If I haven’t mentioned it lately let me be clear in stating that all my grandchildren (including Miles Stephen Ford, number 12, who arrives February) are geniuses! Now, I don’t mean that in the typical bragging grandfatherly way… they ARE bonnie lads and lasses of copious cleverness and insatiable acumen that would leave Solomon scratching his head. Let me illustrate with a recent snippet from a facebook entry by Leah. “Payden says to Mary (I assume a playmate), ‘My sister was born in the city. I was born in Oregon, in a treehouse.’” O, did I mention that my estimation of genius is the ability to bring creative insights to the mundane and common everydayness of life? Payden decided to embellish and bring hints of legend into his humble Oregonian birthday arrival. I was there and though shooed out of the room as the time drew nigh I’m pretty sure that it was a hospital room and not a treehouse… but man O man would it have been cool if it was! And hey, it’s not like they don’t have a lot trees in Oregon –now is it?
Some wonder as they read through the Bible if some of the stories have not been embellished a little here and a little there. Others would be quick to say if the Bible says it then it happened just that way for all Scripture is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16). And then others might interject that we have four gospels because there is more than one way to view or tell the story. And then again there a cynics that out right reject the stories because of seeming contradictions in the Bible. And if you want to add another layer to the pie you have biblical scholars who maintain that Scripture is a conglomerate of editors, redactors and scribal mishaps that have given local color and cultural shaping to the text. And therefore, you might have a couple births in a treehouse that didn’t actually happen that way!
Well, just as I think my grandkids are genius so too I think Scripture is God-breathed and rings with glorious clarity that it is Holy Spirit moved and God orchestrated genius. And so I believe that if the story has been retold with a treehouse view that God intended it to be so. The Bible is not a static lifeless newspaper account of events that chronicle history. It is the living active sharper than a two-edged sword telling of faith in action that penetrates our imaginations to draw us closer to our Creator and Sustainer! It’s insight into possibility and ultimate probability of a God shaped world because after all there are a lot trees in Oregon! -DAN
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