MAKE THE BIBLE HEROES YOUR FRIENDS
We ever demand a person for an ideal instead of a principle. By living a year with a masterful character one would gain more than from a dozen years of moral precept. President King of Oberlin College says, "Character is not taught, but caught."
Since character is contagious, mere teaching of the bare and unadorned moral principle is almost always vain. But a hero personifies virtue, commands admiration, becomes an ideal.
This explains the power of stories in creating character. The heroes of the Bible fire us with enthusiasm we could never feel for impersonal virtue. To make them our friends is to be influenced by the noblest associates.
When Jesus wished to build up character in His disciples He told them a story, or parable, to supply their lack.
The method meets the need of mankind to-day as well as in Jesus' time. The Bible has a wonderful story for forming every single trait of character. Its heroes illuminate virtue by their heroic deeds. We see the man, admire his deeds, then his motives, and then his character. Unconsciously, but none the less surely, we catch his spirit and share the quality of his soul.