Sanctified Imagination

Stories are powerful communication tools. A good story will grab your attention, stir your emotions, and capture your imagination.

The Bible is full of good stories. The trouble is we’ve become so familiar with them that they no longer grab our interest. Not really: not in anything like the way they should. We’ve heard them so often that when we hear them again we zone out with a subconscious, “heard it already, know what’s coming next,” and that’s a pity. Either that or we listen with detached analytical logic, in much the way we would read Paul’s epistles. That’s a pity too; you’re not meant to read Bible stories like that.

Let those Bible stories do what they are good at. Let them grab your attention, let them stir your emotions, let them capture your imagination. Yes, I know it’s risky. No, you mustn’t distort, add to, or take away from anything in the Bible. No, you mustn’t allow your biases, your assumptions, your likes or your dislikes to meddle with the original meaning. So be careful: respect the original meaning.

Imagine the setting, Imagine yourself in the sandals of the characters. What did they see? What did they hear? What knowledge and experience did they bring to the situation? What did they feel? What was going through their heads at the time? Allow yourself to feel what they might have felt and think what they might have thought and then retell the story in your own words.

You’ll need to put in some work. You’ll need to read wider to find out all you can about the characters in a story. You’ll need to pull together all you can find out, from other parts of the Bible, about the story’s setting: about its geographical, historical and cultural context. But that’s not such hard work as you think: you’ll find it interesting.

If you do put in the work and do the thinking, I guarantee those old stories will come to life and you’ll learn things you never noticed before.

You’re meant to use your imagination when you read Bible stories. Not wild unrestrained imagination; but sanctified imagination: imagination that respects the authority of God’s word.

Try it with those Christmas stories you’re going to hear again this week.