Jesus! Week 4: Precious Pictures (Pam Larson with Amy Katterson)

This week we saw one magnificent portrait of Jesus as our precious Teacher. In many different places: synagogues, mountainsides, lakes, one-on-one clandestine meetings at night and unexpected conversations … Jesus taught. He taught in public and in private, in cities and in the countryside, during the day and during the night, to the rich and to the poor, to strangers and to friends. He had no prestigious degree from an esteemed university, and no modern resources like sound systems or powerpoint. Sermons, conversations, word pictures, images, and parables. His words, recorded for us by the gospel writers,  are unforgettable and timeless. The greatest of all teachers used words to paint pictures for us, and those pictures point to precious gospel truths. “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

In this lesson, we examined images such as birth, water, spirit, wind, bronze serpent, living water. In the parables, all sorts of characters point to Jesus: bridegroom, beloved son, heir, the shepherd who leaves the 99 to go after one lost sheep, master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard, the king’s Son, a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property, a great physician, a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants, a man who had two sons (one who was a prodigal.) We learned that no one (including an educated religious leader) is beyond the need for Jesus and no one (including a despised, hopeless woman at the well) is beyond the reach of Jesus.