When I was a girl, I loved Highlights magazines and the Where’s Waldo books. There was always something hidden waiting to be discovered. I knew it was there – I knew if I looked hard enough I would find what was hidden in plain sight and the certainty of knowing I wasn’t wasting my time spurred me forward even when I felt I was getting nowhere.
Have you ever wondered why Jesus taught in parables?
Why he chose stories —instead of theological lectures?
What if that wasn’t just a communication strategy but an invitation to a way of seeing and searching for a mystery hidden in plain sight?
Today I want to talk to you about reading the world like a parable.
Not just reading Scripture like a parable. But the world. Culture. News. Nature. Your own life. All of it.
A parable is a story with layers. It reveals truth for those who are willing to look deeper. The world is like that too. And Jesus, the master of parables, is also the master of signs.
I am currently a doctoral student studying theo-semiotics. Theo-Semiotics is the study of signs, symbols throughout the world beyond just linguistics but visual, auditory, and tactical forms as well as the analysis of signs and symbols found in scripture.
Simply put – I’m a detective of the obvious. I am a student of story. I embrace the mystery of the not yet known.
So when I say we need to read the world like a parable, what I am meaning is we must to live attentively. To notice symbols. To listen for sacred echoes. To believe the Spirit is still speaking in and through creation, culture, and crisis.
This is the heart of semiotic discipleship.
Jesus didn’t just teach theology. He interpreted reality.
He saw lilies and spoke of trust. He watched a fig tree and named judgment. He saw a widow’s offering and called it worship.
Jesus read the world as if it were alive with meaning — not just rules and systems, but symbols and stories.
He was not just a rabbi or miracle worker. He was a master semiotician.
To follow Jesus is to learn to see as he saw. It’s to train our eyes and ears not only in Scripture but in surroundings.
I see people all of the time posing questions like, What does this generation long for? What is the culture crying out about underneath its noise? What do our scars symbolize? What is the sacred whisper behind the cultural shouting?
And in those questions we find the answer if we put on our curiosity glasses and observe and listen very closely.
There are two ways you can look at the world:
1. As a battlefield
2. Or as a sacred story
A battlefield has enemies. A story has meaning.
Too many leaders today are trained for battle but not for interpretation. But what if we trained our leaders to be readers? Not just of Scripture but of moments, of culture, of the human heart?
In semiotic terms, the world is not flat or random — it’s full of signs. And those signs are meant to be read, not ignored. They are parables embedded in plain sight. You just need the Spirit's eyes to see. The same Spirit who inspired the writers of Scripture also saturates creation with signs. Just as we trace symbolic meaning through biblical narratives, we are also invited to trace God’s presence through the unfolding narrative of the world around us.
The semiotics of Scripture train us to see how meaning is embedded in objects, gestures, landscapes, and repetition. A reed is never just a reed. A path through the sea is never just an escape route. When we become fluent in the symbolic language of Scripture, we begin to recognize that the same divine Author is still writing — in our cities, in our news feeds, in our daily lives.
The signs in Scripture help decode the signs in the world. And the more we learn to recognize sacred symbolism in the biblical story, the more we’ll be able to discern God’s fingerprints in the present story. This is how we become not just readers of the Word, but readers of the world — understanding that the same semiotic thread runs through both.
Let me give you an example from my own doctoral research: the symbol of the reed in Scripture.
This is small insight into what I mean that signs and symbols are hidden in plain sight – ready to be revealed to the world.
There’s a line in the Gospels that might seem small at first glance:
“They put a reed in Jesus’ hand and mocked him.” (Matt. 27:29)
It seems like nothing. Just a prop for mockery.
