When Fake Alligators Attack
Last year, I wrote a blog post about the Chinese zoo that was painting dogs and trying to pass them off as pandas. Nothing worse than paying good yuan to see FAKE PANDAS.
This week something quite the opposite happened. Maybe the guy who first screamed, “FAKE PANDAS!” in China was now visiting a Philippine Zoo where he screamed “FAKE ALLIGATOR!” Was it him? Maybe. Maybe not. But what we do know is a man at the Kabug Island Mangrove and Wetlands Park in the Philippines saw a great photo-op, so he climbed over the fence to take a selfie with the fake alligator—that turned out to be not-so-fake. Maybe he should’ve asked the gator for permission first, but the not-so-fake alligator bit his right arm and held him in that grip. The don’t-take-a selfie-with-me alligator then dragged him into the shallow water, rolled over, and twisted his arm even further. The man is fine after receiving fifty stitches, but the alligator probably has a nice headache after the zookeeper hit her in the head with concrete to get her to open her mouth. [Source]
I just want to know if he got a good selfie.
We live in a culture that screams truth is what you make it.
- That may be true for you, but this is what I believe …
- My birth certificate says I’m a boy, but I’m really a woman on the inside (or a cat … or a Philippine alligator).
- I don’t believe the Bible. It goes against what I believe.
- Whatever you believe is OK, so long as it works for you.
Friends, just because you believe it’s true doesn’t make it true. Just ask that one guy in the Philippines taking a selfie of his fifty stitches. Believing that alligator was fake didn’t make it any less real. He’s got bite marks to remind him to double-check his beliefs and verify what’s true.
How do we know what’s true—and what’s not? Truth is what conforms to reality. In my fascination with and reading of other philosophies and world religions, I keep coming back to this one reality: A biblical worldview is the only that conforms to truth, the way the world really works. A biblical worldview is the only one that explains why we humans act the way we do. A biblical worldview is the only one that reveals a God who is consistent with what we know of the universe.
Therefore, I read the Bible—and I keep reading the Bible. I have found it to be the only reliable source. The Bible doesn’t answer all my questions, but it tells me everything I need to know. In 50+ years of reading the Bible, I still have questions about it, but what I do know from it fills me with a trust in the God who is behind it—including the parts I don’t fully understand.
And in the truth of God’s Word, I have found the ultimate truth: Jesus. He is The Truth.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
I trust Jesus, and I read His Word. That’s all I need. And that’s the truth.
“If you continue in my word, you really are my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).
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