Bible Interpretation, Student Workbook, SW05

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B I B L E I N T E R P R E T A T I O N

clearer, and more adult approach to the Scriptures. This view is being challenged more and more in many Christian quarters. Story and narrative theologians today argue that stories are the most foundational and important vehicle for communicating the truth of God, as shown in our Lord’s use of parable, metaphor, and symbol in his teaching. Whose view is more correct in your opinion, those believing that stories are essentially for the children’s sermon, or those who believe that stories are the most foundational and important element in God’s written Word?

Three Points, a Poem, and a Prayer?

One of the key homiletical strategies being taught in seminaries everywhere is the “rule of three,” three points, three concepts, three exhortations to help structure our preaching and teaching presentations. This method is not intended to be applied woodenly and unthinkingly, yet it does tend to reduce presentation down to sharing a few clear points, using a Scripture reference for each, and illustrating each point with an object lesson or example from experience. Few would embrace the idea that essentially all preaching and teaching should be a mastery of the art of storytelling, whether the Story of God in Scripture which comes to its climax in the story of Jesus of Nazareth, or sharing the stories of those whom we know and those which we live each day. If you were in a position to instruct a new generation of modern preachers and teachers in a communication strategy that you believed would be effective in the city, what would yours be? Would you be more focused on presenters learning to study, preach, and communicate stories, or would you place more emphasis on the traditional forms of homiletics and teaching: “three points, a poem, and a prayer?”

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Bitten by the “Prophecy Bug”

Many Christians today are ignorant of the genre of prophecy. One of the most ignored segments of the Word of God, many preachers and teachers today avoid the use of the prophetic Scriptures. They do not teach it systematically in their sermons, they ignore it in their Sunday School units, and avoid using it in sharing the Good News in evangelism. The province of prophetic literature, often times becomes the domain of fringe teachers who, armed with the newspaper in one hand and the prophetic Scriptures in the other, make predictions about the latest events in the world backing them up with references to the prophetic Word. Because of these