My friend David Prince, with whom I co-taught preaching for many years, texted me a viral video I would not have expected to find profound.
The video is from the creators of South Park, which is about as far from Biblical Christianity as anything in mainstream popular culture. Former vice president Al Gore once named the creators 'funny nihilists.' In this video, though, the nihilism gave way to wise insight on storytelling.
The creators noted that too many films and movies put a sequence of story lines together as 'and then this happened.' But the parts of the story that are just as important, they said, were the ones hinging on 'therefore' and 'but.' The story is driven along by the continuity and coherence and also by the interruptions and crises.
The story of your life
If you think about the story of your own life, it’s not just one thing followed by another, but things that hold together by what came before and after, those sudden unexpected moments that changed everything.
Those who teach and preach (and even those who read) the Bible should see that too. The storyline of Scripture is not a series of 'this and then this and then this,' but a series of 'therefore' and 'but' moments that center the unexpected ways God brings all that about in Christ. The story is alive, and the story is true.
I didn’t expect the South Park guys to put that so succinctly, but they understand storytelling. Storytelling in the abstract is not enough on its own to help us see the kingdom of God - but those of us who love the kingdom of God should pay attention to the story it’s telling, and how we should tell it too.
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