Reading different theological perspectives. Historical readings express their authors' perspectives, including Arminian and Reformed or Calvinist traditions. Inclusion does not make an author's position settled CTS doctrine. Read with Scripture and the assigned material. A supported answer from another evangelical perspective should be assessed on its reasoning, not penalized simply for differing from the author. If an automated score rejects such an answer, ask CTS for review.

Master’s Assigned Readings (all five)

M.Div. and Th.M. students read all five assigned selections and take their separate exam after activation. The test page states the current rule; valid earlier completions remain valid.

Optional Honors (choose three)

Honors is optional on every track. Certificate and Associate students may read three honors selections without a required-reading exam. Honors does not replace either master’s exam.

The Master's reading test: separate from the honors invitation below. Honors asks you to read any three of these digests; the Master's test covers all five. It has twenty fill-in-the-blank questions, four from each reading, drawn from forty; eighteen right passes. Each answer is marked right or wrong at once; correct answers and explanations are available after the attempt passes. You may try again after a short wait. The test is being introduced: its page says whether it is in force yet. Until then any student may take it, and a pass is kept in your record.

Honors option: Complete any three of the five readings below. These readings supplement the course and do not replace its units or examinations.

On this site: Each of the five readings is a Chapala Theological Seminary digest, written by CTS, available in English, Spanish and French here on the site — every one opens directly from this page, with nothing to download. The digests are CTS-authored teaching that rests on the great public-domain classics of biblical narrative and its preaching (Richard G. Moulton, Alexander Balmain Bruce, Joseph Parker, Alexander Maclaren, F. W. Krummacher, Frederick W. Robertson, Alexander Whyte, Thomas Guthrie, Charles M. Sheldon, and John Bunyan); those classic works are freely available online for any who wish to read them in full. Man-made narratives such as Sheldon’s In His Steps are to be read thoughtfully and weighed by Scripture, not treated as doctrine.

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Reading 1 · The Stories of Scripture

Preaching the Stories of Scripture

A CTS digest

The large place of narrative in the Bible: why God gave us so much story (truth in action, embodied in real lives, memorable); the power of story in preaching (as the Lord Himself taught by parable); narrative as God’s Word and not mere literature (Moulton’s artistry noticed but held with reverence); true accounts, not fables; preaching narrative faithfully; what narrative preaching involves; and stories that reveal God and lead to Christ.

CTS DIGESTRead the full digest — opens right here

The Chapala Theological Seminary digest — an original summary written by CTS, available in English, Spanish and French, readable offline. This is the CTS digest, not the full original source text.

Preaching the Stories of Scripture

A Chapala Theological Seminary reading — the large place of narrative in the Bible, and the call to preach it well

A CTS-authored survey, anchored in the classic public-domain works on biblical narrative and its preaching (Richard G. Moulton, Alexander Maclaren, and others), and in Scripture.

Narrative Preaching
The Stories of Scripture
God's Word, Not Mere Literature
Anchored in classics

A word before you read. A great part of the Bible comes to us as story — the accounts of people and events through whom God worked. These narratives are His inspired Word, and they are meant to be preached. This reading introduces the art of narrative preaching: its power, its foundation in Scripture as God's true Word, and the faithfulness it requires.

1.The Bible Is Full of Stories

One of the first things we notice when we open the Scriptures is how much of the Bible comes to us in the form of story. From the account of creation in Genesis, through the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, the great narrative of the exodus, the histories of the judges and kings, and on to the Gospels' account of the life of Christ and the story of the early church in Acts, a vast portion of Scripture is narrative — the record of people and events, of what God did and what happened. This is not a small or incidental feature of the Bible, but a major part of how God has chosen to reveal His truth to us. He could have given us His revelation entirely in the form of laws, or arguments, or lists of doctrines; and He has given us some of each. But in His wisdom, He gave us a very great deal of story. This means that any preacher who would faithfully preach the whole of Scripture must learn to preach its narratives, for they make up so much of the Word of God. To neglect the stories of the Bible, or to handle them poorly, is to neglect or mishandle a large part of what God has said.

2.Why God Gave Us Stories

Why should God have chosen to reveal so much of His truth in the form of story? There is deep wisdom in it. Stories show truth in action, not as abstract principle only, but embodied in real lives and situations. In a narrative we do not merely hear that God is faithful; we see Him being faithful to Abraham, to Joseph, to David, through the twists and trials of their lives. Truth clothed in story becomes vivid and concrete, something we can see and feel and enter into. Stories also engage the whole person — not the mind only, but the heart and the imagination, drawing us in and holding us. And stories are memorable; a truth wrapped in a story is remembered long after a bare statement is forgotten. Moreover, narrative lets us see God at work in real history, showing His character and His ways through what He actually did. In all these ways, story is a powerful vehicle for truth, suited to the way God has made us. So we should not think of the biblical narratives as a lesser form of revelation, a mere wrapping around the "real" teaching. They are themselves a chosen and powerful means by which God teaches us His truth.

3.The Power of Story in Preaching

What is true of Scripture is true also for the preacher: story has great power to reach the hearer. A well-told narrative captures attention and holds interest as few things can; people who grow weary of arguments will lean forward to hear a story. Narrative reaches past the defenses of the mind to touch the heart, and it lodges in the memory, so that people carry the story home and remember it long afterward. Our Lord Himself, the greatest of all preachers, made rich use of story, teaching the crowds again and again by parables, so that it was said of Him that "without a parable He did not speak to them." He knew the power of a story to convey and to lodge the truth. The preacher who learns to preach the narratives of Scripture well, and to use story in his preaching, therefore has a powerful means of reaching his hearers. He can make the truth vivid and memorable, drawing his people into the biblical scene and letting them see and feel what is there. This is not a trick or a gimmick, but a way of preaching that follows the very pattern of Scripture and of the Lord Himself, and that God has often blessed to the good of souls.

3b.Narrative as God's Word, Not Mere Literature

Here, however, we must lay down a crucial foundation. The narratives of the Bible are the inspired Word of God, and we must approach them as such, not as mere literature. It is true, and worth noticing, that the biblical stories are told with great skill and beauty; scholars such as Richard Moulton have helped readers see the literary artistry of Scripture — its plots, its characters, its patterns and forms. There is real value in observing this craft, for it helps us read the stories with understanding. But we must never let this observation reduce Scripture to the level of mere literature, to be studied only for its artistry, as we might study any great book. These narratives are not simply fine tales; they are the true Word of the living God, given to reveal Him and to teach us the way of life. To treat them merely as literature, admiring their craft while forgetting that they are God speaking, is to miss their very heart. The preacher, then, uses every legitimate insight into the shape and artistry of the story, but always in the service of hearing and proclaiming what God is saying through it. He handles the narratives as Scripture, with reverence, as the Word of God.

