Lausanne World Pulse – Themed Articles – The Role of Bible Stories in Evangelism

By J.O. Terry
October 2006

What is the role of Bible stories in evangelism today? Why bother to tell these stories when we could easily give a tract or make a conventional presentation of the gospel? What is it about telling stories that makes their influence different from just giving evangelistic information? Following are three of the early answers to these questions that we have learned in the oral learner world, increasingly in the secondary orality world and even in the often indifferent world of postmoderns.

Stories, whether Bible stories or personal stories, interest us because they are about people. Often in stories we are telling what happened to us or what we saw or heard happen, so they have an eyewitness authenticity as we tell them. Simon Peter mentioned this in his second epistle when he said, “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty…when the voice came to him from the majestic glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the mountain.” (2 Peter 1:16-18).
Stories, especially Bible stories, give an opportunity to “try on” truths mentally as we hear them. The stories in the Gospels and Acts tell about the followers of Jesus as well as those who came to hear Jesus and see his miracles. Some listeners, like the rich young ruler, went away disappointed because they found the teaching too costly. But others, when they heard the parables of Jesus and saw his works, believed.
Because stories are memorable they stay with us and can continue to speak to us long after the story is told. Hearing stories told in a vivid and culturally appropriate way made it easy for the people of Jesus’ day to remember what he said and have his words continue to speak to their hearts long after the stories were told. Remember the words of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus? They commented how their hearts burned within them as Jesus related his story of how the Messiah must first suffer and then enter his glory. The same heart response is illustrated in the New Tribes Mission video Ee-taow!, where Mark Zook relates how when he told the story of Abraham following God’s command to sacrifice his son Isaac, one of the elder listeners came to him to share how he was troubled by the story, and then expressed his belief that somehow God was going to save Isaac.

Relating to Their World
Bible storying allows listeners to identify with the story characters and with what happens to them. In Ee-taow!, when Zook told the stories, the Mouk people responded, “We are like that!” The stories that I prepared for Muslim women (The Grief Stories) were motivated by the desire to show how God was aware of these women’s needs and able to redeem their lives. Many of the stories tell of situations like barrenness with which the listeners can identify. The same is true with stories like that of The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), the rich man in the story of The Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) or The Rich Fool (Luke 18:18-23) who was more concerned with his wealth than his soul.

Stories are relational. Among the oral peoples of the world there is a lively interest in stories which attracts listeners to hear the storyteller. Those of us who have used Bible stories in our evangelism strategies have been able to gain a hearing because “we were telling stories.” The storytelling setting is a communal setting where individual and religious differences are laid aside for the duration of the story; both storyteller and listener enter into the story and share a relationship through its telling. Stories are relational in that, as mentioned previously, listeners identify with characters in the stories. Once when screening the JESUS film near the seashore in Mangalore, India, we invited the local fishermen; however, since the film was being shown in the territory of farmers, the fishermen stayed at a distance. They remained far off until the point when Jesus instructed his disciples to let down the net. At that very moment the fishermen came running toward the screen and joined in watching the remainder of the story. The film story had touched their world and they related to it.

J.O. Terry served as a media missionary in the Asia Pacific region for thirty-two years. He worked in Bible Storying until his retirement in 1985. Terry currently co-teaches Bible Storying classes at Southwestern Theological Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, USA.