Stories


Too often we expect the Bible to do systematic theology for us, the problem is it doesn’t. We expect that if something is true we should be able to pull a verse from the Bible and “prove” it. We read the Bible a if it is a collection of propositional truths about everything we could ever want to know. We spend hours and days memorizing verses so that we’ll “know the bible.” When it’s all said and done we see the Scriptures as a collection of verses and chapters and we lose the narrative. We expect to find truth and support truth with verses when, in fact, the Bible is stories.

It’s not a collection of verses or propositions it’s a collection of stories. What’s more is these stories come together to tell one story, the story of God and the world, the worlds fall, and God’s redemptive work to restore it again. Every story, every book, every chapter, every verse has a place within the bigger story, the Biblical narrative. It’s in the stories that we find truth because without the story the verses can mean anything or nothing at all.

Stories are for everyone, and so the Biblical narrative is for everyone. Everyone from the very young to the very old, from the very educated to the uneducated, from sinner to saint can find their place in the story.


It’s by this story that the Church is shaped and led by God to be the means through which God engages the world. Stories are the language of God and thus we must recapture the stories and the story of scripture. If you every read the Biblical narrative in its context as a narrative, you’ll find that God is swimming in the stories and He is speaking even now through them, showing how to live and be the people of God here and now.

Comments

Agent X said…
Narrative Theologian!

You go man! Amen.

Wright describes the Bible as a 5 act play. He says at one point tht Jesus is holding auditions for parts in his unfolding drama.

I love it. Great post. One of your best.

BTW... we miss you around the Whats it Worth Dpt. Where you been?

KIT