72 Structural Damage
A very large earthquake hit the Midwest, rocking everyone in a small town. Jared was driving home from work when the earthquake occurred. He pulled his car to the side of the road immediately when the earthquake first hit and slowly pulled out and fearfully drove home a few minutes after the shaking ended.
Jared drove to his neighborhood and got out of the car and joined his neighbors who were in the middle of the street looking surveying the damage around them. To Jared's dismay, his house seemed badly damaged on the outside. Most of the other neighbor's houses sustained some damage also, except for the house belonging to Jared's next-door neighbor Jim, which seemed perfectly fine.
As the neighbors were commenting about how good Jim's house looked, Jim's house suddenly collapsed into a heap. Jared and his neighbors all gasped in shock and astonishment. Jim ran to his house and fell before it in disbelief. Jared and the rest of his neighbors ran over to try to comfort Jim and keep him from trying to dig through the ruins of his house.
A few days Jared learned from a construction worker who came to Jared's town as a part of a relief effort why Jim's house collapsed and Jared's house did not. He told Jared that the pillars in his house held, even though his house seemed badly damaged on the other side. However, the pillars in Jim's house cracked during the earthquake, which caused his house to collapse even though it initially seemed fine on the outside.
"Don't be deceived by outside appearances," the construction worker told Jared. "It's the foundation that matters the most."
We should believe that the Bible is the Word of God and everything in it is true. The book of Genesis (including the first 11 chapters) is literal and should not be interpreted figuratively as some people have suggested. The book of Genesis is the foundation upon which the Gospel and the Bible stand upon!
- Recommended reading: Genesis chapters 1-11, Romans 5:14, 1 Corinthians 15:22
