4. Biblical Narratives: Opening Windows of Perception
4.
Biblical Narratives: Opening Windows of Perception
The Bible is rich in narratives, each of which can be thought of as a thread that is woven into the grander biblical metanarrative—a story about creation, fall, the calling of Israel, and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is a sense in which to be a Christian is to see this grand story as defining and authoritative, challenging the rival stories of human origin, nature, and destiny offered by our world. Our own stories are given meaning and value by being interpreted by, and located within, this greater story. Apologists often emphasize the importance of grasping this grander story, seeing its comprehensiveness and coherence as apologetic virtues. In this chapter, however, we shall focus on a number of individual narratives and ask how they might have apologetic potential.
In recording his overwhelming religious experience of the night of November 23, 1654, Blaise Pascal drew a sharp distinction between the “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob” and the “God of the philosophers and scholars.” Many have argued about the nature and legitimacy of this distinction. But one point has not been given the attention it deserves. As the Old Testament makes clear, a story can be told about the “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob”; the “God of the philosophers and scholars,” however, has no story to tell. The Bible bears witness to the God whose actions and character can be seen in history and hence can be expressed in the form of a narrative.
Biblical narratives generally involve an interweaving of history and interpretation, mingling a narration of events with an assessment of their significance. At times, this poses some challenges to the reader. For example, is the “Succession narrative” beginning in 1 Kings to be understood as supporting Solomon’s claim to be the legitimate successor of David, or as critical of Solomon’s claims to be king of Israel, or as inviting its readers to face up to the moral and personal tensions within Solomon and learn to live with them? Other Old Testament narratives—such as the defining stories of the exodus from Egypt and the exile in Babylon—are better understood, especially in relation to their capacity to generate an intellectual map of reality. Both of these will be considered in the present chapter.
Although this chapter will give due attention to historical and theological issues, its primary focus is apologetic. In what way does telling the four stories to be considered in this chapter open up apologetic possibilities? How do these narratives create a framework for exploring the conceptual vitality and existential traction of the Christian faith? How can they be windows of perception for those struggling to grasp what Christianity is all about? Limits of space mean that we can focus on only four case studies, but readers can easily extend this list and develop others for their own purposes. This chapter aims to open up discussion through selective illustration and allow readers to develop these ideas further.
In each of these biblical narratives, the reader is invited to step inside these stories and see the world from within them. These narratives are like windows, allowing us to see ourselves and our world in a Christian way and inviting us to assess the quality and texture of their rendering of reality. How do they help us make sense of experience? How do they help us understand what has gone wrong and what can be done to put it right? How do they engender hope? Traditionally, apologetics rightly reaffirms the fundamental historicity of the great events of the biblical past—such as the exodus and exile. Yet we are also invited to assess the reliability and trustworthiness of these narratives by reflecting on the quality of their accounts of observation and experience and the manner in which these are held together.
Some may, however, raise a concern here. Surely a better apologetic strategy is to draw on stories taken from culture at large, rather than specifically Christian stories? And does not drawing on biblical narratives raise further questions about biblical authority and interpretation? Some fair points are being made here. Yet one of the core objectives of narrative apologetics is to familiarize our audiences with some core biblical stories and invite them to taste the quality of their rendering of experience. In telling these stories, we are not initially asking people to accept their authority but rather are inviting them to explore the way of seeing reality that they open up.
Such a process of reflection also leads people to reflect on the plausibility of other narratives, including those privileged by Western culture that, in effect, control public discussion of issues such as the place of faith in public life. A form of groupthink emerges, which privileges a single narrative of human existence—such as what Christian Smith has identified as the “Scientific Enlightenment narrative” (see “Why Stories Matter” in chap. 1). Ludwig Wittgenstein has pointed out how easily a single way of thinking can come to dominate social discussion, so that our imaginations become so fixated on one specific way of seeing things that it proves difficult for us to liberate ourselves from its imaginative thrall: “A picture held us captive.”
