The Elephant.

Imagine that you are on your way tomorrow from school and you pass a circus where you see several blindfolded children climbing all over a huge elephant. One kid is hanging onto it's tail. A couple have their arms around its legs. One is swinging on it's trunk, and two or three are clutching at the poor things ears. You get a little closer and discover that they are have an argument over what it is that they are holding onto.

The one on the tail says, 'It's a stringy rope.'

The one around the legs says, 'No, it's a tree stump.'

Another one around is trunk says, 'No way, it's a fire hose.'

And the one clutching the ears says, 'No, it's definately a palm leaf.'

The children hear you walking past and ask for your opinion. There are three ways you could answer this.

1. You could say, 'No comment, I steer clear of these sorts of debates.'

2. You could say, 'Well actually, you are all right in your own way.'

3. Or you could say, 'You are all wrong. None of you has the full picture.'

This elephant story illustrates the ways many of us think about the different religions in the world.

When faced with the different religions that people follow we can offer three responses.

1. We could ignore the issue; not being bothered to think about the question at hand.

2. Accept EVERY possibility: We could say, 'Well actually, you are all right in your own way.' This is illogical. If Jesus says 'I am the way the truth and the life' (John 14:6), then he's saying that Buddha is not. There cannot be many ways to get to God, because God says that there's not.

Buddha says that you get reincarnated, but God says there's heaven and hell. They both can't be right!

3. Reject EVERY possibility: We could say, 'Well actually no one is right.' What then becomes our purpose in life. There's got to be more than being born and living until we die. This goes against the grain of human emotion.

The thing about Christianity is that we have been shown the full picture. We can sit back and 'see the elephant.' The Bible explains clearly how to get to God and the more you look at it and study it, the more history backs it up.

What do you think? Do you think this is a good illustration? Do you agree with it?

(Incidentally, I didn't think this myself - thanks to John Dickson, A Sneaking Suspicion).

Mansfield