It’s Not a Miracle When Fire Destroys a Church but Spares the Bibles Inside

On Sunday morning, Freedom Ministries Church in West Virginia caught on fire. No one was hurt, but the cause of the fire is still unknown.

The news stories about the incident, however, are all about what firefighters found in the rubble:

Firefighters said as they were going through the wreckage, they noticed not a single Bible was burned and the church’s cross was untouched.

Christ… it’s likely the Bibles were so bulky that they were only charred on the outside while the insides remained untouched, or maybe the heavy protective covers shielded the pages, or maybe they weren’t directly in the path of the flames. Whatever the reason, it never seems to cross the mind of people sharing these articles that the same God who protected the books still burned down the entire church.

Somehow, it’s a miracle that the Bible and cross were spared… as long as you ignore how the fire destroyed the actual building. (It brings to mind the infamous rhetorical question, “Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?”)

None of this is a miracle. None of this is special. None of this is God sending a message. If anything, God would’ve done the church members a favor by destroying the books and cross and keeping the building intact. At least the first two things are easily replaced.

It’s one thing to point to God’s “mysterious ways,” but this is just willful ignorance.

(Thanks to Wanda for the link)