4.True Accounts, Not Fables

Closely related is another truth we must hold firmly: the biblical narratives record real events. They are history, not invented fable. The people whose stories we read really lived, and the events really happened; God truly called Abraham, truly delivered Israel from Egypt, and truly raised Jesus from the dead. This matters greatly, for our faith rests not on inspiring tales but on things God actually did in history. The apostle Peter insisted on this, declaring that when the apostles made known the power and coming of the Lord Jesus, they did not follow "cunningly devised fables," but bore witness as those who had seen. The preacher of biblical narrative, therefore, treats these accounts as the true record they are, not as mere illustrative fiction that may be handled loosely because "it is only a story." The events are real, and their reality is part of their power and their authority. This does not mean the narratives are told without art, or that every detail is given; the biblical writers, under the Spirit, selected and shaped their accounts to convey God's truth. But what they record is true, and the preacher honors it as history, resting his message on the solid ground of what God has really done.

5.Preaching Narrative Faithfully

All this brings us to the great challenge of narrative preaching: that the stories of Scripture must be preached faithfully. It is not enough merely to retell a biblical story in an interesting way; the preacher must draw out the true meaning that God intends by it, and must not misuse the story to teach something it was never meant to teach. There is a real danger of handling narrative carelessly — of reading into a story ideas that are not there, of seizing on some detail and making it carry a weight it cannot bear, or of missing the actual point the narrative was given to make. Narrative preaching is not the mere telling of a nice tale with a moral tacked on; it is the faithful preaching of God's Word, which happens to come in the form of story. This requires real discipline and care, for a story can be twisted or misread more easily than a plain statement. The following readings in this course will consider how to preach narrative faithfully: how to read the story well, how to bring it to life without distorting it, how to keep our imagination governed by the text, and how to draw out the story's true message. For now, we simply mark the principle: the stories of Scripture are to be preached with the same faithfulness to God's meaning as any other part of His Word.

6.What Narrative Preaching Involves

It may help, at the outset, to see in brief what the art of narrative preaching involves, so that the path ahead is clear. First, it involves reading the story well — observing carefully its shape and movement, its characters and setting, its conflict and resolution, so that we truly understand what is there. Second, it involves bringing the scene to life — using a sanctified imagination to help our hearers see, feel, and enter the biblical scene, so that the story becomes vivid and real to them. Third, and crucially, it involves keeping that imagination always governed by the text — never adding what contradicts the story, never letting our inventions replace God's Word, always remaining faithful to what is actually there. And fourth, it involves drawing out the story's true message — the lessons it teaches about God and about ourselves, and the way it points, with all of Scripture, to Christ. These are the skills the narrative preacher must learn, and they hold together two things that must never be separated: vividness and faithfulness. The preacher aims to make the story live, and to keep it true. Both matter, and the art of narrative preaching lies in holding them together.

7.Stories That Reveal God and Lead to Christ

We close by lifting our eyes to the great purpose of all these narratives. The stories of Scripture were given, above all, to reveal God and His ways, and ultimately to lead us to Christ and to salvation. Each individual narrative shows us something of who God is — His power, His faithfulness, His holiness, His mercy — as we see Him at work in the lives of His people. And beyond this, all the separate stories of Scripture belong to one great story, the single unfolding account of God's work of redemption, which finds its center and climax in Jesus Christ. The Old Testament narratives lead toward Him; the Gospels tell His story directly; and the whole points to the salvation He has won. Our Lord Himself, after His resurrection, opened the Scriptures to His disciples and showed them the things concerning Himself throughout. So the preacher of biblical narrative, when he handles the stories rightly, opens a rich treasure for his people: he shows them God at work, and he leads them, through the story, to the Savior. This is a high privilege and a great work. To preach the stories of Scripture faithfully and well is to bring God's people face to face with their God, and to point them to Christ, who is the heart of every story and the Savior of all who believe.

8.Taking It to Heart

For reflection. Do you value the narratives of Scripture as a major part of God's Word, given to reveal Him? Do you approach them as God's true Word, not as mere literature or fable, honoring both their artistry and their authority? And do you see how the stories of the Bible reveal God and lead, with all of Scripture, to Christ?

Select

Reading 2 · Reading Well

Reading the Story Well

A CTS digest

The art of observation: look before you preach (careful reading as the foundation); reading slowly and repeatedly; noticing the characters (Maclaren’s close attention — but only what the text shows); following the plot and movement (the arc that holds the meaning — Moulton); attending to setting and significant details; seeing the literary form and artistry (design serving meaning, the servant of understanding); asking what the story teaches (letting meaning arise from the text); and reading in the light of the whole.

CTS DIGESTRead the full digest — opens right here

The Chapala Theological Seminary digest — an original summary written by CTS, available in English, Spanish and French, readable offline. This is the CTS digest, not the full original source text.

Reading the Story Well

A Chapala Theological Seminary reading — the art of observing a biblical narrative before preaching it

A CTS-authored survey, anchored in the classic public-domain works on biblical narrative (Richard G. Moulton's The Literary Study of the Bible, Alexander Maclaren's Expositions of Holy Scripture, and others), and in Scripture.

Narrative Preaching
Close Reading
Observing the Story
Anchored in classics

A word before you read. Faithful narrative preaching begins with careful reading. Before we can preach a biblical story rightly, we must observe it closely — its characters, its movement, its setting, and its craft. This reading considers the art of reading a narrative well, so that our preaching rests on what is truly there, and not on a hasty glance.

1.Look Before You Preach

The first and most basic principle of preaching a biblical narrative is this: look before you preach. Before we can faithfully proclaim a story, we must first read it carefully and observe what is actually there. It is a common temptation to rush ahead — to glance at the narrative, form a quick impression, and hurry on to preaching and application, without ever having truly seen the story. But this is to build on sand. We cannot faithfully preach what we have not carefully observed, and much of the richness and meaning of a biblical narrative is missed by the hasty reader. The discipline of narrative preaching therefore begins with the discipline of careful observation. Before we ask what the story means, or how it applies, we must first ask, simply, what is here? What does the text actually say? Who are the people, what happens, how is it told? This patient looking is the foundation on which all faithful narrative preaching is built. The preacher who takes time to observe the story well will have solid ground beneath his feet; the one who skips this step will preach his own impressions rather than the Word of God.

