The book offers a fresh, historically plausible account of why Jesus spoke in parables and how this distinctive style of speech functioned in his ministry.

Most books on the parables have tended to treat them as individual units to be interpreted rather than in a connected way as a consistent element within the ministry of the historical Jesus. Our understanding of the parables is a crucial element in our understanding of Jesus, and this book seeks to elucidate those connections in a way that takes account of some of the main advances in Jesus scholarship and parable scholarship over recent decades.

The book is academically serious but written in an accessible way, and provides a solid basis for any who wish to draw on the model of Jesus in communicating Christian faith today.