Category Archives: creation

Review – A Matter of Days – Chapter 1

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Flash Point

Ch1

In his first chapter, Dr. Ross describes a few encounters with biblical creationists where Dr. Ross felt insulted and identified with derogatory names. I have to agree with Dr. Ross in this area that Christians should not use derogatory names to define those with whom we disagree. As thinking Christians, we should instead be able to identify the specific areas of disagreement and then go to our authority (the Bible) to correct those Christians, who are in error. This is the primary purpose for this book review.

Some might point to my blog post from 9/8/17 where I referred to the disciples of Dr. Ross as Rossians and accuse me of being hypocritical for having written the above sentence. But in the same way that those who follow the teachings of John Calvin are called Calvinists, and those who uphold the teachings of Martin Luther are referred to as Lutherans, so it is not unfair to name the disciples of Ross’s teachings as Rossians. It is not a pejorative but simply a collective description of the ideals that his particular brand of old earthism espouses. 

In the same vein, but from the flipside, have not the old-earthers referred to biblical creationists as “science-deniers”, “knuckle-draggers”, and “ignorant morons”? Criticizing those with whom one disagrees using pejoratives rather than reasoned arguments based on God’s Word is unhealthy and against Jesus’ command for Christians to love one another. We can all do better by thinking critically rather than letting emotions lead.

On page 14 Dr. Ross says

I was overjoyed to meet many Christians, even fellow scientists, who were convinced that the Bible is completely true.

Again, I agree with Dr. Ross that the Bible is completely true. So, why do Dr. Ross and I disagree so strongly about the age of the earth when we both believe the Bible to be completely true? Because to accommodate his old earth assumptions, he must re-interpret many words and passages. We will get into many more of the specifics as this book review continues, but the following chart is a very brief summary of the re-definitions of words that allows Ross to say “I believe all of the Bible” but still hold onto his old-earthism.

RossReDefinitions

There are also several other groups who have claimed to believe the Bible to be completely true, but all the while holding onto grievous theological errors.

This is not to say that Dr. Ross is a heretic, but just because he claims to believe the whole Bible does not exempt him from poor exegesis and serious error.

On p14, Ross says

The solidity if the scientific evidence for both Earth’s origin (a few billion years ago) and the universe’s beginning (a few more billion years ago…

Three things with this comment:

  1. Before the sun/earth (as Ross would say) coalesced from dense clouds about 5 billion (MOYBOY) years ago:, what is a year? How do you calibrate a year before the “timepieces” that define a year cosmically evolve? And how do you estimate billions of those time units?
  2. He has conflated ‘interpretations of observations’ for ‘scientific evidence.’ We find this particular conflation throughout the book – including in the next page when he says “Evangelical leaders who believe the Bible is true and that the universe and Earth are as old as the stars and rocks…” We find this particular conflation throughout the book. Interpretations of observations ≠ evidence
  3. What he has attempted to prove in his book (that the Bible teaches a very old universe) he has simply assumed to be true. This is the fallacy of assuming the consequent or circular reasoning.

Later on p15 he says “Now the hurricane of controversy whirls around a peripheral point – the age of the universe and the Earth.”

If it is a peripheral point and he is dismissive of the reasons it is a controversy, why then did Dr. Ross write a 389 page book about it? The age of the earth, in and of itself may be a peripheral issue, but the way that a Christian comes to the conclusion of the age of the earth is not. The age of the earth is a question of authority and biblical interpretation. Does God’s eternal Word have authority over modern academic paradigms, culture, political, and historical jurisdictions or can those disciplines bring force over the interpretation of the Bible?

Biblical thinking rejects those other disciplines as having authority over God’s Word, but we see over and over that Ross allows modern academic paradigms to re-interpret the eternal Word of God. It is called eisegesis, and Ross appears to be an Eisegesis-ninja

On p17 Ross uses the strawman fallacy to construct an easily defeatable caricature of biblical creationists, so that he can mock it

These comments expose the widely held assumption that all evangelical Christians reject the integrity of science and accept young-earth creationism.

Biblical creationists do NOT reject the integrity of science. Biblical creationists reject the old earth assumptions that precede evaluation of evidence, which result in old earth conclusions. Science has integrity because the Bible is true. For science to work, there must be pre-conditions of intelligibility that are immutable, abstract, and absolute. Some of these pre-conditions are laws of logic, math, truth, morality, and induction. The God of the scriptures is immutable, transcendent, and absolute, so He is the only sufficient justification for the pre-conditions of intelligibility, thus making science both possible and trustworthy. Since the Bible is true, we know that the Eternal Creator, who knows everything and never lies, has revealed some things, so that we can know them for certain. Part of what He has revealed is the historical creation of the universe.

