This year at Christmas we bought our twin daughters each their own vanities.They’re fourteen, and they’ve reached the point where they are ready to begin curling their hair and using some light makeup. It wasn’t too difficult to find a couple vanities that would do the job–a quick search on Amazon and they were delivered to our home just a few short days later. That was the easy part. The assembly–that was something else entirely. As anyone who has assembled furniture ordered online (or worse, from Ikea) knows, you open the box to find a million disassembled parts and a one page sheet of instructions to help you complete the puzzle. But, as daunting as it seemed at first, by following the careful instructions, piece by piece, we finished the job. What looked daunting was simple because we had a little instruction book that told us definitively where each piece went.
This is sometimes how we approach the Bible. We open its pages looking for quick instructions and simple explanations for some of life’s most complex and troubling questions. What is my purpose? What do I really want from life? Should I forgive that person who has deeply hurt me? Why was I given a neglectful or abusive parent? Even more troubling, we go to it for quick answers to every controversial cultural question of the moment. We thumb through its pages with our agenda. We want a step-by-step instruction guide. But that is not what we were given.
Paul writes in 1 Timothy 3:16 "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
We should look to scripture for wisdom, for teaching, to correct our wrong thinking, but that isn’t the same as an instruction manual. At least 43% of the Bible is written as story, with some scholars estimating that it’s actually closer to 75%. And stories aren’t instruction manuals. Stories are meant to inspire, to make us feel, to make us think. Stories are messy, sometimes ambiguous, and require interpretation. Because of this, stories invite conversation.
Jesus tells a parable in Mark 4, it goes something like this: A farmer scattered seed. Some fell on the path and birds ate it. Some fell on rocky ground, sprouted fast, but withered without roots. Other seed fell among thorns and was choked. But seed on good soil grew well and produced a large harvest—thirty, sixty, or a hundred times over. That’s it. That’s all the explanation that Jesus gives the crowd. Now, we understand this parable clearly, right? Why? Because we are aware of the private conversation that comes later— when the disciples draw near & begin dialogue with the storyteller.
Perhaps more than anything else, stories are meant to draw the audience near to the storyteller, where we can ask questions and gain wisdom. The reason Jesus speaks in parables is to invoke curiosity. To present something to the audience that gives them choice–do I want to draw near & dialogue with God? Or do I want to walk away & remain ignorant? They’re an invitation. As Daniel Schwabauer points out in his book The God of Story, “The parable isn’t the message, it’s the mechanism. It’s not the lamp; it’s the stand” (43). The meaning that Jesus gives to those disciples that draw near with their questions and confusion–that’s the lamp.
The stories in the Bible aren’t designed to be simple or clear or easy. They aren’t meant to be understood alone. With every story God invites us to draw near & receive the light. To come with questions is not only acceptable, it’s the only way. Draw near this week.
inBible Community Podcast
Episode 03|Include out now. What does it mean to include others as followers of God?
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New Series: Story of the Bible, out February 17!
Why does God use story? How was this book compiled and preserved? What is the overarching narrative of scripture, and how should that impact the way we read all the smaller stories within?
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