Latest / The Daily Writer / How to Tell Stories Like Jesus (with Doug Phillips)

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How to Tell Stories Like Jesus (with Doug Phillips) · The Daily Writer

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_04: As an artist and a creative, one of the most valuable skills you can learn is how to engage people with storytelling.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_04: Stories are the way that we process information and make sense of the world around us.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm really excited today to bring you this conversation with a friend who can help us learn from the greatest storyteller of all time, and that is Jesus.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_04: So stick around.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_04: This is a very fun episode that I think you're going to love.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_04: Hey friends, welcome to the Born to Create podcast.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_04: My name is Kat Sanders, and I'm an author and professor.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_04: This is the show where we explore the mindset, habits, and principles that help you make a bigger impact in your life and creative work.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_04: Today I'm thrilled to be talking with Doug Phillips, who is the professor of New Testament and Greek Studies, and also the chair of the Biblical Education Division at St.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_04: Louis Christian College in Florida, Missouri.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_04: I also happen to be a professor there, so Doug is a colleague of mine, and I'm really excited to have him on the show today.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_04: Doug has multiple advanced degrees and is also working on a PhD in New Testament from Asbury Theological Seminary.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_04: On this episode, we're going to do a deep dive into the topic of storytelling in the Bible.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_04: Doug shares his journey to becoming a professor and also helps us understand why Jesus' parables were so powerful.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_04: You'll learn what makes an effective story, the key components of Jesus' parables, and how to start applying those lessons to your own communication, no matter what kind of communication that you do.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_04: I hope that you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_04: And if you want to take a deeper dive after the episode's over, be sure to check out our show notes at Kent Sanders.net slash Jesus.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_04: This book is filled with practical tips to help you be more successful as an artist and as a creative leader.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_04: It's a short little book, about 120 pages, and you can read it in less than two hours, but the lessons last for a lifetime.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_04: The Artist of Suitcase makes a fantastic Christmas gift for somebody on your list, or let's be honest, it can be a gift for yourself as well.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_04: Check it out at Kent Sanders.net slash suitcase.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_04: We'll get to the conversation with Doug in just a moment, but first here's a few quick words from today's podcast partners.com, and you're listening to the Born to Create Podcast.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, this is Eric Elder from theRanch.org, and you're listening to the Born to Create Podcast.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, this is Anna Real from the Real Anna.com, and you're listening to the Born to Create Podcast.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_03: Doug, welcome to the Born to Create Podcast.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you very much.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_03: I'm excited about this and uh get to talk a little bit about uh parables and narratives, I guess, in the in this uh time we have.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_04: Well, for those who are listening, this is sort of a a continuation or a repeat in some ways, or almost a part two, of a class session that we did last week.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm teaching a class called Storytelling.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_04: It's actually called the Art of Storytelling, uh, this semester here at St.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_04: Louis Christian College, and I had Doug come in and talk about the parables of Jesus and how we can learn as storytellers how Jesus communicated and connected to his audience using parables.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_04: And of course, storytelling is a huge topic nowadays, so I thought this would be kind of a fun thing.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_04: Doug is extremely knowledgeable about the Bible and uh particularly the New Testament, and uh I wanted to have him come and share a little bit about storytelling.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_04: So if you could maybe start out a little bit, Doug, by giving us kind of a brief overview of how did you become a professor here at St.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_04: Louis Christian College?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_04: You know, a lot of people are listening, probably wondering, how do you get to be a professor at a college?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_04: How does that system work?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_04: So if you can take us a little bit on your journey as to how you became a professor in the first place.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: Sure, it's uh it's a long road.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: It was for me anyway, but I uh uh always uh enjoyed teaching in the church, and any other time I got a chance to teach, I always enjoyed it and was uh reaffirmed by people that uh it was a gift that I had and I love to learn, and then I obviously from my learning I like to share that information with others.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: So um I uh pursued uh a couple master's degrees because I enjoyed education.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: I always want to make myself I always wanted to make myself better for for kingdom work, for God's work, and I felt it helped me uh in my sermon preparation and sermon delivery of just having that knowledge to be able to share with other people.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: So um it seems like God's reaffirmed us for me all through my my journey over and over.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: He's helped me out and uh made it easy.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: Well not easy, but made it possible, I guess, uh made it easier for us to pursue this.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: So and then uh the PhD program, I to tell you the truth, I really didn't want to go into the PhD, uh, because I knew it was gonna be very difficult.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_03: You have to I had to learn five languages.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: Well, three biblical languages, uh languages.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: I already knew those and then modern German and French.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_03: So the German and French was really what I did not learn about.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I did not know that.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so for the in the first three semesters, you have to test out of five languages.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: So I remember when I first came to Asbury Theological Seminary, I had to everybody went to go see the academic dean.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: And uh so his name is uh uh David Bayer, and he's actually a reader on my dissertation committee.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, first thing he asked me uh was how's your German?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I you know, I was expecting like, How's your Greek or how's your Hebrew or something like that?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I'd be like, Hey, it's great.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_03: I've studied a lot of that, but the first thing he asked is, How's your German?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, I I guess I left it at home, no, but it's like uh I I understood that there's a tutoring program here where we can work on German.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_03: He said, Yeah, but it's better if you already have it before you come.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, Well, I guess I'm behind now, but I made it through that, and uh so in research you have to be able to study a lot of the modern languages because there's a lot of research in you know in the last hundred years in Germany and also in France, so you have to be able to find that information and uh you know cite it or use it in some way for your research.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_03: So um for me, I mean, as far as becoming a professor, I think this is where I was headed all along.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: It just takes a long time.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the way for me, because I wanted to do it, I wanted to be very well um capable.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so I that's why I've pursued a lot of education on uh myself.