The Parable of the Bad Bereans

The parable can do things that other literary genres cannot. They challenge, disrupt, frustrate, confuse, and touch our hearts and imaginations. They generate cognitive dissonance, which creates an ideal learning mindset in the hearer. Jesus used them at a genius level, and I'm trying to learn from his example.

Part of what I'd like to do with this blog is share some of my work in and through parables. This is one I wrote for a group of friends online, sort of a Progressive Revelation Study Group. The word 'Berean' makes sense to them, but if you're not familiar with it, it's a reference to Acts 17:11. See what this sparks in you and comment below - parables are best when discussed after hearing. Enjoy!

(ill. cred. Kaelyn Joy Loverin)

Once there was a congregation of Bereans who searched the Scriptures daily. After many years of study, every question had been answered, every jot dotted, and every tittle crossed. They ceased studying to show themselves approved unto God, and instead concerned themselves only with rightly dividing the Word of Truth. They committed these divisions to memory, along with the answers to all of their questions, all proven by Scripture and confirmed in their conscience.

One of these Bereans had a daughter, and before he passed away he instructed her in the old ways. To search the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. But after much searching, she discovered that some of these things, the memorized answers, the jots and the tittles, were not so. With great eagerness she pointed this out to the congregation of Bereans, but at first they ignored her.

After further study and even more diligent searching, she came to them a second time, in great humility and patience, and comparing Scripture with Scripture, but again they silenced her.

When she came to them a third time, they expelled her from their midst, because she had taken it upon herself to study the Scriptures, and her answers had differed from theirs. For she had presumed herself to be more noble-minded than they.