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Showing posts from December, 2016

Reasons to be a Biblical Creationist

I reckon the most common term to refer to those of us who believe that the Bible means what it says, and that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are presented as actual history, is young-earth creationists.  It is accurate to some extent, but it implies a skewed priority. We don't believe Earth is young and then plug into the Bible. Rather, we believe that Earth is young because the Bible teaches that. I'll allow that the abbreviation YEC is convenient, but I've learned that the more accurate term is  biblical creationists. Image credit: Freeimages /  Flavio Takemoto When professing Christians add "deep time" to the Bible, they immediately begin to use eisegesis instead of exegesis .  Scripture is not up for personal opinions or forcing in trends in atheistic science interpretations, old son. God said what he meant. When someone begins compromising to make the Bible more palatable to our science-loving culture, that person actually does violence to the tex

The Mysterious Magi

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen It's kind of sad that the manger scenes we have are wrong. Well, not exactly wrong, just...not exactly accurate. I had one of those barn things with figurines and three plastic wise men on camels. When I learned that the magi were not there to see the birth of Jesus and arrived much later (possibly even two years later), I put the figurines away from the manger scene and said, "They're on their way". Kind of difficult to include them in a Christmas celebration if you're going to be a stickler for historical accuracy, but that's just me. Adoration Of The Magi , Sandro Botticelli, 1500 We know the song about the "three kings of orient are", but who were they, really? There are a passel of traditions and opinions about them. The only reference we have to the magi (wise men) is in Matthew 2:1-12, but we can't justify the tradition of three  wise men on camels. Three gifts  are mentioned, but no camels (although that&

Yes, the Old Testament Matters

When someone has just given his or her life to Jesus Christ, one of the first things that the evangelist does is give them a New Testament with the recommendation of reading one of the Gospels. Then, keep going and get acquainted with other books in that volume. By all means, that's an excellent start. Image credit: Freeimages / John Harris Pe Unfortunately, some people stop there. Worse, some people are "Red-Letter Christians", who believe the red letter versions where the words of Jesus are in red, and only read those. The entire Bible is the written Word of God. To gain a fuller understanding of the work of Christ the Creator, we need the Old Testament, which points to him. It is common today for pastors/ministers to focus mainly on the New Testament in their preaching and ministry while hardly citing the Old Testament. Even worse are superficial slogans such as ‘This is a New Testament church’ or ‘Just preach Jesus’. Some of this can be due to either uneasi

Unicorns in the Bible?

When people hear the word unicorn, they typically think of the mythical magical horse with a horn on its head. I'll allow that it's a reasonable assumption, since we only hear about the beasties in fantasy stories. So why did the King James Version of the Bible use the word unicorn? Monoceros, Canis Minor, and Atelier Typographique  by Sidney Hall, 1825 Let's look at Numbers 23:22 KJV, one of several uses of unicorn. John Wycliffe and associates in the late 1300s rendered this verse, "The Lord God ledde hym out of Egipt, whos strengthe is lijk an vnicorn". The Coverdale Bible of 1535 rendered it, "God hath brought the out of Egipte, his stregth is as of an Vnicorne". In 1587, the Geneva Bible translated this verse as, "God brought them out of Egypt: their strength is as an vnicorne". Several Bibles before the KJV, including non-English translations such as Martin Luther's version, also used unicorn. Many modern versions translate We

Was Adam Real or an Archetype?

Liberal theologians and theistic evolutionists attempt to say that Adam was not a literal person, but an archetype (or "protoplast"). The Bible does indeed use "type and shadow" imagery with real people (such as Joseph as a type of Christ ), but that does not excuse saying that Adam was not real. Adam and Eve expelled from Eden / Paul Gustave Doré, 1866 Saying that Adam was not real is essentially saying that Jesus, Peter, Paul, and many others in the Bible were wrong or even lying. The motive behind this is to reject the authority and inerrancy of Scripture, and elevates man's opinion above God's Word. Some people compromise with evolutionary ideas without thinking it through, but it leads to further serious compromises all the way through the Bible. There are some old Earth creationists as well as theistic evolutionists who falsely say that the Church Fathers rejected a literal Adam, or that the a ncients did not understand science, so they tol