Wittgenstein rightly notes how easily our understanding of our world can be shaped by an “organizing myth”—a metanarrative that has, whether we realize it or not, come to dominate our perception of our world, in effect predisposing us to regard certain interpretations of experience as natural or self-evidentially correct, while blinding us to alternative ways of understanding it. Charles Taylor makes a similar point, noting how such a metanarrative often gains the cultural ascendancy through historical contingency rather than intellectual excellence. Wittgenstein thus suggests that we need to free ourselves from the grip of such pictures or narratives, considering alternatives that might offer a better rendering of our world—such as those offered by the four biblical narratives we shall consider in this chapter.
With this point in mind, we turn to reflect on the first of these narratives—the exodus from Egypt.
The Story of the Exodus: The Hope of Deliverance
Our first narrative case study is the exodus from Egypt, widely seen as a pivotal moment in the emergence of the distinct ethnic group known as “the people of Israel.” Parallel accounts of this event are known, originating from non-Jewish sources. For example, Hecataeus of Abdera, writing around 320 BC, refers to a “great plague” afflicting Egypt “in ancient times,” leading to the expulsion of foreigners, many of whom settled in the land known as Judea. While the historical details of both the exodus and the subsequent conquest of Canaan remain unclear, there is agreement that the cultural memory of the exodus—affirmed and consolidated through the Passover ritual—was of critical importance in the fashioning of Israel’s identity and above all in shaping its understanding of its God. The narrative of the exodus extends, of course, to include the period of “wilderness wandering” and the entry into the promised land.
The exodus narrative functions at several levels in the Old Testament, serving as a reminder of the historical origins of Israel and an affirmation of the activity and benevolence of Israel’s God. Perhaps the most striking feature is the way in which God is named with reference to this narrative. The covenant God of Israel is identified as the one who delivered Israel from captivity in Egypt. “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” (Deut. 5:15). Israel’s God is the one who stands at the heart of this narrative of redemption and deliverance.
Some Jewish writers living in Egypt during the intertestamental period tended to reinterpret the exodus narrative in light of the prevailing Hellenistic culture. Philo of Alexandria, for example, understood the exodus as more than a narrative about the escape from Egypt, seeing it primarily as an allegory for the journey of the soul. But what did this narrative mean to the first Christians? Most of them were not Jewish, so how did they establish a personal and meaningful connection with this Jewish narrative of the exodus from Egypt? The evidence clearly indicates that early Christian writers quickly appreciated the theological significance of this story and were able to anchor it firmly within the Christian metanarrative using typological exegesis.
“Typology” is the search for correspondence between events, persons, or things within the historical framework of revelation, so that the Old Testament is seen to anticipate the events and ideas of the New Testament. Typological exegesis secured the theological connection of the old and the new covenants by proposing a correlation of “type” and “antitype”—the anticipation and fulfillment, the shadow and the reality. Second-century theologian Melito of Sardis thus developed the idea that the Passover is to be seen as a “type” of the death of Christ. The Passover once celebrated in Egypt is to be seen as prefiguring “Christ our Passover” (1 Cor. 5:7 NASB), just as the Passover lamb slain in Egypt anticipates the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8 KJV). Similarly, the history of Israel in Egypt is to be seen as an anticipation of the history of Jesus Christ in Judea, while the history of Jesus in Judea is to be seen as a recapitulation of the history of Israel in Egypt. Christians could thus see the exodus as part of their own family history, linking believers and the community of faith with God’s saving acts in the past.
Seeing the exodus as a “type” allowed a theological link to be developed between the past and the present, through which the realities of present experience could be connected with the biblical narrative of God’s past actions and thus be understood and potentially transformed. Augustine of Hippo’s christological reading of the Old Testament allowed him to transcend the historical specifics of the history of Israel, opening up a grand vista of the nature and destiny of humanity within the cosmos. Similar approaches are found in leading theologians and preachers of the early church, such as John Chrysostom: “The Israelites passed through the sea; you have passed from death to life. They were delivered from the Egyptians; you have been delivered from the powers of darkness. The Israelites were freed from slavery to a pagan people; you have been freed from the much greater slavery to sin.”
