For the first 15 years of my life, I thought of the Bible as bizarre, and I thought of Jesus as existing in the same realm as the tooth fairy and Santa Claus. God did amazing work in my life to show me how true the Bible is, but my old self lingers on. I find it particularly hard to make sense of the cultural foreignness of the Old Testament.

I have been reading through Genesis with my nine-year-old daughter for the past couple of months, and it's been a lesson in humility. I come to Genesis with all of the questions of my old life: did the flood really happen? Did Abraham and Isaac really pass their wives off as their sisters, or did people just get the story confused and tell it twice? (I would have been a good liberal.) So it fascinates me the kinds of questions Anna chooses to ask.

Take the other night for example: we were reading Genesis 32 where Jacob wrestles with God. I had all sorts of questions: why did Jacob send his whole family across the river, but camp alone for the night (vv. 23-24)? How did Jacob know it was God (v. 30 )? Why couldn't God prevail against him (v. 25)? And so, when I read the passage and noticed Anna looking a little quizzical, I thought was ready for her questions.

Then she said, “Dad, I reckon that that might be the only verse in the Bible that is wrong”.

Yep, now I was confused too. “Which verse?” I said

“Well, that verse says, ‘to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket’. Do you reckon that no Jewish person ever has eaten that? If they have, then that verse is wrong.”

This resulted in a great conversation about how we use language and generalizations, among other things. But it also left me with a number of thoughts:

• I noticed that I expect Anna to have my problems with the Bible, but she doesn't. And she doesn't because she has had a different history to me.
• It made me wonder if I ever impose my particular problems on others when I read the Bible with them or preach to them.
• I was struck by Anna's profound trust in God's word: “That might be the only verse in the Bible that is wrong” is a great expression of trust. At first I thought of it as youthful naivety; I'm sure she'll have bigger questions as she grows. But on reflection, I think her acceptance of the word of God is what is mature, and my scepticism is a result of my pride and sinfulness.
• I hope that she grows up to think deeply and intelligently about God's word. But I also hope she doesn't have to fight the demons that I do. She won't be closer to the truth because she takes to heart the opinions of the world over the truth of God's word.

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