by Tom Fowler

Created on: May 01, 2008

This is yet another example of how we in our time are encouraged to question everything concerning our faith. If this were not a topic for serious reflection within this forum, I would dismiss it entirely.

However, most of the time challenging ourselves is a good thing, for our Lord wishes us to come to Him upon our faith and spend our lifetimes seeking His knowledge and truth, knowing all the while that nothing we believe to be true will be proven to our human satisfaction.

However, I believe we go too far with this today. One wonders if the countless theologians appearing on the various cable channel documentaries challenge the existence of Christ himself. They seem to doubt everything else.

Of COURSE the Bible is the word of God! If you are a Christian and doubt this, why do you practice the Christian faith? At some point, we have to quit listening to Satan's lies and accept the basics of Christianity to be true, whether we understand them fully or not.

I recognize that the Bible is not always the book of sweetness and light we would like for it to be. There is more brutality and horror in it, especially in the Old Testament, than the most dark-minded horror writer could ever dream of. I challenge anyone to come up with a work of fiction more horrifying than the story of the Passover.

But, through all of this, runs the recurring them of God's relationship to a rebellious people which he loves dearly. Mixed in with the Bible's disturbing elements is the story of Jesus reaching out to broken humanity and the great letters of the apostles. Would Satan have anything to do with a document that preaches love, kindness, tolerance, patience, goodness, grace, mercy and forgiveness? Would he be responsible for the Letter to the Romans or chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians? Would he dare allow chapter 15 of the Gospel of John to be published? In all cases, I think not. I have not even mentioned the powerful truth of the prophets and comforting assurances found in the Book of Psalms

No, the Bible is the word of God, whether each individual passage is literally true or not. We accept this on faith because that is how our Lord wishes for us to come to him - by faith. He does not like a doubting Thomas. He wants people who can resist the wiles of Satan and hold fast to our faith through the many challenges of a human lifetime. For those that are able to do this, our Lord will have beings of great value when called home. This will not be the case if we allow ourselves to be deluded by absurd notions as the one posed in this discussion.

Jesus is alive, and the Bible is the word of God.

Enough said. Amen.

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