Biblical Creation and Evangelism

For centuries, people took the Bible as written. This includes a literal six-day recent creation. For some reason, many decided to give secular science views preeminence over Scripture. Some rejected the Bible outright, others had a pretense of belief with a modified view. Something I cannot understand is why such people essentially tell God what he says and means about creation week. Do they prefer the applause of atheists for their compromises on recent creation? Some are essentially Deists, adding not only billions of years, but evolution to their pusillanimous religion. Ten Commandments section of Bible image, Unsplash  Tim Wildsmith (modified) To be blunt, sometimes when professing Christians are particularly enamored with a faulty belief, they reason like atheists. F'rinstance, the Hebrew word yom  does not always mean a literal day. Although it is used with what I call qualifiers in creation week that clearly indicate that those are literal days, some folks find when the wo

People get a mite confused about the Word. The word Word has several meanings, whether in English or usage in the Bible — you have my word on that. Christians refer to the Bible as the Word of God, and Jesus is also identified in the same way. Sometimes it helps to add written  Word when referring to the Bible. What was the apostle doing in John 1:1? Was he assigning a new title to Jesus? After all, we know that Jesus is the Creator (John 1:3, Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 1;8), and in Genesis, God spoke words when creating. Some of us simply accept it that Jesus is the Word, but there are reasons. John 1, Unsplash / Anthony Garand John affirmed that Jesus is God and the Creator, and it turns out that Scripture refers to the Word as a person in other ways, and he is part of the Trinity. All this links back to Genesis. To determine these things requires knowledge of the original languages, and help can be found by consulting some ancient writings. We don't need to do all that, thankfully

Genesis 1:6-8 has caused controversy for a mighty long time, and God is under no obligation to give us a full explanation for everything he says. We try to figure out things with science and theology. Sometimes we are successful, and other times debates continue. Let me say again that models and hypotheses come and go, but biblical creationists hold to the Word of God above all else — as it should be. People often have to delve into the original languages and the contexts of biblical passages. Some sections are very difficult to translate correctly, such as in this subject. ESA / Hubble & NASA, Sarajedini et al (Usage does not imply endorsement of site content) Creation scientists, like secular scientists, debate models and such. F'rinstance, the water vapor canopy over the earth was popular for a few years but was mostly abandoned because of both scientific and theological considerations. It doesn't help that some people believe that Genesis teaches Earth has a solid dom

When dealing with professing atheists and other religious groups, we expect them to take passages of the Bible out of context. These things can often be refuted quickly by examining the larger context. Sometimes it may require digging into the contexts of history, culture, language, and so on, but not always. (Indeed, most alleged contradictions in the Bible that were refuted by Veritas Domain were based on context tampering.) Some atheists object to our pointing out how they take things out of context, but it happens a great deal. Genesis and reading glasses, FreeDigitalPhotos / Janaka Dharmasena Christians tamper with the context as well. Those who actually believe the Bible probably do not do this intentionally, but it can easily happen. Especially when someone is teaching and mislead his hearers. (James 3:1 has a warning for teachers of God's Word — I reckon those who use bad hermeneutics make the Bible about us are in big trouble.) We should ride up on the hill for the bigger

As regular readers have noticed, the Christian worldview makes sense of what is seen in the world. Logic, science, mathematics, and other necessary but intangible things are impossible without God. It is often easy to dismantle spurious arguments from professing atheists, but Christians are called to a higher standard . Deluge (II) by Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis, 1904 A professing Christian decided to slap leather with Dr. Jason Lisle regarding the lengths of the days before the Genesis Flood and why days are longer now. It did not go well. The challenger acted like an atheist in several ways by using logical fallacies, uninformed conjectures, exceeding what was written in the Bible — and lying. Dr. Lisle corrected him with Scripture, reason, and mathematics. This guy, like atheists, seemed to resent being kept on topic. We here examine some assertions made by Troy, a young earth creationist who has made some very unorthodox claims about conditions before the Genesis flood.  He

Some opponents of biblical authority tamper with the words so they can change the meanings, or even impugn the character of God. Something that cannot be emphasized enough is context . Theistic evolutionists are known for manipulating context for their own ends. Credit: Pixnio / Luis del Rio There is an old joke that, although oversimplifying, makes a point. A man wanted to hear from God about a problem in his life, so he opened the Bible at random, plunked down his finger, and read that Judas went and hanged himself. Well, that was unhelpful. He tried again and found where Jesus said to go and do likewise. This was getting annoying. His third attempt gave him where Jesus told Judas to go and quickly do what he was going to do. The man realized he was using the Bible the wrong way. Context takes several forms, including the chapter and even the whole of Scripture. Sometimes people need to drill down into the original languages to understand context more fully. Some owlhoots riding for

Some people try to dismiss Genesis as myth containing spiritual truth using elements from the pagan neighbors of the Hebrews. Others say it is misunderstood, as if the Creator of the universe was unable to communicate with us. With closer inspection, we see that Genesis is a historical narrative. Credit: RGBStock /  Billy Frank Alexander The idea that the early chapters of Genesis are mythological should not be accepted by professing Christians, as there are serious problems that result. (One of these is that Jesus, Peter, Paul, and others referred to these chapters as literal history, so by denying this, one is calling them liars!) Also, there are repercussions with the gospel message. Read some classical mythology, then come back to Genesis and see the difference. Myths are vague and have a different flow, but the Bible is precise. Indeed, even the sequence of creation days is specific — a day itself is defined. Interestingly, many translations have in Genesis 1:5 less accurate by us

