True vs. Real
I had a great chat yesterday with someone who is going through some faith issues. I told Lyndsay I think my friend is suffering from Mainstream Evangelical College Student Syndrome. You know what I mean: you leave home and realize maybe everything isn’t as easy or black-and-white as you thought (or hoped) it was.
My friend expressed frustration with a book about Christian beliefs that said something along the lines of, “the Bible is true because the Bible says it’s true.”
I said I don’t think we know what we mean when we say the Bible is true. While I believe it is, I think a better thing to say is that it is “real.” In Psalm 137, the poet says “blessed” will be the one who dashes the children of Babylon against the rocks. How do you take something like that and qualify it as “true?” I believe it’s a real poem by a real human who is really struggling with captivity in a foreign land. And it’s part of the larger–sure, true–story about God and His people.
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