by John Claypool
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John Claypool was a uniquely gifted communicator — speaking and writing with the honesty and humility of fellow traveler. It was a model he picked up from Jesus.
“Jesus chose images that were familiar to his hearers,” he writes in this 1993book, revised in 2000. “He was not an elitist reserving his meanings for the privileged few.”
The title of the book speaks clearly to Claypool’s premise: that the ancient stories Jesus told to his first followers are both available and applicable to those who dare to follow him today.
In Stories Jesus Still Tells, readers are invited into select parables of Jesus that convey the very nature of God through the most basic and accessible everyday experiences.
Claypool’s mining of Jesus’ parables is illuminated by his own effective telling of contemporary stories.
In chapter seven, titled “A Midnight Request” and based on Luke 11:5-13, Claypool writes: “The longer I live, the more convinced I become that there are only two basic realities — love and fear.”
The great tragedy within much of Americanized Christianity today is the degree to which professing Christians are driven by fear over love.
“What occurs on the perceptional level is what shapes our behavior,” writes Claypool. “This is precisely where Jesus chose to do his redemptive work and why parables like the one of the neighbor’s midnight request are of seminal importance.”
For those seeking understanding and inspiration from Jesus’ parables, this is a good source. It is fitting for personal reading, sermon preparation and group study.
Review by John D. Pierce, Director of the Jesus Worldview Initiative