Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

The parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the most well-known parts of the Bible. It's a story that Jesus taught about a son who asks for his inheritance early, leaves home, squanders his inheritance, is left in abject poverty, and then realizes he would be better off working as a servant for his father than where he currently is right now. So he travels to his father, who greets him with open arms and prepares a feast for him.  The prodigal son's brother, however, is jealous. The brother reminds his father that he has always lived with his father yet the father has never prepared a feast for him and his friends. Let's take a look at this often-overlooked part of this parable - the father's response to the brother: Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.”’ Luke 15: 31-32 In this parable, we ar...

When so many bad things happen in the world, or to ourselves, it seems like these are cancelling out all the good things we are doing. Yet, this is not the right way to look at it - the good news is that we have a lot more hope and joy than it first seems. Even if you literally do something good, and someone literally goes and destroys it before anyone gets to see the good thing you did, your hard work is not wasted. Because God sees it, and ultimately you are answerable to God, not to the people who never got to see your work because it was destroyed.  The good and bad things do not cancel each other out; instead (here on Earth), they coexist. This is actually good news and offers some hope. No-one can take away your good work from you even if they physically destroy it, because God has already seen it, and He is the most important entity in the universe. There is strong Biblical evidence supporting this attitude. Let's take a look at the parable of the weeds among the wheat (Jesu...

I was reading the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. You can read the full parable in Matthew 16: 19-31. There, a rich man who feasted each day did not share even scraps with a poor man called Lazarus who was hungry. They eventually both died, and the poor man went to heaven and the rich man to Hades (hell).  There, the rich man was in agony and asked Abraham in heaven to relieve him, but Abraham said there was a great chasm between the two places so it was not possible. Then the rich man pleaded to Abraham to at least send Lazarus to the rich man's father's house to warn his five brothers so that they would not wind up in hell. Let's examine what happens next: Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’” Matthew...

Many of us have a tendency to worry about worst-case scenarios, most of which may never even happen. I have my own struggles with this.  Recently, it was revealed to me that this behavior is just like that of the unfaithful servant in the parable of the talents. Let's take a look at the parable: “For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you ...

When I was young, I wondered why Jesus spoke in parables.  Did he think that people were too uneducated to understand any other type of teaching? Why not just tell them directly yet simply about the message he was trying to get across? After reading the Bible, my question was answered. I admired the parables for their ability to get the message across for all peoples and all time: 1.  The parables would have been easier to translate into other languages than the direct message would have been, since some of these messages handle complex and otherwise abstract theological concepts.  We have to remind ourselves that we are among the many beneficiaries of this ease of translation - the Bible wasn't originally written in English! 2.  Parables offered less chance that the messages would get distorted over time , whether uninentionally or for self-serving political or other purposes. 3.  These agriculturally based messages can be readily unde...