The Story-Teller and His Book

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 1 – Prelude

The Story-Teller and His Book

[Bible references: Genesis 1-50; Matthew 1-28 or Matthew 13:1-23]

Over the last two millennia, many scholars have delved deeply into the details of this complex story in their attempts to interpret this story, trying to figure out not just the story but its Creator. There is so much of the creation itself that we don’t understand that it “makes sense” that we would be unable to understand the one who created it. In all of this, in what seems to be a deliberate pattern, the Creator doesn’t try to explain Himself, as much as He just does things and then tells us who He is and what He does, things such as:

• The creation of the world and His response to it.
• The first people He created and the messes they made and how He responded.
• The family he chose to give His laws to, the messes they made, and how He responded to them.

And then the seemingly impossible happened, God came to us himself, in human flesh, as Jesus, a man from Nazareth, a small town in the Galilee region of ancient Israel, speaking to us as one human to another. In condescending to us, much of his basic teaching was given in the form of little stories called parables through which even children as well as adults can intuitively grasp the very character of the Creator.

The complexity of the Biblical story opens up the possibility to many various ways to retell the story, allowing us to draw attention to the many different aspects of the story. The Bible itself starts out by laying out various themes at the beginning that are then retold in different ways throughout the Bible. Dancing in the Kingdom will continue that spirit, laying out that story in different ways. As you read through each iteration, look for what is unique in each instance. When you reach the end of Dancing in the Kingdom, take the time to retell the story in your own words and how you fit into it.

Reflections

If you have the time, skim through Genesis and/or Matthew. Notice that much of the Bible is narrative, stories about things that happened. Write down your impressions of this high-level skimming read of these books and of any questions you have then share them with others.

Observe

Read Genesis 1-3 and Matthew 1-3. Compare the first three chapters of Genesis with the first three chapters of Matthew. What do they show about how God works?