The metanarrative of Scripture is just that, a narrative, a story. Granted, it is a big story
made up of lots of little stories and other literary genres. Nonetheless, it is a story.

What is a story? Lisa Cron has spent decades working as a literary agent, television
producer, consultant to a major motion picture studio and ad agency, and advisor to writers,
nonprofits, educators, and journalists. Since 2006, she has taught in the UCLA Extension

Writers’ Program. In her book Story or Die: How to Use Brain Science to Engage, Persuade,
and Change Minds in Business and in Life, Cron maintains, “A story is about how an
unavoidable external problem forces the protagonist to change internally in order to solve it.”1 Contrary to popular opinion, she insists that a story is more than plot. Without the presence of an imperiled protagonist with whom we can identify and about whom we care, the plot is “just random facts, regardless [of] how objectively ‘dynamic.’”2 Identification and empathy are key. Skillfully told stories synchronize our emotions with the protagonist’s. Their gradual exposing of what the protagonist finally realizes comes as something like a revelation to us the story’s readers and hearers. If we accept that revelation, it transforms us. These are the stories that grab and hold us.

According to Cron, the protagonist’s worldview must go through four stages for a story
to be capable of changing an audience’s mind. The stages are: misbelief (a closely held but
erroneous belief that the audience shares with the protagonist), truth, realization (the discovery that the previously held belief is wrong), and transformation. No longer blinded by misbelief, the protagonist and audience are able to see what will help them fulfill their true agenda.

Applying Cron’s insights to the task of biblical preaching, we can better understand how both Scripture and our sermons may be comedic, tragic, or ambiguous. It all depends on how the four stages identified above are arranged and whether any is missing.