Some great thoughts from Steve at "Ponder This"...
"...But unlike most preachers he won't tell you ahead of time what it is going to mean and remind you afterwards what it meant! He's just going to tell it - stopping waaaay before you are ready and then he is going to sit back and watch what you do with it. If there is more than one person listening then all the better - half the group can try to persuade the other half what it means while he sits there with an amused look on his face. Jesus' stories draw people out - because he won't finish or explain most of them, his listeners have to do that - and 9 times out of 10 they learn more that way. Jesus was the master at involving people and when they were involved in his stories the main thing they understood at the end was that they didn't understand as much as they thought they did. The good guys weren't all that good. The bad guys weren't all that bad. Those on the top were really on the bottom and those on the bottom were headed straight to the top. "Yes," didn't always mean yes and, "No," didn't always mean no..."
Read the whole post "Jesus' Teaching"
Posted by ed