As interpreted by Christians, the exodus narrative thus “symbolizes something basic about the universe,” to borrow a phrase from the famous sermon “The Death of Evil upon the Seashore,” preached by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1954. For King, as for so many early Christian writers, the exodus narrative could be read in a way that provided a lens through which the truth about the human situation was disclosed and the possibility of divine transformation of that situation was proclaimed. The apologetic potential of this biblical narrative thus lies not primarily in its historical factuality but in its capacity to provide a truthful and compelling account of human existence.
Philosopher Mary Midgley offers us an image that is helpful in appreciating the apologetic potential of biblical narratives. She argues that we need “multiple maps” of our world if we are to grasp and appreciate its complexity. No single angle of approach or way of looking at things is good enough on its own to render the complexity of nature. Midgley’s point is easily grasped by considering the multiple ways in which we try to make sense of human nature, the complexity of which calls out for “inter-disciplinary cross-fertilization”—something that can be achieved through the coordination of multiple maps. One map might help us understand our biological function and location; another might help us understand our true nature and destiny. We need both of these maps if we are to inhabit this world meaningfully. This basic principle can also be applied to biblical narratives. One map is historical, in effect telling us what happened; the other is theological and existential, telling us what these events meant at the time and might mean for us now. This second map allows us to appreciate the significance of these events for our understanding of God and for the illumination and redemption of human nature.
Early Christian writers realized that the exodus narrative provided an imaginative template for the interpretation of human experience. They had no doubt of the deep appeal of the exodus narrative to the human imagination and of its reflection of the experienced realities of life—such as a pervasive sense of hopelessness and alienation. The narrative of the exodus in its expanded form, which includes the wilderness wanderings and the crossing of the Jordan into Canaan, provides a map of the landscape of faith, which has found a rich tradition of application in Christian spirituality.
So how can this narrative be used to elicit interest in Christianity and create imaginative receptivity to its themes? The simplest answer to this question is this: we need to enter into the narrative, stepping inside it and seeing things from its perspective—and being willing to embrace the greater narrative of which this is part, allowing our own stories to become part of this grander vision of reality.
This narrative begins by describing the condition of humanity. We are in bondage, trapped in a situation that is not of our own choosing and from which we cannot break free. We are characters in a story that we did not write and so cannot control. We are the slaves of the “elemental spirits of the universe” (Col. 2:8), which we do not consider legitimate, and which do not have our own interests at heart. We long for a liberation that seems to lie beyond our grasp, through which we might become the people whom we sense we are meant to be. We are, in short, in Egypt, hoping for our own promised land. Where we are is not where we are meant to be. We belong somewhere else—somewhere that lies beyond us. So where is this land to be found? And who will deliver us?
The Christian reading of the exodus narrative thus leads into the “good news” of Christ as the new Moses, who liberates human beings from bondage and journeys with them as they prepare to cross the Jordan and enter into the new promised land. It thus affirms both the human need for redemption and the existence of a redeemer who is able to break the power of sin and also holds out the hope of heaven after our period of wandering in this world. Finally, it invites us to step into this narrative and make it our own. Apologetics could thus be seen as an invitation to “taste and see that the LORD is good” (Ps. 34:8), sampling the spiritual quality of the Christian rendering of reality and considering what this implies in terms of its intellectual trustworthiness.
The Story of the Exile: Where Do We Really Belong?
The second biblical narrative is that of the exile of the people of Jerusalem in the great city of Babylon—probably the largest city in the world at the time. In the sixth century before Christ, Jerusalem was the small capital city of the sparsely populated kingdom of Judah, which found itself caught up in the struggle between Egypt and the Babylonian Empire for control of the eastern Mediterranean. Although many aspects of this event (including the precise number of people deported to Babylon) remain unclear, there is no doubt of the theological significance that was attached to the period of exile by later writers of the Old Testament.
