Praying the Parables

A Spiritual Journey
Through The Stories of Jesus

By Joyce Huggett
InterVarsity Press, $8.99

ISBN 0830813551

Buy or borrow this book!

Support your local independent bookseller

Compare prices at major online bookstores

Open the Heart In Prayer

Review by Charlotte Wimberley

Don't be misled by the title of Joyce Huggett's Praying the Parables. This engaging and very personal book begins with an explanation of parables, the way Old Testament scholars used these stories and images to communicate God's truth, the gulf between Middle Eastern and Western learning styles, and some guidelines for understanding the parables Jesus told. So far you won't find very much about prayer.

The remainder and the larger portion of the book is devoted to two parables: the parable of the sower and the parable of the good Samaritan. Readers are invited into Jesus' time and situation when He told each of these parables and then to contemplate the response of the disciples. Finally we are led to prayer based on each parable.

Here Huggett makes clear her reasons for writing Praying the Parables as she did. She leads us into a deep communion with Bible passages, the Lord, and our prayer needs. We are encouraged to take stock, to ask questions about our ethics, our theology (How do I achieve eternal life?), and our relationship to Christ.

Huggett, a missionary in Cyprus and the author of many books, writes from her own experience and includes many first-person accounts and examples.

In the Epilogue, Huggett describes having the Lord's Supper with her husband and friends on the beach. The precious and sacred symbols of bread and wine may be viewed as the greatest parable of all in which Jesus uses common elements to communicate His humility and life-giving sacrifice.

This book reads easily and helps us see that parables are not illustrations to inform the mind about meaning; it is to "elicit a response of the heart."

Charlotte Wimberly is a reviewer who lives in Houston, TX.