fbpx

paul andrew skidmoreparabolos

cinematic storytelling, strategy, and advice

parabolos

parabolos is my motion picture production company. through it, i hope to turn vision and message into tangible work, sharing myself through process and product from story development to the final master of the film. i believe using cinema is the strongest way to deliver Truth that inspires thought and encourages reflection in people, particularly in today’s America.

etymology

parabolos (pronounced par-ah-bah-lahs) is an ancient Greek word which means, “venturesome, reckless, dangerous”. the para- (para-) prefix can mean “aside”, “alongside”, or “to the side”, and the bolo root means “i throw”.  quite literally, the word means “thrown aside”. consider our idiomatic expression “throwing caution to the wind” as a parallel construct.

it may evoke ideas of its relative, parabole (par-ah-bah-lay), where we get our English word parable; a parable is a story “thrown alongside” a truth so that people may more easily understand it.

the paraboloni

from a lesson on Model Spiritual Servants by John MacArthur:

“That word parabolo came to have some interesting usages. In the days of the early church after the New Testament era, there was an association of men and women who got together and took the name ‘The Paraboloni’ which meant ‘The Gamblers.’ They took as their hero Epaphroditus who gambled with his life. And it was their aim and their mission to visit the prisoners, to visit the sick, especially those with infectious, dangerous, communicable diseases. It was their mission to unhesitatingly, unflinchingly and boldly proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ in every environment without any hesitation. And they called themselves, ‘The Paraboloni, The Gamblers.’

It is also interesting to note that in A.D. 252 the city of Carthage had a terrible plague and the heathen were so frightened of the germs that were in the bodies of the dead that they literally bagged them somehow and hurled them out of the city, not wanting to touch them for burial. Cyprian the Christian bishop gathered the congregation of the believing church together and the church members took their bodies and in a gracious act of human kindness buried the dead bodies of the plague-stricken people. And according to the historians as well, they nursed even the sick people, coming close enough to them to touch them in that plague-infested city, risking their lives to save some in the city and God used them as a tremendous potential, as a tremendous force really to reach people for Christ because of their love.

Whether you’re talking about The Paraboloni who gambled with their lives in an infectious disease environment, or whether you’re talking about Epaphroditus their hero who gambled with his life by going at a hostile culture with all he had in the service of Jesus Christ, that kind of self- sacrificing example is marvelous.”

through parabolos, i hope to live a thrown-aside life in order to tell the Story that this generation so desperately needs to hear.

skidmore

skidmore | administrator

believer. follower. filmmaker.

  • share this:

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.