I love how the Bible is a giant, well-written story. God could have just made sure we were handed a set of bullet-point instructions, or one of those super vague assembly manuals you get with IKEA furniture, but instead he gave us stories.
Stories of creation and man’s fall into destruction. Stories of redemption. Stories of suffering. Stories of flawed protagonists making tragic choices. Stories of heroic women. Stories of God’s longsuffering patience toward his people. Even in the major/minor prophet books which are less narrative driven, God speaks to his people through metaphors and surprise reveals. And then, of course, there’s Jesus, who spent most of his time using stories to explain things.
To be clear I don’t mean the word “story” to imply “made up.” My point is that God’s relationship with us, his plans for us, his instructions to us, all exist in the rich tapestry of God’s redemptive plan for the world. I would argue that most of humanity’s best made up stories (like movies, books, television shows) capture bits of the one true Story God is telling in our world.
And yet when so many of us pastors get up to preach week to week, we aren’t storytellers, but proposition-givers. There’s nothing wrong with the “three point sermon where all the points begin with ‘P,’” but sometimes we get so caught up accurately exegeting life-principles we don’t invite people into the compelling, terrifying, inspiring, life-altering narrative of God’s kingdom invading our world. Read More
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