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_03: So um but and I can talk about my research if you want to a little bit, why it kind of ties into this stuff.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that I think that would be great.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: So uh my research and and my dissertation research is really about how information is packaged.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: So how do people communicate?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_03: And so how do they try to inform someone and the different ways that they would use language or an argument or a claim uh to try to persuade people towards some kind of understanding or to exhort so people would learn in a certain way.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_03: So that kind of fits in with parables because uh part of this is um you know understanding rhetoric, even though rhetoric is not my main focus.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: I'm more uh I concentrate more on how uh the wording is presented and then how maybe clauses come together in order to share information to try to uh again try to influence someone to think in a certain way.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_03: And so you have times where you have a person with authority, they speak differently.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_03: If that authority is accepted by an audience, they would speak differently than a person who does not have that authority.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: So there's two different ways of speaking, and we can see this in uh parts of the New Testament.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_03: So um, and then again, uh how how are you trying to persuade someone?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_03: Are you trying to motivate them in a certain way?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_03: Or again, if you have authority, you might just be, you know, I have the credentials here, so you need to listen to me.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_03: So you might be more of a command or imperative language being used.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_03: So um so the parables, I mean, it they aren't the focus of my research, but I'm fully aware of what's going on, and uh, I teach I'm teaching the gospel of Mark this semester, so I'm teaching uh the students a lot about you know obviously the narrative itself of the gospel, but about parables and how to understand how a story is being told to get the maximum impact from that story.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_04: Right, right.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: That's kind of what so they they kind of all go together in a sense.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_04: Wow, that's I'm I'm just fascinated by all this stuff.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I've you know, I of course went to Bible college and and seminary and we were actually in a class together, which I was embarrassed to find out that I didn't even realize you were in my class.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_04: Of course it's been, you know, fifteen years ago or something.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_04: But I've always been fascinated by biblical research, even though that hasn't been the focus for me necessarily vocationally or in my teaching.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_04: Uh something that always really I found interesting is what draws certain people as far as Bible study, what draws certain people to the New Testament and what draws certain people to the Old Testament?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_04: For example, my brother Don, of course you know him, he was an Old Testament major.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_04: That was one of his master's degrees in uh in grad school, but then you have other guys who who focus on New Testament.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_04: Like in your experience, what is it that that you think draws people specifically to the Old Testament versus New Testament or to specific things?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_04: Is there something sort of inherent within something, maybe the stories of the Old Testament, that some people like that, or some people love studying the letters of Paul or the Gospels, or you know, what is it that exactly draws people to a specific area of biblical study?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if I have a really good answer.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: I have an opinion.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_03: I think probably if a person decides to study the Old Testament, they're probably more of a history buff.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: Because there's just so much history there that you can look at.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_03: Uh you can look at the Assyrian Empire and how Israel is interacting with that.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: You could even go before that.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, there's early Babylonian things going on, there's Canaanite things, there's Egypt, uh, there's the Persian Empire, uh, later Babylonian Empire, so there's just so much history there.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: And um uh it it it's just a treasure trove of of historical information that a person could learn about in that.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um maybe someone's drawn to the Hebrew language, I don't know.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_03: It is kind of I think it has an elegance to it.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, absolutely.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: Uh that's much different than what we're used to.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: So someone may be curious about that and want to study uh Old Testament for that reason.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_03: I think a lot of people probably study the New Testament just because we're we're Christians and that's our text.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_03: But my my feeling has always been you really cannot understand the New Testament unless you have a firm understanding of the Old Testament.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_03: That's why I did a master's in Old Testament studies, also.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so everything that we have in the New Testament is founded upon the Old Testament, except we have it being understood through the the life and ministry of Jesus, our Lord.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: So um and uh the New Testament, uh, you know, maybe some people are drawn to Paul.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: I really I admire Paul quite a bit, so I I like studying Paul myself.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but you know, you have the teachings of our Lord uh in the Gospels, and and you know, there's there's history in the New Testament, obviously, but it's much less, it's a condensed uh, you know, we only have sixty years of inform, you know, historical time there, basically, of Jesus' ministry to the very end of uh the New Testament revelation, but uh there's history there, the Roman Empire and the Greek culture, which probably is very interesting to some people also.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um so you know, it's hard to say necessarily why someone's drawn in a certain way, but I think probably some of those ideas may have some influence on why they choose the old testament or the new testament or whatever they do.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_04: So and sometimes I don't think you even know why you're drawn to certain things.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_04: You know, whether it's music or art or uh some type of specific, you know, architecture or uh the law, being an attorney or whatever it is, you know, it's almost like this mysterious thing that you feel you don't even choose it in some regard.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_04: It almost like chooses you, and then then it you know your life becomes a matter of just sort of obeying that calling that's been implanted within you that's pulling you towards something rather than discovering something sort of on your own.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_04: That's been my experience at least.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know if that's been your experience as well.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, sure.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah, sometimes I think maybe people in your life may have influence and direct you in a certain way.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you may have had a teacher in undergrad that was uh an old testament person and had a passion for that topic, and that may have you know led you to towards that or New Testament or something.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_03: So there's lots of things I think that contribute to the way the decisions we make as far as biblical studies and other things.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: So it's hard to say exactly, but uh there are certain factors that are uh working on us, I'm I'm sure, while we're making decisions about what we want to do or not do, and finances too.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, obviously, yeah, it'd be better to have degrees in both sides, but uh finances are uh you know restrict too, so yeah, a person has to decide which way do I want to go, this way or that way.