Stewards of the Story

The last time I preached, I told a story. A lady preacher had taught, “Anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but we can know the God who knows how many apples are in a seed.” People are still repeating the lesson delivered in story form. Unfortunately, they are not repeating much of the rest of the message!

Jesus followers are stewards of a story, a story which stretches from before the beginning of man’s experience and continues to be written today. The story is often simple, but sometimes confusing. Some stories are full of details, other parts are abrupt with little explanation or particulars. The Book of Judges is like that. Gideon’s leadership is described with ample anecdotal support, but of Shamgar we know almost nothing.

Storytelling is an important responsibility, and the consequences of repeating how God has acted can result in either salvation or devastation. Judges 2 reports that after the death of Joshua and those who were eyewitnesses of God’s deliverance of Israel from Egyptian oppression, “Another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. (V. 10) A generation didn't know the story! For lack of remembering, knowing and understanding the story, the people began worshiping false gods and provoked their Deliverer to anger (v. 12).

Too much is at risk to fail to repeat the story well, or to present it with revisions which minimize the awe-inspiring miraculous means God employed. Efforts to make the God story relevant must not strip away the very ingredient which was included to fill us with hope, lead us to faith, and allow us to see deliverance today.

Proper, well-executed story telling also includes the gritty details of human failure. When reading Gideon’s experiences with angels and God, one notices faith-building material in nearly every paragraph. But, a sobering detail closes his biography, “Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his town. All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.” (8:27)

My parents were my first storytellers. Others followed. The Holy Spirit retells Jesus’ stories Holy Spirit-to-human spirit. I am reading and rereading the story again and again, and Holy Spirit makes sure I learn more.

I'm off to find someone to whom I may tell the story.