An unexpected lesson from History Channel's The Bible

Millions of people, Christians and not, tuned in to see the premiere of the History Channel's new miniseries The Bible. It will continue each Sunday until the final episodes air the night of Easter.

From all accounts, Mark Burnett, along with his wife Roma Downey, from Touched By An Angel, have produced a high quality and faithful abbreviated adaptation of Scripture.

For Burnett, the man behind Survivor, The Voice and other popular reality TV fare, and his wife, this was a labor of love and an outgrowth of their Christian faith.

It garnered headlines around the globe and become the number one trending topic on Twitter, which means that not only were people watching it, they were talking about it and engaging with it. That is without a doubt a great thing.

Regular Americans, even Christians, have a hard time with basic Bible knowledge, much less seeing the entire book as a cohesive story that weaves smaller units into a much larger whole. Hopefully, this miniseries can help correct some of that.

My hope, however, is that it not only inspires Christians to read and know the stories of the Bible, but that it drives us to create new stories. It's time we became storytellers again.



Christianity continues to explode across Africa, South America and Asia, in so-called "hard places." Often, this comes with creative means of sharing the Gospel. One of the most effective ways is essentially what The Bible is doing – telling the grand story of Scripture in the form of smaller, interconnected stories.

Storying enables missionaries to exponentially spread their faith as stories stick with listeners, who can then share the same story with someone else. These stories display truths from the individual accounts, but they also point to the Truth personified in Jesus.

Unfortunately, many in the Western church have moved away from using stories at all, content with merely teaching practical truths. While there is always a place for that, we hinder our reach when we only teach and speak of truth propositionally.

Think of the Bible. Christians regard it as God's Word. He has revealed Himself to us through this book, which is over 70 percent narrative. The majority of the way God has chosen to show Himself is through stories.

We remember the story of Abraham almost sacrificing his son Isaac. That
story connects with us on an emotional level, making it easy to remember.

When Jesus came as God in flesh, how did He choose to speak to people? Often times, He spoke in stories – parables and illustrations.

God recognizes that stories connect with us on a deep, emotional level that goes beyond merely agreeing with an argument that may be presented. Psychologically, we are much more likely to accept truth when it is presented in story form.

C.S. Lewis, as someone who knew a good bit about both stories and rational arguments, spoke of the use of stories to convey truth in terms of "stealing past the watchful dragons." People have their guards up when they feel as if you are trying to convince them, but they are much more relaxed and open when they hear a good story.

Recognizing all of this, why are Christians still so reluctant to take their talents to Hollywood or a broader cultural context? In discussing the effective apologetic work, Lewis encourages Christians to not write "more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects — with their Christianity latent."

Can I expand that to say we don't really need more Christian fiction, but more fiction by Christians with their Christianity serving as the foundation for the story. Can we not write stories that convey spiritual truth without casting it as a blatant Christian story?

The characters in Jesus' parables were most often ordinary people in situations the audience would recognize. For too long, Christians have only sought to make stories with fake characters in unrecognizable circumstances. Our stories, unlike those of Jesus and the Bible itself, often fail to resonate with audiences.

The Bible miniseries is a great way to show millions of people stories from Scripture in an engaging way. That is not the only way, however. Here is where we follow our Creator in being creative and communicating our faith in a compelling manner through riveting stories.

Even if you can't create grand imaginary stories like Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia or J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, you do have a story that you can tell better than anyone else. If nothing else, tell that story well.

While the History Channel's series will hopefully encourage many to know their Bible better, I hope it will inspire Christians to tell stories that will cause people to know our Savior better.

__________________

What stories can you tell that speak of Truth? In what ways can The Bible inspire us to be original and creative in the way we present God's Word to those around us?

Downplaying your gifts hurts others

It seems so humble to shake off compliments of our work with, "Oh, that's nothing."

When someone speaks highly of what we did, we often feel as if our Christian duty is to downplay achievements and abilities.

We believe that in doing so, we are not placing ourselves above others and living with humility. It is for the benefit of others that we don't accept and acknowledge our gifts. Except it's not.

In reality, we offend the Giver of the gifts, cultivate false humility in our lives, and hurt our relationship with others. This was never more evident to me than a recent interaction with my son over school work.

Just because painting may come easy to you,
does not mean it will be similar for others.

Being a writer, reading to my children and generally have a very literate and well-read house, it came as a surprise to me to hear my oldest son's teacher talk about his struggles with motivation for writing at school. She went through how far ahead of schedule he was on his understanding and application of math, but he just didn't seem to enjoy writing.

Not long after that, he had a writing assignment from school that he did not finish during the class time, so he had to finish it at home. Believing that he was simply being absent-minded I scolded him over his inability to manage his time and write what he was told.

We went around and around over his not writing. He finally broke down in tears, revealing his needs, but also my insensitivity to his struggles and different gifting. He, at least at this point, needed help with prompts to help initiate his writing.

Once I sat down and listened to him talk about why it was he wasn't writing, I was able to help him think through some things that could help him get started and finish his work.

Writing is and has as long as I can remember come easy to me. It is a gift of mine that I enjoy.

God has blessed me with that ability, but for so long I spent my life speaking as if it was insignificant. Writing, I told myself, was just putting words on a page. Anyone can do that. It came easy to me, so it must come easy to everyone else.

Obviously, that's not the case. I can write. You can do things that I cannot do. Math and cooking come to mind as abilities that do not come naturally to me.

Each of us has been gifted differently by our creative Creator. He enjoys the diversity within His creation. It is his intention to have people with vastly different abilities and skills serve Him through those various means.

When you downplay the giftedness you have, however, you begin to assume that others should be able to do those things as easily and as well as you. Like my son with writing, you get frustrated that the other person struggles with something you find so easy. It can be your child, your friend, your coworker or your spouse.

For so long you have looked at your gift as if it was nothing special, with the intention of trying to cultivate humility. Instead, you have cultivated frustration and anger within your relationships, by holding others to a standard to which they were never meant to live up.

Albert Einstein is purported to have said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Whether the scientific mastermind actually said it or not, the statement still contains truth. I cannot judge my son on whether he can write like me. God has gifted him in his own unique way.

You have your own special gifts, but when you downplay them you wrongly teach yourself that others should be able to do all that you can as easily as you can. You are only setting up them for failure and the relationship for trouble.

Real humility can acknowledge, without pride, a personal gift or achievement, while never doing so at the expense of others.

Recognize your gifts. Respects the gifts of others. Do both in reverence to the Giver of all good gifts.