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I think that is a key point with with teaching, and and that's certainly been my experience too, is that you know, there is the calling element and sort of the spiritual side of it, I guess if you will, but there's also the marketability side, and I know that was a huge reason why when I went to grad school, my Master of Arts was in worship studies, but I I knew even back in my twenties, I knew for a fact there would come a day where I would want to expand beyond just that narrow field, which is why I then went on to do a Master of Divinity degree, which has served me really, really well.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_04: Sounds like that was your strategy as well.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_04: As you kind of want to give yourself as many opportunities as possible.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_03: I I was early on I started in graduate school and seminary, I started working on the MDiv with a specialization in New Testament studies, and it wasn't long uh that I started to have a um a desire to or an interest in intertextuality, which is basically how the New Testament's using the Old Testament.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: And so I came to the conclusion that you know I really could not get a firm grasp of how they were using the Old Testament unless I really understood the Old Testament.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: So that's why I decided to do what I did, and I was blessed through this because I had lots of financial support.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: Not everybody has that.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: But I had lots of people supporting me, so I made it through seminary, two degrees, and not uh a dollar of debt.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: And so I was I was blessed that way.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_03: Now, marketability for a person, if they're wanting to know, like uh I'm trying to decide which way to go, Old Testament or New Testament, I think you'll probably have more job opportunities if you pursue the Old Testament, because there are just everybody's doing New Testament.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_03: So when I went for my PhD studies, we're it's a PhD in biblical studies, but you choose New Testament or Old Testament.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_03: There were thirteen of us, nine work wanted to work in the New Testament, four wanted to work in the Old Testament.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, people just choose the New Testament, so that area is flooded with people.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um so again, if you're trying to find a job, maybe the Old Testament may be the way to go, but don't, you know, if your passion is the New Testament, stick with what your passion is, where you feel like God's taking you to study, but uh you're not going to you'll be rewarded with a degree in Old Testament studies.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, obviously it's not gonna be you're not doing making a bad decision, it's a good decision.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, either side's good.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and I think you're gonna understand the New Testament much, much better the more you know knowledge and understanding you have of what's going on in the Old Testament, obviously.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_04: So part for me, part of the the appeal of the Old Testament is just the stories.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_04: It's just crazy stories.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_04: In fact, I had a class yesterday, I think it was in my storytelling class when we met yesterday afternoon.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_04: We were talking about the story of um you know the witch of Endor and how she she calls up Samuel, you know, and and one of my students were was talking about that, and and then it dawned on me that, you know, in that story, and this is this has nothing to do with the parables, which is supposed to be the topic of this talk, but anyway, sometimes you go off track.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_04: It was fascinating to me that you know the text never says that it was something that they were imagining or something that was sort of uh a hallucination or whatever.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it it presents it as if that was actually Samuel, which I find really, really fascinating.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_04: That's a weird story.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, it is, it definitely is.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: And there was an article about that story in the Journal of Old Testament Studies uh in the September uh issue, and I was reading it, and uh the the person was talking about Samuel and the the the life of Samuel and that that event itself at the end there of Saul's you know, towards the end of Saul's reign, and he he brought up an interesting point that you know when we look at Samuel's life as a whole, his life, his story really begins with a woman, Hannah, yeah, and then it closes with this witch.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_03: And so he has this women on both sides of his story.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's really kind of interesting.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I tell this story that way about Samuel, you know, it's kind of but the the you know, at the very end of the of the witch, it's obviously we have Saul doing something that he shouldn't be doing, yeah.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_03: And we have this, you know, bringing up the ghost of of Samuel again.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: So it it's really fascinating, but it's a really good, interesting story about how this person kind of dissects this stuff about Samuel's life.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_04: So it kind of just proves to me, again, the the power of stories, yeah.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_04: And how we latch onto those emotionally, and you know, of course there's theological reasons for all those things being in the Bible, but but yet it's the emotional, you know, it's almost like the cinematic, you know.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_04: I'd I just I would love to see somebody make a really good movie about about that.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe not a whole movie about that one episode because it's not very long, but but yet, you know, if you love movies and and TV shows and stuff, you can easily see how somebody could make a really interesting scene about that or something.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_04: So I guess that leads us into kind of our topic, which is parables.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_04: Now, for those who are listening, you know, we have some people who are longtime Christians, others who may not be as familiar with the Bible.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_04: Can you give us kind of a brief rundown of what is a parable and why did Jesus use parables so often?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um so um parable itself is a you can think of a uh it's just an illustration, uh story, uh, something like that.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: But it probably the word itself probably stems from the idea of throwing, uh throwing alongside.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_03: So the idea would be that Jesus is teaching something to someone and he uses an illustration.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_03: Now we don't always have the uh teaching discourse.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_03: It seems like sometimes it goes straight into parables, but the purpose of the parable would be to provide some kind of substantiation to whatever uh Jesus is talking about.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_03: Parables are they can be complex or they can be very simple.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: And the complexity or the simplicity depends on how many characters are in that story.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_03: The more characters you have, the complexity of the story increases.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_03: If you only have or items, like the parable of the four seeds, it's a very complex story because there's four items there.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_03: Now, if you have a simple story like uh uh the kingdom of heaven's like a mustard seed, we only have one thing, so it's a very simple story.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_03: So it can be complex or it can be very simple.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's not just as uh simple to say that uh a parable is uh an earthly story with a heavenly meaning either.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_03: It's there much more there's much more going on there than that.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_03: They seem to be, it seems that when Jesus he understands his audience very well when he's telling a story, so it would be very interesting, and I have not done this, to look at the parables and to try to um discover what kind of audience he's talking to.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: If he's talking to a rural audience, if you're dealing in Galilee, it's generally a rural audience.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: What kind of parables does he use in that instance?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_03: When he's in Jerusal Jerusalem, what kind of parables does he use then?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: Because he's he knows his audience and he's using stories that would relate to that audience.