Why Preaching the Story Is Powerful Preaching

I am convinced that preaching biblical stories as stories is not a stylistic choice but a theological one. God did not merely inspire what the Bible says; He inspired how it says it. When a text comes to us as narrative, preaching it as discourse flattens its force and weakens its impact. Powerful preaching listens to the form God chose, enters the story with the people, and allows its tension, pacing, and movement to do the work God intended.

The Bible story you are looking at was inspired by God. Not only did He inspire the content, but He also inspired the form. God felt that having that truth clothed in the genre of story was the best option. Now you have the opportunity to preach it. How can you preach that story with maximum power?

1. Be sure to grasp and preach the main point. 

A story does not consist of details collected together to offer you numerous launch points for vaguely connected ideas and insights. The story consists of details deliberately chosen to help make the story work, to make the main point effective. Be sure to grapple with the main point more than you hunt for “preaching points.”

2. Be careful to honor the form as well as the content.

Why chop it up and preach it as discourse when God made it a story? This means that the bulk of your message should involve the best retelling of the story that you can manage. Speaking of which, two critical elements of powerful story preaching:

3. Put your energy into effective description.

Study hard so you can describe well. Build your sensory descriptive vocabulary so you can describe effectively. Read C.S.Lewis or another great fiction writer to get a taste of compelling description.  Turn on your imagination again, because if you can see it, they will see it. Take enough time for your descriptions to form on the screens in the listeners’ minds. And pour similar energy into describing the application of your message too. Speaking of energy . . .

4. Present with energy through engaging dynamism.

To be blunt, people don’t listen to dull stories. To be honest, we rarely tell dull stories in normal life. Ask me about my littlest girl’s birth last week and I’ll be engagingly dynamic. I need to let that version of me show when I preach a Bible story. When you preach a Bible story, remember that if you really care so it shows, they will care, too.

5. Let the tension do the work.

Every biblical story has conflict, pressure, suspense, or unresolved questions. Don’t rush to resolve what the text itself delays. Sit in the tension. Let listeners feel the weight before you move to clarity. Premature explanation kills narrative power.

6. Preach from inside the story, not above it.

Avoid sounding like a commentator hovering over the text. Enter the story as a guide who is walking through it with the people. Use language that places you and the congregation inside the moment rather than analyzing it from a distance.

7. Respect narrative pacing.

Some moments deserve time. Others need speed. Don’t give equal airtime to everything. Slow down where the text slows down. Move quickly where it moves quickly. The inspired pacing is part of the meaning.

8. Show, don’t explain, the theology.

Narratives often demonstrate doctrine rather than state it. Resist the urge to stop the story and explain the theological takeaway too early. Let the story prove the truth before you name it.

9. Connect the story to Christ without flattening it.

Get to Christ, but don’t bypass the story’s own voice to do it. Let the story do its work first, then show how Christ fulfills, resolves, or exposes what the story raises. Typology should emerge, not be imposed.

10. End where the story presses the listener.

Good story preaching doesn’t end with “what this means,” but with “where this leaves you.” Biblical stories are meant to confront allegiance, fear, trust, repentance, or faith. Land there, not in abstraction.

I think these suggestions are the very essence of powerfully preaching a Bible story.  What would you add?