On p19 Ross makes an interesting claim:

In the past I’ve called this difference between young and old-earth proponents trivial, referring only to mathematical terms. My intent was to indicate that young- and old-earth creationists are mathematically much closer to one another than they are to any form of naturalism. Thus, the controversy seems largely unnecessary.

The main reasons why the controversy is necessary is because:

  1. Ross uses modern academic paradigms to re-interpret scripture. Nothing has authority to interpret scripture but scripture itself.
  2. Ross teaches that death/suffering/destruction/predation/thorns (the very curses for sin) all existed for hundreds of millions of years prior to the sin of mankind. That makes the difference between Rossian beliefs and biblical creationists both necessary and a gospel issue.

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Review – A Matter of Days – Introduction

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Dr. Ross begins his book by explaining part of the reason for his book:

Debates over the age of the universe and earth and the length of the Genesis creation days have-for the past several decades-deeply divided the evangelical Christian community…This impediment to Christian unity appears to be heightening into a storm of ferocious fury.

He is correct here. He is attempting in his book to provide a rebuttal to those who hold a young earth position, so that the “unity” for which he longs is really the eradication of the ideas of the other side. There is significant division on this point, but he seems not to understand the totality of the division when he writes,

What could generate such tension and divisiveness? One simple word: ‘day’.

While the word day is the catalyst for such division, the totality of the argument is better understood to be ‘biblical interpretation.’ What things can be used to interpret the Bible? How much does context matter when interpreting words? Where there appear to be tensions between the Bible and interpretations of observations, which side of the tug-of-war maintains authority in interpreting the other.
I’ll come back to this point repeatedly since throughout the book Dr. Ross echos that modern interpretations of observations that he calls ‘nature’s record’ and ‘scientific facts’ are authoritative over scripture. Being familiar with his arguments, he calls nature the 67th book of scripture or the “book of nature”. He cites passages like Romans 1:20, which says “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” as confirmation of the book of nature. While I do believe every word of the text, Ross’s interpretation of the passage is that instead of the revelation of God in creation being sufficient for a person’s judgment, that modern paradigms that interpret creation can be used to re-interpret special revelation. However, Genesis 3:17 (God-”Cursed is the ground”), Romans 8:20-21 (“For the creation was subjected to frustration…hope that creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to corruption”) and nature CANNOT have the same authority as God’s special revelation in the Bible.
Proper biblical hermeneutics maintains that only scripture can interpret scripture. When there appears to be tension between the Bible and some competing jurisdiction (scientific paradigm, cultural, political, historical…), SCRIPTURE must be the authority. Competing ‘authorities’ must be submissive to God’s eternal revelation. Throughout the book, Dr. Ross tries to build the case that interpretations of fallen creation can interpret God’s eternal Word.

hermeneutics
Dr. Ross (and other old earthers) takes liberty with the Hebrew word for ‘day’ (yom), which he is able to stretch the meaning from 12 hours to billions of years. With a range that large, where day can essentially mean ANYTHING, does it have meaning at all? Using the same ranges would it be fair to use the word ‘puddle’ for both a body of water that is
8,000,000,000 feet deep and 8,000,000,000 feet in diameter
AND
2 inches deep and 2 inches in diameter?

As the word puddle would lose all meaning if it could describe everything from a splash to a body of water twice the size of the sun, so the word ‘day’ loses all meaning if abnormally forced to include both “all time” and 24 hours.
Having said this, biblical creationists do recognize the Hebrew word (yom) has some flexibility. Like its English counterpart, yom can be daylight hours, 24 hours, or a season of time. But nowhere in scripture does yom have the pliability to accommodate billions of years as Ross suggests. To get this definition, he is forced to bring his outside assumptions into the scriptural text. This process is called eisegesis, and when interpreting the Biblical text, eisegesis is a NO-NO.

UPDATE: Here’s what scientist and apologist Dr. Jason Lisle has to say about the Hebrew word for “day” (yom)

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Book Review: A Matter of Days 2nd Edition by Hugh Ross

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AMOD_Cover

Writing a book is indeed a huge and trying undertaking. Reviewing a book is, by comparison, far easier and is rather painless. So, I will begin my review of A Matter of Days by Dr. Hugh Ross by recognizing the tremendous effort and time that he and his staff put into publishing a high quality book.

