Book Review: Meet Yourself in the Parables

A Fair Trade Book

Title: Meet Yourself in the Parables

Author: Warren W. Wiersbe

Date: 1979

Publisher: SP / Victor

ISBN: 0-88207-877-1

Length: 160 pages

Quote: “The parables are not bedtime stories to put us to sleep, but bugle calls to wake us up!”

There are a few different ways of looking at the stories Jesus told. Some want to believe all of them were literally true; some want to find an allegorical meaning for every detail. Warren Wiersbe tries to steer a middle course and stick to the moral lessons Jesus seemed to be emphasizing.

The result is thirteen solid and unobjectionable Bible studies, each of which contains a call to action:

1. Study the parables

2. Study in order to teach

3. Make your church lively

4. Forgive others as God has forgiven you

5. Help others in practical ways

6. Pray about your immediate needs, but pray on “higher” levels too

7. Give money to your church

8. Welcome diverse kinds of people, specifically including the poor and the disabled, to church

9. In the Great Controversy between God and Satan, take a side and stick to ti

10. Don't set too much value on money and “career success”

11. Forgive others as God has forgiven you

12. Avoid the Deadly Sin of Envy

13. Be a bold “investor” of the Gospel message

These may not be the calls to action that suggest themselves to you as you read the parables studied, each of which is reprinted in this book. And the repetition...some Protestant churches structure their Bible study programs (Sunday School) around the idea of tracing one theme through thirteen weekly studies, and Meet Yourself in the Parables is an excellent specimen of that genre, but two identical calls for action in one “quarterly” course...oh dear, oh dear. Luke 7:36-50 and Matthew 18:21-35 actually contain different stories told to illustrate different ideas—the former is about the prejudice “nice” people feel toward newly reformed people with especially interesting pasts, and the latter is about forgiving someone who actually sinned against you and has repented—but Wiersbe overlooks the opportunity to expound on these two passages in such a way as to generate two distinct calls to action.

As for Luke 19:11-27...denominational differences have been based on this passage. There are two ways of hearing the story. Either the nobleman, although he represents God, was in historical fact the mean, greedy, money-grubbing man his fainthearted servant said he was, and liked being that way, and had seriously expected the fainthearted servant to lend the money at interest; or he was insulted by the craven servant's blundering accusation and basically sneered, “Right; since you know I'm a thief, why didn't do you do what a thief would have done with the money?”If we'd been watching Jesus tell his story we might understand which way He meant it. Since we've not had that opportunity, let's just say that the Torah forbids collecting interest from a fellow believer (Jews were allowed to lend money at interest to Gentiles, which has been a fertile ground for endless hate and prejudice ever since Moses' time) and Jesus probably was not recommending an interest-based economic system to Christians. To bound away from this controversial study into an oh-so-spiritual discussion of “investing the Gospel” in evangelical efforts certainly shows creativity. It may be useful to you; it may seem more of a distraction. I'd like, here, just to salute the creativity of Sunday School teachers who've thought of it.

Verdict: This was one of my book-clueless friend's contributions to that bookstore (in which some Christians need to invest the Gospel all right) but, on consideration, it's a book I'd like to keep for another while. Y'know, when someone is in between prescription glasses and doesn't even read books but just judges them strictly by their covers...sooner or later that person is going to pick something really good! No worries. This is what Amazon is for: allowing me to keep my books and sell them to you too.

Warren Wiersbe is still alive and active, so this is still A Fair Trade Book: when you send $5 per book, $5 per package, plus $1 per online payment, this web site will send $1 to Wiersbe or a charity of his choice. At least twelve of these little books would fit into one package and, if you ordered twelve copies, you'd pay $65 (or $66) and Wiersbe('s church) would get $12.