THE PARABLES OF CONFLICT IN LUKE

The best known and best loved of Jesus' parables are to be found in St. Luke's Gospel. They include, for example, the stories of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan. They are all stories of critical human situations, man's present condition. There is a beaten man by the roadside, a wayward son returning home, a despairing tax collector at prayer, a diseased beggar at the door of a wealthy home, a rich farmer suddenly dying, a widow pleading with a dishonest judge, a ruler planning to attack his neighbor. They might be a list of current events. But the author, the Rev. J. Stanley Glen, points out that these problems really portray more of the divine than the human. They have to do with God the Father, the real center of religion and human life. He proceeds then to provide an exposition of these parables which shows how this is. It is sound, illuminating, and suggestive, and will provide much good sermon material for the proper preaching of these parables, thus avoiding the prosaic moralism that afflicts too many preachers.