Bible Stories for Grown-Ups Chapter 4
“Well done, good and faithful servant.”
How many times have we heard that line preached at a funeral as a way of commending the deceased on a life well lived in service to God, Church, and Community? Or as a way of honoring someone’s perseverance at some kind of milestone-marking service like a graduation ceremony?
For many, if not most Christians, those words from the well-known passage known as the Parable of the Talents (Matt. 25:14-30) are ones we long to hear. They’re the ultimate recognition of a job well done.
Did you ever stop to think, though, about whether or not that’s really the intent behind the master’s praise in that particular parable?
What if, instead of reading it as a story about wasted gifts, we saw it instead as an account of resistance? What if we considered the master’s congratulatory words not as praise for us to desire, but as the language of oppression and empire that Jesus calls his followers to stand against?
This week our New Wineskins study of Bible Stories for Grown-Ups turns to the New Testament with a discussion of how the context of the Parable of the Talents upends most of our traditional interpretations and exposes our tendencies to interpret scripture through assumptions born out of power and privilege…including our assumptions about who symbolizes God in Jesus’ parables.
Join us this Sunday, May 21, in the New Wineskins Virtual Theology Pub powered by Zoom for a stimulating conversation about the deeper and more subversive agenda Jesus may be trying to communicate through this familiar parable.
6:00pm ET: Happy Half-Hour (informal meet & greet time)
6:30pm ET: Presentation & conversation begin
Click here to view this week’s video
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Join us every week for a new discussion!
Sunday, April 23: IntroductionSunday, April 30: Chapter 1 – Noah’s ArkSunday, May 7: Chapter 2 – The Binding of IsaacSunday, May 14: Chapter 3 – Jonah- Sunday, May 21: Chapter 4 – The Parable of the Talents
- Sunday, May 28: Chapter 5 – Zacchaeus
- Sunday, June 4: Chapter 6 – Healing the Blind Man
- Sunday, June 11: Postscript – Where do we go from here?
Bible Stories for Grown-Ups is available through several booksellers. Here are some links to the most popular sites:
- Click here to order from Amazon
- Click here to order from Abington Press
- Click here to order from Cokesbury
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