Written by Daniel M. Doriani |
Monday, September 5, 2022
In a sense, the Bible is one long narrative. It tells the story of creation, fall, and redemption. Shortly after Eve and Adam sinned, God activates his plan to restore humanity. The whole Bible fits within that narrative. Within the grand narrative, substories abound in the epochs of biblical history. There is a unity to the narrative of the patriarchs, the exodus, the kings, Israel’s exile and return, and the Gospel accounts.

A Likely Story
“Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter. They lived with their mother in a sand-bank, underneath the root of a very big fir tree.”
“There was once a fisherman who lived with his wife in a poor little hut by the sea . . .”
“Once upon a time there lived a very rich king whose name was Midas . . .”
Lines such as these tell us that a story is coming. When one starts with “Once upon a time,” we expect a children’s story. When we hear that Peter is naughty, a child suspects that he will find trouble, and then escape—since the drawing is so cute, he must survive—and learn a lesson. In fact, Peter does disobey his mother. He goes to Mr. McGregor’s garden, where he munches lettuces and beans until he nearly collides with Mr. McGregor, who almost catches him. After a desperate flight, Peter sees the gate, dashes for it, and escapes. Exhausted, Peter goes to bed with nothing but chamomile tea, while his good sisters enjoy bread, milk, and blackberries.
Simple as they are, the adventures of Peter Rabbit follow the most common structure for drama, from Mark Twain to Shakespeare, from science fiction to the Bible. In that structure, readers meet a hero (Peter) in settings (Mr. McGregor’s garden) that bring adventure (stealing food), followed by tension (the chase). It reaches a climax (almost captured) and a resolution (escape). Finally, the story offers comments that help readers interpret it as it unwinds. When Peter limps home and goes to bed without supper, it suggests that rebellion does not pay.
Broadly speaking, the Bible has two literary forms, narrative and discourse. Narratives are stories or dramas. About one-third of the Bible is narrative. With few exceptions, such as Jesus’ parables, biblical narratives are historical. They describe and interpret what happened in space and time to the people who appear in the account. Narrative is the most common literary form or genre in the Bible, with more pages than law, prophecy, letters, or visions. In this book, we collect all other genres of the Bible under the term discourse. Discourse includes laws, letters, prophecies, proverbs, psalms, speeches, prayers, and visions. Within the CAPTOR format (context, analysis, problems, themes, obligations, reflection), we now move to the first part of analysis. Chapter 6 explains how we analyze biblical discourse. This chapter describes the way that we analyze narratives.
In a sense, the Bible is one long narrative. It tells the story of creation, fall, and redemption. Shortly after Eve and Adam sinned, God activates his plan to restore humanity. The whole Bible fits within that narrative. Within the grand narrative, substories abound in the epochs of biblical history. There is a unity to the narrative of the patriarchs, the exodus, the kings, Israel’s exile and return, and the Gospel accounts. At a granular level, we have individual narratives, such as the history of Samson and Delilah. We usually study the Bible at that level, yet we must always locate individual narratives in the context of God’s wider plan.
Narratives are history, yet they don’t just report what happened. They convey moral lessons, but they are more than morality tales. Biblical narratives describe and explain God’s redemptive acts, as they lead to their climax, the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Biblical authors use various methods to engage readers and enable them to see events as God does. They repeat crucial ideas. They preview the future, so that readers will know where events are leading. They allude to the past, so that readers can observe God’s consistent ways with his people. They present characters with whom we can identify. They leave some things unexplained, so that readers will get involved in the task of interpretation. In these ways and others, authors use stories to teach about God, humanity, and their relationships. It is no overstatement to say that God is the main character in every narrative and that what he does is the main theme (Ps. 66:5; Luke 24:24–27). Whenever we forget this, we court moralism.
Types of Narrative
All narratives report events and tell stories, but they have more than one pattern, so let’s label them. The most common types of narrative are reports, speech stories, and dramas. By distinguishing them, we interpret them better.
Reports are brief records of events such as battles (for example, David’s defeat of the Ammonites in 2 Samuel 10) or building projects (for example, Solomon’s temple and palace in 1 Kings 6–9). Reports also describe dreams and the reigns of minor kings. They present facts or simple events and typically lack dramatic tension. Although they may not reveal much by themselves, reports often develop or allude to important themes.
Reports are brief records of events such as battles (for example, David’s defeat of the Ammonites in 2 Samuel 10) or building projects (for example, Solomon’s temple and palace in 1 Kings 6–9). Reports also describe dreams and the reigns of minor kings. They present facts or simple events and typically lack dramatic tension. Although they may not reveal much by themselves, reports often develop or allude to important themes.
Principle 1: To discover the point of a report, examine several reports together.
Speech stories primarily report what someone said in a historical setting. In a speech story, words matter most.
Principle 2: In speech stories, the main event is the speech, not the events surrounding it.
Dramas, the longest and most complex type of narrative in the Bible, are the focus of this chapter. Apart from parables, dramas are historical events, not mere stories, and we appreciate the evidence of their accuracy. Our faith rests on the assurances that God actually accomplished his plan of redemption (1 Cor. 15:14–17). Biblical dramas do not, therefore, follow the patterns of literary dramas because someone massaged them to make them fit. Rather, God structured the world so that certain elements are present in stories that are worth telling. If biblical dramas have the same structure as fiction, it is because art imitates life, not because the Bible imitates art.
Principle 3: When you find the crisis and resolution of a drama, you usually find the main point, too.
Excerpt taken from Chapter 5: Analyzing Narratives, Getting the Message: A Plan for Interpreting and Applying the Bible, Revised and Expanded by Daniel M. Doriani. A new edition will be released on September 7, 2022 by P&R Publishing. Used with permission.
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All people—regardless of gender, ethnicity, culture, or time—are part of the “culture of humanity.” We all share similar physiological, biological, and emotional characteristics such that when music expresses emotion on that level, its meaning is universal. Christians must not fall into the trap of ignoring or even denying universal meaning in music because there are many different kinds of emotion, and not all of them are appropriate for expressing biblical truth or worshiping God.

