Scripture’s narratives present preachers with pitfalls and privilege. Pitfalls include abstracting timeless life-lessons from the drama experienced by fleshand-blood people, and putting ourselves in the spotlight, leaving Christ in the shadow. Yet narratives offer the privilege to introduce multidimensional, broken people to the real Hero of the Big Story, the multidimensional, allsufficient Lord and Savior.

Good stories are never just stories. Authors by what they include and what they exclude and by how they structure their stories are doing more than developing a plot; they are making a point. Reflecting on the narratives of great literature can help us learn more from the narratives of the Bible.

How does the Bible relate to itself in its own system of cross-referencing? Now that is a BIG topic! Biblical writers frequently refer to other biblical books in a wide variety of ways: direct quote, subtle citation, allusion, or ‘echo’ or ‘reminiscence’. How allusions work in literature and biblical literature especially have not been well understood until recently. This talk will engage some of the latest theoretical work on understanding how allusions function. The first part of this talk will cover how one can develop ‘allusion competence’ when reading biblical narratives. The second part of the talk will illustrate through specific biblical examples how the archeology of allusion hunting can result in a richer understanding of biblical narratives from both Old Testament and New Testament.

The stories of Scripture provide more than just information or a broad background for understanding biblical truth. These stories not only allow us to see our doctrine in action but in many cases they actually become part of our doctrine itself

Faculty panel question and answer session.

It is essential to the Christian faith that we affirm the historical nature of God’s stories in the Bible. They are testimonies and witnesses to real people and events. God has acted in history! Nevertheless, the Bible’s stories do not read like a newspaper account or a modern history book. The way the authors of Scripture wrote history is different in many ways from what we expect. Thus we need to carefully examine how the Bible writes history lest we misinterpret it as we bring our assumptions to the text. 

In this particular lecture, we explore not only what the Bible says, but how the Bible says it, focusing on the narratives of the Bible. Each narrative is a carefully-crafted historical story of Jesus Christ, a story that employs the artistic and literary conventions of the time and told by authors who offer their unique and personal perspectives. Reading the narratives more carefully can help us to better read and enjoy the Word of God