Can You Still Believe?

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. -Isaiah 7:14

I remember Pastor John once telling me hat one of the first questions asked of a class at seminary was: "How much of the bible would have to be factually true for you to continue to believe?"

Back when my faith was fresh, finding out that some of my favorite bible stories probably didn't really happen or some of my favorite new testament books probably weren't really written by the author that was given credit really popped my spiritual balloon. If these things aren't real... is Jesus real? But I would deal with these little tidbits of new knowledge and come back to faith even stronger than before.

This morning as I was studying this well-loved verse from Isaiah, we find that most Jewish commentaries (remember, the Old Testament is Jewish scripture) don't consider this a messianic prophesy. The main argument (among others) is that the word translated as "virgin" simply means "a young woman of marrying age." They go on to explain why they believe this verse has nothing to do with Jesus and they have many fine arguments. But I also read Christian counterpoints which also have many good arguments.This is not the only sticky place in the bible... by a long shot. If it was extremely clear, wouldn't all Jews be Christian? 

In Rob Bell's book that I have previously talked about, there is an excellent chapter (Chapter 39, if you want to read it) called "Is It Inerrant?" This passage in particular was something I didn't know:

        

"It was believed that Emperor Caesar, at the end of his life, ascended to the heavens to sit at the right hand of the gods - is that why Luke ends his book with Jesus ascending? Where did Jesus go? Up into the sky? Because we've sent spaceships up there, ad no one saw him. We assume Luke is writing the actual details of what happened, but when you back up and realize that Luke wants his audience to see JESUS as Lord, not Caesar, then the way he describes Jesus ascending starts to make more sense. We moderns love history to be precise with times and dates and actual facts... But ancient writers had different agendas. Luke isn't trying to mislead - he's telling a story in the way people in his day told stories."

Grow in your faith. Don't just study the bible. Study HOW the bible was written. Exam the culture of the time, the life of the authors and the politics of the day. Find out WHY someone might write something that is of life-giving truth even though it might not be factual history.

God of Truth,

Help us in our faith when our spiritual balloons get popped. Amen.