The Power of Story, Con’t
Growing up, no matter how well someone attempted to explain some concepts, it was only in story that I really started to get my head around it. I think that’s still true a lot of the time. I understand the idea of grace better through story than if you just talk about the propositional definition of it. I understand the idea of justice better through story than if you just talk about the propositional definition of it.
This is one of the reasons that I love story so much. It is a powerful tool for communicating truth and ideas. Bridge to Teribithia communicates big ideas about loss and death and imagination, but it never feels like the author forces it. The story does it.
Of course, there IS a danger inherent to communicating truth through story — it becomes easy for the story to become the new definition, or for nuances from the story that are not necessarily directly related to the truth to become part of our understanding of the truth. Every analogy breaks down.
But, even with the danger, story is a powerful way to communicate truth. God thinks so, too. (See all those great parables in the Gospels, for example. Or the true (and often messy) stories of Abraham, David, Nehemiah, and Paul.)