2.Reading Slowly and Repeatedly

How, then, do we observe a story well? The heart of it is simply this: to read the narrative slowly, attentively, and more than once. A story read quickly, in a single hurried passage, yields only its surface; but the same story read slowly, and read again, begins to open up, and details that were passed over on the first reading come into view on the second and third. This is the reward of patient attention. The devout of old were counseled to meditate on God's Word day and night, turning it over in the mind, and there is a place for just such lingering over a biblical narrative. We read it through to grasp the whole; we read it again to notice the parts; we read it yet again to see how the parts fit together. We may read it aloud, which often catches what the eye alone misses. We linger over it, asking questions of it, until it becomes familiar and its features stand out clearly. This takes time and patience, and there is no shortcut. But the preacher who gives himself to this slow, repeated reading will find that the story yields far more than he first supposed, and he will preach it out of real acquaintance rather than a passing glance.

3.Noticing the Characters

As we read a narrative closely, one of the first things to observe is its people — the characters through whom the story unfolds. Biblical narrative reveals a great deal through its characters: who they are, what they do, what they say, how they respond, and how they change through the course of the story. We attend to the way each figure is portrayed — by their own words and actions, by how others treat them, and sometimes by a direct comment from the narrator. Alexander Maclaren, in his expositions, gave close and fruitful attention to the figures in the biblical stories, drawing out what the text reveals of their character and their dealings with God. We watch how a character is introduced, how he acts under pressure, what his words disclose of his heart, and how he is different at the end from the beginning. Yet here we must be careful to notice only what the text actually shows, and not to invent. It is easy to imagine details about a character that the narrative does not give, or to read into a figure a personality the text does not warrant. The disciplined reader attends closely to what the story genuinely reveals of its people, and there he finds much to observe. For God has given us these characters not merely to satisfy our curiosity, but that we might learn from their faith and their failures, their obedience and their folly, seeing something of ourselves as in a mirror.

4.Following the Plot and Movement

Along with the characters, we observe the movement of the story — what is often called its plot. A narrative is not a static picture but a movement: it begins in one state, passes through some tension, conflict, or complication, comes to a turning point, and moves to a resolution. To read a story well is to follow this movement, tracing how the action rises, where it turns, and how it comes to rest. We ask: how does the story begin, and what situation does it set up? What tension or problem arises? What is the turning point, the moment on which everything hinges? And how is it resolved? Often the meaning of a narrative is carried in this very movement — in the change from beginning to end, in the crisis and its resolution. Students of the Bible's literary craft, such as Richard Moulton, have helped readers see how biblical stories are shaped and structured, and how attending to this shape helps us grasp the point. By following the plot carefully, the preacher discerns not merely a series of events but the arc of the story, and this arc frequently holds the key to what the narrative was given to teach.

5.Attending to the Setting and Details

A careful reader also attends to the setting of the story and to its significant details. The setting — the time, the place, the circumstances in which the events unfold — often matters more than we first suppose, and noticing it helps us understand what is happening and why. And the details deserve close attention, for biblical narrative is characteristically spare: it does not tell us everything, but selects what to include, and so the details that are given are usually there for a reason. When the writer pauses to mention a particular fact, or repeats a word or phrase, or draws attention to some small thing, we do well to notice it, for the meaning often lies just there. We watch, too, for contrasts and comparisons the story sets up, and for words or ideas that recur. Because the biblical writers, under the Spirit, chose their words with care and economy, nothing is merely padding; what they included, they included on purpose. The disciplined reader, therefore, does not skim past the details as though they were unimportant, but attends to them, asking why this detail is here, and what it contributes. Often the very point of a narrative is signaled by a detail that the careless reader passes over.

6.Seeing the Literary Form and Artistry

As we grow in observing biblical narrative, we come to appreciate the skill and artistry with which the stories are told. The biblical writers were not clumsy chroniclers but told their accounts with real craft and design, using patterns, parallels, contrasts, repetition, and carefully shaped movement toward a climax. Richard Moulton and others have helped readers see this literary artistry, and recognizing it genuinely aids our understanding, for the design of a story often serves its meaning. When we see, for instance, that a narrative is built around a contrast between two characters, or that it repeats a pattern three times before a decisive change, or that it moves deliberately toward a climactic moment, we understand better what the writer is doing and saying. So the preacher learns to notice the form and structure of the story, not to admire it as we might admire any fine piece of writing, but because seeing the design helps him grasp the point. And here we recall the caution of our first reading: all this attention to literary artistry must remain the servant of understanding God's Word, never an end in itself. We notice the craft in order to hear more clearly what God is saying through the story, and for no lesser purpose.

7.Asking What the Story Teaches

Having observed the narrative carefully — its characters, its movement, its setting and details, its form — we move from observation toward meaning, asking what the story is meant to teach. This is the crucial transition, and it must be made in the right way. We do not come to the story with a lesson already in mind and then bend the narrative to fit it; rather, we let the meaning arise out of what we have carefully observed. We ask: what does this story show us about God — His character, His ways, His dealings with people? What does it reveal about human beings, about faith and unbelief, about sin and grace? What is the point that this narrative, told in this way, was given to make? The careful observation we have done now bears its fruit, for the meaning of a well-observed story usually becomes clear from the story itself — from its movement, its turning point, its emphasis, its resolution. The preacher's task is to discern this true meaning, the point God intends, and not to substitute a message of his own. Observation, patiently done, leads to understanding; and understanding, faithfully drawn from the text, is what the preacher will proclaim.

8.Reading in the Light of the Whole

One more thing belongs to reading a story well: we must read each narrative in its wider context, not in isolation. Every biblical story stands in a setting — in the immediate context of what comes before and after it, in the book to which it belongs, and in the whole sweep of Scripture. Reading a narrative in the light of its immediate context guards us from misunderstanding it, for what surrounds a story often shapes its meaning. Reading it in the light of the whole book helps us see its part in that book's larger purpose. And reading it in the light of all Scripture reminds us that every narrative belongs to the one great story of God's redeeming work, which finds its center in Christ. A story understood in its context and in the light of the whole is far less likely to be misread than one wrenched out on its own. And so careful reading — slow and repeated, attentive to character, plot, setting, and form, discerning the story's true point, and reading always in context and in the light of the whole — is the foundation of faithful narrative preaching. Observe the story well, and you will be ready to preach it truly.

9.Taking It to Heart

For reflection. When you come to a biblical story, do you take time to read it slowly and repeatedly, observing carefully what is there before rushing to preach? Do you attend to the characters, the movement, the setting, and the details, noticing what the text actually shows? And do you let the meaning arise from careful observation, reading each story in the light of its context and of the whole of Scripture?

