This is the Baymaw Podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co-host, Brent Billings. Today we are bringing in a redent to launch a mini-series on parables, starting with a discussion about what a parable is and why anyone would want to teach in that way.

Oh yeah. Yeah, we have a we have like a whole new little chapter here of like we have a retreat. We talked about a few weeks ago in one of our episodes that we have coming up. We're going to do a bunch of planning for the future. So what do we do in between now and then we had this I had this idea where I wanted to get to see series somebody called them on the team anthologies. I really like that. I like that word. I do too. So our other Baymaw teachers. I don't know if I am going to do one or not, but read and Josh and

they know are all going to do an anthology and so read is going to do one on the parable. So at this point I'm just going to I'm just along for the ride. So there's no mini in your series. You do your long.

Dissection of the gospel of John, you know, things like that. The series is Baymaw. That's what it's called.

Well, I'm going to be busy on a book tour and all kinds of stuff. So it's a great time to let other people share and I'm going to I'll be present on a lot of these episodes, but to not carry the weight. Speaking of which I'm just going to slide into the co pilot sleep along with Brent Billings and turned over to read and we'll all have fun. So read it's all yours.

Hey, I am looking forward to this. When when the idea about the anthologies was initially pitched, I knew immediately that I wanted to talk about parables. We did a series on it.

So had CCF like four or five years ago and it was one of my favorite teaching series that we've done. And so I am just very in love with the parables. There are other parts of scripture or genres styles that I feel like more a fish out of water with but the parables I feel kind of at home with.

I don't know if it's because you know, I've got a literary background or what it is, but yeah, I was excited to dive in. So I wanted to start with a question and it's a question about questions.

And this is for any of the listeners to think about also Marty Brent, if either of you has a response to this, you're welcome to answer. And the question is just this, has anyone ever asked you a really big question?

Like a kind of question where they ask it and there is not an immediate answer that can flow out of your mouth. You have to think about it. You stop. You pause. You realize that it's something of significance.

And I mean, you Marty are in I'm sure like in Brent you too, I mean, just nature of what we do here. And Marty and your other life as campus minister like this kind of stuff comes up, right? Can you guys think of, does anything just come to mind of here's a time when somebody asked me what felt like a really important question.

Yeah, I think of that. And when I think of like the word important, I think that word throws me. And when you originally asked the question, I think you use the word big like a really big question.

And what comes to my mind are these questions where you're like, you just immediately start back pedaling like zooming out like you're going to have to zoom the camera out because they're the question is so big.

That you got to zoom out and try to figure out, well, we're never going to deal with the question itself. The question is just far there's far too much there, whether it's complexity or nuance or layers or whatever.

And you're going to have to like zoom out and and rephrase the question. You're going to have to make it about something like principles.

Because like I'll never be able to answer that question for you, but maybe we can talk about some of the principles that are going to, you know, lead your decision making or principles that speak about how we frame the way we view the world or.

I guess from my brain when I thought about big questions, there's like big and then there's important both of which are like.

They're they're not just a question. They're there's so much more than a question.

Absolutely. Yeah. And what that makes me think is so when we go out big and we go to principles, we're probably going abstract.

We're abstractifying an answer rather than concretizing it.

I mean, the questions that I was thinking of that I have been asked some of them are very personal and immediate like people who have asked me, you know, how do I forgive somebody who has repeatedly hurt me?

Or like, do I have to or what's that supposed to look like?

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