From The Pastor’s Pen – By Brian Horrobin
I love the passion of author James Michener!
Here is what he writes: “I write at eighty-five for the same reasons that impelled me to write at forty-five; I was born with a passionate desire to communicate, to organize experience, to tell tales that dramatize the adventures which readers might have had.
I have been that ancient man who sat by the campfire at night and regaled the hunters with imaginative recitations about their prowess.
The job of an apple tree is to bear apples.
The job of a storyteller is to tell stories, and I have concentrated on that obligation.”
Did you know that the Bible also has some pretty amazing story tellers?
People like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have their stories greet us in the opening chapters of the New Testament.
They are telling the same story, the story of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, God’s Son.
You will find some overlap in their accounts, but what you won’t find is a cookie-cutter, photocopied sameness to their observations of the Saviour.
As you read each gospel account you will encounter a freshness in the details as each author reports through his own unique lens of experience.
Michener sells books because he has a way that draws the reader in and includes them in the story.
When Jesus’ followers take what He has taught and live it out they become a “living letter.”
The apostle Paul, speaking of the believers in the city of Corinth, said this about them in 2 Corinthians 3:2: “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody.”
Let me ask you something, storyteller?
What kind of story are you telling with the way you live your life?
If I asked your friends and co-workers, what might they say?
Do others see something in you that they want for themselves?
Think about that this week!
