the Lost: Cultural Keys to Luke 15. (190-192) Sin. The parable exhibits two types of sin. One is the sin of the law-breaker and the other sin of the law-keeper. Each centers on a broken…
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Reflections on the Parable of the Compassionate Father
[Previous] My presentation of Kenneth E. Bailey's work on Luke 15:11-32 is woefully lacking. Still, I hope these recent posts have helped us see how rich the story is when viewed through Middle Eastern eyes. Having closely examined this parable, we now ask what to do with the parable. The temptation is to "gut" the…
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The Older Son (Part 2)
[Previous] Here is the inverted parallelism for the second half of the parable: A. He Stands Aloof – 25 "Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves [young boy] and asked what was going on.…
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The Older Son (Part 1)
[Previous] Jesus concludes the first eight stanzas of the parable with the celebration getting underway. In the ninth stanza, Jesus shifts the focus to the older son. As you will recall, the older son was silent when the younger son did the unthinkable by asking for a division of his father's estate. The expected role…