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_03: So, I mean, a modern day idea would be um I I preach in a rural church right now, so it wouldn't be very it would be unwise of me to share a story about traffic problems in St.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_03: Louis.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: They just don't even understand traffic problems in St.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: Louis.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: We do in St.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: Louis.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, St.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_03: Louis they do, yeah.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_03: But they don't there where they're at in their little town.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: Or if I was in St.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_03: Louis, it probably wouldn't do me much good to talk about, you know, corn, use a story about corn, even though you people drive by it, you know, there's you you have to know your audience in order to connect to that audience so that they have the story itself can it has to have a um a connection to their life, their livelihood.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_03: That's when it gets to be really um effective and can really speak to a person.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_03: That makes sense.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I was talking about Jesus and uh uh where how he knows his audience, and I one thing came to mind real quick You know, towards the end of the last week of Jesus' life, he's in Jerusalem most of the time doing things, teaching or or other things uh before his death.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_03: And uh the parable of the wicked tenants, he tells this in Jerusalem itself, and so he's not talking about an actual farmer farming, he's talking about someone who rents out land to other people.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: That seems to be indicative, probably, of someone who lived in Jerusalem that may have been wealthy.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_03: They wouldn't have farmed, they would have rented it out to other people, and then they would have sent someone to go get the the harvest, the you know, the fruit.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_04: And so small detail that makes a big difference.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so they would know about that, like, oh yeah, that's you know, that's kind of what I do.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_03: I I have land too, and I rent it out to other people.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: But in Galilee, he probably talks about, you know, actually going out and putting the seed in the ground.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: The parable of the sower of the seeds.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_03: So knowing your audience.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and how that connects gives it a punch and maybe more shocked when he's telling the story.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_03: So these stories also have a a shocking value.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_03: It's hard for us to probably to understand the shock value, but that's what makes them so poignant.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's like Jesus is taking them in in the story and they're expecting something, but he does something very ironic or shocking.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so that, you know, that kind of helps them to um well, you could say they don't get bored, but if they're starting to drift off into a law, it snaps them back in, like, oh my gosh, I can't believe he said that.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_03: It's like they're they perk back up again.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_03: And there's other things that go on in stories, like when Jesus says, Amen, amen, or truly, truly I tell you, that would be something that would catch their ear also, and it has rhetorical value in that, like, listen up, what I'm getting ready to say is really important.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_03: Or when Jesus says, He who has ears, let them hear.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know, these kind of simple things like this are uh communicative uh communicating devices that let an audience know, you know, listen up, something's getting ready to be said that's really, really important.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_03: And then parables, as you're looking at parables, I'm drifting off here.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_03: I hopefully I'm staying on track.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: No, this is not this is great.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_03: This is pretty good.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_03: So when you're looking at parables, you need to think about a story.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so there are elements in stories that are really important.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: So right off the bat, what I would tell someone to do about a parable is look if there's a time element in that story.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, if there's something like he talks about you know, after the harvest or springtime or something like that.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_03: If look for a time element, it won't it will not always be there, but if a if a person, a narrator, puts something in a parable or a story itself about time, it's there for a reason, it's important.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_03: So, like Jesus, sometimes it'll be like uh on the Sabbath he did things.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_03: Well, then you understand that he's doing things that the culture would be thinking like, should you be doing this on the Sabbath?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_04: Kind of highly discouraged.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_03: So he's indicating something for us, so take notice of that.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um but time won't always be there, but if it is, take notice of it.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_03: But always think about characters in the story and how they're described.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_03: Or concepts or something, but characters, how's the narrator describe the characters?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_03: Even clothing.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: Clothing can be important.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um you know, anything that it tells about the character, the narrator wants you to understand something about that character.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_03: He's trying to he's trying to draw a picture for you in your mind about this character.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: Any type of action the character does, pay close attention.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_03: Speech.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: Pay close attention to what the character says.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_03: Speech often will indicate things to us about the character itself, so or characters.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: So pay close attention to these details.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_03: Just don't, you know, push through it.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_03: I often tell my students and I tell people in the church, slow down and read your Bible, you know, more uh carefully.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_03: Because we just kind of blow through the text.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: Also, think about the storyline.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_03: So all stories, all good stories, and I'm a hopeless romantic here when I say this, uh, I like the good to always overcome the evil, but good stories are like that.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_03: The good overcomes the evil.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I can think of you know, there are stories out there, obviously, where good does not win, but we generally don't like those stories.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_03: If good is defeated, we don't like those stories.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_03: We don't want to watch it, we don't want to talk about it.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_03: That's just not the world that we live in.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_03: So uh in the stories that Jesus tells or parables or even other places in the New Testament or Old Testament where there are stories, accounts, narratives, there's always going to be some kind of a a problem that's introduced.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_03: It there's it has to be a tension in the story.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so you think about a story moving along, then uh there'll be a tension.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_03: And it the the tension I always mark it as something rising.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_03: So the tension goes up to a climactic point, and there has to be a resolution of that of that tension, or the story cannot move forward.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: So, like Jesus healing people on the Sabbath, like is it lawful to heal somebody on the Sabbath?
