The gospel of Jesus Christ is, in large measure, a gospel of stories — stories that illustrate and illuminate, stories that inspire and encourage, stories that build faith and foster assurance, stories that reprove and admonish on occasion.
Writing in the New Era magazine of July 1978, while he was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote: “We have in the Church an untapped, almost unknown, treasury of inspiring and faith-promoting stories. They are the best of their kind and there are thousands of them.
In addition to the factual stories that Elder McConkie alluded to here, there are numerous parables of Jesus, such as the Good Samaritan, and symbolic or allegorical allusions that pervade the scriptures, such as the allegory of the tame and wild olive trees in Jacob 5-6 in the Book of Mormon.
Stories that inspire and motivate are not limited to ancient scripture.