Truly, truly, I say to you

I woke up this morning at 7 o'clock and couldn't fall back asleep, so I decided to catch up on the most recent series of podcasts from Water's Edge. The series addresses some of the hard questions that Christians must face: how could a loving God send people to hell?; Why do bad things happen to good people?; and, the question that I have been desperately seeking answers to, Is the bible really God's word?

Ever since I became a Christian, I have had trouble believing in the credibility of the bible. My scientifically-trained mind just finds too many potential flaws in the circumstances which I perceive to have produced our current array of translations, (for instance: God is perfect, humans are flawed, and there is no way flawed humans could correctly portray God's intentions; when the manuscripts were canonized we lost a lot of material, material which should qualify as part of God's word, but may be lost forever; certain authority figures who, when deciding what was to be included and excluded from the canon, may have had some of their own interests in mind with the intent of controlling the masses, etc. the list is never-ending and ever-destructive.)

For the past eight months or so, my biblical criticisms have slowly peaked to a point where I knew that no amount of faith would satisfy my intense need for logic. I've prayed many times for God to send me someone who could give me answers. And then there was Miles. To put it briefly, Miles' talk addressed all of my questions and gave me unbelievable evidence for the credibility of the bible. The fact that over forty people, whose circumstances span the breadth of time, culture, class, age, and location, have reported the exact same stories... and that there are literally thousands of reliable documents detailing the origin and authenticity of these manuscripts... these are things that led me to deeply threaded tears of joy. I cannot believe it! The whole world seems new to me in light of all this. I can now read these stories knowing that they have not been created by some medieval priest planning to exercise control over the people by enforcing ignorance. To long-time Christians I may sound like a heretic... but for me this is hallelujah.

I read the second half of Luke and all of John today. I can't wait to keep going.

Shine bright,
Kate