What Jesus Did! 'Too Many Stories?' — Luke 8:5-10

"You know, some people really like that person's preaching, but I think the sermons have too many stories! Too many people today just want to be entertained with stories. What I like is just good ol' plain preaching!"

Yes, that's something I've heard a time or two. What the person making the accusation fails to realize is that God's greatest preachers, including Jesus, made frequent use of stories and physical illustrations in their preaching and prophecies. Can a person use too many stories? Probably not if they are used as Jesus often used them — to help the listeners gain insight and have a visual cue to help them remember the main point of his message. In his parables, which are stories told to teach a lesson, Jesus used stories and sometimes added an explanation. Both were done to make things clear to his disciples but make things confusing to his critics and opponents.

It is true that stories can be used frivolously or to manipulate the emotions of people. On the other hand, stories can also be used powerfully to drive home important spiritual truths. They can be used to help give the listener a deeper insight into those truths by enabling that listener to grab hold of self-discovered insights into God's truth through his or her processing of the stories. At the same time, those outside the truth-seeking audience are left in the dark about the message, taking away much of their power for criticism.