If you study on it, languages can be tricky things. Using the wrong word, or using the right word but being misunderstood, can cause a passel of confusion. Translating a language is challenging enough, but factor in different cultures from long ago and the situation becomes rather intricate. Mostly made at Pablo The English language has, I believed, devolved over the years. (Read some of the classic literature from the 18th and 19th centuries and you'll see that the eloquent prose from days gone by stands in stark contrast to much of what is available today.) This may be the case for other languages. Most of the New Testament is translated from Koine Greek , which was very precise. While I can say that I love my wife or love good food, the word love  is the same but with different meanings. Koine Greek had four words to describe love. Digging deeper, wording made a great difference. Sorry I can't find something to back this up (maybe someone can add a comment), but I heard a ta

People have trouble accepting the literal creation week of 24-hour days, mainly because they have been heavily influenced by secular science philosophies. Some have legitimate questions about the irreconcilable difference, others look for excuses to shoehorn creation into deep time. I took this picture of a nice flower bush while walking down the street Someone had an interesting question about whether or not the days in creation week were variable. Part of them were actual 24-hour days, but the first three may have been much, much longer. Context, people!  This idea would not work, causing more problems than it would appear to solve when considering other parts of the Bible and science. D.J. from the United States writes: I just listened to the creation video discussing the word day. I can understand the context argument if we add that God created the earth with age, much like the creation of Adam. But, you can’t simply add that day mean 24 hours given the fact that the su

Biblical creationists and other professing Christians freely admit that the Bible is not a science book. That is a good thing, because it would have to be constantly rewritten — especially regarding origins . There are people who wonder how we should handle the first eleven chapters of Genesis and hot it relates to science. Credit: RGBStock /  Billy Frank Alexander Some folks wonder if the first part of Genesis is poetry, a polemic, or something else. The Bible is history, and this fact has been verified many times. It also records miraculous events, which puts burrs under the saddles of materialists. God does not tell us how he did many things, but we trust God not only for the miracles of history, but Christians trust God for our salvation, the return of Jesus, and the restoration at the end of all things. Science does not warrant a superior position over God's Word even though it is a useful tool.  A letter to CMI asks, As someone who takes by faith that God created t

There are many biblical scholars that I have heard and read (including Dr. James R. White, who can translate an ancient manuscript from the Greek on the spot). They never mentioned the Law (or Principle) of First Mention, so I was surprised to learn that this concept is a problem for hermeneutics and proper interpretation. The Bible , George Harvey, 1845 I was also startled to learn that some educated biblical creationists actually use this Law of First Mention. Essentially, it means that the meaning of a word is determined by where it first appears in the Bible. That may appear sensible at first, but there are some things to consider.  First of all, an argument for First Mention may appear more believable if people were reading from the original languages instead of translations. Another problem with the concept would be that the books of the Bible are not laid out chronologically — Job is considered to be the oldest book, Mark is considered to be the earliest Gospel, and John

There are times when we need to ride up to yonder hill and get the view from up there. That is, a broad view or big picture. Biblical creationists maintain (with a little help from Occam) that the basic approach is true: Genesis is written as history. Some owlhoots read all sorts of things into the text in order to work in long ages and evolution. Creation of the World III , Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis, 1906 I have long wondered why some professing Christians insist on compromising with atheistic, ever-changing whims of man-made science philosophies. It is also an inconsistent message to say that we believe the Bible is true from cover to cover except  the early chapters of Genesis. Those, we have to interpret according to man's wisdom. Oh, please!  So when do we start believing the Bible, and when do we stop? Can we trust John 3:16-17, or is that just allegory? By the way, even if the first few verses of Genesis were allegorical, that does not mean they are untrue and

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen The first eleven chapters of Genesis are the most attacked section of the Bible (and with increasing intensity nowadays), and were understood to be actual history by most Christians throughout church history , until Christians began ceding science to secularists about 150 years ago . There's a good reason for understanding Genesis as written , since Jesus, Peter, Paul, and others referred to Genesis as literal history as well. Still, riders on the Old Earth Owlhoot Trail want to force in millions of years by way of the latest trends in man-made science philosophies, and tell God what he said and meant instead of taking the natural reading of Genesis. Naturally, atheists support them. The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise , Benjamin West , 1791 One area of compromise came from Scottish preacher Thomas Chalmers in 1814, who proposed a gap of long ages between the first two verses of Genesis, but the "Gap Theory" simply does not work

— Cowboy Bob Sorensen  This is a partial rant, and may seem disjointed at first. But stay with me, things will fall into place. I've been having a rough time lately ( cue sad song on world's smallest violin ). Although my previous two articles here met with mostly favorable responses (" Hell, Creation and Side Issues " and " Side Issues Part 2 — Information and Discernment "), some antagonistic responses bothered me. Two annihilationists were going after me regarding what I said, dismissing the main points of the articles and inadvertently proving me right: People elevate a pet side issue to primary importance, and will act in a very unchristian manner (including fallacious thinking and ad hominem attacks) to promote it. I took exception to this treatment, and one of the people said: "...Play the ball and not the man. From my website - I encourage you to check out the video message on the fundamentals of mental and emotional health because you&

— Cowboy Bob Sorensen In Part 1 , I defined theological "side issues" as things that are not essential to salvation, but are varying in importance. Some are extremely important, some not at all, and some are not important but vital in the eyes of adherents. One of my main points was that creation science is a side issue, but it is extremely important because Genesis is the foundation of almost all major Christian doctrines. This article will draw from some of my own experiences (some recent) and observations to emphasize the points I am making. Some people are so focused on their prize nonessentials that they elevate them to supreme importance. Many put aside instruction in sound doctrine, glorify themselves (which sounds to me like, "I am so clever because what I believe is a vitally important truth") and put others down for disagreeing. As I have discussed here before, one of the reasons that I put aside the Christian faith for about fifteen years was becau