Key Life Network

[Narrator] Did you know God is using story in your life right now? Let's talk about it on Key Life.

[Narrator] Key Life exists to communicate that the deepest message of Jesus and the Bible is the radical grace of God to sinners and sufferers.

[Narrator] Because life's hard for everyone, grace is for all of us.

[Narrator] Our host is seminary professor and author, Steve Brown.

[Steve Brown] Thank you, Matthew, and hello, Matthew. It feels kind of funny.

[Matthew] Yeah.

[Steve Brown] Matthew Border, as you know, is the executive producer at Key Life. He is also the announcer on these Key Life broadcasts. He and Jeremy do a podcast, and he's on our talk show. And so, you're familiar with him, but he's also one of the voices of Key Life.

And this week, because I like the way he thinks. He's biblical, he's solid, he's orthodox, and what he says is true. And I've experienced that for a whole lot of years, and I thought it was time for you to experience the same thing.

And so, this week, he's going to teach us about the Bible, the story of the Bible, and the difference that makes in our lives. Before we do that, let's pray and then we'll study.

Father, we come into your presence, thankful for the scripture that you wrote down. You knew we would get it wrong if you didn't write it out. You have from beginning to end, thought about us. You have sent your son to die in our place, and you promised to end the story of scripture in a way that is glorious and exciting. And we worship you for that. You know everyone who's listening to this broadcast, the hard places and the soft places. We praise you because you're in charge of both.

Father, we lift this broadcast before you, forgive the ones who teach their sins, we would see Jesus and him only. And we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

[Matthew] Amen.

[Steve Brown] Matthew, thanks for taking this time. This is going to be great.

[Matthew] I'm delighted.

[Steve Brown] And it's a fairly regular thing. You know, people hear your voice. And you've been a part of Key Life and our different platforms for a long time.

[Matthew] Yeah.

[Steve Brown] You started as a comedy writer in a morning talk show we did years ago.

[Matthew] Back in '99.

[Steve Brown] Oh, that's a long. I didn't even know you were born back then.

[Matthew] I know.

[Steve Brown] And so, you have become, and it was true anyway, one of the voices of Key Life. And tell us a little bit about you and your testimony. I'd want to make sure you're a Christian before we go any further.

[Matthew] That's a, that's a, that's a good, that's a good point.

[Matthew] I listen, I grew up. I was blessed to grow up in the church. Mom played organ, dad taught Sunday school and was a deacon. And. Yeah, that was my upbringing. I grew up at a Baptist church just a little bit down the road from where we are now. And got to know Jesus at a young age, which was, you know, a blessing.

[Steve Brown] That's the way it's supposed to happen.

[Matthew] Yeah, and that's that's a, that was a huge blessing and I thank my mom and dad for that. Not everybody gets that. But, it's all part of the story, whether your story is like that or something very dramatic and different.

[Steve Brown] So you were never on drugs.

[Matthew] No, I don't have that story.

[Steve Brown] Man, you missed it. You missed the fun.

[Matthew] I'm more of the older brother in the, in the prodigal son.

[Steve Brown] No, you're not. There is not a bit of self-righteousness in you, and that's one of the nice things.

[Matthew] Oh, thank you.

[Steve Brown] But that is the way it's supposed to be.

There are family covenants where when we raise children in the admonition of the Lord and under the teaching of scripture, then they should walk it. And so you're an example of what God does in a family.

[Matthew] Well, that's very kind. It ain't pretty, but God hasn't given up on me yet.

[Steve Brown] You won't, you probably won't write books about your testimony.

[Matthew] Yeah, I'm going to have to get creative maybe.

[Steve Brown] Do something really bad so you can.

[Matthew] Get to sell books.

[Steve Brown] Okay, I've heard you talk about the Bible often. And you've produced many programs where I teach the Bible.

[Matthew] Yeah.

[Steve Brown] Do you think sometimes that we memorize scripture, we understand doctrine, we underline it sometimes, but it doesn't make a lot of difference in our lives?

[Matthew] Yeah, it's funny that sometimes we can have truth and we feel like it's a bunch of different pieces, but maybe it doesn't feel like it all fits together.

[Steve Brown] Yeah.

[Matthew] And you've you've taught about postmodernism before. I wonder if sometimes that's some kind of outgrow of that, that we have the truth, but it just feels disconnected from each other. And I wonder if we have lost story, story is that kind of glue that says it's not a whole bunch of individual truths, these things all fit together into one larger piece.

