the devil believes it

Over the weekend, I had a passive conversation, one my wife and friends and I have had on numerous occasions. We were talking about a story in the bible when God told Noah to make an ark – a huge boat, fill it with 2 of every animal in order to judge the rest of humanity, and save only a few of the good. Anyway, this always leads to a question about whether or not this entire story is entirely true or not, or literal or not. Did man really make a ridiculously-sized boat and find a way to get all these animals on it? (fyi 7 of every kind of bird). Did God really flood the earth?

While I believe the basic tenets of this story, I must admit, if I were to find out that it didn’t happen, well it doesn’t reshape my faith. I haven’t placed my faith in such a story; rather I shape my faith & allegiance to a story of hope found in the resurrection of Jesus.

In school, we did a literary study on another biblical story about a man and a fish. While having the same conversation about how literal to take this story, my professor wisely responded, “the devil believes it and it didn’t change his life.”

While a funny response, there’s a lot of truth in there. We often times argue and debate (which is good nonetheless) and get way off track on non-essential matters. These stories could be 100% true, 100% literal, or there is a good chance they could have been written in order to provide hope to a people, in order to offer redemption to the readers and paint a beautiful picture of God.

May you find comfort in wrestling with stories. May you find truth. And may you be open & honest, and let your faith rest in a hope that is called Jesus. May you find his way of living, his way of truth, and his way of the resurrection.