The last two weeks I have been learning about Chronological Bible Teaching or the Story Telling approach to teaching oral culture people the Bible. I have been challenged in various ways through learning this methodology. The first way is that I am not a natural story teller. I don’t really pay enough attention in life to tell a detailed story and draw conclusions from it. This I’m working on. For class, I told the story of Abraham and Isaac on the mountain in Moriah. I actually used a coffee table and plastic butter knife for props to illustrate the story (very foreign to me). It got me thinking about Scripture in a way that I hadn’t thought about it before. We are such a literate culture that we dissect every word of Scripture and want to know what the original Greek or Hebrew text says so that we know that we understand everything the way that God intended us to. This is great - if you’re a highly literate culture like ours and have access to things like www.blueletterbible.com and other resources. But even with the level of detail we go into (we meaning highly literate cultures) we have so many differing understandings of Scripture...
This got me thinking about if people needed to be literate to be saved by Jesus and worship God. I think that we would all agree that people don’t need to be able to read to be saved, right? What if people are deaf and blind, can they be saved? I think again, we would all agree that even deaf and blind people can be saved, right? This got me thinking about exactly what information is necessary to be saved.
I guess the short of what I am learning is this - Before, I used to get discouraged that Scripture had some hidden meaning that could only be found by understanding a “magical” greek word that “really” means this...when in reality the heartbeat of Scripture can be understood even by the simplest person. The intention of this method is to start with Creation and end at the Cross (eventually with the believers covering Acts-Revelation). The Cross does not make any sense if people do not understand that God is our Maker, our Creator who made us perfect in his image. Then he gave the first man one rule that he broke. And now we have all sinned against God and he demands payment for our transgressions. The whole Old Testament points to a substitute - a redeemer who will pay for sins once and for all. When the people hear stories like Abraham and Isaac or the Passover where God provided a substitutional sacrifice, they begin to anticipate a perfect substitute to come. God has painted His Son all through the walls of the Old Testament, and without this foundation, again the Cross doesn’t make sense.
People hear stories and remember them. 75% of the people of the world are oral learners. How are we going to teach them in a way that they are familiar with and can understand? By preaching a perfect five point sermon? Or by telling them stories that are historically accurate and painting a Biblical picture of who God is. Stories that draw out a point, maybe two that lead the listeners to understand some truth about God. Do the stories need to be word for word? You decide. I’m convince that we can be biblically and historically accurate while telling stories that are not word for word (being careful though to preserve the facts that God has given us in His word).
My worldview and presuppositions are constantly being challenged as I am exposed more and more to the foreign mission context. I praise God for that because I had no idea at all about anything...really. God has taught me much and challenged me much since I’ve been here. I’m sure that some of you will have questions about these ideas...they may sound like I am down playing the importance of Scripture or Hermeneutics. I’m not. I’m merely suggesting that taking our western way of teaching and transplanting it to the jungle won’t work. We need to become like them in an effort to win some...sound familiar?
Let me know what you think - theronyaks@yahoo.com
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