Painting a Story

One of my best friends just finished his doctorate this spring. He had the opportunity to study with one of the most influential and well-known preachers in the English-speaking world.

During this time of intense study and attentive mentoring, two ideas jumped out. The first is that if preaching is to be life changing, it must be rooted in and clearly derived from the text of Scripture. The second is that if preaching is to be effective, it must move people; and he realized that people are most often moved by experiencing a story.

With these two things in mind, I wondered about my preaching. How easy is it for people to listen and then stay the same? Or is there something that takes place during the sermonic event that calls them from where to they are to a place that is a little closer to Jesus?

If we are going to preach with freshness and flavor, we need to learn to paint with words. When my friend asked his mentor what he could do to make his illustrations come alive, the answer came quick and sure: “You need to think in pictures.”

Thinking in pictures is the first step toward being able to paint a story. You need to see the scene communicated in the biblical text in full color. Use your imagination to fill in the gaps so that the truths of the Scriptures don’t simply lie flat on the page. Allow your imagination to assemble a color-filled, multidimensional, sights-sounds-and-smells experience.

To paint an effective story, you will need to journey deep into the text and deeper still into the history of the text. Begin by accurately reconstructing the scene surrounding the events of the text: Who was there? What where they doing? Why were they doing it? What was normal practice in that time and culture? What time of day was it? These are all questions to ask as you allow your imagination to construct the events(s) you are about to expose.

Next make sure that you are correctly dealing with all the historical and textual challenges that come with biblical interpretation. But don’t stop there. Think emotionally about the text. How did the people who were there feel? What must they have thought? All of these things and more go into painting a story.