Book Review - The Stories We Tell (31/8)

Chances are, you most likely would spend at least some times watching television or movie every week. The approach that christians often take in respond to this are usually asking what can I watch or not watch? What is right or wrong about this film/video? It seems as though Christians thinks that the shows and movies tell us nothing more than that.

Mike Cosper thinks otherwise and wants to show christians that movies and television does tell stories, stories that christians can easily resonate with. Cosper argues that these stories do, in one way or another show glimpses of the gospel truth, in one shade or the other, in one facet or another.

Cosper first explains the Grand Story, the story of the bible, and from it, he picks out the various main themes that runs throughout the bible, these will need be the ‘lens’ that Cosper will use to help the readers pick out and see traces of these in the various shows and movies. Cosper then goes through 8 of such lens through each chapter.

Each chapter was first explained and illustrated within the biblical context, to show the readers that these really can be done within the bible (ie. the author is not making these up!) then he would run through various shows or scenes that (sometimes intentionally) portrays topics, as examples.

I must say that as I read this book, I do find myself watching a film or watch with these lens, not that prior to these I was just ‘watching’ a show, but the strength of this book is that Cosper does manages to pick up some of the more subtle topics (or sub-topics) and the examples he give are tremendously helpful. Even though I really do not watch a lot of shows, there’s enough description within the text that allows me to ‘catch’ the point and example.

An additional value to this book is how it can be used as a conversational starter towards evangelism, many a time as I was read, I did envision myself, if I did managed to catch such topics to be able to use them as starters to engage my non-christians friends after the show.
Finally, I do not think there’s any book out that at this moment that helps christians see movies in this particular way, and therefore I do think christians should read this book, pastors, students, parents. This would be helpful to you personally, and also helpful as you interact or ministers to others as well. Pastors could even use these as a stepping stone to learn how to get illustrations they could use in the future when they are preaching these topics.

Rating: 4.25/5

If you're interested, you can get it here, and here (free international shipping), Kindle.

Disclaimer: I was given this book free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.