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_03: You know, so there's tension there, like, oh no, what will Jesus do?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_03: And then he heals him, and so the tension's released.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_03: And he often he'll r release the tension by saying something back, like, is it good to do something, you know, is it good to heal on the Sabbath?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the answer is like, well, yeah, I mean, my gosh, people are important.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_03: So he can release the tension, you know, by saying something or doing something, and then the story can move on.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_03: But if the story, if the tension's not released, we're just stuck there in emotional angst.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_03: Not what we're wondering, like, oh no, what's gonna happen, you know, the story cannot move forward.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: And and then that gives us a good feeling about the story too, and then it can it can move on again.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_03: So always look for that in the storyline.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes stories will have maybe multiple tension points.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_03: So a good example is um in in Mark chapter uh five, when when a synagogue ruler by the name of Jarus comes to Jesus, his daughter's sick, and he says, Jesus, come and heal my daughter so she won't die.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_03: So Jesus is going along to do this, and in the midst of this miracle story, there's another miracle story embedded, the woman, the hemorrhaging woman.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so we have tension building, and it's stuck there, the synagogue ruler's daughters very ill, almost dead, and then we have another miracle story coming in, and it's almost we're writing that tension of the first story, and then another story comes in, and we have tension in it also, with this hemorrhaging woman, and the the narrator tells us, you know, that uh that this miracle story is, you know, that she was desperate.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: She was so desperate she thought that even if she could if she could just touch Jesus' garment that she would be healed.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_03: And she doesn't come to Jesus from the front, she comes from the back, which is different than the way other people have been doing things.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_03: Other people have been approaching Jesus and prostrating themselves.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_03: I never realized that she's like the stalking woman.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_03: She comes up from behind and grabs him or touches his cloak.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_03: But anyway, in parables, sometimes there might be multiple levels of tension, so be ready for that.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like the parable of the prodigal son.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: There are probably, you know, if you sat down and looked at it real closely, and I and I'm not thinking about it, I haven't thought about it yet, but I'm sure I can mark uh different areas where there's tension, maybe a release, and then continuing on, or a tension that rides through the whole story, and maybe small areas of tension.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_03: So always look for that.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's plot or storyline, depending on you know who's who you're looking at, as far as understanding parables.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_03: And then uh I talked about speech before, but pay attention to speech.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um what a person says or or what a you know multiple people, what do they say?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: Pay close attention to speech.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_03: It often will have something important to say about that character, about events in the story itself.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um and and then one thing about characters, I need to come back to characters real quick, is that um and probably parables would fit this idea as far as characters in in the parable itself.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: Characters can be foils too.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_03: Foils are an important idea in lit in literature because a a foil is a generally well, I'm thinking about the New Testament and stories, parables, and just narrative itself.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_03: Foils generally are minor characters.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_03: They're not the major characters, they're generally minor characters.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_03: And what they do is they do some kind of action that the storyteller or the narrator wants to happen, and it's usually in contrast to other people.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_03: So the major characters we expect them to behave in a certain way, but they're not.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_03: And so then we have a foil or a minor character that comes along, and that person behaves as the major characters should, or an antagonist, or something like that.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_03: And so they're they can be a very powerful means of expressing some kind of truth that this person uh what people should be doing, or this foil does this kind of activity.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_04: So um is that almost the the role that sometimes the prophets play in the old testament, where they're they're sort of a foil to the like for instance, the prophet Nathan, when he goes to David after he sinned with Bathsheba, committed adultery.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_04: In that sense, he is sort of foiling David's intention to hide this sin and to go along, or or am I totally applying a concept that doesn't belong in that context?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um I don't know if I I'd have to think about that.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_04: But I know it's a whole different genre, so Yeah.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: A good foil would be like uh, and Mark's on my mind right now because I'm teaching Mark, but in Mark chapter two, the companions of the paralytic bringing the paralyzed guy in, and he says, Jesus looks at him and says, I can see you have faith.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know, and he says to him, Your sins are forgiven.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_03: But the but in this midst we have other people too that are grumbling or thinking, considering in their minds, they don't speak, but they're upset about this, and uh they don't have the faith that the paralyzed guy has, and so he's almost a foil to these religious leaders that should be accepting Jesus and understanding him and having faith, but this guy's a kind of a foil, and and he doesn't show up again in the story anymore, but the religious leaders continue on and they continue to escalate their you know their uh antipathy against Jesus, you know, it just continues on.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_03: And so um there are other places where there are foils.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um for instance, maybe the the the uh Mark chapter 5, the demoniac legion, um at after he's healed, he asks Jesus, you know, can I go with you?