For those interested in the topic of biblical creation, theology, origins, science, and biblical interpretation, you will probably appreciate the book. It is 389 pages long including the appendices, notes, index, and biography. It contains 23 chapters.

The overall theme of the book is Dr. Ross building a case for old earthism in contrast to young earth creationism (henceforth to be referred to as biblical creation).

My plan for this review is to take each chapter as a separate blog post and keep track of the entire review in a “table of contents” format for easy navigating. I have purposefully not read any other reviews of this book, so that the contents of this review are entirely of my own reasoning. However, I will link to many outside sources to validate points and allow readers to further investigate points throughout the review. The exception to “other reviews” is part of the analysis of chapter 17. The reason for this is that I am not a practicing professional astrophysicist, and most of that chapter deals with astrophysics. Many of the points Dr. Ross makes in this chapter will need outside resources for proper reviewing.

My hope is that this review drives Christians back to God’s Word to study and grow…so that the believer knows God better and can thus worship Him in spirit and in truth with a fuller understanding of His greatness!

Introduction – Dawn of a New Day

Flash Point – 1

The Gathering Storm – 2

The Clouds Burst – 3

Wisdom of the Ages – 4

The Creedal Climate – 5

Toward Better Interpretations – 6

Anchored in Scripture – 7 Part 1

Anchored in Scripture – 7 Part 2

Guided By Theology – 8

Good God, Cruel World – 9

Peace Through Paradise – 10

Young-Earth Darwinism? – 11

Faith, Morality, and Long Creation Days – 12

Big Bang: The Bible Said It First – 13

Scientific Signs of Old Age – 14

Challenges to an Old Cosmos – 15

The Reliability of Radiometric Dating – 16

The Scientific Case for a Young Cosmos – 17

Physical Reality Breaks Through the Fog – 18

Narrow Time Windows – 19

The Significance of Man – 20

A Clear “Day” Interpretation – 21

Councils Attempt to Bring Calm – 22

Tranquility through Testing – 23

Why Old Earthism Divides

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The debate on the age of the earth has been ongoing for epochs…or at least for 150 years since Charles Lyell worked to “free the science from Moses.” I’ve addressed this particular issue many time before, and while not an issue of salvation, it has great importance for Christians in the area of biblical interpretation. So, while people can still be redeemed and not understand the intricacies of biblical hermeneutics, it is still important for maturing Christians to learn to correctly understand the revelation of God as intended.

hermeneutics

So, if the age of the earth is not an issue of salvation, why does it seem to bring such division? The division comes from how to interpret the Bible. If the Bible is the Word of God, then it should be the epistemic authority. Typically, it is those that are identified as youth earth creationists or biblical creationists that take this view. The Bible is authoritative, and outside sources are subject to what God has revealed. If the Bible is just a collection of loosely-affiliated religious writings then there can be other authorities (culture, scholarly paradigms, other historical documents) that can OVERRULE biblical texts. This is typically how old earth believers tend to view the Bible. They typically say, “We believe the Bible to be true” but then they immediately say, “Genesis needs to be interpreted differently than written because science proves it to be wrong.” See what happens there? They hold interpretations of evidence in authority over scripture, so that the Bible gets re-interpreted when the materialist assumptions of the foundation of the current scholarly paradigm. Below is an example.

Recently, I came across a blog that attempted to build a case that God’s Word can somehow accommodate billions of years and even evolution.

Sadly, this blog post starts out with an equivocation fallacy, and it’s a very common one, so the author, Candice Brown (CB hereafter) is probably just quoting from someone else who uses this particular mantra.

I remained convinced that science and religion were not compatible

The equivocations are that
1) science = old earth or evolution
2) religion = young earth

Bart_Conflate_Science_Evolution

However, science is the systematic study of nature through observation & experiment. So, science is a method, not an entity. Science measures evidence. Evidence is analyzed by people with presuppositions. The combination of presuppositions and science can be used to make conclusions. Someone who has the presupposition that the universe is old will use the tool of science to conclude that the universe is old. How would someone get the assumption that the universe/earth is old? For the last century, all universities have taught that the universe is old because of the work of Lyell, whose stated purpose was to “free the science from Moses”. This quote is a mutiny from the clear teachings of the Bible, which Lyell hated. So, all of today’s professors have been taught that the universe is old. Should someone raise doubts about this, they are figuratively and well as (sometimes) literally expelled from employment and teaching/learning at university.

