Connecting the Dots Through Stories
The other night I was playing with my three and a half year old granddaughter, Carissa. Once again we were trying to connect the dots in one of her books. She still hasn’t mastered the number system yet, but considering her age, she does well. She marvels every time when a picture forms. We then get out the crayons and fill in the image with splashes of colors. Our playtime that night provides a lesson about what we as Christians do when we study God’s Word: When we study Scripture we are attempting to connect the dots.
And what helps us connect the dots? Numbers are not used when trying to make the connections, but stories are. Specifically, how do we link Revelation with Exodus or Daniel or John’s Gospel? In recent years Bible scholars have been writing about the meta-narrative of Scripture, the overarching theme that connects all of the inspired writings. I believe the meta-narrative found in Scripture teaches us that God wants us to be in relationship with him, and he will do whatever it takes to establish and nurture that relationship. God’s desire to be in relationship with his creation is clearly taught in the opening chapters of Genesis and after sin enters the world, and the climax of God’s efforts is found in the last book of Scripture.
We need to connect the dots in Scripture in order to see what kind of relationship God desires we have with him and how we are brought into intimacy with God and grow in that relationship. For me, “story” becomes a key symbol for unlocking the meaning of Scripture, its individual books, and passages within those books. I use the symbol, STORY, when I speak about the meta-narrative of Scripture. I use the symbol, Story, when I speak about a particular work found in the Bible–What Story is John telling in Revelation, and how does that Story fit in with the STORY? Embedded in John’s Story are stories about John and his fellow disciples (both good ones and bad ones!) as well as stories about the world in which they lived. And yet we must not forget that in telling these stories about his own day, John draws upon ancient stories, stories drawn from the pages of the Old Testament, stories that would have been familiar to John and his brothers and sisters, stories from Exodus or Daniel or Ezekiel that remarkably resembled their own stories. The new covenant people would have identified themselves with the old covenant people. Their stories are stories about faithfulness and faithlessness, about cowardice and courage, about experiencing opposition and the seductive call to compromise their commitment to God.
STORY, Story, and story need to be linked to our s-t-o-r-i-e-s? John reminds us that we become a part of the grand STORY as we live out our s-t-o-i-e-s, namely, following in the steps of disciples of Jesus through the centuries, beginning in the first. Every good story has a protagonist (a champion!) and an antagonist (an enemy). In our
s-t-o-r-i-e-s, may we be the protagonists and may we be faithful in confronting God’s antagonists who happen to be ours as well. Or in the beautiful military image found in Revelation, may our s-t-o-r-i-e-s reveal that we are conquerors (Rev. 2–3; 12:10) because we serve the one who has conquered (Rev. 5:6). Until the Lamb returns to bring the drama to a fitting conclusion, may we be conquerors through him who loves us loved us
(Rom. 8:37).
Technorati Tags: Bible, stories, Revelation
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Dr Lowery:
God bless you for seeing the importance and seizing the opportunity to weave God into that play time with Carissa. Those moments probably mold and shape her more than any of us know.
That is something we (Melissa and I) plan to do, would like to do, when (Lord willing) we have children. I think of a few OT questions: Deut6 “Hey Daddy, why do we have all these laws?” and Josh4 “Hey Daddy, why are all these stones here in this pile?” God wanted us to use those moments (and the many others life puts forth) to teach about Him and what He has done for us. Amazing.
What would it be like to continue to encourage children to ask questions while weaving God into the explanations of the “Why” questions they continually ask? Of course this is coming from someone w/o children at the moment…but I wonder what it will be like one day.
Of course this flows into your theme of the posting and asking “why questions” in relation to the various levels of story in the Bible. Great stuff – thanks for the post and a great example of how to utilize life moments in discipleship.
blessings – Brent