Believe It Or Not

Believe It or Not

Bob was a sports columnist who liked to draw. One slow sports day, he submitted a series of cartoon-style drawings of athletes performing strange-but-true feats. Broad-jumping on ice. Spending more than six minutes underwater without a breath. Walking across the continent . . . backward. It was such a hit that it became a regular feature in the New York Globe. Syndication followed in 1929, and several years later “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” made Robert Leroy Ripley the world’s first millionaire cartoonist.

The public’s appetite for the unusual quickly expanded beyond sports. So Ripley traveled the globe in search of odd facts, peculiar people, and curious customs. Even so, a lot of his material found him. Ripley received more than a million letters per year and employed a full-time fact-checker to make sure people weren’t pulling his leg. Here are a few examples that appeared in print:

• A sideshow performer chews and swallows lightbulbs.
• A woman proves she can recite more than two hundred words in just twenty-four seconds.
• A marshal wins a duel with an outlaw by shooting a bullet into the muzzle of the bandit’s gun.

In time, Ripley created radio and television shows, produced short films, published books, and opened museums called “Odditoriums.” All of this from a man who sold his first drawing to LIFE magazine at the age of fourteen.

The Bible is full of “believe it or not” moments. But unlike a one-legged tightrope walker or the lady with 1,903 body piercings, the miraculous events recorded in Scripture do more than amaze or amuse us. They reinforce our faith (see John 20:30-31). From the parting of the Red Sea to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, they give us confidence that God is holy, powerful, gracious, and sufficient to meet our every need . . . in this life and the next.

Daddy-Daughter Time

Can you think of three miracles recorded in Scripture that really impress you? The apostle John said a lot of other cool things happened, but only a few were written down (see John 20:30-31). Write some down now that you have read about in the Bible or heard about in sermons. Then compare notes and discuss your choices, including what each incredible event reveals about God’s character.

Visit your local library to see if it has any of Ripley’s volumes of strange facts, which continue to be published today.

What’s The Word?

The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs in addition to the ones recorded in this book. But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name.   John 20:30-31