Select

Reading 3 · Bringing It to Life

Bringing the Scene to Life

A CTS digest

Sanctified imagination in the service of the text: making the story live; entering the scene yourself first; picturing the setting (Guthrie’s vivid imagery); feeling the characters’ situation (Robertson’s insight — grounded in the text); retelling with life and drama (Krummacher’s power — the real narrative, not embellished); the power of vividness to carry truth home; imagination as the servant of the text, never inventing; and helping people see and feel the Word.

CTS DIGESTRead the full digest — opens right here

The Chapala Theological Seminary digest — an original summary written by CTS, available in English, Spanish and French, readable offline. This is the CTS digest, not the full original source text.

Bringing the Scene to Life

A Chapala Theological Seminary reading — using a sanctified imagination to make the biblical story vivid and real

A CTS-authored survey, anchored in the classic public-domain works of vivid biblical narrative preaching (F. W. Krummacher's Elijah the Tishbite, Thomas Guthrie's The Gospel in Ezekiel, Frederick W. Robertson's Sermons, and others), and in Scripture.

Narrative Preaching
Sanctified Imagination
Vividness in the Service of the Text
Anchored in classics

A word before you read. A biblical story can be told flatly, or it can be made to live. This reading considers how the preacher uses a sanctified imagination to bring the scene before his hearers — to help them see, feel, and enter it. Throughout, we keep in view that this imagination is the servant of the text, a matter the next reading will weigh carefully.

1.Making the Story Live

Having learned to read a biblical narrative carefully, the preacher takes up a further task: to make the story live for his hearers. There is a great difference between a flat recital of the bare facts of a story and a vivid retelling that brings the scene before the eyes and heart. A narrative can be summarized in a lifeless way, so that the hearers learn what happened but are not moved or gripped; or it can be told so that they seem to see it unfold, to stand within the scene, and to feel what is happening. The narrative preacher aims at the second. His goal is that his hearers should not merely be told about a distant event, but should enter into the story, see it with the eyes of their imagination, and feel its reality. This matters, for a story that lives grips the attention, reaches the heart, and lodges in the memory, and so does its work upon the soul. A truth conveyed through a vividly told story goes deeper and stays longer than one stated in a dry and distant way. And so the preacher gives thought to how he may bring the biblical scene to life, that the Word may come home to his people with power.

2.Entering the Scene

The first step in bringing a scene to life for others is for the preacher himself to enter it. Before he can lead his hearers into the story, he must go in himself, in his own mind and imagination. He must picture where the events take place, who is present, and what is unfolding; he must, as it were, stand within the scene and look around, seeing it from the inside. When the preacher has thus entered the story — has stood, in his imagination, on the mountain with the prophet, or by the well with the weary traveler, or in the boat amid the storm — he is able to describe it as one who has been there, and to bring others in after him. This inward entering is the source of vivid preaching. The preacher who has never really imagined the scene, who has only skimmed the words, will describe it dimly and at a distance; but the one who has entered it and seen it will speak of it with a freshness and reality that draw his hearers in. So the preacher takes time to place himself within the biblical scene, to walk through it in his mind, until it is real to him; and out of that reality he is able to make it real to others.

3.Picturing the Setting

One of the ways a scene is brought to life is by picturing its setting — the place, the time, and the circumstances in which the events unfold. When the preacher helps his hearers see the setting, the story gains solidity and presence. He shows them the parched wilderness, the height of the mountain, the crowded city gate, the darkness of the gathering storm, so that they can picture where they are. Thomas Guthrie was especially gifted in this vivid imagery, painting a scene in words so that his hearers could almost see it before them, and taking the pictures given in Scripture and making them shine with life. Such vivid picturing is a great help, for it lifts the story off the flat page and sets it in a place the hearers can see in their minds. Yet even here, at the very outset, we must sound the note that will grow louder in the next reading: this picturing must be drawn from, and true to, what the text and its world actually present. We fill in the scene with what genuinely belongs to it — the real geography, the real customs, the real circumstances — not with fanciful inventions of our own. The vividness serves the true scene, helping the hearers see what was really there.

4.Feeling the Characters' Situation

Beyond seeing the setting, the hearers are helped to feel the situation of the people in the story — what they faced, what they felt, what they feared and hoped. Biblical narrative involves real human beings in real situations, and part of bringing a story to life is helping the hearers enter into the human reality of what the characters experienced. What was it to be Elijah, standing alone before a hostile king? What was it to be the prodigal, hungry and ashamed in the far country, turning at last toward home? Frederick Robertson was noted for his insight into the hearts and struggles of the people in the biblical stories, drawing out the inner reality of their situations so that his hearers could feel it. When the characters are made real in this way — not cardboard figures but living people with fears and longings like our own — the story grips us, and we find ourselves within it. Yet again the guardrail must be named: our sense of what a character felt must be grounded in what the text actually reveals of them, and drawn out from the story, not imposed upon it from our own imaginings. Rightly done, this entering into the human reality of the characters makes the story live and lets its truth touch our own hearts.

5.Retelling with Life and Drama

The story itself is to be told with life and movement, not as a dull summary but as a living narrative that carries the hearer along. A biblical story has movement — tension that rises, a crisis, a turning point, a resolution — and the preacher can tell it so that the hearers feel this movement, held in suspense through the tension and carried to the turning. F. W. Krummacher, in his retelling of the story of Elijah, showed how a biblical narrative can be told with real dramatic power, so that the reader is caught up in the unfolding action and feels its force. This is an art: to narrate a scene so that it grips, giving it pace and life, letting the tension build and the moment of decision land with weight. It is the difference between reading a list of events and watching a story unfold before one's eyes. The preacher who tells the story flatly loses his hearers; the one who tells it with life holds them, and they are carried through the narrative to feel its climax and its meaning. Here again, the drama serves the true story: it is the actual biblical narrative, told with life, not a tale embellished beyond what happened. But told with life it should be, that its reality may grip the hearer.

6.The Power of Vivid Narrative

Why does this vividness matter so much? Because a vividly told story reaches the heart and lodges in the memory as a flat recital never can, and so it conveys the truth of the story with power. When the hearers have seen the setting, felt the characters' situation, and been carried through the living action, they are not merely informed of what happened; they are moved by it, and taught by it, in a way that a dry account could never achieve. The scene, brought to life, carries its meaning home to the heart. This is why vividness in narrative preaching is not mere decoration, a bit of color added for entertainment; it is a means of conveying the truth of the story with force, so that it takes hold of the hearer. The disciples on the Emmaus road found their hearts burning within them as the Lord opened the Scriptures to them; and there is a way of preaching the stories of Scripture that makes the heart burn, as the truth is seen and felt and not merely heard. The preacher who brings the scene to life is not entertaining his people but reaching them, using vividness in the service of the truth, that the Word may grip them and do its work.

