One of my favorite bloggers and pastors is Ed Underwood. He has recently published a book with Tyndale called The Trail which is an allegory about finding God’s will.
I believe that allegories may be one of the best ways of teaching theology. The Chronicles of Narnia have been best-selling allegories for decades, and you may have heard of another popular allegory from a few years ago called The Shack.
Of course, the Bible, though not allegorical, still teaches theology in story form.
So when Ed Underwood came out with an allegory about finding God’s will, I was excited to read it, especially on a topic like finding God’s will. This is a subject that numerous people struggle with, and about which there is so much bad thinking and bad theology. For example, I had a friend in college who use to pray about God’s will for every decision, including which ice cream to get at Baskin and Robbins.
The other difficulty with finding God’s will is that there are so many people approaching God’s will from so many angles. Like my friend, some think we need to pray about literally everything. Then there are others who follow the Martin Luther approach, which is essentially just to “Love God and do what you want.” There are numerous other approaches as well.
Anyway, the beautiful thing about The Trail by Ed Underwood is that he takes two of the more common approaches to finding God’s will and incarnates them into two of the main characters in his book, Matt and Brenda. They learn about discovering God’s will as they trek with another character named Sam Lewis through the High Sierras.
It is a beautiful, compelling, and (most of all) helpful story. If you have questions about how to discover God’s will, I recommend you get a copy of The Trail and set out on a journey that will change your life.
Allegory is a good way – an essential way to read the TNK – the allegory is Israel – an example for the life of the world. So Israel is his parables (Psalm 114:2) and it is the example used as a dark saying (Psalm 78) – I will open my mouth in a parable, I will ferment riddles from of old. So Jesus spoke in parables. Allegory is one way of deciphering a parable. And it works when Israel’s example in the TNK is seen as on behalf of all nations. Though the letters mem-shin-lamed can be translated also as dominions, I think the sense tends more toward failure if this word is used since it tends to mean domination rather than teaching..
Yes, allegory is a good way of teaching. It is memorable, gives some story “hooks” to hang the ideas on, and often keep the reader interested and moving forward when the normal method of teaching/writing would have left them bored.
You may also want to check out Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung.
Hmm. Ok. I will have to check it out.
My copy arrived today… Yaayy! Just have to finish my current book.. Ruthless Trust – “The Ragamuffin’s Path to God” by Brennan Manning.. good book!.
I have to read that book too. Thanks for the suggestion!