The forensic scientists at Creation Ministries International, The Institute for Creation Research, and Answers in Genesis understand from God’s revelation in the Bible that God intended for the audience to see his handiwork in history, and the scientific studies seen today confirm this in every respect.

CB continues in her blog post with the idea that the Earth appears to be very old. She’s not wrong. It does look to be thousands of years old. That is a REALLY long time, and the maximum time that can be historically verified. Were the earth to be millions of years old (or older), the mountains would, at the very least, be rounded smooth by wind/water erosion. And if the earth were more than 10 million years old, the continents would have been ground into the sea by wind/water erosion based on current erosion rates.

A common response to the erosion problem by old earthers is “Well, you forget about the concept of continental uplift. As continents collide, the continents are being continually recycled up.” There are reasons that show why this does not help the old earther:

  1. This concept has already been factored into the erosion rates
  2. The fossils are still there. Since the rate of continental erosion limits their age to (at most) 10s of millions of years, then the fossils would have long ago been eroded along with the rest of the sedimentary layers if the recycling of uplift has renewed the continents. Since there are still fossils, the continents are young. Old earthism is falsified.

CB also quotes Reasons To Believe (an old earth organization) saying that humans emerged somewhere around 150,000 years ago. This number is counter to the biblical genealogies in Genesis 5, against the population growth statistics, and against the latest research in genetics, which show an increase in entropy. The latest work in genetics confirms exactly what the Bible revealed in the biblical genealogies that have been repeated in 1 Chronicles 1 and Luke 3. The human genome accumulates hundreds of mutations in each generation that natural selection cannot remove since natural selection works on the phenotype level and not the genetic level. Since humans have not gone extinct, old earthism is falsified.

CB continues with:

In order to dispute this evidence, Christians must make several leaps, such as believing dinosaurs and humans co-existed

The evidence is strongly in favor of humans co-existing with dinosaurs, but most people are unaware of the evidence. The links below are not comprehensive, but provide strong justification for the facts that dinosaurs and humans co-existed in the past.

  1. Dinosaur cave paintings
  2. Brass Dinosaur on Bishop Bell’s tomb
  3. Stegosaurus in Cambodia
  4. While not necessarily man with dinosaur, soft-tissue being found in dinosaur bones falsifies the mantra that the dinosaurs went extinct 65 millions years ago. At most, the bones are only a few thousand years old. The link of this text shows over 100 “ancient” bones that contain soft tissue. Old earthism is falsified again
  5. Historical accounts

MarcoPoloDinosaur

CB goes on to dispute the clear teaching of the days in Genesis to be of the 24-hour variety.

Much like the English word love has five meanings in ancient Greek, the Hebrew word yom יום (translated day in Genesis) has four meanings, one of which indicates not a twenty-four hour period, but an age of time

Biblical creationists are well aware of this meaning of the Hebrew word yom, and there are several reasons why the context of Genesis 1 demands they be literal days, and not figurative ones.

  1. The author intended his audience to see the Genesis days as literal days
  2. The days have boundaries (ordinals and morning/evening)
  3. Other scriptures confirm literal days
  4. God spoke to Abraham using analogies for incredibly large numbers, so it’s not that Hebrews were simple people and could not understand numbers greater than 10 as old earthers would contend. Gen 22:17 “I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore.” To describe a more consistent way that God would have communicated the many epochs of days, were old earthism to be true, would be for Him to have used language where He already shows His intention to communicate large numbers. But He did not. God instead chose to perform his creative works in 6 days as He said.
  5. There are contexts (plurality, modifying words, suffixes) in Hebrew for yom to mean more than a day, but none of these contexts are present in Genesis 1.
  6. There are 2 Hebrew words (zeman – H2165 and eth H6256) for epochs or long indefinite period of time, BUT THESE WORDS ARE NOT USED IN GENESIS 1

The biggest obstacle that old earthers must overcome to inject their biases into the biblical text is to somehow justify the curses of sin (death, suffering, and thorns) as being present in creation PRIOR to the rebellion of mankind. When they insist on this, it becomes an issue about the gospel. Invariably, when I ask old earthers to justify their position on this, I get either “well, it’s only spiritual death” or “I just interpret the Bible differently than you.”

