One of the easiest "discrepancies" to discover relates to Jesus' miracle event at Gadara in Matthew 8, Mark 5, and Luke 8. Matthew says there were two men healed, Mark and Luke weigh in with it only being one.

A cynic would look at that as proof of the error of Scripture. I'd see it as the allowance of God for flawed humans to be involved in the transmission of the message (as we've discussed under the heading of "The Bible" in this section.)

By the way, that's not an insurmountable problem at all. Neither Mark nor Luke were there for the event and were passing on a story that they'd heard second or third hand. Matthew was an eyewitness that day and it would seem logical to accept Matthew had a better view of the event.

Still, there are problems. You and I can't resolve everything as easily as Mark and Luke v. Matthew.

This is where I step into the realm of faith and mystery.

There will be things I just flat can't explain. As a mortal, I probably need that or else I start to believe myself to be God.

The overwhelming weight of evidence for the truth of the Bible far exceeds the minor challenges for its possible glitches. As frustrating as these areas are they certainly do force me to determine if I'm going to hitch my wagon to faith or whether I'm going to choose to elevate the status of doubt.

For myself I choose faith. I choose to allow God to be bigger than a little deity that I can manage and I can always explain. I choose to accept that Jesus knew what He was talking about when He drew Thomas from skepticism in John 20- "Blessed is He who has not seen (or can't control or can't explain everything) and yet believes."

Mystery, my friend, is an integral part of allowing God to be God.