Story: That, in fact, is (I believe) one of the reasons why God has given us so much story, so much narrative in scripture. Story authority, as Jesus knew only too well, is the authority that really works. Throw a rule book at people's heads, or offer them a list of doctrine, and they can duck or avoid it, or simply disagree and go away. Tell them a story, though, and you invite them to come into a different world; you invite them to share a world-view, or better still, a "God-view". That, actually is what the parables are all about. They offer, as all genuine Christian story-telling does, a world-view which, as someone comes into it and finds how compelling it is, quietly shatters teh world-view that they were in already. Stories determine how people see themselves and how they see the world. Stories determine how they experience God and teh world and themselves and others.
-N.T. Wright (How can the bible be authoritative?)