Christians would acknowledge that Jesus was a master story-teller. However, if we’re honest, many of us would have to admit that the gut-level impact of Jesus’ parables often goes unfelt. We somehow fail to put ourselves in Jesus’ day and to hear the stories as his original audience would have received them. The parables can come across as sterilized because of the gap between Jesus’ cultural setting and our own. And yet getting at the author’s original intention is crucial. In preaching about the prodigal son, Pastor John MacArthur noted, “it is critical that we understand that we must hear it the way the audience of Jesus heard it. There were in their minds ingrained ideas, ingrained cultural attitudes, ingrained patterns, unspoken feelings and sensibilities that existed in the Middle-Eastern peasant village life. And these are the things that illuminate the story.”
Enter Modern Parables, the product of Thomas Purifoy’s desire to create a new kind of Bible study that would appeal to a variety of people, regardless of their religious background, while simultaneously pointing them all back to the Biblical text. Purifoy’s films are situated in a modern context that seeks to mirror the culture of Jesus’ day. The stories consciously incorporate the theological message found in the original parables with the goal of evoking a similar emotional response in both Christian and non-Christian viewers.
Modern Parables is in no way intended to replace the study of Jesus’ parables themselves. Rather, by arresting viewers through a brief, powerfully conveyed rendition of Jesus’ stories, we are driven back to our Bibles to look more intently at what Jesus was trying to accomplish in the lives of His hearers.
Here’s the gist of it: Modern Parables is an original Bible study curriculum designed for people who like movies (and that’s most of us!). When you purchase the Group Study DVD Set, you get:
Six Parable Films
Six Application Videos each taught by a different pastor
Six Director’s Commentaries for teaching Cinema and Theology
1 Teacher’s Guide with 2 intro chapters, 12 complete lesson plans + 6 bonus lesson plans (108p.)
1 Student Book with 12 in-depth chapters on the parables (200p.)
1 Teacher’s Prep CD with 12 audio lesson overviews for teachers
The pastors in the application videos are Dr. Dan Doriani, Ph.D. (Central Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, MO), Dr. George Grant (Parish Presbyterian, Franklin, TN), Dr. Frank Lewis (First Baptist Church, Nashville, TN), Dr. Gene Mims (Judson Baptist Church, Nashville, TN), Jeff Schulte (ChangePoint, Anchorage, AK), and Scotty Smith (Christ Community Church, Franklin, TN). The exegetical and theological insight of these men is outstanding.
My wife and I were blessed by the films themselves. The cinematography was very professional, and the acting was quite good. As an audience, we felt simultaneously entertained and taught by these 15-20 minute modern adaptations of Jesus’ parables. And the application videos helped drive home how the film intentionally conveyed the elements of the parable in Jesus’ day. We highly recommend these parables for use in family devotions, youth groups, Sunday School classes, and small groups. The box comes with excellent teacher preps. The films are an excellent supplement for bringing the timeless truths of Jesus’ message to life in our modern context.
So which parables did the producers choose? Hidden Treasure, The Good Samaritan, The Shrewd Manager, The Widow & Judge, The Sower, and Prodigal Sons. Here are a couple trailers:
Update: Individual DVD’s are now available.