Illustrations | Preaching

RETELLING THE STORY AS IF
A favorite communication device is that of retelling a familiar story with an entirely different slant. Some speakers are very good at this. They take a familiar Bible story and retell it in modern terminology. One way I like to do this is to tell a story over again with a different presupposition — just to highlight a truth. Naturally, such a device needs careful explanation so that people are clear as to what you are doing. One story that lends itself to this treatment is the story in Mark 5. I tell the people that I am going to re-tell a familiar story — with an entirely different set of presuppositions. It goes something like this: It seems one day Jesus and his disciples were out on the Sea of Galilee and were headed in a generally southeasterly direction out of Capernaum. The disciples asked Jesus where they were heading and for what purpose. Jesus said to them,…