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                Some people, many of whom are honest and sincere, have difficulty believing in the Bible.  Whenever they read it or hear it read, one question keeps coming to mind: Is this true or not?  Did this event or that event actually take place?  That reaction is certainly understandable, because the Bible says some things and tells some stories that are not easy to believe.  Perhaps it would help if we would remember that the Bible is not one book, but many books bound into one volume.  And it is not one type of literature, but several.  And often it is difficult to decide which part of the Bible belongs to which category of literature.  So an honest and serious student of Scripture must deal with the question:  Is this true or not?

                Therefore, we can all be grateful for scholars who study Scripture objectively and help us to answer such questions as:  Who wrote it?  When was it written?  What does it mean?  None of us wants to be gullible; to believe the unbelievable.  In so far as it is possible, we would like to know that the Bible is true, that our religious faith is rooted in some solid facts.  So, thank God we have such scholars.

                But there is another sense in which the Bible must come true, and this will happen when its truth finds expression in and through the lives of people.

                An example of this can be seen in the first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians: “The body is one and has many members, but all the members, many though they are, are one body; and so it is with Christ.  It was in one Spirit that all of us, whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, were baptized into one body.”

                In one sense, that is the truth and has always been the truth.  It is true of the Church and true of the human family.  We are one – one in the love of God, one in the sacrifice of Christ, one in our strength and weakness, one in our needs.  So we ask:  Is this part of the Bible true?  The answer is:  Yes, we are one.  And a large part of human misery is rooted in our rejection of that truth.

                So we need to ask ourselves that other question:  Can this part of the Bible come true?  And the answer lies inside each one of us.  If we set aside our differences, if we accept our oneness, if we see each other as members of the same body, as brothers and sisters in the same family, then we can say with Jesus, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”  It will be true only when it comes in your life and mine.

This idea puts our Biblical truth in a totally different perspective.  It is not so much a creed to be accepted as it is a task to be accomplished.  Our Lord could say, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled,” because He was fulfilling it.  He had been out there doing the job.

                Jesus says to us today, “Go and do the same.”  That was the nature of His teaching.  Every element of it must be tested in the laboratory of life.  So, the real question is not and never has been:  Is the Bible true?  Many wonder about that, but the answer will never be found in debate.  A far more important question is:  Can the Bible come true in your life and mine?  The answer rests with you and with me.  I hope we say, yes, and put it into practice in our own lives each day.