Jesus was primarily a story teller. No question. He used familiar themes (nets, pearls, fishing, etc) and gave them new meaning. His parables were very simple, easy to understand stories. Some were humorous. Some were sad. They all had a shock value - introducing the new values of the Kingdom of God into the world.
A few Sundays ago I was telling a story for the "sermon". Got a note from one of our visitors - it read, "I don't come to hear about personal stories! We've all got stories. Not enough Bible. Needed more Bible!" A few years ago a retired "gospel preacher" told me that I would make a fine gospel preacher one day myself if I would just quit telling so many stories and start "preaching". (I ask him to go to the gospels and count how many stories Jesus told versus how many "sermons" he preached. He never got back to me.)
Now, this person didn't qualify what "enough" would have been. (I used three verses). Being a older Christian (I would put her in her mid 70's) - I realize that she comes from a different generation - and being a "lifer" in the "c of C" - I realize that comes with some built in slants as well.
However, I even began my "story" with the thought that Jesus was a story teller. And in that vain, let me tell you a story . . . .
Sometimes we say that we want to do things just like Jesus. Many times we just don't mean it. I think we do that we a lot of things, don't we?
1 comment:
I knew a guy that went to a preaching school near Austin, Texas. He said that while he was preaching for his professor, if he didn't use a Scripture reference every "so often" then the other students were allowed to heckle him until he quoted something.
In my book, that's just plain stupid. In the end, do our sermons/stories/actions in life come from Scripture, or do we do what we want and then add a few verses to make it biblical? Frankly, most of the time when I hear a sermon totally peppered with Scripture references, I'm hearing some man's opinion with a bunch of chapters and verses to try to back it up. No thanks. I'd rather hear a Word from God; and sometimes that may mean only 3 passages of Scripture that are quoted!
Post a Comment