But when you trace the reed across Scripture, a stunning semiotic thread begins to emerge:
Exodus 2: Under Pharoah’s decree, the Egyptian empire demanded that all Hebrew infant males were to be executed by the midwives by being thrown into the Nile River. A command meant to prevent the Hebrews from growing too numerous to be controlled by those in authority in Egypt. However, in Exodus 2, a Hebrew mother, out of desperation to preserve her three-month-old child from inevitable death, weaves a small tevah, the same Hebrew word used in Genesis for Noah’s ark,[1] out of papyrus reeds and sets it adrift among the reeds of the Nile. Ancient Egyptians believed that the reeds were liminal spaces where the cosmic forces of ordered eternity and chaos met.[2] Within these reeds, floated a prophetic promise that was neither fully hidden nor fully exposed within the stalks along the shore. As the story proceeds, the daughter of Pharoah finds the baby, draws him out of the reeds, and names him Moses. In the first mention of the reeds in Scripture, it’s not merely background shrubbery, but a chosen prophetic foreshadowing for the first act of salvation and deliverance.
Exodus 14-15: The second appearance of reeds comes several chapters later and is no less dramatic. As the story of Moses continues, with his new understanding of his Hebraic lineage, he is ushering the Hebrew people out of Egypt under the temporary blessing of the Pharoah, only to find themselves in aggressive pursuit by the Egyptians hours later. In Exodus 14 and 15 the people of Israel are standing at the Yam Suph (Sea of Reeds)[3] with the future of the promised land before them and the empire of slavery behind them. As the waters miraculously part by the wind of Yahweh, order takes over and the chaos of untamed water is restrained. Once again, deliverance and salvation come through the reeds, and it is Yahweh who triumphs over its chaos. The Sea of Reeds becomes a liminal space of cosmic reversal where Egypt’s power is drowned, and Israel’s identity emerges as a people who have the favor of Yahweh upon them.
Ezekiel 40: After seeing a vision of the destruction of Israel’s enemies, Ezekiel is taken to a high mountain. There, he sees a man who looks like shining bronze, holding a measuring reed. This man uses the reed to measure the boundaries, chambers, and gates of a new temple. But this isn’t a copy of the old temple — it’s something new. It’s the center of God’s cosmic rule. From this temple, water flows by God’s command. Boundaries are drawn. Space is made holy. What once was a fragile stalk swaying in Exodus now becomes the tool used to mark off what is sacred. And the message is clear: what is measured by God belongs to Him.. With it, the bronze man measures the boundaries, chambers, and gates of the new temple. This fragile but prevalent stalk in Exodus, swaying in the water, now measures the holy water and the boundaries of divine demarcation of sanctified space and holiness in Ezekiel. Held with authority by the man of bronze, the message is clear to Ezekiel: the measured belongs to God.
Revelation 11: We see the Apostle John with the reed entrusted into his hand to measure not a physical building, but the Christian community with distinction to withhold measuring the outer courts, which had been given over to the nations for a time (Revelation 11:2). This mirror to Ezekiel’s prophetic vision of the reed demonstrates that the people of God under the new covenant are now the temple of God, as they have already passed through the deliverance of Jesus’ resurrected temple (John 2:19-22).
Matthew 27: Tucked within the larger, dramatic account of the crucifixion is a small but powerful detail, a symbol layered with meaning and laced in mockery. In Matthew 27, we see Jesus at the brink of his death, crowned with thorns, robed in scarlet, and given reed as a scepter. The reed, a symbol of deliverance and judgement, is now used as a prop in the cruel theater of empire. The soldiers laughed, mocked, and knelt before their mockingly adorned prisoner in efforts to humiliate the condemned. They then strip the reed scepter from his hands and beat him over the skull wrapped with a crown of thorns causing his brow to be further bloodied and bruised. The same reed that beat Jesus, this reed known as the liminal space between cosmic order and chaos, the divine and common, the holy and unholy that reed he held it in his hand was taken from him and weaponized causing painful blows to his head.
This reed Jesus held in his hand was no accident. This hollow reed placed into his grasp was the sign of the kingdom he meant to bring and would reign over. It is not the scepter of domination, but divine meekness, humility, and healing.[4] It was not a rod of iron, but a bruised reed unbroken (Isaiah 42:3-4). In this fragile reed, is the symbol of an empire unstable being placed in the hands of an eternal King (Isaiah 36:6). Those soldiers had no idea what they were doing when positioned this King with the reed scepter in his hands, yet heaven itself must have gasped with prophetic exclamation when his fingers tightly grasp that bloodied measuring rod.
