Proclaiming the Parables: Preaching and Teaching the Kingdom of God

In Proclaiming the Parables, noted preacher and scholar Thomas G. Long moves away from past treatment of the parables primarily as literary devices and moves toward an emphasis on their theological impact as pointers to the kingdom of God. While the parables are indeed significant poetic literary creations that have enchanted readers over the centuries, their main power, he claims, lies in their disclosure of the kingdom of God, which is not merely an idea, nor even just a complex symbol with generative and centrifugal force, but an event: the inbreaking of the life of God into human history and experience.

Long sees parables not merely as creative figures of speech but as GPS devices taking hearers to those places where the event of God is happening all around us. This book provides two chapters for each synoptic Gospel. The first focuses on the Gospel as a whole and the parables' place in it, and the second provides preachers and teachers with detailed exegetical and homiletical commentary for each major parable in that Gospel. Two introductory chapters additionally situate this book in the history and theology of the parables' interpretation and address questions that preachers have about preaching the parables. Preachers who consult this volume will be informed about each major parable, guided through the controversies regarding interpretation, and stimulated to preach on the parable in fresh, faithful, and creative ways.

Thomas G. Long is Bandy Professor Emeritus of Preaching at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. He has taught preaching for over forty years, and his introductory textbook, The Witness of Preaching, has been translated into a number of languages and is widely used in theological schools around the world. Long has served as the president of the Academy of Homiletics and as senior homiletics editor of the New Interpreter's Bible. He has been editor of Theology Today and serves as an editor-at-large at The Christian Century. Long has been honored with the distinction of delivering the Lyman Beecher Lectures in Preaching at Yale Divinity School and was also named by Time magazine as one of the most effective preachers in the English language. A Presbyterian minister, Long has served churches in Georgia and New Jersey.