It is no secret that stories are integral to the human experience. As soon as language took hold of the human imagination, stories emerged to pass on the traditions and understandings that give meaning to life. Family, cultural, political, and religious systems—consciously or not—employ stories to inform, to explain, to inspire, to indoctrinate. In so doing, a common inventory of stories contributes to a common sense of identity.

Social scientists have long recognized the power of stories. Anthropologists analyze peoples of the past and take careful note of the legends that have persevered from ancient days, comparing them across cultures and continents and confirming their ongoing influence. Contemporary observers note that postmodern people put a priority on relationships with others and the stories in which they live.

For Christians, the Bible is our story par excellence, a collection of many different stories that unite within one overarching story that tells us who we are and why we are here and where we are going. The Bible contains stories of origins and history, stories of warning and woe, stories of triumph and hope. It contains poetry and narrative, hair-raising tales and mind-numbing lists, vicarious forays into hoary histories and apocalyptic futures. Together, these stories become the story of a people who were led by the Spirit of God to worship the One revealed in the Old Testament through Yahweh and in the New Testament through Jesus. The Bible is one story made of many stories that declare God’s story—as understood by the humans who believe God has been revealed to them in many and various ways.

For those who long to understand the truths found in Scripture—and those who are charged with explaining them—stories remain primary windows into the biblical text. The best preachers are often the best storytellers, and there is no better model than Jesus, who rarely made a point without telling a story.

If the Gospel accounts are an accurate guide, Jesus’ preaching most commonly began with stories, rather than with a text. Luke’s account of Jesus’ first sermon (Luke 4:16-30) appears to be an exception, though he was only following custom when he visited the synagogue in Nazareth and read a Scripture text before sitting down to teach. On that day, the chosen Scripture was from Isaiah 61, a text widely interpreted as a description of a future Messiah.

After reading the text, Jesus sat down to teach, but all we are told of his sermon is this: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (v. 21). That alone was enough to cause such a stir that the religious leaders threw him out of the synagogue and tried to cast him from a cliff.

In the extended discourse we remember as the “Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5–7), Jesus gave instructions that occasionally referenced Hebrew Scriptures or traditions, usually in order to proclaim a higher standard, but his teaching was also laced with metaphors and elements of stories.

The teachings that most of us remember best are the ones we call “parables,” stories Jesus told to make a point. The stories appear to have been original creations that sprang from Jesus’ imagination and usually required little commentary. It is clear that Jesus intended to make people think, and he often told stories that raised crucial questions, then left them open-ended.

Did the prodigal son’s older brother ever heed his father’s plea to join the welcome-home party for his repentant sibling (Luke 15:11-32), or did he maintain the self-righteous and unforgiving spirit that left him on the outside of grace? We don’t know. Did the fruitless fig tree that was first condemned but then fertilized with manure and given a second chance (Luke 13:6-9) ever produce any fruit? We don’t know.

We don’t know, because stories like those were not about elder brothers or fig trees: they were about the men and women and children who listened to Jesus’ stories—or who read and ponder them today. Jesus knew the power of a story to set minds in motion and raise questions that might otherwise remain dormant.

Jesus was not the first biblical personage to employ engaging stories for dynamic effect. When the prophet Nathan set out to confront King David regarding his adulterous and murderous behavior toward Bathsheba and her husband Uriah, he could have begun by quoting the commandments against murder, adultery, stealing, and coveting one’s neighbor’s wife (Exod 20:13-15, 17), because David had broken all of them. He did not begin his sermon with a text, however, for the king would immediately have raised his defenses and might have refused to hear the prophetic word. Instead, Nathan told the king a heart-rending story about an unfeeling tycoon who stole his poor neighbor’s beloved lamb (2 Sam 12:1-4). Nathan’s unvarnished story touched David’s heart and set the stage for the fallen king to become deeply convicted of his personal sin and need for repentance.

When Isaiah of Jerusalem sought to help ordinary Israelites understand why their sin had put them on a path to national dissolution, he could have quoted from the Deuteronomistic tradition and warned them outright of their coming doom. Instead, he sang them a song that told a story about a faithful farmer who prepared and cultivated a vineyard with extraordinary efforts, choice plants, tender care, and round-the-clock protection (Isa 5:1-7). The hardworking landowner longed to taste the fruit of his labors, but his carefully tended vines produced only worthless, noxious grapes. The people, no doubt, would have immediately sympathized with the farmer’s decision to cease caring for the thankless vineyard and leave it to be overrun with briers and thorns. When the prophet concluded, “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting,” they got the point.

So it was that Jesus built upon the prophetic storytelling tradition by creating a plethora of parables that served to catch his hearers’ attention, set the wheels of their minds in motion, and prepare their hearts for a word from God.

In telling stories, Jesus often used imagination and metaphor, pulling attention-grabbing stories and images from the air. He asked his hearers to imagine someone who could examine a speck in another’s eye while a plank protruded from his own, or to visualize a great camel squeezing through the eye of a needle. He spoke of a despised Samaritan who showed unexpected compassion and a bigger-barn-building landowner who thought only of himself.

Jesus’ hearers understood that the characters and events in those memorable stories didn’t have to be real in order for the stories to be true.

In my preaching experience of nearly forty years, I have often resorted to the telling of creative stories as an avenue for capturing the attention and engaging the minds of those who found themselves listening to the message I was called upon to bring. I cannot say if those were the best sermons I have ever preached, but I can testify that the ones people remember best and request most are those that begin with something along the order of “Once upon a time . . . .”

The following chapters contain a smorgasbord of stories and scripts that range from the possible to the fantastic, along with one that really happened. They include original stories in folktale style, and monologues or dialogues designed to illuminate biblical characters. All of the stories were written with a text in mind, and sometimes the text is incorporated into the story. Most often, however, the story stands alone and serves the role of an interactive plow designed to stir the imagination and prepare the hearts of listeners to be more receptive to the scriptural seeds that follow.

In one way or another, the story-sermons found here fall into the realm of what is generally called “narrative preaching,” though the term defies precise definition and can suggest everything from relating the Scripture as a story to telling stories about the Scripture. They were not written with any thought to following a particular model, however, but simply reflect an intuitive attempt to communicate biblical truth in appealing ways.

It is my hope that the following stories may prove to be worthwhile reading for all thoughtful persons, and may inspire those who proclaim Christ to effectively utilize good stories in their own preaching.

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