The historical narrative of the exile begins with the tensions that emerged within the ruling elite of Jerusalem following the death of Josiah, king of Judah, in 609 BC. Following the defeat of the Assyrian Empire in 605, Judah had to make a decision about which of the two major regional powers it should support—Egypt or the Babylonians. Initially, Judah chose to ally itself with the Babylonian Empire. Yet while Nebuchadnezzar defeated an Egyptian army at Carchemish in 605, he was in turn defeated by the Egyptians in 601. This prompted Judah to review its commitments. Its decision to rebel against Babylon resulted in the occupation of its territories and the besieging of Jerusalem in 597 BC. Some prominent citizens of Jerusalem were deported at that time, and the city reverted to Babylonian rule. Following a second revolt in 594, a renewed Babylonian assault on the cities of Judah, including Jerusalem, resulted in the destruction of the Jerusalem temple and many other buildings and the deportation of several thousand of the population of the city to Babylon in 587.
Meanwhile, a new empire began to emerge in the region. Under Cyrus the Great, the Achaemenid Empire (also known as the Persian Empire) began to emerge. After conquering Lydia and Media, Cyrus turned his attention to the Babylonian Empire. Babylon finally fell to Cyrus the Persian in 539 BC. Shortly afterward, Cyrus issued a general decree permitting foreigners who had been deported to Babylon to return home. Some of the Jews made the long return journey to Jerusalem; others, however, chose to remain in Babylon.
The Old Testament prophets tended to see the exile both as a punishment for Israel’s disobedience and as an opportunity to rebuild and purify the Jewish religion. Yet the apologetic application of this narrative involves moving beyond the question of the significance of the exile for the history of Israel and the emergence of Jewish self-identity and consider how this story illuminates the universal human situation today.
While there are several ways in which the narrative of exile can be developed apologetically, perhaps the most winsome and engaging of these is to correlate it with the deep sense of metaphysical disquiet that many people experience, often expressed in terms of a sense that we don’t really belong here. This perception is well attested throughout human history and is arguably reflected in the rise of gnosticism in late classical antiquity. Although gnosticism is not really a coherent philosophical or religious system, it possesses certain characteristic traits, such as a sense of alienation or disconnectedness from the world, reflecting a deeper intuition that this is not where we really belong. We find ourselves trapped in this world, as “gold in the mud,” knowing that we really belong somewhere else.
Yet this sense of belonging elsewhere is by no means limited to gnosticism. Perhaps one of the finest statements of this sense of being lost in a place in which we do not really belong is that of the Christian philosopher Pascal:
When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then. Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this place and time been allotted to me?
G. K. Chesterton also knew of this sense of existential unease and expressed it pithily in one of his neatest aphorisms: “We have come to the wrong star. . . . That is what makes life at once so splendid and so strange. . . . The true happiness is that we don’t fit. We come from somewhere else. We have lost our way.” The same basic idea is expressed in the existentialist notion of Geworfenheit (literally, “thrownness”), introduced by German philosopher Martin Heidegger to refer to the frustration of being “thrown into the world” and being enmeshed within constraints not of our own choosing. This theme is often echoed in popular culture—for example, in the lyrics to one of the songs of the American rock band The Doors: “Into this world we’re thrown.” We did not choose to be born in this world and wonder whether we can find our way to a better place.
The narrative of the exile invites us to imagine ourselves as one of the people of Jerusalem living in Babylon, treasuring the memories of a lost Jerusalem and longing to return there. “By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion” (Ps. 137:1). The people of Jerusalem had been thrown into Babylon, where they did not belong; their true identity lay in their lost homeland, to which they longed to return. In our own case, we are invited to see Babylon not as the ancient city but as an existential place into which we find ourselves thrown, and which is not of our own choosing—a trope widely used in literature, as in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “Babylon Revisited” (1931), focusing on a cultural sense of dislocation and alienation.
While the New Testament does not explicitly engage the “exile” theme, it nevertheless develops several related narratives focusing on the theme of not really belonging in this world. The most interesting of these is the implicit appeal to the Roman concept of a colonia in Paul’s letter to the Philippians. “Our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20). Philippi (named after the father of Alexander the Great) was annexed by the Romans in 148 BC, and in New Testament times it was populated by Roman citizens and governed according to Roman law. Roman citizens residing in Philippi had the right to return home to the metropolis after their service in the colony. They might live in Philippi, yet they belonged in Rome. Philippi was not their true homeland.
