Orality
Bread and Bananas
Ana is always the first one to learn her story, Ana of the Mixe people group of Southern Mexico. She has that ability, that untapped talent she never knew about before this week.
My journey into the world of narrative
The careful exegetical preaching of professors at Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) drew me to that institution in 1975. During the next four years I was trained to be a critical thinker who could analyze the minutiae of a text in both Hebrew and Greek. My exposition of a biblical text was logical, purposeful, abstract and [...]
Orality and translation: focusing on images rather than words
In the scholarly world we can separate translation as a written task from interpretation as an oral task. Bible translation is a written task, while evangelism and preaching engage oral interpreters to cross language barriers.
So what are some of the differences between the two tasks, and how can the Bible translation process benefit from oral [...]
Oral approaches to augment a Bible translation process
From the beginning of Christianity, adherents have set out to understand the Scriptures in their own language. Syriac and Coptic were a few of the earliest written translations, translated before 200 AD. Centuries later, Martin Luther, Cyril and Methodius, John Wycliffe, and John Tyndale were some of the more famous people who translated God’s Word [...]
Doing something different
By normal standards, Campus Crusade had a successful ministry at the University of Central Florida. Some 400 gathered in weekly meetings, 100 attended Christmas conferences, 30 went on summer projects. But, the Campus Director, David Pezzoli, and his team were up against some significant challenges. The school had a very large student population (45,000, of [...]
Storytelling among the Kao Bu
When the police pushed open the door and charged into our training center I knew my time in China was finished. After the five days with police “protection” I was deported to Hong Kong. Figure that one out? Little did I know God had another plan for me. He redirected me to an unreached people [...]
A case for the longer-term use of oral storying
An old veteran worker who’d been there in the 1960s had told me this was the most backward, fanatic, ingrown, close-minded region he’d ever seen in Southeast Asia.
He’d tried distributing tracts there and said, “You can’t hardly get into the place, and if you do, no one will listen to you, take anything from you, [...]
Storytelling: some frequently asked questions
Q: What is Biblical storytelling?
A: It is an oral, rather than written, approach used to communicate God’s message, as recorded in the Scriptures. It is based on the Scriptures, but includes background information and stylistic changes that make it interesting and appealing to various audiences.
Q: What is “different” about this approach?
A: Storytelling is as old [...]
The Gospel’s Advance Can’t Wait for Literacy
Does the spread of the Gospel depend on literacy? Jesus Christ is the eternal and living Word, after all, as John declares (John 1:1). The timeless message of His saving grace is proclaimed from one generation to the next in the Bible, the written Word of God. Are those who cannot—or will not—read the Word [...]
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