  1. God declared his creation “very good.” Since creation is very good, there could not have been disease, bloodshed, and harm. Isaiah 11 and 65 confirm this. Harm, disease, and bloodshed prior to sin is unbiblical and therefore old earthism is falsified
  2. In Genesis 3:17-19 God said to Adam “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree…to dust you will return.” The curse of sin resulted in both spiritual and physical death. Both Romans 5 and 1 Cor 15 are strong confirmation. So the debate is: Did death bring mankind into the world (old earthism) or did man bring death into the world (YEC). The Bible clearly answers that man’s sin brought death into the world. Death before sin is unbiblical and therefore old earthism is falsified
  3. One of the curses is thorns. Jesus took the crown of thorns upon Himself at the cross to complete taking the curses of sin as our punishment. But if thorns existed prior to mankind as old earthism demands, then what was the curse of sin? There are fossil thorns buried in layers that old earthers “date” as having been made prior to mankind. This view is unbiblical and therefore old earthism is falsified

Biblical interpretation is not an arbitrary function. When people interpret the Bible to mean whatever is popular in culture (homosexuality, old ages, contrary historical documents), then the body of Christ is divided and suffers.

Christians should be united. And the unity should center around God’s revelation in scripture and its fulfillment in Jesus. Jesus confirmed the testimony of Moses (Luke 16) and confirmed the historical nature of Genesis (Mark 10:6). So, God’s people should not be divided about the age of the earth. They should be united around a healthy understanding of the Bible, so that Jesus can be glorified.

We can trust God with our future because we can trust his revelation about the past.

Why Disagree With Jesus?

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Rose

This article from AIG was enjoyable to read. When a Christian apologist was surprisingly confronted with an accusation of teaching false information, this was the response:

“In the context of the first marriage between Adam and Eve, do you think Jesus was wrong in Mark 10:6 when He said that God made them male and female at the beginning of creation? Or do you believe that the creation has been around for 13 billion years and marriage first came about at the end of creation a few thousand years ago with Adam and Eve?”

The apologist, Bodie Hodge, then wrote an article documenting the encounter and laying out a case for why this question is unanswerable for those who want to believe both Old Earthism and the words of Jesus. One belief or the other will be compromised…and as we will see below, many Christians choose to hold more tightly to their Old Earthism.

Mr. Hodge lays out a solid case in his article showing the typical responses he’s gotten from those holding old earth positions and why they fail:

  1. “Biblical creationists have the same problem since Adam/Eve were not created at the beginning since they were created on day 6 and not day 1.”This is a poor response from old-earthers because then they bring the words Jesus said in to question. Jesus includes the creation week as “the beginning of creation” because (since He is the Creator) man and woman were made on day 6. The old-earther assumes incorrectly that only the 1st picosecond (or 1 minute or 1st day…) of God’s creative works to be “the beginning”. This response claims Jesus was wrong. Don’t be like those who respond this way, because Jesus cannot be wrong.
  2. “Jesus was talking about the beginning of marriage. This passage deals only with marriage not the age of the earth.”This is another poor response from the old-earther, but is sadly more typical of the way many people want to read scripture. Or should I say read INTO scripture. Jesus said “At the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.” Like the Jehovah’s Witnesses do with John 1:1 to avoid the clear teaching that Jesus is indeed God, old-earthers like to add the words “of marriage” to protect their old age beliefs and rather than see the actual words of Jesus, they actually put words in his mouth. They would rather reinterpret God’s revealed Word to protect their old age beliefs than let scripture speak.
  3. “The beginning of creation is just the figurative 6 days (13 billion years)”What the old-earthers are doing here is redefining the word “beginning” to mean whatever they want. In this case, they want it to mean 13 billion years (Also, what is a year prior to sun/earth revolutions?). Jesus spoke the words recorded in Mark 10:6 about 4000 years after Adam was created. To make their reinterpretation of “the beginning of creation” work, using a scale of 1 inch to represent the 4000 years Jesus was talking about, the beginning of 13 billion years is almost 52 MILES away. That’s a strange (at best) way to refer to marriage happening after 13 billion years. Will the End time be an equal amount away from when Jesus spoke these words? Should Christians expect another 13 billion years before Christ makes his glorious return? Only if you’re a consistent old-earther.

Old Earthism just cannot get around the pivotal words of Jesus without accusing Jesus of wrong, changing scripture, or redefining words.

