Is Jonah and the Whale fake news?

If Jonah wasn't swallowed by the whale, does that mean God isn't real?

What if Peter never performed any miracles?

There are some people that say Jesus didn’t really multiply the fish and bread for 5,000 people. But rather he inspired the people there to share what they had with others.

Is that an attack on our faith? Or is that an invitation to look at ourselves and see our faith grow?

As human beings, we like to have it all figured out. We like to have it all make sense.

“The Bible says that David killed Goliath with a stone, so it must be true.”

“The Bible says they brought Eutychus back from the dead after he fell out of the window. So it must be true”

“Revelation says that the last days are exactly like this. So it must be true.”

What if it is not?

What if the events in the Bible did not happen exactly how they are written? Does that mean our religion is a fraud?

No.

The Bible has a powerful message that has inspired and changed the lives of billions in the last 2,000 years. The details around the message may not have happened exactly how they are written. But the main question here is:

Did you get the message?

Christians have argued over the details in the Bible for years. And when that happens, we forget about loving our neighbor. We forget about caring for our creation. The message gets lost.

But when we come together and we love our neighbor, the message of the Bible lives on.

The authors and editors of the Bible were writing years ago in a culture that is very different from our own. That is not a bad thing. It is actually a holy thing. The power of the words written years ago live on in us today.

We are inspired by the life and death of a person named Jesus who showed us how to love. And that faith guides us.

We can leave the mystery of all the details in the Bible up to God because our faith leads us to be too busy loving our neighbor to argue about whether Job was attacked by Satan or not.

I'm not saying it’s not important to learn about the Bible. We should study it and discuss it with each other. But we should not let discussion about the Bible lead us to harming our neighbor or ignoring a person in need. Instead, let us look through all the Bible verses with a lens of love.

When I am unsure about what scripture says I have to ask myself “How does this scripture lead me to love?” Or “How does this scripture lead me to see my neighbor as a beloved child of God?”

And that, my friends, is part of the journey!