I believe that the the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, are the word of God. I take it as a guide to my life
and faith. But, it does not tell the whole story. There are many stories of faith that can be found between the
lines, spaces and sentences of the words have been written down for us.
The creation story in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, is a great poetic piece about what happened at the
beginning of time. But, no one was there except God, so how did the writer receive what has been written down?
And the story does not talk of planets. It does not talk about all the science we have learned. It has two stories of
creation (look it up). There are no words about the gravitational waves that have been just discovered. I love the
lyrical nature of the words of Genesis as part of my faith journey, but I am left with the idea that I do not yet know
everything.
We are reading through the Bible this year here at Floradale. There is a lot of violence in the stories of Moses,
Noah, Jacob and Abraham. The violence is done by men (mostly men) and women. God does a lot of it as well.
There is one story in Numbers where this man picked up sticks on Sunday (the sabbath). He is caught, and God
orders the people of Israel to stone him to death, and then they actually do stone him to death. Where is the
redemption in such a story? I do not get any meaning out of the story. He was picking up sticks. Maybe there is
no meaning, but why would God be part of this kind of violence. I am sure that I do not know everything about
faith and life quite yet.
Then, there is Psalm 88. The book of Psalms is poetry with God speaking sometimes, and with the writer
speaking to God and the people, at other times. And even in the same Psalm. there is a conversation going on. It
is great poetry. I think that almost everyone emotion that we can go through in our lives, can be found in the 150
Psalms we have in the Bible. It has been a devotional guide to the Jewish and Christian people for thousands of
year. I really like them, but Psalm 88 is a complete downer. In this Psalm, God has left the building. What
happened in the life of the writer that he would write such a poem of lament? Oh, wait… I have been there. I
have have felt that low, but have come out of it slowly. But… what if I had not. I still do not know everything that
there is about life and faith.
Jesus lived here on the earth about 30 years or so. He did his ministry for about three years. There are four
books in the Bible that tell Jesus’ life story. They are called Gospels, because the writers want you to believe that
Jesus has come as the Saviour of the world. The writers tell some of the same stories, but there some different
ones. The one writer, John, says that the books could not contain all the stories if they would all be written down.
Wait… why cannot I have access to all the stories about Jesus of Nazareth (that was his hometown)? What is
missing in the sentences and spaces, and what and why were some things left out? I still know very little about
life and faith.
In First Corinthians 13:9, Paul (the early church leader) writes, “For now I know in part.”. That is my statement of
faith on Tuesday March 1, 2016. At least for now…
Fred Redekop
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