The World As It Could Be

One of Jesus' key ideas was that of the kingdom of God. An imagination for the world as it could be pervades not only Jesus' teaching but all of his interactions. In fact, this is a uniquely human ability to think in sequence and to understand meaning through the lens of past, present, and future. Simply put, we live in a storied world, and one of the most important questions for any story is, "Where is it going?" Jesus taught from these three aspects of reality: There is a past from which we live—an explanation for the way things are. There is a way to live in the present— our responsibilities defined by the story we are a part of. There is a future to live toward—a hope that motivates and comforts us. The Good News doesn't hold together without all of these and certainly not without a strong sense of where the story is going. Our question in this series is simple—what do Jesus' parables about the future teach us about how we should live today.