This is just ONE example from scripture that refutes old earthism. There are many others than just the ones linked below:

After posting the link to Mr. Hodge’s article on Twitter, an old-earther decided to write a rebuttal article here.

The author of that article, who goes by Christian Defenders (CD), makes no attempt to answer the actual piece that Mr. Hodge originally wrote. CD simply argues that the Hebrew word for day (yom) can have multiple meanings. Clearly, CD has never investigated any teachings of biblical creationists, because we all know this to be true. The rule of hermaneutics is that when biblical interpretation is needed, we use scripture to interpret. The days of Genesis 1 were intended by the author to communicate a literal 24 hour day. I cover this information in greater detail here. Exodus 20:11 is strong evidence that the beginning of creation is speaking of literal days, because it actually refers to the Genesis 1 account when God tells the Jews to work for 6 days and rest on the 7th day, just like God did during creation week.

In his closing, CD laments that Hodge uses the phrase “undermine the gospel”. It would be wise for CD to read to context to see why Hodge uses this phrase. Because if one attributes theological errors to Jesus, then the gospel IS undermined. Not mentioned by Hodge, but shown above, old-earthism demands that death, suffering, and thorns be present prior to the curse of sin. But Genesis 3 clearly teaches that these enemies are a result of the rebellion of mankind. God spoke that his creation was not just good seven times, but VERY good. It was only after this, that man sinned and God cursed creation with death, suffering, and thorns. Believing old-earthism CAN be a gospel issue.

It’s not that old-earthers have a vendetta and are out to take down Christianity from the inside, but when they allow outside influences, interpretations, and culture to participate in biblical interpretation, then heresies abound! It’s the same type of thinking that allows gay ministers (because – culture) and women pastors praying for Planned Parenthood (because – social justice)…

As someone who believes the Bible clearly teaches what the world refers to as young earth creationism, I do not care so much about the age of the earth directly as much as I am passionate about correct exegesis of scripture. God revealed Himself in creation, in the Bible, and in Jesus. All of these revelations are self authenticating and in agreement. As shown, Jesus speaks of a young earth. As shown here, creation speaks of a young earth. Finally, with exegesis and the conclusion of our understanding of God’s revelation, the Bible teaches of a young earth.

Because we can trust God about his revelation of history, we can trust Him with our future.

No More Eisegesis

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In a debate with astrophysicist Dr. Jason Lisle, Hugh Ross tries to defend his old universe claims in contradiction to God’s written revelation and the words of Jesus. The moderator, Frank Turek asked Hugh Ross If there was anything that refuted the biblical claims of Jason Lisle. Ross talked about his books. To be fair, Turek asked Dr. Lisle what book would refute Hugh Ross. In one of the best debate responses of all time, Lisle held up the Bible as the book that refutes Hugh Ross. If you watch the linked debate above, this golden moment happens about 1:17:24.

HughRossRefuted

God has chosen to reveal Himself through his written Word, through creation, and through Jesus. With this starting point, we can conclude that each of these revelations are cohesive in their message.

  • God’s written revelation begins with “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.” The rest of Genesis 1 and Exodus 20:11 tell us that God did his creative work in 6 days. Genesis 1 also tells us seven times that God describes his creation as he describes himself: good. God’s written revelation also describes how mankind’s rebellion brought a curse on all of creation, and this is why we all experience suffering and death. We also see in God’s written word that His plan of redemption through Jesus will defeat death (I Cor 15) and bring all things under the authority of Jesus.
  • God’s revelation in creation is sufficient evidence to bring judgment on those who suppress knowledge of the Creator in their wickedness (Romans 1)
  • God’s revelation in Jesus is the fulfillment of all of His plans throughout history.

Satan has tried since the beginning to discredit God’s plan and pervert the revelations. For years, Hugh Ross and his followers have been using his unbiblical assumptions to interpret scripture. They have an unusual belief that some of the secular interpretations of nature are another book of the Bible. They take the billions of years that secular scientists claim as the age of the universe and shoehorn them into the Bible, where none of that time exists. Dr. Ross’s followers even developed a non-biblical timeline to try to bring the Bible into alignment with secular astronomy’s interpretations of evidence.

ReasonsTimeline

God’s word is clear in its message, even though there are places in the Bible that need interpretation. As Christians, we cannot let one’s own assumptions guide the interpretation of scripture. That’s called eisegesis. The proper interpretation method is to use scripture to interpret scripture. This is consistent and faithful.

