Fire Department Amazed After Bibles Survive Horrific Church Blaze: 'Everything Should Be Burned'
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
It is often in the midst of devastation and destruction, people look for a message of solace and strength.
That message shone through the ashes after firefighters responded to a major blaze at the Freedom Ministries Church in Grandview, West Virginia, located roughly 75 miles southeast of Charleston, in March 2019, according to WPBF-TV.
“We rushed out there,” said the Rev. Phil Farrington, the church’s pastor, according to The Washington Post. “I sat down on the ground and cried and watched it burn.”
The Coal City Fire Department posted on its Facebook page about what it found once the fire died down.
“On March 3 around 12:58am our department was dispatched to assist Beaver VFD with a structure fire at the Freedom Ministries Church, located in Grandview WV,” the post read.
“Though odds were against us, God was not.”
“Picture this, a building so hot that at one point in time, firefighters had to back out. In your mind, everything should be burned, ashes,” the post read.
“Not a single bible was burned and not a single cross was harmed!! Not a single firefighter was hurt!”
Bibles, cross survive fire that destroys WV church: https://t.co/aNyuCxh2mX pic.twitter.com/Ru3a0XYQXG
— David Nelson (@DavidNelsonNews) March 4, 2019
“Prayers for the pastor and the congregation today,” the post concluded.
Farrington added that not only did the Bibles survive, but so did two wooden crosses inside the church and a stone one on the roof.
“In the midst of the fire, God’s word will always stand,” he said.
Farrington said the Bibles were displayed that evening when the congregation gathered in the church’s nearby youth building, which was not damaged.
“There have been tears,” he said, “tons of tears.”
And despite the loss, he said the story of Bibles that survived a conflagration — as spread by social media — is “touching lives.”
“I think it’s amazing that it’s been able to reach people,” he said, “and to see how many people are being touched by it.”
Melinda Bouma, vice president and publisher of Zondervan Bible Group, said Bibles are as flammable as anything else made of paper.
Bouma said her first thought when she heard of the blaze was: Isaiah 40:8. It says, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”
She said when she heard of the story of the Bibles surviving, she was touched.
“It burned down, and nothing really survived, but the word of our Lord survived. It gave me goosebumps,” she said.
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