7.Sanctified Imagination in Service of the Text

We must now state plainly the qualification that has been sounding throughout, and which the next reading will weigh with care. The imagination the preacher uses in all of this is a sanctified imagination — employed reverently in the service of the text, and never a license to invent. Its whole purpose is to illuminate and bring to life what is actually there, helping the hearers see and feel the real scene that the text presents; it is not free to add to the story, to alter it, or to replace the Word of God with the preacher's own inventions. There is a right and holy use of imagination in narrative preaching, and there is a wrong and dangerous one, and everything depends on keeping to the first. The right use fills in the scene only with what genuinely belongs to it, and vivifies only what the text truly contains, so that the hearers see the real story more clearly. The wrong use invents details, imposes meanings, and lets the preacher's fancy run beyond and against the text. Even now, as we learn to be vivid, we must hold this firmly: imagination is the servant of the text, not its master. The next reading will consider carefully how this imagination must be governed, so that our vividness never becomes unfaithfulness.

8.Helping People See and Feel the Word

Let us gather up the aim of all this, and lift it up. The whole purpose of bringing the scene to life is that our hearers might truly see and feel the Word of God, and so be moved and taught by it. It is not to display our own powers of description, nor to entertain, but to help the people of God enter the story He has given, that they might behold Him at work within it and take His truth to heart. When a biblical scene is brought vividly before them, drawn faithfully from the text and made to live, it becomes real to them, and its truth grips them as a distant report never could. They see God's power in the fire that fell, His mercy in the son received home, His faithfulness in the deliverance of His people; and being made to see and feel it, they are taught and changed. This is the gift the narrative preacher offers: using a sanctified imagination in the service of the text, he helps his people enter the living Word, that they might see God at work and be drawn to trust and love Him. To make the Word live before the eyes and hearts of God's people, faithfully and truly, is a high and worthy calling.

9.Taking It to Heart

For reflection. When you handle a biblical story, do you first enter the scene yourself, so that you can bring others into it? Do you help your hearers see the setting, feel the characters' situation, and be carried through the living action, so that the story grips their hearts? And do you keep your imagination the servant of the text — using it to illuminate the real scene, never to invent beyond it?

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Reading 4 · Governed by the Text

Imagination Governed by the Text

A CTS digest

The crucial discipline: imagination the servant, not the master; illuminating, not inventing; the danger of uncontrolled allegory (Bruce — the main point, not symbolizing every detail); not reading into the text (exposition, not imposition); keeping imagination distinct from Scripture (Whyte’s detail tested by the text — the chaff and the wheat); guarding against unwarranted application (Parker — sound application from sound reading); testing everything by the text; and faithfulness to the meaning God intends.

CTS DIGESTRead the full digest — opens right here

The Chapala Theological Seminary digest — an original summary written by CTS, available in English, Spanish and French, readable offline. This is the CTS digest, not the full original source text.

Imagination Governed by the Text

A Chapala Theological Seminary reading — keeping vividness faithful, so that we illuminate the story and never distort it

A CTS-authored survey, anchored in the classic public-domain works on disciplined interpretation of biblical narrative (Alexander Balmain Bruce's The Parabolic Teaching of Christ, and others), and in Scripture.

Narrative Preaching
Governed by the Text
Faithful Interpretation
Anchored in classics

A word before you read. The vividness we have learned is a great servant, but a dangerous master. This reading takes up the discipline the whole course has been leading toward: keeping our imagination governed by the text. It warns against allegorizing, reading in, inventing "facts," and unwarranted application, and it calls us to be faithful, above all, to the meaning God intends.

1.The Servant, Not the Master

We have learned to bring the biblical scene to life, entering it, picturing it, and telling it with vividness and power. Now we must take up, front and center, the discipline that governs all of this: imagination is the servant of the text, never its master. Everything we have learned about vividness and imaginative entering must be kept in subjection to the text, ruled by it, and made to serve it. There is a use of imagination in preaching that serves the Word of God, helping people see and feel what is truly there; and there is a use of imagination that runs free of the Word, adding to it, altering it, and finally replacing it with the preacher's own inventions. The whole difference between faithful and unfaithful narrative preaching lies here. The vividness that is such a gift when it serves the text becomes a real danger when it slips loose from the text and begins to lead. So the narrative preacher must hold his imagination firmly under the authority of the Word, using it only in the service of the text, and never letting it become a law to itself. This is the governing principle, and everything in this reading flows from it. The imagination must serve; it must never rule.

2.Illuminating, Not Inventing

The key distinction to grasp is between illuminating the text and inventing beyond it. A right use of imagination illuminates what is actually in the text, throwing light upon the real scene so that people see it more clearly and feel its truth more deeply. A wrong use of imagination invents what is not there, adding details, events, or meanings that the text does not contain, and passing them off as part of the story. The preacher may light up the real scene; he may not create a scene of his own and put it in the place of God's Word. Think of it this way: imagination is like a lamp we bring to the text, to see what is already there more clearly; it is not a brush with which we paint new things onto the text that God did not put there. When we use imagination to help people picture the wilderness where the prophet stood, or feel the weariness of the traveler at the well, we are illuminating what the text presents. But when we invent conversations that never took place, or motives the text does not give, or events it does not record, and present them as the story, we have crossed from illumination into invention. The faithful preacher stays on the side of illumination, using imagination to reveal the real story, never to manufacture a new one.

3.The Danger of Uncontrolled Allegory

One particular danger deserves special warning: the danger of uncontrolled allegory. This is the practice of taking a narrative or a parable and making every detail stand for some hidden meaning, until the story becomes a code to be deciphered rather than a message to be heard. Alexander Balmain Bruce, in his careful study of the parables of Christ, showed the importance of disciplined interpretation, which seeks the main point a parable was given to make, rather than turning every element into a separate symbol. A parable, like a narrative, has a central lesson; and when we hunt for secret meanings in every detail — supposing that each object or person must represent something — we distort the story and read into it a hundred things it never meant. The oil, the road, the number of the servants, the color of a garment: the allegorizer finds a hidden meaning in each, and soon he is preaching his own imagination rather than the Word of God. The discipline is to seek the point that the parable or story was actually given to teach, and to let the details serve that point, rather than making each detail carry a meaning of its own. This guards us from one of the most common and most misleading abuses of biblical narrative.

