Tell Me A Story: Devotions From Time Of Grace MinistryНамуна

Introduction

“I learn by analogy.” When I was in college, I heard an older student say that. At the time I didn’t know what he meant. Now I do.

Already as a young man, that student had realized that he (and most of the rest of humanity, truth be told) preferred to learn by listening to stories, to narratives with real people and real experiences in them, rather than by a series of abstractions (even if true).

Is that so surprising? Since we were small children, burrowed into our mothers’ laps, we have craved stories. We didn’t ask our mothers to read us essays, statistical analyses, or dogmatics texts. “Tell me a story, Mama,” we would say.

Stories help us learn things sideways, by looking at the lives and experiences of other people. That’s what two important Greek-derived words mean: "analogy," which studies commonalities between two people or things, and "parable," which is a story “alongside” our own lives.

Most of the really great teachers in history have been storytellers. The best of all was our Lord Jesus, whose approximately three dozen parables in the four gospels are renowned not only in Bible studies but resonate through all literature. Here are four of his most famous. Let the Master teach you about yourself, your God, his aching love for you, and his important plans for you.

--Pastor Mark Jeske