My father is a retired Reformed Presbyterian minister. As a teenager in the free-wheeling ‘70’s, I rebelled against him and his faith, but I did so in a quiet, deceitful way – always letting him believe that I was “a believer” yet doing as I wished in the background.
When I was 14, there was a young couple coming to our home on Monday evenings for counseling. She had recently become a Christian, but her fiancée was not, so she severed the relationship, but because her fiancée loved her so much, he wanted to know more about this “Christianity thing” in an attempt to keep her.
One night, as I sat on the stairs adjacent to the living room, I listened to my father patiently sharing the gospel with this man for over an hour. The couple sat close to each other at the end of the couch across from my father in our living room. They held hands.
When my father finished, he asked this man what he thought, and his response was, “fairy tales.”
Fast forward a year, and this man had become a stalwart Christian man, eventually marrying the woman who waited for him. Later on, he became a ruling elder of the church.
“Fairy tales…” so, how much of the Bible do you believe? Are there selections of the Bible that you struggle with because they are so ‘over-the-top’ sensational, that you doubt the authenticity?
No?
How about the parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:21-31); Balaam’s talking donkey (Numbers 22:21-39); the turning of Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt (Genesis 19:15-26; Luke 17:29-33); the virgin birth of Christ Jesus (Genesis 3:15; Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38)?
Without faith, without the regeneration of our hearts by the means of the Holy Spirit, then of course – such things are, indeed ‘fairy tales’ – and they won’t be taken seriously (though these same people have no problem at all with UFO’s, alien abduction, the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot).
The difference between fairy tales and the Bible, is that God’s Word, and all the awesome narratives in it, are purposed to teach us what God intends for our lives. Fairy tales can only entertain, and often, they are incapable of even doing this, since so many of them end in tragedy, hopelessness and disaster. Yet, the Bible’s stories all point us to God and His desire to reconcile us to Him so that He can bless us, enrich us, and enable us to share in His glory, both in this life and the next! What fairy tale or contradicting conspiracy theory can accomplish this? The purpose of fantasy is to distract us and to blind us from the truth, but the Word of God – in all of its prophecies and fulfillments, the narratives, miracles, songs and poetry – are intended to bring us into a one-on-one relationship with our Lord God Almighty Himself.
Unicorns, pixies and famous celebrities cannot do this for us.
Blessings,
Brett