The philosophical ground from which modern narrative theory sprouts presumes that propositional truth is not transcendent or transferable.1 Thought rooted in this soil presupposes that all truth is relative, personal and existentially related to one's own circumstances. Thus, it is argued no one can really or fully communicate transcendent ideas — we are all limited by our own subjectivity. This reasoning leads to the conclusion that, if all we are able to contemplate is personal truth, the only way that we can mutually share any perspective that is true to us is through a shared experience with others. The conclusion is that a truth perspective can be communicated only by a mutually shared experience.

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As a result of these presuppositions, secular speech theorists, and liberal theologians following their lead, have resorted to using narrative as a means of creating shared experiences in communication events such as preaching. The narrative pioneers in the field of homiletics bought the argument that no authoritative propositions could be culturally transcendent or universally meaningful for persons from diverse life contexts. These late 20th Century preaching trailblazers portrayed stories as knights on white chargers that would rescue preaching, not merely from congregational inattention, and not merely from irrelevance, but from actual incomprehensibility.

What Bible-believing preachers are now recognizing, as they reflect more on the narrative preaching movement, is that while stories certainly garner attention and can use shared experience powerfully to communicate, narratives are not the only way humans can or should communicate. The notion that we cannot understand or share propositional truth is simply not the perspective of the writers of the Bible, or the experience of twenty centuries of biblical preachers following them.

Scripture presents its truth in propositions as well as in narratives because the Bible proclaims that believers are made in the image of God and are indwelt by his Spirit — the same Spirit that inspired his Word. Those made in the image of God already share a context by which to have a mutual understanding of his world and his Word. We certainly acknowledge,

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14).

Still we contend, because the Bible does, that those indwelt by the Holy Spirit have their minds renewed so that they can understand the spiritual truths of his Word and perceive their world accordingly (1 Cor. 2:9-13,16; 2 Cor. 2:13-18). The "genius of Scripture" is its use of narrative to give propositions culturally transcendent contexts while synergistically using propositions to give meaning to the narratives. This meaning is not merely existential but rather eternal; and, it is not incomprehensible but rather communicated to hearts indwelt by the same Spirit who inspired it.2