[Steve Brown] Sociologist call that a mega narrative. And that's what we have. And postmodernity says there is no mega narrative.

Your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth, and it doesn't matter. There is no mega story or mega narrative that explains it all.

[Steve Brown] But there is, and that's what the scripture teaches.

[Matthew] Yeah, it's, you know, sometimes the facts are in front of us, but we're still not getting the truth behind it. I think about Nathan and David. David commits a bunch of felonies all within a couple days or whatever. And he, we don't see anything that he before he talks to Nathan, that he realizes he's really screwed up. So he knows the facts, but he's not seeing the truth.

And what is it that seems to open his eyes is when Nathan comes to him and tells him a story. He tells him the story of this, you know, poor guy who has a lamb and the rich guy comes and takes it, and he's incensed. And that, Nathan, the act of him telling him a story opens his eyes to the truth that was just right behind the facts.

[Steve Brown] And the cool thing is, he's about as bad as you can get. I mean, he didn't tell a white lie or steal a quarter from his mother's pocketbook when he was a kid. This is big stuff. It was adultery, it was murder, it was really dark stuff. And the story of Nathan changed his life.

[Matthew] Yeah.

[Matthew] And it's so funny because we think of story as, you know, I think we have a diminished view of it. We think, okay, story entertains us. Okay, oh, teaches us. Yeah, that too. But God really uses it in kind of a lot of ways. If I say storytelling in Bible, I don't know what comes to mind immediately for you, but like Jesus parables is.

[Steve Brown] Yeah, so true.

[Matthew] But even that is doing more than we really realize. I was reading one of Richard Branson, British billionaire guy. I'm sorry, one of his autobiographies. Let it go, Richard. Take it easy, dude. One, he's got two autobiographies.

So he was telling this amazing story about his dad, named Ted. So at the beginning of World War II, he volunteered for the cavalry for Britain. And he wanted to let his parents know where he was in the war, but you can't just go, hey, by the way, I'm in, you that's that's kind of information that you don't want to have out there.

So he arranged this thing with his parents where he would different places in the house, different objects in the house represented different things. So he would write to his parents and go, hey, Mother, would you take out my riding gloves from the top left hand shelf in the right hand cupboard, which designated that he was in this certain country?

[Steve Brown] Huh.

[Matthew] And I'm and and no surprise, the sensors never picked up on anything. And that's like a lot what Jesus parables were about. There is a story on the surface level, but he's also telling it in a way that is going to exclude the people who already figured out they didn't want anything to do with his message. So you think it's a simple thing, but oh, he's using story in a very interesting way there. So.

[Steve Brown] And so stories are really powerful. They'll sneak up on you and change your life.

[Matthew] Yeah.

[Matthew] He uses them to, to teach, to code, like we said there. He uses them to, like we said with Nathan and David, and he uses them to help us remember. I don't know. I'm just getting into this age of not being able to remember why I walked into a room or whatever. But I know you've probably experienced this. You're like, I can remember all the lyrics to Blueberry Hill by Fats Domino, but I can't remember where my glasses are. And I think God knew that we're a forgetful bunch. And so he created things like the seven festival or the the festivals, the Jewish festivals, to kind of commemorate. Like, I know you're going to forget. So we're going to make this event that helps you remember.

Or when Joshua is leading everybody across the Jordan River, he's like, oh, hold on, before you go cross, pick up these 12 stones and I need to make this for a way to remember.

[Steve Brown] This is going to be a great week.

My colleague, Dr. Richard Pratt, who's head of Third Mill Ministries, wrote a book a long time ago, and it's a really good one, and the title of that book was this, He Gave Us Stories. He did. Life-changing stories.

Hey, you think about that. Amen.

[Matthew] Man, it was so great having this conversation with Steve, and there's still so much to dive into still. We'll continue learning about God as the master storyteller tomorrow and continue through Thursday. Do hope you'll join us for the full week.

Well, in case you didn't know, in addition to this daily Bible teaching program, Key Life, we also have a talk radio show. It's called Steve Brown, et cetera. And recently on that show, we spoke with best-selling author Max Lucado about his latest book called Tame Your Thoughts. Get that full conversation on CD for free by calling us right now at 1-800 Key Life. That's 1-800-539-5433. You can also email Steve at keylife.org to order that CD or go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the US and Canada. Again, just ask for the CD featuring Max Lucado.

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