Bible stories are the basis for wisdom

Wisdom is knowing the right thing to do -- and when and how to do it. Wisdom is also about recognizing the wrong thing, and calling it by its right name. (There is an interesting Chinese proverb: "The beginning of wisdom is to call a thing by its right name."

The Bible gives us a wonderful set of stories to help us live wisely. Read this John Piper analysis of part of Jude (bolding is mine), and consider how you're doing as the spiritual leader in your home:

The little letter of Jude teaches us something about the value of learning
history. This is not the main point of the letter. But it is striking.
In
this next-to-last book of the Bible, Jude writes to encourage the saints to
"contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the
saints" (verse 3). The letter is a call to vigilance in view of "certain persons
[who] have crept in unnoticed . . . ungodly persons who turn the grace of our
God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ" (verse
4). Jude describes these folks in vivid terms. They "revile the things which
they do not understand" (verse 10). They "are grumblers, finding fault,
following after their own lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for
the sake of gaining an advantage" (verse 16). They "cause divisions, [and are]
worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit" (verse 19).
This is a devastating
assessment of people who are not outside the church but have "crept in
unnoticed." Jude wants them be spotted for who they really are, so that the
church is not deceived and ruined by their false teaching and immoral
behavior.
One of his strategies is to compare them to other persons and
events in history. For example, he says that "Sodom and Gomorrah . . . since
they, in the same way as these, indulged in gross immorality and went after
strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of
eternal fire" (verse 7). So Jude compares these people to Sodom and Gomorrah.
His point in doing this is to say that Sodom and Gomorrah are "an example" of
what will happen when people live like these intruders are living. So, in Jude's
mind, knowing the history of Sodom and Gomorrah is very useful in helping detect
such error and deflect it from the saints.
Similarly in verse 11, Jude piles
up three other references to historical events as comparisons with what is
happening in his day among Christians. He says "Woe to them! For they have gone
the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam,
and perished in the rebellion of Korah." This is remarkable. Why refer to three
different historical incidents like this that happened thousands of years
earlier - Genesis 19 (Sodom), Genesis 3 (Cain), Numbers 22-24 (Balaam), Numbers
16 (Korah)? What's the point?
Here are three points: 1) Jude assumes
that the readers know these stories! Is that not amazing! This was the first
century! No books in anyone's homes. No Bibles available. No story tapes. Just
oral instruction. And he assumed that they would know: What is "the way of Cain"
and "the error of Balaam" and "the rebellion of Korah"? Do you know? Isn't this
astonishing! He expects them to know. It makes me think that our standards of
Bible knowledge in the church today are too low.