A Christian reading of the exile narrative thus engages directly with this sense of alienation and dislocation, offering an interpretative framework that allows us to see ourselves in exile in this world. It is not our true homeland but rather a place into which we have been thrown. Our quest is to find our way back to where we are meant to be. We are “strangers and sojourners” (Lev. 25:23 KJV), people who pass through this world but do not belong there. The Christian reading of the exile narrative thus begins a process of reflection by affirming that this world is not our true homeland, resonating with this sense of existential unease.
Yet this Christian narrative moves on to affirm that we really belong in heaven. This, of course, is a leading theme in the sermons and homilies of many early Christian writers. This status of belonging is articulated in various ways. We might think, for example, of Cyprian of Carthage’s famous declaration that “paradise is our homeland [Latin: patria].” However, the New Testament tends to focus on the status of Christians as “citizens of heaven” (e.g., Phil. 3:20–21), an image that implies the right to dwell there, grounded in the work of Christ. As the Epistle to Diognetus puts it, Christians “pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven.” A famous hymn by the medieval theologian Peter Abelard captures the existential and spiritual implications of this dialectic between our place of exile and our true homeland:
Now, in the meanwhile, with hearts raised on high,
We for that country must yearn and must sigh;
Seeking Jerusalem, dear native land,
Through our long exile on Babylon’s strand.
Christian apologists have often pointed out that human experience is shot through with hints that this world is not our true home. This is a leading theme, for example, in the writings of C. S. Lewis, who suggested that we see this world as an inn, a resting place, but not our real home. Lewis’s gradual move away from atheism toward Christianity reflected his growing realization that atheism lacked real intellectual substance and seemed imaginatively impoverished. Lewis had been haunted by a deep intuition that his minimalist atheism failed to do justice to the complexities of the universe. He found himself reflecting on the possible implications of a deep and elusive sense of longing that was heightened rather than satisfied by what he found around him.
Lewis came to the conclusion that this longing pointed to something beyond the boundaries of human knowledge and experience: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” For Lewis, heaven was to be thought of as a realm beyond the limits of present human experience, yet which was signposted by our deepest intuitions and experiences. It was like hearing the sound of music faintly, coming from across the distant hills, or catching the scent of a far-off flower, wafted by a passing breeze. Lewis came to see such experiences as “arrows of Joy,” a wake-up call to discover and experience this deeper vision of reality, in which our true destiny is seen to lie beyond the world we now know and inhabit. This hope is expressed particularly well in some lines from The Last Battle, the concluding novel of The Chronicles of Narnia. On seeing the “new Narnia,” Jewel the Unicorn declares: “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.”
The classic Christian retelling of the exile narrative offers a narrated worldview—that is to say, a way of understanding ourselves that is conveyed through a story and makes its appeal primarily to the imagination and secondarily to reason. It establishes a network of connections with human experience—such as the intuition that we do not really belong here, a sense of alienation and disconnection from this world, and a sense that there is something beyond the everyday realm, which is hinted at within that realm. This narrative thus diagnoses what is wrong and offers a solution—initially through realizing what our true situation is, and subsequently by enabling us to embrace through faith the new way of living and hoping that the gospel makes possible.
The Story of Jesus Christ: Rendering the Love of God
Having considered two classic narratives from the history of Israel, we turn to the New Testament for our third example of a biblical narrative with apologetic potential. There is no doubt about which narrative provides fundamental unity and coherence for the New Testament: the story of Jesus Christ. As Emil Brunner pointed out, the Christian understanding of Christ as both revealer and savior is not set out in the Gospels in the form of doctrines but is rather presented in the form of a story (Geschichte). For Brunner, the most fundamental insight of the Christian faith is that “Jesus Christ is the content of faith and of truth.” Whereas Greek philosophy thought of truth as something that was timeless and changeless, biblical writers understand truth primarily as something that happened.
