When the story becomes the main message
Should I remind all of us that it is the Word that has power to convict unbelievers, save sinners, and sanctify believers. It is sufficient for all matters concerning life and godliness (2 Tim 3:15-17). This means we need as much Bible as possible if we are to see a true revival in our lives. Yet, is it not concerning that most of our preachers work overtime to give us as little Bible as they can, while majoring on the individual stories of their experiences? In some cases, when it’s time for the Sunday Sermon, it takes more than 10 minutes before Scripture is introduced, even then, it’s just one verse that is read, just to support more stories and oldwives tales. I guarantee you that you will hear everything about the minister: what he does with his wife, when and how. When that happens, Christ’s Sheep are trained in their minds that Scripture is not that important after all. Instead, it’s these preacher’s stories that are more interesting.
Just to use a living example: there is a very popular minister here in Africa, whose residence is Nigeria. I got curious about what people so love about him and decided to listen to his messages. Lo and behold, it's all stories of his private “encounters”! Then he uses these personal experiences to shape his doctrine for his congregants to take home. The only hint of the Bible is when he quotes random verses out of context to validate his tales. The end result is that believers built their lives and faith walk around the personalities and the experiences of their leaders, not on the infallible Word of the living God. Do you see the problem?
A lot of salt in the stories
The second point of concern is that these stories are far from accurate. That is, it’s a human weakness to always add and subtract a lot of details to our stories just to spice things up. Reasons for doing this vary from genuine forgetfulness to deliberate twisting of truth to impress the listeners. Which means a large percentage of these narratives are actually not true – they never happened. Some of these leaders like to tell us about some great “man of faith” from long ago who used to do “extraordinary” things that some of us cannot do anymore because apparently, we are not praying enough. However, if you were to take time to investigate the lives of those “mighty men” so-called, you would be shocked to realize that such things never happened. It’s just exaggerated stories to excite the modern church. How dangerous is it then for any congregation to bet their lives on these unreliable stories? Even more, how low for some of our ministers to believe that Christ’s sheep can be edified through the stories they cook up?
We can’t repeat other people’s experiences
The third peril about the preacher’s fairy tales is the fallacy of their belief that the Lord works the same way with all of us. Hence they tell these stories of what the Lord has done for them, hoping that their followers will also go out and imitate their formulas so as to attain the same result. They usually do this when teaching about giving. The minister will go on about how he gave up his entire salary to the Lord, and before he knew it, God returned his money multiplied a hundredfold. Therefore, according to him, we all must give up our salaries if we want to see miraculous results. I am sorry for the spoiler, but what worked for me may not work with you. How the Lord used Samson is not the way He used Gideon. Hence you can give me your prayer formula that has yielded you such abundant results, yet it might not work in my life because the Lord has different purposes for me.
Conclude: Comrades, my concern is that the stories are taking too much pulpit time. Hence my plea to you is: let us re-discover that old confidence in the written Word. So that we won’t have to be tossed to and fro by these cleverly devised schemes from pulpit bandits. Just like what the Israelites said to Ezra, let us demand our pastors to bring the book; sound doctrine fresh from the written Word of the living God. To fellow ministers, I appeal: so much good would be done if we were to reduce folktales as much as we can, if not eliminate them completely. God’s people do not want to hear what you spent the week doing with your wife. They want to hear from Jesus; what He has done for them on the cross. Therefore, please, study your Bible so that on Sunday you will have something to say about God before God’s people, without filling in the gaps with silly little stories and childish jokes. Do that and you will do well.
Sinothi Ncube
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