Meaning in music is a tricky thing.
Most people think it’s tricky because music is so abstract and lacks specificity such that describing its meaning with words is nearly impossible. On the contrary, meaning in music is tricky for exactly the opposite reason.
As Felix Mendelssohn once noted, “What music expresses its not too indefinite to put into words; on the contrary, it is too definite.” In other words, we often have difficulty describing what music means with words because words lack the specificity that music has. Let me explain further.
Most people acknowledge that music, at its most basic level, expresses emotional content. However, articulating what that emotional content is can often be a challenge. Yet as Mendelssohn correctly observed, this is due to the fact that words often lack the nuance to accurately identify a particular emotion.
We often use single words to describe very different kinds of emotions. Let’s use “joy” as an example. We use that one word to describe what a sports fan feels when his team wins the game, what a father experiences while playing with his children, and what a cancer patient feels when he learns that his cancer is gone. Yet these “feelings” are each quite different from each other internally, and they express themselves externally in often very different ways as well.
A sport’s fan’s “joy” usually expresses itself with exuberance, wild gestures, and yelling. A father’s “joy” is warm and peaceful. The cancer patient’s “joy” often results in tears. Each of these may rightly be called “joy,” but that word doesn’t quite capture the nuance of difference between them. Music doesn’t have that problem.
Unlike words, music is able to express nuanced emotional content. We think music is abstract because we can’t put it into words, but that’s not the fault of the music; it’s the words that are lacking.
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Written by Samuel D. James |
Sunday, April 10, 2022
As Christians remind each other of the gospel, we will build in one another the capacity for richer joys, deeper identity, and lasting meaning that digital technology promises but never delivers. The permanence of the gospel, revealed in a book, proclaimed by a community, and demonstrated through love, is more than enough ballast for screen-weary souls.

