Let me tell you a story.

It has to be one of the most boring chapters in the whole of the Bible — and yet it came up in conversation only yesterday.

I’m talking about the opening chapter of 1 Chronicles, which I’ve been working through with my BRF Guidelines. It’s simply a list of names — 187 in total — most of them entirely unknown to us. Uz, Hul, Gether and Meshek, to name but four.

And it doesn’t stop there: the next eight chapters continue in the same vein. Page after page, name after name.

And yet, one of those names surfaced yesterday as we were planning a funeral. One of the family suggested Elgar’s Nimrod from his Enigma Variations for the opening music.

Nimrod appears, very briefly, in 1 Chronicles’ opening chapter.  “Cush was the father of Nimrod, who became a mighty warrior on earth.” (1 Chronicles 1:10) He also appears, again very briefly in Genesis. “He was a mighty hunter before the Lord… The first centres of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.”(Genesis 10:9f)

And that’s it — a tantalising glimpse of a formidable figure whose full story is forever lost to us.

That, in fact, is the character of these opening chapters of 1 Chronicles. They were written to a people still reeling from seventy years in Babylonian exile — vulnerable, disheartened, unsure who they were anymore. So the writer begins, not with argument or exhortation, but with story: the long, unbroken story of God’s faithfulness through ordinary names and forgotten lives.

Some 900 people are mentioned in those first nine chapters, each one a witness to God’s continuing purpose.

When the first Christian martyr Stephen stands before the Sanhedrin accused of blasphemy, what does he do? He tells a story — the story of God’s dealings with Israel. Because it is in telling stories that we come to understand God.

God reveals himself not through abstract ideas but through narrative — creation, covenant, exile, and above all in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We meet him not in definitions but in stories: Abraham setting out without knowing where he was going; Moses facing Pharaoh; Ruth gleaning in a field; Mary saying yes; Peter weeping by a fire.

Each story opens a window onto the character of God. We glimpse his faithfulness through Abraham, his mercy through David, his compassion through Jesus’ parables. And our own stories, however ordinary, become the language through which we too may speak of him.

And of course, Jesus was a master story-teller.  Often that is all that he did, tell stories.  Mark recalls: “With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable” (Mark 4:33)   Stories can be hard work!

“Story is the primary way in which the revelation of God is given to us, “ observes Eugene – the Message - Peterson. “We enter the story and find ourselves there.”

Recently I’ve been reading about the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005).  His own life is a remarkable story. Born in Valence, orphaned young, and shaped by hardship and his deep Christian faith, Ricoeur spent his life exploring how human beings make sense of themselves through story.

Captured as a prisoner of war during World War II, he studied and translated the dense writings of German philosophers — yet his own insights were remarkably humane and grounded.

One of his central convictions was that we come to understand who we are through the stories we tell about ourselves. Our lives, he said, are not fixed identities but narratives in progress. That’s why testimony matters — telling how God is at work through our joys and failures, our hopes and disappointments.

Ricoeur also wrote deeply about memory, history, and forgetting. He warned that memory is fragile, easily distorted or lost, yet he saw remembering as an act of justice — a way of honouring people and experiences that must not be erased.

That rings true for anyone who treasures old letters, family stories, or community histories, even our photograph albums. We keep the past alive, not to live in it, but to live more truthfully today.

And Ricoeur was a man of faith. He believed that Scripture, like life itself, must always be interpreted afresh. God’s Word, he said, speaks through our reading and reflection — exactly what happens when a passage, even one as dry as 1 Chronicles 1, suddenly connects with our own story.

That’s why the daily discipline of reading Scripture matters. Each day adds another paragraph to the story of our life with God.

In that sense, our lives and the Bible share something profound: both are texts still being written, full of meaning that unfolds over time. So perhaps our task is not to chase after a fixed identity but to keep telling our story — honestly, prayerfully, and with hope.

Let me tell you a story.