4.Not Reading Into the Text

More broadly, we must guard against reading into the text ideas, meanings, or lessons that are simply not there. This is a constant temptation, for we all come to Scripture with our own thoughts, and it is easy to find in a story what we brought to it rather than what it actually contains. But the preacher's task is to draw meaning out of the text, not to read his own meaning into it. There is a great difference between exposition, which brings out what the passage says, and imposition, which forces upon the passage what we wish it to say. The one lets the text speak; the other makes it a mouthpiece for our own ideas. We must let the story mean what it means, even when that is not what we would have chosen, and not bend it to serve a point we are eager to make. The Scriptures themselves warn against adding to God's words, and against handling the Word deceitfully. Faithful narrative preaching requires the humility to submit our thoughts to the text, to ask honestly what it says, and to preach that, rather than seizing on a story as an occasion to say whatever we please. We draw out; we do not read in.

5.Keeping Imagination Distinct from Scripture

When the preacher does use imagination to fill in or vivify a scene, he must keep a clear line, in his own mind and often for his hearers too, between what the text actually says and what he is imagining. This is a matter of simple honesty. Alexander Whyte's studies of biblical characters are rich in vivid, imaginative detail, and such detail can help bring a figure to life; but every such detail must be tested by the text, and must never be presented as though it were biblical fact. The danger is that the preacher's imaginative fill-ins may be received by the hearers as Scripture, so that they come away believing that some detail the preacher invented is actually part of God's Word. To guard against this, the preacher does well to signal, at least in the way he speaks, what the text says and what he is supposing — "perhaps he felt," "we may imagine," as distinct from "the text tells us." The prophet Jeremiah drew a sharp line between the prophet's own dreams and the true word of God: "what is the chaff to the wheat?" Our own imaginings are the chaff; the Word is the wheat, and the two must never be confused. Keeping this line clear protects the hearers from mistaking our inventions for the Scripture, and keeps our vividness honest.

6.Guarding Against Unwarranted Application

A further danger lies in application: the danger of drawing from a narrative lessons or applications that the text does not actually support. It is possible to tell a biblical story faithfully and then to hang upon it an application it was never meant to bear, using the story as a mere springboard for a point of our own. Joseph Parker's imaginative engagement with the biblical scenes was vivid and stirring, yet his applications, as with any preacher, must be evaluated carefully, tested against what the passage truly teaches. For sound application flows from sound interpretation: the lessons we draw from a story must be warranted by its actual meaning, arising genuinely from what the narrative was given to teach, and not spun out of our own fancy or forced upon the text. It is not enough that an application be true in itself, or edifying; it must be an application that this passage actually supports. When we draw from a story a lesson it does not teach, we may say something good, but we do not preach the Word, and we train our hearers to handle Scripture carelessly. The disciplined preacher, therefore, asks not only "is this true?" but "does this passage actually teach it?" — and draws his applications from the real meaning of the text.

7.Testing Everything by the Text

How, in practice, does the preacher keep his imagination governed? By testing everything he says against the text. As he prepares, and as he preaches, he holds each thing up to the Word and asks: does the passage actually say this? Does this detail truly belong here, or am I inventing it? Does this lesson genuinely arise from the story's meaning, or am I imposing it? He submits his vividness, his imaginative fill-ins, and his applications to this steady test, keeping whatever the text warrants and setting aside whatever it does not. This means continually returning to the text as the measure of all he says, never allowing his preparation to drift free of it. It is a discipline, and it requires honesty, for we are often reluctant to give up a vivid touch or a striking application that the text will not actually support. But this testing is the safeguard of faithful narrative preaching. The preacher who forms this habit — of checking every stroke of imagination and every application against the Word — will preach with both life and faithfulness; the one who neglects it will sooner or later preach his own imaginings in the name of God. The text is the measure, and to it we must continually return.

8.Faithful to the Meaning God Intends

All of this has one great aim: faithfulness to the meaning God intends by the passage. The reason we govern our imagination, guard against allegory, refuse to read in, keep our inventions distinct from Scripture, and draw only warranted applications, is that our task is to convey what the text truly means — what God is actually saying through the story — and to keep everything in the service of that true meaning. Vividness, imagination, and application are all good servants of this end, and all become dangerous the moment they depart from it. So the narrative preacher holds them together: he tells the story with life, and he keeps it true; he brings the scene before the eyes, and he never distorts it; he uses a sanctified imagination, and he keeps it governed by the Word. Vividness and faithfulness belong together, and of the two, faithfulness must govern. A sanctified imagination, held under the authority of the text, is a great servant of faithful preaching, helping God's people see and feel the real story He has given, without ever adding to it or replacing it. Preach the stories of Scripture, then, with life and with faithfulness, that your people may see the true Word of God, and hear what He is truly saying.

9.Taking It to Heart

For reflection. Do you keep your imagination the servant of the text, using it to illuminate the real story and never to invent beyond it? Do you guard against allegorizing every detail, reading in what is not there, and presenting your suppositions as though they were Scripture? And do you test your vividness and your applications by the text, that you may be faithful, above all, to the meaning God intends?

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Reading 5 · Christ in the Story

Drawing Out the Message: Christ and the Gospel in the Story

A CTS digest

The capstone: stories with a message; what the story teaches about God (the true main actor — a safeguard against making it about human effort); what it teaches about ourselves (Whyte’s mirror, leading to grace, not morbid despair); drawing legitimate lessons (Robertson); the danger of mere moralizing (not law but the gospel — Abraham a revelation of justification by faith); seeing Christ in the story (the crown — Luke 24); man-made narratives read critically (Bunyan, Sheldon); and the whole course drawn together.

CTS DIGESTRead the full digest — opens right here

The Chapala Theological Seminary digest — an original summary written by CTS, available in English, Spanish and French, readable offline. This is the CTS digest, not the full original source text.

Drawing Out the Message

A Chapala Theological Seminary reading — finding the true lesson of a story, and how the narratives point to Christ

A CTS-authored survey, anchored in the classic public-domain works on biblical narrative and its message (Frederick W. Robertson, Alexander Whyte, John Bunyan, and others), and in Scripture.

Narrative Preaching
The Message of the Story
Christ in the Narrative
Capstone

A word before you read. This closing reading considers how to draw out the message of a biblical story — what it teaches about God and ourselves, and how it points to Christ. It warns against reducing narrative to mere moralizing, keeps the gospel of grace in view, and draws the whole course together, that we may preach the stories of Scripture faithfully and lead our people to the Savior.