But this is no accident. The reed is the through-line. A symbol of:
· Liminality (the in-between)
· Judgment and mercy
· Fragility and kingship
· Holiness and salvation
In Revelation 21, the reed appears again — but this time as a golden measuring rod. No longer fragile. No longer mockery. Now it declares what is eternally secure. It measures the New Jerusalem.
The same reed that once bruised the Messiah becomes the golden scepter of his eternal rule.
This is what it means to read the world like a parable. It’s to recognize that nothing is meaningless in the hands of God — not a reed, not a scar, not a moment of mockery, not a failed plan – nothing is meaningless in the hands of God.
Take the reed for example, in the smallest detail, we find a divine drama unfolding — because parables hide their truth in plain sight. When we trace the symbols across time, we begin to see the shape of salvation. A fragile stalk becomes a scepter. A bruised object becomes a signpost. In this way, symbols reveal God’s divine hand in his creation. Symbols reveal how God writes redemption into the very fabric of creation, history, and human experience.
As pastors, missionaries, church leaders, nonprofit leaders, followers of Jesus — you are not just strategists. You are interpreters. You are living symbols.
You stand at the border of chaos and order, culture and kingdom. And you need tools not only for management, but for meaning-making.
It’s so important that we are trained to see. To live with sacred attentiveness. To read the cultural moment with kingdom clarity.
This is about more than “being relevant”. It’s about discernment. It’s about living prophetically, symbolically, Spirit-led.
Jesus said in Matthew 13:9-16
9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.”
10 The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”
11 He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12 Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 13 This is why I speak to them in parables:
“Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand.
14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
15 For this people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’[a]
16 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
Let me offer this encouragement:
The world feels chaotic right now. Wars loom, systems shake, and scandal seems to bleed through every corner of the Church. Pastors are weary. Leaders are disillusioned. Burnout, betrayal, and spiritual fatigue are all too common.
But even in this storm, the Spirit has not gone silent. Even now, signs are being placed like breadcrumbs before your feet. Even in the darkness, symbols are glowing faintly — waiting for someone with eyes to see them.
So let me ask you:
What signs are surfacing around you? What moments, phrases, or images seem to echo again and again in your life? What has been hiding in plain sight, waiting for you to notice?
Ask the Spirit to reveal what you’ve overlooked. Ask God to pull back the veil. Because what you thought was ordinary may be sacred. What feels confusing might actually be a key. And what seems insignificant could carry the mystery of the kingdom.
Look again. Listen deeply. The parable may already be unfolding before you.
The world is not random. It is revelatory.
Just like something as simple as a reed has conveyed this deep truth that God brings order out of chaos, freedom and deliverance through murky waters, a promise of a future salvation, and a symbol of an eternal kingdom – what else is God speaking through?
It’s like those Highlights magazines or Where’s Waldo books I loved as a child. There was always something hidden, waiting to be discovered. I knew it was there — and if I looked long enough, I would find it. That certainty kept me searching even when my eyes blurred and the answers weren’t obvious.
This is how the Spirit invites us to look at our world and look at the scriptures. With that same childlike hope. With faith that something sacred is hidden in plain sight — and it is not a waste to keep looking.
Look again. Listen deeply.
The parable may already be unfolding before you.
[1] Dudley Rose, January 28, 2019, An Ark in the Reeds, Harvard Divinity School. https://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/2019/01/28/ark-reeds
[2] Janice Kamrin, Papyrus in Ancient Egypt, The Met. https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/papyrus-in-ancient-egypt
[3] Jonathan Sacks. The Divided Sea, Supernatural or Natural. Covenant Conversations. https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/beshallach/the-divided-sea
[4] Dave Lescalleet. A Bruised Reed He Will Not Break. Pruitt Cares. https://www.pruittcares.org/category/uncategorized/a-bruised-reed-he-will-not-break
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