The New Testament and the long tradition of Christian reflection on its foundational documents both affirm that God entered into the world of time and space in Jesus Christ. “The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory” (John 1:14). Once this truth is grasped, the importance of narrative for understanding the full significance of Jesus Christ becomes obvious. If God entered human history, when did this happen? Where did this happen? What did this look like? Who saw this happen? Answering these questions demands a story—a narration of the entry of God into our world by those who witnessed it and appreciated its significance. “We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us” (1 John 1:1–2).
Stories, of course, need interpretation. What do they mean? Having told the full story of Christ, we move on to reflect on its implications for our understanding of God and ourselves. There is ample evidence of the “communal reading” of texts such as what we now know as the Gospels in early Christianity. Telling (or retelling) the story is an invitation to enter and appropriate that story, thus making it our own. The best way of communicating the significance of Jesus Christ is thus not to explain the doctrine of the “two natures” of Christ set out by the Council of Chalcedon (451), but to retell parts of the story of Christ (hence engaging the imagination) and then reflect on its significance for our understanding of his significance—and so make connections with the needs, longings, and concerns of our audiences.
It is thus important to ask a historical question, so easily overlooked: Why did so many people become Christians in the first few centuries of our era? What did they find in it? How did it connect with their lives? What did it offer that they failed to find elsewhere? And how might we use such insights in our own cultural context? To appreciate both the imaginative power of narrative apologetics in general and the particular importance of the foundational story of Jesus Christ, we shall briefly explore the way in which narratives render the character of the “God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:3; 1 Pet. 1:3) in ways that capture the human imagination more effectively than the mere enunciation of Christian ideas.
Consider the question of how we speak of the “love of God” to seekers and outsiders, based on this New Testament text: “God is love [agapē]. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:8–10). This familiar passage makes two distinct types of statement about the love of God. The first is framed almost as a timeless ahistorical truth: “God is love.” It is an important theological insight that is woven into the fabric of Christian theology. Think, for example, of the Christian interpretation of the cross of Christ, traditionally explored using “theories of the atonement.” John Stott ably identifies the central role of the motif of the love of God in such theories: “It cannot be emphasized too strongly that God’s love is the source, not the consequence, of the atonement. . . . God does not love us because Christ died for us; Christ died for us because God loved us.”
Yet there is an apologetic issue here that concerns the manner of presentation of this theme, not its veracity. To some, the love of God will seem to be presented and explored in a theoretical and abstract manner, which appeals primarily to the mind rather than the imagination. We are assured that “God is love,” but some will be left unsure what this word “love” means and how it is shown. What seems like the affirmation of a timeless theological principle will doubtless help some to think about divine love; others, however, will simply not get what it is all about.
So we turn to the second of those theological statements: “God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.” It is impossible to miss the dramatic change in imagery and genre that takes place here. The focus shifts from generalized abstractions to the specifics of human history. Metaphysics is replaced by a narrative. We are told what God did in human history to demonstrate both the nature and the constancy of the divine love, thus expanding and enriching the broader earlier declaration that “God is love,” allowing this to connect with our imaginations and emotions. Might John have a dual readership in mind—a Greek audience comfortable with metaphysical ideas and a Jewish readership attuned to narratives?
The statement that “God sent his only Son into the world” thus evokes the memory of the greater Gospel narrative, which speaks so powerfully of the love of God for us. It calls to mind the Gospel accounts of the passion of Christ, which highlight both the reality of that suffering and the reason for Christ’s willingness to bear it: his obedience to God and his love for us. It invites us to turn over in our minds and savor elements of that narrative, seeing in our mind’s eye the shocking scene of Christ’s crucifixion. The Passion Narratives draw us into that appalling scene, emphasizing the costliness of our redemption.