1.Stories with a Message

We have learned to read a biblical narrative carefully, to bring it to life with a sanctified imagination, and to keep that imagination governed by the text. Now we come to the final and crowning task: drawing out the story's message. For the narratives of Scripture are not merely tales to be enjoyed, nor scenes to be admired for their vividness; they carry a message, and were given to teach us something — about God, about ourselves, and about the way of salvation. The preacher's task is not finished when he has told the story well; he must bring home its meaning, so that his hearers are not merely entertained or informed, but instructed, moved, and changed. Every narrative was given for a purpose, and part of preaching it faithfully is to discern and declare that purpose, drawing out the lesson the story was meant to teach. In this closing reading we consider how to do this rightly: what the stories teach us about God and about ourselves, how to draw legitimate lessons without falling into mere moralizing, and, above all, how the narratives of Scripture point to Christ. And in doing so, we shall gather up the whole of what we have learned about narrative preaching.

2.What the Story Teaches About God

The first and chief thing most biblical narratives teach us is something about God. This is easy to forget, for we are naturally drawn to the human figures in a story, and we tend to make them the center. But in most biblical narratives, the true main actor is God Himself: it is His work we are watching, His character that is revealed, His purposes that are unfolding. When we read of Joseph, the deepest point is not merely Joseph's endurance but God's providence, working through all things for good. When we read of the exodus, the story is above all about God the Redeemer, delivering His people with a mighty hand. When we read of David and Goliath, the point is not chiefly a lesson in courage but the truth that the battle is the LORD's. So the narrative preacher learns to ask, first of all, what this story reveals about God — His power, His faithfulness, His holiness, His mercy, His grace — and to make this the heart of his message. This is a great safeguard, for it keeps the story centered where it belongs, on God and what He is doing, rather than on human beings and their efforts. The message of a biblical narrative is, first and chiefly, a message about God.

3.What the Story Teaches About Ourselves

Biblical narratives also teach us much about ourselves, for in the people of the story we see our own hearts reflected as in a mirror. We see faith and unbelief, obedience and rebellion, courage and cowardice, the human heart in its need and its folly and sometimes its grace. The characters of Scripture are not distant strangers but people like us, and their stories hold up a glass in which we may see ourselves. Alexander Whyte's studies of the biblical characters are especially notable for turning this reflection toward honest self-examination, using the figures of Scripture to search the reader's own heart. There is great value in this, for the Word is meant to search us. But we must be careful of the spirit in which such self-examination is done. It is meant to lead us to God and to His grace, not to morbid despair or endless anxious brooding over ourselves. When a story shows us our sin or our weakness, it does so not to crush us into hopelessness, but to bring us honestly to see our need, and so to drive us to the Savior. The mirror of the Word shows us ourselves in order to turn us to Christ; and self-examination that ends in grace, not in despair, is the kind the narrative preacher seeks to prompt.

4.Drawing Legitimate Lessons

From the characters and events of a narrative, the preacher rightly draws lessons for his hearers. Frederick Robertson was gifted at this, drawing out from the biblical characters and their conflicts real insight into faith, temptation, and the moral life, in a way that spoke to the hearts of his hearers. There are genuine lessons to be learned from the stories of Scripture: about the nature of faith, seen in those who trusted God; about the danger of sin, seen in those who fell; about God's faithfulness, seen in His dealings with His people; about temptation, endurance, prayer, and much else. The narrative preacher may and should draw these lessons, applying the truth of the story to the lives of his people. But, as we saw in the previous reading, these lessons must always be warranted by the text, arising genuinely from what the story actually teaches, and not spun out of our own fancy or forced upon the passage. Sound lessons flow from sound reading. When the preacher draws from a narrative the lessons it truly contains, and applies them faithfully, he feeds his people with real instruction from the Word, and the story does its intended work upon their lives.

5.The Danger of Mere Moralizing

Here we must sound a crucial warning, for there is a besetting danger in preaching narrative: the danger of reducing it to mere moralizing. This is the fault of treating every story as simply a lesson in behavior — "be like this good person; do not be like that bad one" — as though the whole point were human example and human effort. Where this is all a preacher does, he misses the gospel and, without meaning to, turns grace into law, leaving his hearers with nothing but the burden of trying harder to imitate a good example. Now there is a real place for moral example; Scripture itself points us to the faith of the saints and warns us by the failures of others. But the narrative preacher must never stop there, nor make the story only about our striving. He must keep the gospel of grace always in view, showing that the story finally points beyond human example to what God has done, to His grace, and to Christ. The account of Abraham is not merely a lesson in being brave or obedient; it is, as the apostle shows, a revelation of justification by faith. So we do not preach bare morality, exhorting people to imitate good characters by their own strength; we preach the God of grace revealed in the story, and we call people to the faith that receives His grace. Not moralism, but the gospel, must be the burden of our narrative preaching.

6.Seeing Christ in the Story

We come now to the crown of all narrative preaching: seeing and showing how the stories of Scripture point to Christ. For the narratives of the Bible do not stand alone as separate tales, but belong to one great story — the unfolding account of God's work of redemption, which finds its center and climax in Jesus Christ. The Old Testament narratives lead toward Him: they reveal the God who saves, they show humanity's need of a Redeemer, and again and again they foreshadow and prepare for the Savior who was to come. Our Lord Himself, on the road to Emmaus, "beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." The whole of Scripture testifies of Him. So the narrative preacher learns to see how each story fits into this larger story, and how it points, whether nearly or from afar, to Christ and the salvation He brings. This does not mean forcing Christ artificially into every detail, which would be the very allegorizing we have warned against; it means discerning how the narrative genuinely stands in the sweep of redemption that leads to Him, and showing that connection truly. To preach a biblical story and never come to Christ is to stop short of its deepest purpose. The crown of narrative preaching is to lead the hearer, through the story, to the Savior.

7.Learning from Man-Made Narratives

A word may be added about stories that Christians themselves have written to convey spiritual truth, for these too can teach us something about the power of narrative. John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is a great allegory of the Christian life, picturing the believer's journey with such truth and vividness that it has helped countless souls; and Charles Sheldon's In His Steps, a moral tale that asks what it would mean to follow Christ closely, has stirred many readers, though as a human novel it is to be read thoughtfully and critically, weighed by Scripture, and not treated as doctrine. Such works show the enduring power of story to convey truth and to move the heart, and they can illustrate and enrich our understanding. Yet we must always keep clear the difference between such man-made stories and the inspired narratives of Scripture. The stories Christians write, however good, are the words of men, to be tested and used with discernment; the narratives of the Bible are the Word of God, carrying His authority. The preacher may learn from and even illustrate with the former, but his authoritative material, the ground of his message, is always Scripture itself. We honor good Christian storytelling in its place, while giving to the Word of God alone the place of authority.

