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they should have been. He tailored his message-in style if not in substance-to their life
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situations and to their experience.
Jesus used copious narratives and parables in his preaching since his audience lived in a
storytelling culture, a culture in which their beliefs, values, morals, and customs were transmitted
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in the form of narratives. Jesus employed inductive movement in his preaching to correspond
with the way his audience perceived truth. Jesus left it open for the listeners to make personal
application. Sometimes he challenged them with “the logical evidence of new personal
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experience” from the truth they could reach by induction.
Jesus’ adaptation of his language, style, and form of preaching to his listeners bears
significant implication to Korean preaching. His parabolic preaching based on everyday life
stories and narratives provides an example for Korean preaching methodology. In Korean
society and history, story and storytelling both played crucial roles. Storytelling was “a primary
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educational tool” and a way of expressing the inner mind and heart. The Korean people have a
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narrative epistemology. It is intuitive and integrative rather than logical and analytical.
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Ibid.
52 Lewis, Learning to Preach, 26.
53 Tipsword, Pedagogics, 116. He calls it “The Inductive-Deductive method. He
introduces the methods of Jesus into 5 categories: 1) the Objective or Illustrative method; 2) the
Analytic-Synthetic method; 3) the Inductive-Deductive method; 4) the Method of Suggestion;
and 5) the Socratic or Catechetic Method. Ibid., 79-144.
54 Unyong Kim, “Faith Comes from Hearing,” 78. For more detailed discussion for the
Story as the tool of expression of inner mind of Minjung (ordinary people), See Kee Chae Han,
“Toward a Christian Narrative Ethic in Korea: A Methodological Discourse” Ph.D. diss.
Vanderbilt University, 1995.
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It affects the way of reading books. They interpret the text intuitively rather than
scientifically or analytically. For further discussion, see Moon Jang Lee, “The Oriental Way and
Principle of the Bible Study,” Mokhoe-wa Sinhak (Ministry and Theology) (September 2001),
182. //178-91. Lee introduces the Oriental way of hermeneutics. According to him, the meaning