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: And Jesus doesn't let him, he says, you know, you need to stay over here and work in this area.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_03: But maybe that's a foil to some people who aren't willing to fully commit to Jesus.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, okay because this guy is like he's only known Jesus for, I don't know, 30 minutes, an hour or something, and he's willing to leave everything and follow, you know, and Jesus doesn't let him.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_03: So so it the foil is the idea of someone, a minor character again, that uh does the action that we would expect that we want the major characters to do, okay.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_03: But are unwilling to do, or maybe an antagonist should be doing, and we we get up more upset because they they oppose Jesus more instead of accepting or changing their way of thinking about Jesus or something like that.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_03: So look for foils and characters too.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_03: So uh though those, like I said, they can have a a dramatic um you know message uh for a person.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_03: And another thing about parables as I was talking about using how they're used, think of it, think of parables uh this way.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_03: So here's where my information or communication uh transmission research kind of comes into play.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm looking at why uh Jesus might use a parable.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm looking at an audience.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_03: So what kind of audience is he talking to?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: So if he was talking to an audience that accepted his authority, we'll say the disciples, if they accepted his authority, he would probably just talk to them in a more teaching discourse like the Sermon on the Mount.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_03: He would just come out and say, This is what you need to do, because they would accept his authority.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_03: But if he was talking to a group of people who did not accept his authority, he may use a more subtle means to try to influence someone.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_03: So he's he's trying to persuade people all the time.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_04: So which is what all communication is on some level, anyway.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_03: So he may use um a less or more subtle, less offensive way, less direct, I guess, an indirect method.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_03: So if you're not accepted as an authority figure, uh you can use different means to try to reason with people.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_03: So you can do you can use an inductive style.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: Inductive style means that your main point doesn't come till the very end, and you kind of work your way this way, you're trying to lead someone in a certain way of thinking, and at the very end, you're like, boom, here it is.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas deductive reasoning or presentation of information generally comes from someone who has authority.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_03: Right off the bat, they're gonna say, This is why you should not do this, or here's the command, and then supporting information afterwards.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_03: So if Jesus was talking to a group of people who did not accept his authority, scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, religious leaders, whoever else, he may use this approach as an inductive means to drive to a message uh that they wouldn't get until the very, very end.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, I I'm uh I wonder about the audience too, sometimes.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_03: Uh what kind of audience is he talking to?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um the active audience, the physical audience, and then we also need to think about the ideal audience.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_03: Because sometimes the audience may not do what Jesus wants them to do, but there's an effect on us.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_03: There's an ideal audience, like this is what you really need to do.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so there's there's levels of audience thinking about also.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_04: So for those who are listening who you know they may not be Bible scholars, they're not thinking about these things all day.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_04: Are there some transferable principles that you would say when you look at the parables of Jesus, these are two, three, four things that if you're writing, speaking, teaching, uh communicating with people, these are some simple, really practical takeaways that we can apply to our communication today.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um well, like I I've said before uh earlier, and I'll say it again, you gotta know your audience.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, take time to know the makeup of your audience.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_03: If you're going somewhere to speak or you're writing or something, I mean you can be more generalized or or or you can target an audience, but if you target an audience, you know, make sure you speak to that audience in a way that they can relate to your story.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_03: It it just you're not going to touch them if you're talking about something they just cannot relate to on a daily in their true life.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_03: They have to, you know, it has to be that way.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_03: Also, about storytelling, um uh try to do some kind of shock value in it.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_03: I and again, that's knowing your audience, but shocking them to some degree is gonna have a huge benefit.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and another thing I think is very important and it's I think it's extremely hard to do is that I I prefer an inductive style of reasoning, uh, meaning like I like to uh present information to people and not make the decision on how they should uh or make the conclusion for them, but draw them or lead them in a certain way that they come to a desired conclusion.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_03: Why?
