The Message and the Story
Many moons ago when I was still a young pup, I went to breakfast at church camp and sat at a table with three preachers I knew. I liked stories with a moral, at the time, so I paid special attention when one of them asked, “Do you want to hear a story with a moral?” I nodded. “Someone put a block of baloney on a plate and stuck a fork in it. Before long, a fly came along, ate his fill, crawled up the fork and tried fly, but he fell and broke neck. Another fly came along and did the same thing. Then another and another until there were many flies lying dead on the table. Do you know what the moral to that story is?” “No,” I said. “Don’t fly off the handle when you’re full of baloney.” Let’s think about this story. What if we were to change this story and instead of baloney we put cheese on the plate. Instead of a fork, we will put a toothpick in the cheese. The flies eat the cheese and die after flying off the toothpick. It’s essentially the same story, but without the message. Nothi...