The Enemy Within – Part 2

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In today’s Christian culture, things labelled as Christian are allowed almost complete free-reign within the walls of Christendom. Christian music, Christian singles websites…attach Christ to it or stick a Christian fish on it, and Shah-bang! It’s acceptable to the millions of people, who identify themselves as Christians…with hardly a challenge. In an effort to engage the Christian culture through printed media, the periodical, Christianity Today writes articles about religion and other contemporary issues.

In The Enemy Within, Part 1, an analogy was crafted using Homer’s epic poem, The Illiad. The Greeks brought down the mighty city of Troy without massive siege-works or modern explosives. Instead, they used Guile, Deception, and Temptation.

Today’s modern Trojans, the protestant Christian church, have been fighting off attacks for centuries. A new tactic emerged in the 1800’s to replace God’s involvement in Creation through a “scientific” cause…evolution. And until recently, this tactic was wielded only at the hands of atheists. Although the mighty Trojan wall, God’s Word, has repelled the direct attack in a head-on fashion from the interior of protestant Christendom, the plot of evolution has recently been courted by those claiming to be have the interests of Christianity at heart.

Christianity Today’s article, The Search For the Historical Adam, is a prime example of the Trojan Horse at the gates. As soon as the solid wall of God’s Word can be marginalized through the deception of evolution, the final destruction on the effectiveness of the church can begin from within.

There are guardians on this wall. Those, who feel it is their duty to preserve God’s Word with valiant efforts. Answers In Genesis, Creation Ministry International, the Institute For Creation Research, and a hundred others are fighting the likes of Francis Collins and Reasons to Believe, who choose to rationalize the Bible by claiming it to be mythology. It is truly beyond the pale to hear these modern Greek warriors in their veil of scientific credentialism, their Trojan Horse, wield the enemy’s weapon, evolution, as if it were something that the church should embrace. And why did Christianity Today fail to interview even one of the guardians in their “unbiased” article? Only those within the Trojan Horse were interviewed for their contribution to the battle.

Scanning the websites of the guardians, it is easy to see that there is plenty of scientific evidence and scriptural evidence to deflect the flaming arrows of the enemy. But we on the inside of the walls must not yield to the pressure of desiring cultural acceptance, and we must continue to trust God’s Word as true.

Let’s not end this prolonged war the way the Trojans did by opening the gates willingly to the enemy. We must recognize the attack for what it is and stand firm on God’s Word.

The Enemy Within – Part 1

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Do you remember the epic journey of Odysseus, Achilles, and Agamemnon in their quest to “rescue” Helen from the clutches of the Trojans? Since the Greeks won the war, they got to portray the Trojans as the villains, but what if a Trojan history book had survived. Could it be that Paris rescued Helen from an abusive marriage to Menelaus? What might have changed in the perspective of the story in how we remember this ten year war today?

And do you remember how the Greeks were finally able to defeat the Trojans after failing for TEN years? The Trojan Horse. The Greeks constructed a massive hollow horse and hid a dozen warriors inside. They left the “gift” at the gate of Troy and pretended to sail away. Once the Trojans let the horse through the gates of their protective wall and celebrated the departure of the Greeks, their fate was sealed. The Greek warriors inside the horse opened the gates of Troy to allow the Greek army inside, and sleeping Troy was destroyed.

The wall that protected Troy for a decade was impotent to stop the attack from within. Once the Greeks deceptively eluded the walls with the gift horse, the destruction of Troy was imminent.

Today, the idea of a Trojan horse is synonymous with inviting something that looks attractive into a vulnerable interior to its ultimate doom.

The Word of God has stood as an impenetrable wall around Christendom since Guttenburg first printed the Bible on his printing press. Once people could read the Bible for themselves, heresies in the church were slowly discarded and evangelism has been able to grow. The bride of Christ has been under constant attack from many angles, but God’s Word has repelled the attacks.

But in the last 150 years, a cleverly devised and insidious plot has surfaced to attack faith in God as Creator.

Check back for The Enemy Within – Part II

Timeline Tragedy

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So I stumbled across this timeline from an organization that claims to believe the Bible:

See if you can note the obvious problems with this timeline before I get into them. It’s okay. I’ll wait…

As noted in the About link on this blog, “This blog exists to share the trustworthiness of God’s Word, the Bible.” Let’s start our evaluation of this timeline when compared to God’s Word.

