biblical reality

Our well-meaning, non-believing friends probably think that you and I believe in something like the Tooth Fairy, a benevolent being whom we think dispenses treasure to good boys and girls like us.  And as for the Bible, they've heard just enough of it to believe that it's essentially incomprehensible, locked in some mythic, faraway world like that of Harry Potter.  Nothing could be further from the Truth.

When I used to hold attitudes like some of our friends but began to read the Bible when challenged to do so by some friends of Jesus, I was struck that, in a sense, it was utterly ordinary.  Yes, there were passages that I consigned to the world of myth; others that I dismissed because they were, in my words, "medieval", things like demons and hell and resurrection.  But I couldn't dismiss the Bible as fantasy, because it seemed so ordinary in its presentation of the extraordinary, God working in real human affairs.  

A particular passage recently struck me in this way.  In 1 Corinthians 1:14, St. Paul declares that he only baptized Crispus and Gaius, but then, two verses on, he corrects himself: yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanus; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.  If this were Fantasyland or some mythic masterpiece, the correction would have been eliminate.  We wouldn't have Paul, the primary proponent of the Christian faith, making such mistakes.  But that's the point.  This Bible is real. It's full of life, including a self-correction and an admission of ignorance.  These are the real things that drew me into the Scriptures.  And these are the realities which, in the mistake-prone affairs of our life, even our life with Christ, will assure others that this Faith has legs, touches the ground, and transforms real life.