An Alabama pastor who went viral for comparing biblical stories to Aesop’s fables ended up showing how little she knows about some of the supposed biblical “contradictions” she raised in her sermon.
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Katie Gilbert, executive pastor at First Church Birmingham, delivered a sermon Aug. 2 titled “I Love You, Bible — Just Not ‘That’ Way.” In it, Gilbert argued that the Bible contains contradictions and historical inaccuracies and suggested that some biblical narratives can be understood like Aesop’s fables, stories intended to convey truth without necessarily recounting factual events. Clips of the sermon began circulating widely in late August.
First Church’s website says the sermon launched a five-week series called “Curveball,” guided by theologian Peter Enns’s book of the same name. Among the questions the church explicitly says the series will consider is: “What are we to do with contradictions in scripture?”
Gilbert pointed to Proverbs 26:4–5: “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.”
That’s an extremely weak example: Those sayings were deliberately placed beside each other. The point of wisdom literature is that wisdom requires knowing which principle applies in a particular circumstance. Sometimes arguing with a fool merely makes you another fool. Sometimes failing to answer him allows him to remain “wise in his own conceit.”
Gilbert also cited Deuteronomy 23:1, which excludes eunuchs from “the assembly of the LORD,” and contrasted it with Philip’s baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8.
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But between Deuteronomy and Acts comes Isaiah 56, where God specifically promises faithful eunuchs a place within his house and “an everlasting name.” The Bible itself announces the coming change.
Commands given to ancient Israel under the Mosaic covenant need not constitute identical instructions to Christians. Likewise, poetry is not history, proverbs are not universal statutes, and apocalyptic imagery is not journalism. Recognizing literary genre does not require turning biblical history into moral fables.
Gilbert’s approach also raises questions within her own denomination. The United Methodist Church does not demand a fundamentalist reading of every biblical passage, but encourages interpretation using reason, tradition and experience. Yet its official teaching calls Scripture the “primary source and criterion for Christian doctrine” and says the other sources must not displace Scripture’s primacy.
Once Scripture becomes something from which the modern reader decides which portions are factual, which are fable and which reflect mistaken ancient ideas, the question shifts from whether we believe the Bible to whether the Bible agrees with our own preconceptions.
Greg Richter is a career journalist who is the author of The Bee Attitudes: And Other Spiritual Lessons From Everyday Life and editor of Drawing Near: A 30-Day Journey Into the Presence of God.
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