J. Taylor Davis has excelled at about anything he has tried but being a successful author was never on the radar.
“I’m not a writer,” said Davis, who grew up as an athlete in northern Kentucky. “I’ve always been an athlete. I enjoyed writing when I was little with Mrs. Warren at Northpoint Elementary. She inspired me to be creative.”
Parable For The Republic is available on Amazon. It was written by Kentucky Baptist J. Taylor Davis.
But sports remained high on the priority list, and he excelled. Davis was a quarterback for powerful Beechwood High School and was a walk-on at Eastern Kentucky University.
However, the 30-year-old, who was born and raised in Hebron, found success on his first attempt at writing a book. “Parable for the Republic” sold out on its release day in June 2024.
Compelled to write
Davis owns a successful wealth management business in Lexington that he started in 2017 after graduating from EKU. He said writing the book was something he felt compelled to do.
“It was July 2023, and I was rocking my 18-month-old son Harrison,” Davis said. “There was a lot of craziness going on in the world, the attack on Israel and just a lot of things. For the first time in my life, I was down about how important having the right leaders in place was. I was rocking our son to sleep and had this vision of him being an adult and the culture had fallen to normalizing depravity. My son said to me (in the vision), ‘Why didn’t you do anything to change the culture or change the minds or influence people?’”
That was enough motivation to write the book, Davis said
“Parable for the Republic” applies the Parable of Talents, taught by Jesus to the disciples in the gospel of Matthew, to our American culture. “In the Parable of Talents, each of the people are given an equal amount of talent, but have an equal responsibility to multiply,” Davis said.
Process
The process of writing the book while running his business and caring for wife Alex and his young son was not easy. Squeezing in the time meant adjustments to his schedule and little sleep.
“Every night after putting him to bed, I got on my knees and prayed for the Holy Spirit to write through me. I wrote every night from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. That’s how ‘Parable for the Republic’ came about.”
Davis said he felt too many people were burying their talents and that’s why the culture was eroding. He has multiplied his own God-given talents, leading him to the top 1% of the wealth management industry along with becoming a political commentator on national news networks, and a speaker to corporations, political groups, and churches. In fact, TBN — Trinity Broadcast Network — published his book.
Davis said God has given us many talents but too often they are buried and not used to further the Kingdom. “Too many people are sitting on the shelf,” he said. “Salt on the shelf doesn’t season the steak or burger. It has to be in the material. That means being involved and not turning a deaf ear when something is wrong, and you know it.”
Davis spoke recently at Mission Church in Lexington and told the story of “how I was sick of myself. I needed to start multiplying my talents. I didn’t realize I was burying it and now I’m putting it to good use for the Kingdom. There is Christ-lite and Christ-like. The devil wants us to be Christ-lite, to be passive, weak, an on-the-sidelines person who keeps opinions to themselves. We are operating lukewarm.”
Confronting indifference
He talks about Jesus’ message to the church at Laodicea in the book of Revelation. Jesus offers no commendation for Laodicea but condemns the church for its indifference and lukewarm attitude toward him. When the Laodiceans turned their hearts toward wealth, they portrayed a distorted image of Christ to the world by their own worldliness.
Davis has received praise about the book including a letter from President Donald Trump, according to the Northern Kentucky Tribune.
“I received a letter from him, lauding his mutual devotion to American idealism, stating, ‘Our Nation is strong because of individuals like you who believe in, and defend, the great American ideals of faith, family, community and country first.’”
He also received a message from one of the top real estate brokers in America who told him, “I’m going to quote your book. The line of separating church and state but you can’t separate God and government. I’ve always held back but I’m going to start sharing God more.”
Getting involved
Some have encouraged Davis to get involved with politics, but he said the family comes first.
“My book is not a political book, but it calls for believers to get involved in politics. A lot of folks from the political world are saying ‘run for this, run for that.’ I’m raising a family. Harper (his daughter) is due in April. I’m fulltime focused on raising a family. We’ve got enough craziness in our lives. (But) If I get that word in the future, that calling on my heart, then maybe then.”
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Mark Maynard and originally published by Kentucky Today.
