The Story

Overly rationalistic “theories” force the pictorial, poetic, and narrative structures of the Bible into restrictive categories. Even the writings of Paul, often construed as dry doctrine over against the more accessible stories of the Gospels, are for the most part urgently contextual. Paul is a man on a battlefield. He is a man seized by the gospel story, or, more accurately, by the Lord of the story. The fact that Paul has made the story into a sword of the Word to be wielded against the enemies of the gospel in specific situations, rather than retelling stories about Jesus’ life, does not make his preaching any less firmly grounded in The Story.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 211