Remind me again what “storying” is.
Bible storying is the intentional use of Bible stories for the purposes of evangelism, church planting, discipleship, leadership training, and ministry. Bible storying is distinguished from other forms of Bible teaching by its reliance upon the preserved biblical narrative or story. Bible storying is often used with various forms of instructional teaching including exposition, inductive sessions and simple application to today’s life.
Explicit Bible Stories
The Bible is 60-70% narrative format in content. It contains explicit stories which are those that are well defined and located in one or more references as a story. Examples of this are the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the Flood, Abraham’s offering of Isaac and many others. In fact there are several hundred stories of which some are very long covering several chapters of the Bible and others are very short complete in only a few verses.
Implied Bible Stories
There are implied stories in which all the details are included in the Bible but not in one place or not written as a story. The creation of the Spirit World is one such story if you accept the accounts in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14 are referring to Satan’s first estate and subsequent fall. In Psalm 148:2, 5 plus a number of other references there begins to emerge a story of the creation of the spirits which we know as angels and those which became demons. There are other stories related to Paul’s letters in the Epistles as Paul addressed the issues such as the young man’s sin in the Corinthian church, improper observance of the Lord’s Supper and the straying of the Galatians due to false teachers.
Stories by and about Jesus
Many of the stories were told as stories by Jesus or are the stories of what Jesus did as he taught, healed, forgave sin, brought peace, and fed hungry people. Jesus began to teach in parables because of the opposition of the religious leaders (see Matthew 13:10-13; Mark 4:1-2, 33-34). Later Jesus did explain to his disciples the meaning of the stories he told the public.
Stories about the early church
Of course, most of the New Testament outside the Gospels contains stories about the ACTS of the Apostles and the activities of the early church. Many stories can be derived from the Epistles which give examples of the main functions of the church such as choosing deacons, making decisions, giving and supporting one another, worship practices, witnessing, and missions.
Written by an IMB missionary whose identity will be protected