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_03: Because if they have to think through the information and sort through it and process it, it's gonna stick with them a lot more than if I say this is the way you should think.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's way more meaningful.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_03: So hopefully you can tell a story in a way that's gonna lead them, like you know, you're taking the horse to the water.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_03: You you take them there and then they have to process that information and and uh fit it into their cognitive uh framework, and it's gonna stick with them much better than if you just tell them this is what it's you know supposed to be.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_03: So character uh you know, if you have characters in the story, um, you know, that has to fit into the life setting too.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, or you know, what kind of life the audience has.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_03: The characters have to be something something that they know or they're aware of.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_04: Um characters who are relatable in some way to the audience.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_03: Very relatable.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_03: So don't make your characters, you know, somebody something that they could never aspire to be, you know, like don't talk about pro basketball players or something.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody they're not gonna play pro basketball, but uh maybe you talk about I don't know, a business owner or a farmer or something like that.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_03: Something that they can, you know, see themselves as being or are.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so um but uh and if you can build tension and then have resolution too, because all good stories, you know, that's what keeps people on the edge of their seat.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, oh, oh no, that happened, you know, and and then there's a r a resolution uh, you know, to that story.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_04: So stories really have the structure of stories hasn't really not changed at all.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_04: You have you know kind of you're introducing a setting or you know, in the Hero's Journey template from Joseph Campbell, they're gonna talk about the ordinary world.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_04: Then you have rising tension, then some sort of climax and resolution, and and hopefully some sort of reversal, drum dramatic reversal, like in the story just in my class yesterday, we were talking about the story of Esther and how that has such a dramatic reversal with you know the villain Haman, who is hanged on the gallows that actually he had built for Mordecai.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_04: And it's such a dramatic, you know, you could you couldn't write this stuff.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's true, it's just but it's also so dramatically satisfying.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's so ironic.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_03: It's gripping with irony.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_03: It is.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_03: So it that makes for a great story too, because you know, the person, the the uh antagonist had plans and they're completely disrupted and everything's turned around, and and we don't like Haman, and then the end is like we well, we we don't cheer about death, but in a storytelling type of format, it's like, oh, the bad guy got his what was due, you know exactly happy.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_04: And that's something I really want to want to emphasize to those who are listening is you know, I love all the modern storytelling books.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_04: I love movies and I love the net well, I don't know, love all movies and all Netflix shows, but there's a lot of really good stuff being produced today.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_04: However, some of the best stuff is not new.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_04: And if we want to learn how to tell stories and connect with audiences who are very modern in their sensibility, sometimes going back to ancient sources, obviously like the Bible, can give us a lot of good insights, a lot of really practical insights that are that are not just about stories that happened to people thousands of years ago, but they're things that we can draw out of those stories and principles that we can apply to our communication right here and right now as a speaker or a podcaster or a blogger or a writer or whatever it is.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and some in some respects we're limited because we are a um we are a a book culture or literature, we're paper culture.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_03: We like our information to be stored on paper on with bindings and stuff, but in the ancient days they were it was an oral culture.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_03: That's they told stories all the time.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_03: So if you want to become good at storytelling, I would recommend that you start becoming more oral.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, don't read out of the book, you know, or read your notes, just you know, get up there and present your information to become more of an oral presenter.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and so, you know, it's almost like we're not that kind of culture, but they were like that back then, and they were master storytellers because that's what they did all the time.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_03: You'll get better at it the more you do it.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_04: Well, to kind of wrap this up, are there any resources or books that you would recommend on the parables of Jesus or even just Bible study tools in general to help people better understand God's Word, but specifically to understand parables and Jesus' storytelling methods even better?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's an excellent book um by Craig Blomberg.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_03: It's about interpreting the parables.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_03: And he has, I think he has a couple books, but the one interpreting the parables is is very good.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um he goes through and talks about uh parables and the complexity and the storyline and plot and things like that.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_03: There are also some um uh some narrative analysis.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_03: I that's kind of one of the things I've been talking about as we've talking about stories, but narrative analysis is another um thing to look about as far as narratives.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_03: It it doesn't specifically talk about parables, but you have to understand that a parable is basically just a narrative.
• 41:52
  unknown: Right.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_03: So if you have these concepts of narrative analysis, you can apply them to parable parable studies.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_03: And so uh Mark Allan Powell has an excellent book.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's called What is Narrative Criticism?
