Parables and Dark Sayings – Sunday Devotional
I will open my mouth in a parable:
I will utter dark sayings of old:
which we have heard and known,
and our fathers have told us.
Psalm 78:2-3 KJV
Parables and dark sayings – the Bible is actually full of them.
Parables are stories told to teach something, and are usually told using allegory.
C.S. Lewis especially loved to use allegory, and in many ways some of his writings are parables. Parables are usually considered to be short, though, not whole novels.
Jesus made the most use of parables out of any other people in the Bible. The only other well-known parable I can think of (right off hand) from the Bible that wasn’t one Jesus told is when the prophet Nathan confronted David about his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Bathsheba’s husband.
Our writing always has a deeper meaning to someone, whether we intend for it to or not. I’m sure that by now most of us have seen the little graphic going around that compares “What the Author Meant” with “What Your English Teacher Thinks the Author Meant”. I’m not going to post the actual graphic here, because there’s a word in it I’m not going to post in a devotional.
That is going to happen, especially if you write anything that might be taken remotely spiritual/religiously.
The question is, are you controlling what meanings people get out of it?
This is why I will always speak openly about my faith and what I believe on this blog, even though I will never advertise myself as a “Christian author”.
Truth should always be in the story, even if it has to be hidden at times.