8.Preaching the Stories of Scripture: A Summary

Let us now gather up the whole of what we have learned. To preach the stories of Scripture well, we begin by valuing them as a great part of God's Word, given to reveal Him. We read them well, observing carefully their characters, movement, setting, and form, and letting their meaning arise from the text. We bring them to life, using a sanctified imagination to help our hearers see and feel the scene. We keep that imagination governed by the text, illuminating but never inventing, faithful always to the meaning God intends. And we draw out their true message: what they teach about God, first and chiefly; what they reveal about ourselves, leading us to grace; the legitimate lessons they hold; and, above all, how they point to Christ and the gospel. The narrative preacher who does all this opens a rich treasure for his people. He shows them God at work in the great story of redemption, he searches their hearts and lifts them to grace, and he leads them, through the stories of Scripture, to the Savior Himself. This is a high and worthy calling. So preach the stories of Scripture, faithfully and vividly, governed by the text and centered on Christ, that God's people may see Him, be drawn to Him, and be saved — to their everlasting good, and to the glory of God.

9.Taking It to Heart

For reflection. When you preach a biblical story, do you draw out its true message — showing first what it reveals of God, and letting it search your hearers and lift them to grace? Do you avoid mere moralizing, keeping the gospel of grace always in view? And do you lead your hearers, through the story, to Christ, in whom all the Scriptures find their center?

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Further Study: Ten Public-Domain Works

These ten works are for further study, for the student who wants to go on reading. They are not part of the honors reading above: that stays as it is — the five CTS digests, any three read in full and recorded on your honor. All ten are in the public domain; each link opens the work online, and most can also be found in the Internet Archive or Project Gutenberg. Most are in English: the Chrome browser can translate a page (right-click, “Translate to…”; on a phone, the browser menu).

The Bible as Story · Why Narrative

1. The Literary Study of the Bible

Richard G. Moulton · 1895

Moulton was among the first to read the Bible as the great literature it is — showing how much of Scripture comes to us as story, drama, and poetry, each with its own shape and power. It lays the foundation for this whole course, making the biblical case for narrative plain: God did not give us mostly lists and arguments, but mostly stories, and the preacher who would be faithful must learn to preach them as stories.

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The Parables of Jesus · The Master's Method

2. The Parabolic Teaching of Christ

A. B. Bruce · 1882

Bruce studies the parables of Jesus as a whole — how the Master taught the deepest truths not in propositions but in unforgettable little stories drawn from field and home and road. It is the ideal companion to the course's module on the parables, showing both what Jesus taught through them and how He told them, and setting before every preacher the supreme example of the story used to carry truth into the heart.

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Preaching the Bible's Narratives · The Scene Made Alive

3. The People's Bible

Joseph Parker · 1885

Joseph Parker preached his way through the whole Bible in these volumes with a dramatic, imaginative power that filled his London pulpit for years. He does not merely explain the narratives; he makes them happen before you. It is a rich model for the course's module on preaching the Bible's own stories, showing how a preacher can enter a scene, feel its weight, and bring a congregation in with him.

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Preaching the Text · A Master Expositor

4. Expositions of Holy Scripture

Alexander Maclaren · early 1900s

Maclaren was one of the great expository preachers of his age, and these expositions open passage after passage with clarity, warmth, and a gift for the vivid phrase that lodges in the memory. They model the course's aim of preaching the text so it lives, showing how careful attention to a narrative and a well-turned word can make an old story new for people who have heard it many times.

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Preaching a Bible Story · Scene by Scene

5. Elijah the Tishbite

F. W. Krummacher · 1836

Krummacher takes the story of Elijah and preaches it as a gripping drama, scene by scene — the drought, the ravens, the fire on Carmel, the still small voice — never losing the truth in the telling nor the telling in the truth. It is a superb model for the course's modules on preaching biblical narrative and biography, showing how a single life from the Old Testament can hold a congregation and feed them at once.

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Biographical Preaching · The Preacher's Insight

6. Sermons

Frederick W. Robertson · 1855

Frederick Robertson, preaching in Brighton, had a rare gift for seeing into the hearts of the Bible's people and the meaning beneath its scenes, and his sermons have been treasured ever since for their insight. They model the course's biographical and narrative preaching at a high level, showing how a preacher can enter a Bible character's struggle so deeply that the hearer sees his own struggle in it.

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Biographical Preaching · Bible People Made Real

7. Bible Characters

Alexander Whyte · 1896

Whyte's sketches of the men and women of Scripture are the classic of biographical preaching — drawing each figure with such honesty and life that we recognize ourselves in their sins and their grace. It is the model to study for the course's module on biographical preaching, teaching the preacher to look closely at a Bible person until the portrait becomes a mirror, and the old story searches the hearer's own heart.

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Story Inside the Sermon · The Power of the Picture

8. The Gospel in Ezekiel

Thomas Guthrie · 1855

Guthrie was famous above all for his power of illustration, and here he preaches the gospel from Ezekiel in a stream of vivid pictures that light up the truth and hold the eye. It speaks straight to the course's module on the story inside the sermon, showing how a well-chosen image or scene, placed within an argument, can carry a truth past the defenses of the mind and into the heart, where it stays.

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The Power of Story · A Tale That Preaches

9. In His Steps

Charles M. Sheldon · 1896

Sheldon did not write an argument for following Jesus; he wrote a story about it — and that story has moved more people than a hundred arguments could. It is itself a demonstration of the course's opening case for narrative: that a well-told story slips past our defenses and reaches the will as bare instruction rarely does, and it shows the preacher the sheer converting power that lives in a story faithfully told.

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The Story Sermon · The Supreme Example

10. The Pilgrim's Progress

John Bunyan · 1678

Bunyan preached the whole Christian life as one great story — a journey with a beginning, a burden, a cross, dangers, companions, and a Celestial City at the end — and it has done the work of ten thousand sermons. It is the supreme example in English of the story sermon, the form the course sets before you, and proof that a tale rightly shaped can teach doctrine, stir the heart, and be remembered for three centuries.

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Honor attestation: By selecting three readings above, you affirm that you have read those three digests in full. The digests are CTS-authored summaries that may include brief excerpts or adaptations of public-domain works.