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_03: Don't get hung up on the word criticism, it's not a bad word.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it's just a the Germans started using it a long time ago because it's in their language that means an uh uh analysis.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_03: So basically he's just saying what is narrative analysis, so not criticism.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_03: So that's good.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_03: Uh there's another good book, it's not necessarily directed at parables, but it's just a good book about how to study your Bible, and it's done by um David Bauer and um Robert Trainer, and it's called Inductive Bible Study.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_03: And so he'll talk about lots of different types of writing in the Bible, but he'll talk about narrative analysis also in some points, so that that's a good something good to read.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_03: And really that could be used in a like a Sunday school class, that book.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's uh there is some technical language in it, but it's it's pretty good as far as relating some information there.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_03: So those are a few resources uh that would be very helpful for doing this stuff.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_04: Well, uh, I really want to emphasize to people not to be intimidated by all of this stuff.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_04: You're working on a PhD in this area, and you know, for those who aren't Bible scholars or they don't teach, maybe they're even really, really new to the Bible.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_04: Man, you just gotta dive in and start to learn, and it is so rewarding, I think.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_04: But uh well, Doug, I really appreciate your time.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I appreciate you as a colleague here at St.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_04: Louis Christian College, and uh I know this is your your first semester here, so we're really glad to have you, and I appreciate you sharing with our listeners today.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you for having me.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_04: So one final thing is um if anybody listening has any questions about this, is it okay if they follow up maybe through email or you can email me through St.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_03: Louis Christian College.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's D Phillips at uh stl Christian.edu.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yep, that's correct, and I'll have the links to all this stuff in the show notes on the podcast.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_04: So good deal.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_04: Well, thanks so much and God bless.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, thanks for having me.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_04: I hope that you enjoyed that interview with Doug Phillips.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_04: It was really fun talking with him and diving deep into this topic of storytelling in the Bible.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_04: Now, at the end of every interview on this podcast, I want to share three specific things that I learned from our guest.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_04: And these are simply some takeaways that you can put into practice right away to start making a bigger impact in your creative work.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_04: So here's three key takeaways from our conversation.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_04: Number one, understand your audience.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_04: It's really vital that we speak to our listeners or our readers in a way that they can relate to.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_04: Jesus knew his audience and he used stories that spoke to their needs and concerns.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_04: So it's important that we take time to identify our ideal audience member, our client, or our customer or reader, and that we think about how to communicate them in a way that they can understand.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_04: Number two, use an inductive approach in your communication.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_04: It doesn't work just to say, here's what you should think, here's what you should believe, or here's what you should do.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_04: A much better approach is to lead people in a way where they come to the conclusion on their own.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_04: We've got to help people process information that we want them to know instead of just beating them over the head with it.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_04: As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_04: Good storytelling can help us lead people instead of pushing them.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_04: And then number three, study the Bible to improve your communication.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_04: It's easy to separate your spiritual life from your business or your creative work.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_04: That's tempting for all of us to do.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_04: But you can learn a lot by studying the communication techniques and the literary genres of the Bible.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_04: Today's audiences have a short attention span.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_04: Whether you're a writer, speaker, podcaster, pastor, or some other type of communicator, there's a lot you can learn from Jesus' short, punchy style of storytelling.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_04: In addition, a large percentage of the Bible is in some form of narrative.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_04: About forty percent of the Old Testament and much of the New Testament is narrative or stories.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_04: In fact, in the New Testament, it's the Gospels, the Book of Acts, and most of the book of Revelation.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_04: So a huge chunk of the Bible is basically stories.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_04: So the Bible has a lot of stories that can teach us not only on a spiritual and historical level, they can also help us to become better storytellers if we're willing to pay attention and learn from this ancient book that is living and active in our lives today.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_04: In addition to these takeaways, I'm going to recommend five resources that I think you'll find helpful on this topic of storytelling in the Bible.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_04: The first three of these are books, and then the other two, I'll mention those as I go along.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_04: Number one is How to Read the Bible as Literature by Leland Reichen.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_04: Number two is The Revolutionary Communicator, Seven Principles Jesus Lived to Impact, Connect, and Lead.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_04: Now, I'm probably going to mispronounce these two authors' names that wrote the book, The Revolutionary Communicator, but I'll give it my best shot.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_04: Jed Metafind and Eric Loxmo.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_04: Again, I'm probably mispronouncing those, but there's a link in the show notes that you can use to find that book.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_04: Number three is The Art of Storytelling: Easy Steps to Presenting an Unforgettable Story by John Walsh.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_04: Number four is a 10-part YouTube series called How to Read the Bible that was created by the wonderful guys at the Bible Project.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_04: This very fun and very engaging series covers literary styles, plot, character setting, and other aspects of biblical storytelling.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_04: And then number five is the ESV Study Bible, which is the Bible that I personally use.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_04: And I think it's the best study Bible on the market that'll help you understand literary genres and other aspects of storytelling.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_04: Well, friends, that wraps up this episode of the Born to Create podcast.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_04: You can find the show notes for this episode at Kent Sanders.net slash Jesus.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_04: And you'll find links to all the resources I mentioned, plus much more, there in the show notes.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_04: This episode was produced by me, Kent Sanders, and our associate producer, Ben Sanders.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_04: I also want to give a shout out to today's podcast partners who are Cliff Ravenscraft, Eric Elder, and Anna Real.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_04: Those are the blurbs that you heard right before the interview.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_04: You can find their links in the show notes.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_04: And if you'd like to find out how to become a podcast partner and get featured on a future episode, shoot me an email at Kent at KentSanders.net or hit me up on Twitter at Kent Sanders.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_04: If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_04: It only takes a minute and it helps other people discover the show.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_04: You can subscribe as well as leave a rating and review by visiting KentSanders.net slash iTunes.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_04: When you leave a review, please include your Twitter handle so I can give you a shout out here on the podcast.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks in advance and thank you so much to those who have already subscribed and left a rating and a review.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_04: I love reading these reviews.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_04: For example, here's the most recent one by a user called Spur Us On.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_04: They say excellent podcast with interviews and sound advice from a diverse group of people who are having great success on their creative journey.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_04: Take a listen.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_04: So Spur Uson, thank you so much for that awesome review.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_04: I really appreciate it.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_04: Finally, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with a friend or a family member who you think would benefit from it.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_04: Well, friends, you can find lots more resources to help you unlock your creative potential at KentSanders.net.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_04: Until next time, remember that you were born to create and designs to make a difference.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_04: Now go create something awesome.