  1. I’m going to start on the foot-notes of the timeline. “All dates are approximate and subject to change, and reflect the best established evidence.” What have we said time and again about evidence? Everyone interprets evidence according to their worldview. Evidence, by itself, cannot convince someone of their need for a savior. The BEST EVIDENCE is the eye-witness account of the Almighty in his special revelation not the priests of Darwin claiming the universe to be billions of years old.
  2. “Earth forms (4.5662 bya)” This timeline would have you believe that after more than 9,000,000,000 years, the earth formed. This is in direct conflict with the 1st verse of the Bible. Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.” Think of how different the very beginning of this timeline would look if they started with Genesis 1:1 rather than Stephen Hawking’s theories.
  3. “Moon forms (~4.5 bya)” The moon forms??????  How about Genesis 1:16 where God MADE the moon on day 4. And yet, you can clearly see on this timeline, that the authors put the creation of the moon on Day 1 in direct opposition to the Bible. Timeline trustworthiness meter: Waning. Far side of the moon.
  4. “Oceans become permanent (~3.8 bya)” They say Day 1, but the Bible says Day 3 in Genesis 1:9-10.  Timeline trustworthiness meter: Lost at sea. Abandon ship! Somewhere in the Bermuda triangle.
  5. “first land plants…(650 mya)” On day 5? This timeline continues to show that they would rather uphold the interpretations of Dawkins, Hawkings, and Bill Nye than to trust what God has written in his word. Plants were not created on day 5 as incorrectly shown on the timeline. The eye-witness testimony of Almighty God says in Genesis 1:11 that Day 3  is when plants were created. Timeline trustworthiness meter: Wilted. Barren. Full-of-fertilizer
  6. “Animals, reptiles, dinosaurs, mammals – Day 5” Wait a minute, Mr. Timeline! The Bible tells us that these animals were all created on day 6. Timeline trustworthiness meter: Dry bones. Extinct.
  7. “Modern humans” According to the timeline 13,700,000,000 after the beginning – man arrives. According to Jesus (Mark 10:6) “But at the beginning of creation God made them male and female.” Timeline trustworthiness meter: Do you really want to go against the words of Jesus? Genesis 3:1 “Did God REALLY say…?”

Can you find more than that?

The inaccuracies in this timeline can be fixed with a correct understanding of God’s revelation in scripture. Specifically, the group at reasons.org have butchered the exegesis of the worldwide flood. If one reads the eye-witness testimony of the worldwide flood and looks at the world around us, we see clearly that there is no need to mythologize the Bible to accommodate atheistic interpretations of evidence. Studying God’s word can fix these inaccuracies.

We can trust what God has revealed about history, and our faith in his revelation about the future is secure. Praise Him!

UPDATE: I found that Reasons.org removed this timeline from their website, so I’m glad I saved a copy of the picture. To see it better, see below:

ReasonsTimeline

The 8 C’s of History

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So, I’ll be teaching a new class at our church starting tomorrow called the 8 C’s of History. For some of you, the title will look vaguely familiar as I took the general idea from Answers in Genesis and expanded on it. They developed a curriculum called the 7 C’s of History. I’ve not read their curriculum, but it spurred the idea for my class. “The 7 and 8 C’s of History” confirm how the significant themes of the Bible are historically accurate. Their seven C’s are:

  • Creation
  • Corruption
  • Catastrophe
  • Confusion
  • Christ
  • Crucifixion
  • Consummation

For the purpose of my class, I added “Covenant” between Confusion and Christ…I mean, for Heaven’s sake! That’s almost 2200 years of time that God was working with his chosen people in the form of the Covenant. So, Answers In Genesis SHOULD have included “Covenant” as one of their C’s, but maybe they were on a budget.

It should be noted that I’m not getting any money from this endeavor, and I am giving credit for the general idea to AIG ministries. Ultimately, it is God who receives the glory and it is because of Him that we live and breathe and have our being. All of the pictures in the slideshow are linked images and suitably credited. So, no lawsuits please!

I’ve created Google Slide presentations that I will post here for people to keep up. Feel free to share the links or use the material to spread the Good News of God’s redemptive plan as revealed in his word!

  1. Creation
  2. Corruption
  3. Catastrophe
  4. Confusion
  5. Covenant
  6. Christ
  7. Crucifixion
  8. Consummation

Here is a timeline that I constructed as supplemental material for the class. Enjoy!