About Me
I am not a pastor, preacher, minister, counselor or biblical scholar.
I am just one person trying to find my way to knowing God more completely through the study of Scripture.
I hope you find Book of Big Questions helpful in your own personal exploration of the Bible.
- Jerome Michael McLaughlin
"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."
- 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV)
WHAT IS MY BACKGROUND?
I was baptized and raised Catholic. As a family, it's what we were—cousins, friends, neighbors. Everyone I knew was Catholic.
I went to Catholic schools. Attended Catholic mass. And never thought twice about it.
The whole Catholic thing, however, never settled in upon me. The rituals, the demands, the costumes, and the pageantry felt like a dispassionate play. The faithful held all of it in the highest regard. But behind it all, something seemed to be missing, or hiding.
Growing up, I remember a Bible in our house. But I couldn't tell you where it was. We opened the World Book Encyclopedia a thousand times more often than the Bible.
Besides, there was no need to study the Bible. Our learned Catholic leaders from the pope down to our local pastor would willingly tell us what it all meant and everything we needed to do to "get to heaven."
And yet, all the priests, brothers, and nuns I ever met were rather cold and standoffish. None ever took any time to ask me… what do you know about Jesus Christ?
HOW DID IT BEGIN?
According to the Bible, every journey to know and love God begins with a calling. God simply makes Himself known.
"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them."
- John 6:44 (NIV)
This calling will most likely not be a bolt of lightning or a visitation from a radiant angel. Probably something more like a recurring urge. A still small voice. Something that cannot be denied.
Mine began with a nagging inquiry into the hereafter — "What is eternity?"
I couldn't get myself to fully grasp the enormity. The finality of it.
You may say there is nothing beyond this life. And if that is your position, that too is a form of faith.
For me, there is MORE. Much, much more.
WHY DID IT BEGIN?
I came to realize something in my life was not quite right. Not wrong, just not right. It wasn't spiritual desolation or even an existential angst. I just felt,...without.
I knew a change was needed. But I didn't know where to turn.
I remember looking at the Bible and thinking:
"Not that monster — 1,000 pages with size 4 font on whisper-thin paper written thousands of years ago by ancients who couldn't possibly understand the world today. No way. Too intimidating."
I told myself: There must be another way.
There wasn't. And there still isn't.
And so, on a bright sunny winter day in Texas I vowed to rise each morning at 4:30 a.m., read the Bible, journal, meditate, and pray.
I didn't have a plan or target date of completion. I just committed myself to opening the book every morning and reading a tiny bit, or a lot, or just a single verse. It didn't matter.
That morning was not so much an epiphany as it was an unspoken understanding of what must be done.
I opened the King James Bible to Genesis 1…
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep."
- Genesis 1:1–2 (KJV)
Like God Himself, God's book is not inaccessible or unknowable. It simply requires patience, perseverance, openness, humility, and a soft heart open to receive what is being revealed.
So beautiful. So poetic. So epic and yet so extraordinarily complex and profound that it nearly escapes our capacity for understanding. The Bible contains the only Truth I have found.