David, Goliath, and Can You Hear Me Now

In today's post-modern, emerging church, there is huge push to tell the stories of the Bible in fresh and distinctive ways that communicate the truth of the Kingdom of God to a new generation of people far from and near to Jesus.

So today, Sarah, Parker and I were re-telling/acting out the story of David and Goliath. It's an amazing event if you can read with "new" eyes and hear it with fresh ears. And I certainly wore those this time around.

I was playing the parts of King Saul (the ruler of Israel) and Jesse (David's dad). Sarah played the part of David and Parker was Goliath. Towards the beginning of the story we have Goliath march out and taunt the army of Israel. So Sarah and I called in Goliath/Parker for him to scare us. As he walked in, he was yelling to us:

"Fe Fi Fo Fum
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he alive or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones
to make my bread."

How's that for updating the classic telling of Goliath's speech with the classical speech of the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk?!

Then in our little recreation of the story, we move to Jesse giving David chunks of cheese and loaves of bread to take to his brothers who are fighting in the battle against the Philistines (Goliath's peeps). So I load up David/Sarah with cheese and bread and turn to tell her take this to her brothers, when she tells me to wait because she's talking on her Barbie cell phone!

Wow! Talk about your modernization of an ancient biblical/historical event! I was cracking up. Work that version into your next reading or teaching on that passage of Scripture.