Christopher Nolan’s 2010 film Inception tells a story about a technology called “dream-sharing,” invented at some indeterminate point in the future, that allows participants to enter into one another’s dreams via their subconscious. The main character, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, assembles a team of dream “hackers” to invade the mind of a billionaire business heir and convince his subconscious to break up his father’s commercial empire. In one of the film’s mostly subtly metaphorical scenes, the team visits a chemist who can make an especially potent sedative to allow for vivid and prolonged dream-sharing. The chemist takes the team downstairs, where they’re led to a dimly lit room where dozens of people are sleeping, connecting to dream sharing devices. The chemist explains that these people come to spend hours every day dreaming together, as their subconscious selves construct an alternative life in their dreams. Stunned, the team asks, “They come here to fall asleep?” “No,” the chemist replies. “They come here to wake up.” The dream has become their reality.
There are no real-world dream sharing devices, but there is one real-world technology that connects billions of people in a dream-reality: the Internet.
As Carl Trueman brilliantly lays out in The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, expressive individualism has its origins in a complex collision of history, philosophy, and politics. Today, however, the most powerful vehicle for shaping people in its image is not the classroom or Supreme Court, but the Internet. To see this more clearly, we need to think of the Internet less as a singular tool or hobby, and more like what it is now: an immersive epistemological habitat in which hundreds of millions of people have regular, active membership. The Internet has transformed the way humans read, learn, communicate, labor, shop, recreate, and even “worship.” No other technology is as disruptive to traditional forms of human activity.
Membership in the online commons has formative effects on us, just like membership in a local church. The liturgies of assembled, embodied, gospel worship point us toward one set of beliefs and values, while the liturgies of Internet membership point us toward a different set.
While secular technology critics have been talking this way about digital life for a while, Christians largely have not. Instead, we’ve focused not on the form of the Internet, but on its content, encouraging one another to avoid pornography, slander, and envy on the various website and social media platforms we navigate daily. This encouragement is good and necessary, but much more is needed. Pastors and church leaders in particular need to see online technologies as powerful instruments of personal formation that push us in a certain spiritual and epistemological direction.
Before going further, we should take careful note of something important. The Bible’s vision of human flourishing as divine image-bearers and Christ-followers is a deeply analog vision. By this I mean that Scripture both assumes and prescribes doctrines, attitudes, and practices that are tied to our embodied, physical existence. For one thing, Christians believe that divine revelation is expressed in a physical book, the Bible, and that this book features language with objective meaning.[1] Further, the very first thing we learn from the Bible about ourselves is that we are created in the image of God, male and female. This means that our fundamental identity as people is tied to our bodies. God creates physical image-bearers who have embodied sexual identities, and in submission to God these image-bearers come together to marry, make love, and bear children that fill the earth (with their physical selves) and subdue it. Family is not an abstract concept, but a flesh-and-blood institution that is ordered according to real, embodied persons.
The Internet, by contrast, is radically disembodied. To be online is, in a very real sense, to escape the givenness of created existence. The social critic Laurence Scott writes:
If our bodies have traditionally provided the basic outline of our presence in the world, then we can’t enter a networked environment, in which we present ourselves in multiple places at once, without rethinking the scope and limits of embodiment. While we sit next to one person, smiling through a screen at someone else, our thoughts, our visions, our offhand and heartfelt declarations materialise in the fragments in one another’s pockets. It’s astonishing to think how in the last twenty years the limits and coherence of our bodies have been so radically redefined.[2]
The Internet’s disembodied, “fragmented” character is not merely interesting trivia. It is a massively important part of the way being online shapes our beliefs, intuitions, and habits.
Consider now three distinct “digital liturgies” that shape all of us in the image of the disembodied Internet.[3]

“My Story, My Truth”

Online technology’s flattening, democratizing character means that the most valuable social currency is not expertise, wisdom, or character, but story. When a truth claim goes up against a narrative, the narrative wins every time. Personal experience is the authoritative norm in digital discourse, and in many cases no amount of evidence or argument can trump it. To suggest that someone’s story may be relevant but not necessarily authoritative is often seen as a grossly unacceptable attack on their personhood.
The power of individual story to provide justification for desires and thwart any criticism is powerfully evident to Gen-Z. In her book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, journalist Abigail Shrier describes how large and growing numbers of teen and preteen Americans are learning to question their given gender through transgendered influencers, particularly on YouTube, Reddit, and Tumblr.
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