Prodigal son-"Father, I have sinned against heaven and I've sinned against you. Make me one of your servants. Father, I was a son in your house, and I left, but now all I want is to be a slave in your house." That's the heart of a converted person.

The parables of Jesus deal with the heart that we may fail to see. Such as King David did not see the evil in his heart but only his desires until Nathan shared a parable...a story that revealed how our hearts are bent to our own desires.

Sproul looks into 11 of the parables that Jesus told in the bible. With great insight, I found myself falling in love with these parables and a desire to dig deeper. The heart of a converted person vs the heart of an unconverted person. Our attitudes of grace and instant gratification can be telling of our own hearts. We desire grace from others but how freely do we give it to others as they struggle.

Each parable has a significant point. Who is my neighbor? Who is God? What is the Gospel?
How we can be moved to compassion. It also points to the sovereignty of God. The parables are designed to move our hearts towards the kingdom of God and his value system.

This text is short but heavy on context. I highly recommend.

A Special Thank You to Ligonier Ministries and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.

I love Mr. Sproul's 'Crucial Questions' book series! In this book, he discusses some of the parables Jesus taught in the Bible. He summarizes them and goes in depth on what they actually mean. My favorite chapter was the the Prodigal Son. I love how Sproul tied the parable with the true Gospel!

I recommend this book along with the books in this series!

First sentence: Our Lord Jesus Christ was the greatest teacher who ever walked on the face of the earth. Not only was He the very incarnation of truth--and so the content of His teaching was impeccable and of divine origin--but He was also a master pedagogue. That is, His style of teaching was extraordinary.

What is a parable? Sproul points out the meaning of two greek words: Para is a prefix that refers to something that is alongside something else and ballo means "to throw or to hurl." Ultimately answering the question with, "so parable means something that is thrown alongside of something else."

In What Do Jesus' Parables Mean? Sproul examines ELEVEN of Jesus' parables. Each parable has one central point. Parables are not meant to be allegories with a hundred points to discover.

The eleven parables are:

The Unjust Judge (Luke 18:1-8)
The Rich Fool (Luke 12:13-31)
Lazarus and the Rich Man (Luke 16:19-31)
The Hidden Treasure and the Pearl of Great Price (Matthew 13:44-45)
The Workers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1-6)
The Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14)
The Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18:21-35)
The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37)
The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32)
The Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids (Matthew 25:1-13)
The Talents (Matthew 25:14-30)

I enjoyed reading this one. I like that it was accessible. There are so many books about Jesus' parables. There are books hundreds of pages in length that focus just on one or two parables. One could spend years just reading up on the subject of Jesus' parables and what they mean. But Sproul's book is concise and easy to follow. Each parable has one central point that Jesus wanted his followers then and his followers now to grasp.

I love the idea of the series. The books look beautiful and Sproul certainly has a good reputation among Evangelicals. I especially like the idea of a book on parables, I personally find these enjoyable to study. However, I would have liked to see some more "meat" for each parable discussed. I realize the books need to be short, but I think it would have been better to cut the number of parables and add more explanation, rather than trying to fit 12 parables into an 80 page book. The book ends up having more a devotional feel to it, which is OK, but not what I would have liked in a book about Jesus' parables. A second problem is the actual content. The direction of some of Sproul's interpretations seem to go against Sproul's reformed background (for example, the concluding paragraph of chapter 5 seems almost Pelagianistic) . I was really surprised to read his interpretation of the Parable of the Talents in the 12th chapter. He basically writes that you need to work hard to show you are righteous.