As I researched the topic of story telling for this blog post, I came across a paper, The Importance of Story Telling, on the Homeschool Legal Defense Association site covering the very topic that was on my heart. It is well written - a student submission to an essay contest - and is worth reading. I would like to express my thanks to the anonymous author.
The essay asserts that story telling is the most important tradition possessed by mankind. If true, then perhaps that is why God chose to communicate to human beings through story. He has given us the narrative histories of the Old Testament, the parables of Christ in the Gospels, the harrowing tales of faith and adventure in the book of Acts, and so many other stories - stories mixed with lessons for our lives, with truth from beyond this universe, and with hope for all mankind.
Here at Ages of Joy, we believe that the stories recorded in the Bible are True Stories. Not just true, but the truest kind of Truth. Sure, there are names and places and events from this world's historical past, recorded often by eyewitnesses who gave as accurate an account as humanly possible. But even more importantly, there is Truth expressed that transcends this world, communicated by God to men and women through many different means. This Truth is truer than anything in this universe, because it was True before this universe even came into being. This Truth is so lofty and profound that the means of this world can only barely represent it. But by the power of God's Holy Spirit, He reaches down into the hearts and minds of mankind, to those who will listen, and reveals these deep Truths.
Some of that Truth speaks of the creation of this universe, because God wants us to know that He made us, that He is our Creator. God authored this universe and He authored the stories in the Bible about His authoring this universe. We can learn a great deal about what God made and when God made it from scientific investigation. But we can only learn why God made mankind and this universe from God Himself. He chose to reveal that kind of truth in Person.
Mankind has always wondered about Who created us, how we got here, what our purpose in life is. God has placed within the human heart such a desperate need to know the answers to these questions, that in absence of revelation, we make up answers. We tell stories - stories meant to fill the void in our hearts and our minds with answers to big questions, like Why am I here? and Where did I come from? Of course for these stories to help us, to satisfy our longing we have to believe them. To believe them, we have to be told these stories by people we trust - by people who seem to accept the stories as true for themselves. Often, these stories are handed down from parents to children, other times from teachers to pupils. Sometimes they are discovered in dusty books or among the broken shards in a ruined city. The most important stories are handed down for hundreds or thousands of years and are guarded as sacred relics from our ancestors.
But God did not create mankind with a longing to know the answers to the questions of our origins just to give us opportunity for creative expression and community building. His purpose was not to simply give us a reason for traditions and language. He intended that our quest for answers would lead us to Himself. For that to happen, our desire for Truth has to be stronger than our desire to know. For we can know many things that are not True. But it is of much greater worth to know a few things are are really True.
A long time ago, mankind began telling stories about gods and goddesses creating the world, and animals, and man. These stories became the traditions around which religions were built and cultures were formed. But because they were not true stories, this led to a great deal of harm. The storytellers became power brokers and used their power for personal gain at the expense of others. The True Story of God had been lost. Mankind had mostly forgotten and abandoned the old tale and invented many new ones.
Into this mess, God sent a miracle. The miracle took the form of story. In this case, a True Story. In fact, several True Stories. And these True Stories are what this blog site is all about. One of those stories was passed down by a family from the very beginning. It starts with the first man, Adam; is handed down through his descendants; and finally makes it way to a man named Moses, who captured it into what would become the Bible. Another True Story was revealed that regards the creation of the world in which we live and of mankind. This story appears to have been given to a priest for it is written in an elevated style. That story also made its way to Moses and it too was captured into the Bible. The priest's story starts with the phrase: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The Biblical book of Genesis records the priest's story starting with chapter one, verse one and concludes with chapter two, verse three, and then summarizes it in chapter two, verse four. The story of Adam's family line follows thereafter. There are other True Stories about creation recorded in the Bible as well, such as the Story of Job. From all these True Stories, we can have solid answers about why God made us, who God is, and what God intends for us to do.
But how do we know that the stories in the Bible are the True Stories and not just made up stories? Well, in olden times, God testified to them by miracles. The people who received the stories knew that the stories were True Stories because God appeared to them. In the times that followed, the stories were safeguarded and handed down, all the way to us today. We can trust them because they are True Stories from God. But in modern times, God has also testified to these stories through scientific discovery. We can use science to help us weed out which ancient stories were made up, and which ancient stories were truly established by revelation.
Here at Ages of Joy, we believe that science powerfully testifies that the creation stories of the Book of Genesis are True Stories. Genesis 1:1-2:4 is written in a genre of epic literature as a polemic against false creation stories by encapsulating the true history of God's creative acts in sufficient detail that all other pretenders can be recognized as nonsense while it alone is vindicated by the physical evidence provided by the creation itself. At Ages of Joy, we want to help readers to see how and why that is a case that can be made and successfully defended. We recognize that this is not a trivial task. We see that there is a need to "tell the story" in such a way that the True Story of creation can be recognized as True and the false stories as false.
It is important for our culture, our families, and our Church to be able to weave the tapestry of these stories, stories from the Bible and stories from nature, in to the True Story that our children can receive with trust and in sincerity pass on to their own children and to all the seekers of Truth that they meet. This does not mean changing the stories in the Bible. It does entail explaining them and translating them into our time and place in history as all our faithful ancestors before us have done.
Therefore, we must develop this narrative. We must tell the story. Reading Genesis 1 does not so much answer questions as it does prompt us to ask the right questions and for the right reasons in order to know the right God in the right way. God's creation itself testifies about Him and is meant to be studied to answer many questions. At Ages of Joy we see the value in writing a narrative for parents and teachers and children that bridges some of the gaps and points seekers in the right direction. We want to point people to the God of the Bible and to the True Story written on tablets of stone by the finger of God and by the chisel of Moses and written in the stones and the bones of the dusty earth and in the biological genes and astronomical scenes witnessed through scopes both micro and macro.
Please keep reading this blog and contribute your thoughts in comments or questions as we prepare this narrative together.
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