I spend a large part of my life trying understand how Faith is past from one Generation to the next.
A big part of this discussion is about truth. The Bible reveals the truth about who God is primarily through the stories of God's mighty acts in human history.
This does not seem to be the primary way that we try to tell people about God today. Systems have won out over Story. Today, it seems more likely that a seminary degree would focus on systematic theology instead of the Biblical Narritive.
But I think it is dangerous to think that God is better described in a system than in a story.
In Psalm 145 David writes,
2 Every day I will praise you
and extol your name for ever and ever.
3 Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
4 One generation commends
your works to another;
they tell of your mighty acts.
Vs 3 states that God is beyond any human attempt to fathom him. He is too complex and mysterious to be understood by limited mortals. But oh do we try...
We have created so many systems to describe God...
In contrast, David seems to see future generations learning about God primarily through the stories of his mighty acts. I think that part of the significance of a narrative is that all of the details have a context to help you understand and limit their meaning.
In systematic theology the same details are assembled, but without a context. While this can be helpful, it only truly works when it is done in tandem with a deep respect for the Biblical Narratives that these lists come from.
Context Matters, and the stories were God reveals himself in, are as important as what he reveals about himself. They are interrelated and lose meaning without each other.
One other interesting note is that today the best voices in education are saying that the best teaching method is in fact narrative. People have a far higher retention of things learned in a story, than they do in almost any other way.
What about you? What do you think the balance is between systems and story?