One element of that narrative will help make the critical point about the capacity of a narrative to draw us into its world and challenge us to experience and understand what is happening and its deeper significance. As Christ was dying on the cross, he was ridiculed by those standing around him:
Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!” In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself.” (Mark 15:29–31)
Yet Christ did not come down from the cross and save himself; he stayed there and saved us instead. John both recalls this narrative and brings home its theological and apologetic significance: God “loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
So what is the love of God like? A narrative approach to apologetics tells us that it is disclosed in the story of Christ laying down his life so that those whom he loves might live (cf. John 15:13). The Passion Narrative has its own distinct integrity and deep appeal, which the apologist is called on to reflect and exhibit. Instead of appealing primarily to an abstract timeless truth, the apologist can retell the story of the passion of Christ, inviting the listeners to enter into that narrative and try to understand both what is going on and how it relates to them. This narrative can be judiciously supplemented by artistic images of the crucifixion, which help many to focus on the event of Christ’s death, and its significance. The apologist may appeal to other literary narratives of sacrificial love to reinforce this Gospel narrative, but they can never replace it. And the imagination having been captured, the theological significance of Christ’s death can begin to percolate through the mind, allowing the apologist to begin to interweave the New Testament narratives about Christ with its theological interpretation of his meaning for humanity.
A Parable of the Kingdom: What Do We Really Desire?
Our fourth biblical narrative is a story within the story of Christ—one of the celebrated “parables of the kingdom.” Often described in popular literature as “earthly stories with heavenly meanings,” the parables might more accurately be seen as expanded analogies that are used to explain or convince their audiences. Their key function is to enable their hearers to see things in a new way, grasping something that was hitherto elusive or making a connection that they had failed to see up to that point. If we are to live in the “kingdom of God,” we need to be able to visualize what this looks like and picture ourselves in it. We look through the parables to see the new world that they anticipate, forcing us to rethink the nature of our world and our place in it.
The background to the parables is, of course, the rural Judean culture of the first century. Although some parables are more elaborate and extended, focusing on the dynamics of personal relationships (such as the parable of the prodigal son), most take the form of observations on everyday aspects of agrarian life—such as seeds growing, trees failing to fruit, and animals getting lost. The parables are often memorable, precisely because they are so short. The hearers are drawn into the stories, carrying them home with them and turning them over in their minds. In effect, the parables are like seeds, planted in people’s minds and capable of germinating in their own good time.
Although the primary role of Christ’s parables was to communicate his teaching about the kingdom of God, their vivid imagery offers us important apologetic opportunities today. Using the parables apologetically should be considered an extension of their reach, not a distortion of their purpose. As Jewish scholar David Stern points out, rabbinic parables were often used apologetically. Indeed, there are several points at which parables seem to serve an apologetic function in Christ’s teaching. To explore such possibilities, we shall focus on one of the short “parables of the kingdom”—the parable of the pearl of great price: “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matt. 13:45–46). The narrative is terse and minimalist, a mere twenty-five words in the original Greek. It sketches the outlines of a story that a preacher must try to fill in imaginatively to add the detail and texture that some audiences might expect. Yet the story has sufficient imaginative capacity to draw us into its world of meaning, even in its unembellished form.
The first point to appreciate is that we lose the imaginative power of this parable (or any parable, for that matter) if we try to reduce it to didactic or moral principles. Parables are narratives, which demand that their genre be respected. A parable is truth enfolded in a narrative, which must be allowed to remain a story rather than being converted into some timeless abstract truth. As C. S. Lewis noted, it is by enjoying and engaging a narrative that “we come nearest to experiencing as a concrete what can otherwise be understood only as an abstraction.” Narratives allow us to tell what it is like to taste reality, before we attempt to capture it in abstract terms.
So what “concrete” reality might this parable allow us to experience? And how can we use this in apologetics? In what follows, I shall explore one way of reading this parable, which sees it as the quest for fulfillment of the heart’s desire. Although traditional philosophical discussion of the rationality of religious belief has tended to focus on intellectual arguments for the existence of God, there are clear signs of a growing recognition of the importance of the theme of desiring God and its wider implications. What explanation can be offered for the deep human desire for something of ultimate significance, which is at best only suppressed—and not satisfied—by the objects of this world?
