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The Bible's Story
Brian Mashburn
January 18, 2009
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Life As Story
Have you ever noticed that the Bible communicates its message through stories?
It shouldn't come as a surprise, really. We get our understanding of things, our orientation to life, our direction for what we should do next, by paying attention to the stories we find ourselves in.
Isn't this true? If you drive by your son's school and he's wrestling another boy for a wallet full of money, why is your first question (after breaking up the fight, of course) "Okay, what happened?"
We ask because we need to know. If we don't know, we are in danger of playing a role that is completely inappropriate, irrelevant, or worse, damaging.
Would it matter that the other boy stole it from the kid crying over there by the playground? Would it weigh in on how you reacted if you found out your son was picking the fight? Sure it would.
The story always matters. The story always explains.
Ezekiel records God saying "That is what happened, declares the Sovereign LORD." Isn't that a good description of the Bible?
And the Bible doesn't stop there. It also explains what is happening now, and what will happen next.
Christ himself is described by John (John 13:3) as a man who did what he did in the present because he knew where he had come from and where he was going. He grasped "the Story"...and this enabled him to live, well, like Christ.
So many people live in such small stories. Stories that are so altogether inferior to the Story of God, and they so imprison people in an empty shell of a life, that it should make you cry. And it should make you, as the old hymn goes, want to tell the Story.
For us to live what the Bible says we are to live, be what the Bible says we are to be, act as the Bible says we are to act, have what the Bible says we can have, share what the Bible calls us to share, then we need to be oriented with the Story that the Bible tells.
Do you know it? Do you know the Story?