Augustine of Hippo, Blaise Pascal, and C. S. Lewis all argue that since we have been created by God in order to relate to God, there is a desiderium naturale—a natural desire within the human heart for God, whether or not this is recognized for what it really is. We may attach this desire to things within the world, which, by failing to satisfy us, disclose that they are not the true object of this yearning and longing. As Lewis remarks, “Nature cannot satisfy the desires she arouses nor answer theological questions nor sanctify us.”
So we return to the parable of the pearl of great price. This succinct narrative leaves space for imaginative embellishment. Who is this merchant? Why was he in search of fine pearls? Exactly what did he find in the pearl of great price that led him to sell everything that he had in order to purchase it? And did he live happily ever after?
Let’s retell the story. A merchant finds a priceless pearl for sale and decides that he ought to sell everything in order to possess it. Why? Because he has found something that is not merely costly but also supremely worth possessing. In its light, everything he already possesses seems of little value. The pearls he already owns have created and then intensified an appetite for beauty that they have proved incapable of satisfying. The merchant believes they are the goal of his quest; in fact, they turn out to be merely a stage in his search for something of transcendent and permanent value. The good simply makes the merchant yearn for the best—something that he knows he has not yet found. And then he stumbles across that special pearl he has been waiting for.
So what might this narrative mean? What response might this elicit from us? The merchant comes across a special pearl that captivates him, perhaps giving rise to a devastating moment of illumination in which he realizes the inadequacy of what he had once thought to be satisfying. He wants and needs something better, something that will really satisfy him. Seen in this way, the parable engages the long human search for meaning and significance.
The parable thus reminds us that many of the beliefs and values that we take hold of are like those lesser pearls. They seemed worthwhile and for a time offered fulfillment. Yet, deep down, we knew that there had to be something better. As we shall see in the next chapter, many personal narratives of coming to faith—such as those of Augustine of Hippo and C. S. Lewis—arise from a sense of disillusionment and inadequacy, which makes individuals receptive to the hope of a greater good, a bigger picture of reality, which had up to that moment eluded them.
This is a central theme in C. S. Lewis’s first published work, The Pilgrim’s Regress (1933). Its central character is the pilgrim—John—who has visions of an island that evokes a sense of intense yet transitory longing on his part. At times, John is overwhelmed by this sense of yearning, as he struggles to make sense of it. Where does it come from? And just what is he yearning for? Lewis follows Pascal’s line of thought in answering this question: there is an “abyss” within the human soul that is so deep only God can fill it. Or, to use Lewis’s own imagery, there is a “chair” in the human soul, awaiting the arrival of some honored guest: “If nature makes nothing in vain, the One who can sit in this chair must exist.”
All other explanations and proposed goals for this sense of yearning seem to fail to satisfy, either intellectually or existentially. They are “false objects” of desire, whose falsity is ultimately exposed by their failure to satisfy the deepest yearnings of humanity.
If a man diligently followed this desire, pursuing the false objects until their falsity appeared and then resolutely abandoning them, he must at last come into the clear knowledge that the human soul was made to enjoy some object that is never fully given—nay, cannot even be imagined as given—in our present mode of subjective and spatio-temporal experience.
While Lewis’s prose makes no explicit reference to the parable of the pearl of great price, the convergence of their conclusions can hardly be overlooked.
This brief discussion will hopefully indicate the considerable apologetic potential of the retelling of the parables of the kingdom. It is not surprising that many apologists focus on the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32), with its central themes of alienation, disconnection, reconciliation, and homecoming—each of which could be the basis of an apologetic conversation. Perhaps the most significant retellings of this parable are found in the works of Marilynne Robinson, especially Gilead (2004) and Home (2008). These novels are best read in full for enjoyment and apologetic insight, and it would be impossible to do them justice in this brief section. Robinson shows us how biblical narratives might be retold apologetically and leaves the door open for others to follow her example.
In this chapter, we have reflected on how biblical narratives can be used apologetically. Limits of space have restricted both the number of such narratives to be considered and the extent to which we have engaged with them. Yet it is clear, even from this very inadequate discussion, that these narratives possess enormous potential, when rightly used, to capture the human imagination, and create receptivity to a Christian way of thinking and living.