𝗕𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗔𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀

03/10/2023

If their is wrong, their is going to be wrong. If you want to know what ’s saying look at what He already said.

…False prophets are not being led by the Holy Spirit but by another spirit, a familiar spirit, a demon!

03/10/2023

03/10/2023

When gives you a new beginning, it starts with an ending.

Be for . They often guide you to the right one.

03/10/2023

Till men have in , their best services are but sins. -

01/10/2023

BEWARE OF WRONG ADVICE.( For LADIES).

They told her to leave her husband because she's worth more than him. They told her she's beautiful and successful, that a woman of her standard deserves a better man with a better job income and personality . She listened to them and abandoned her home.

It has been over 7yrs since then and she's still looking for a better man that matches her standard. The funniest part is that those friends who told her to leave her man are still with their own husbands, doing everything possible to save their homes.

Be very careful from who and where you take your relationship and marriage advice. The only advice you can get from a fool is a foolish advice. Anyone who recommends divorce or break up to you at every slight argument with your partner is an enemy that appears like friend.

A lazy man and a poor man are never the same. If a man doesn't have today does not mean he will be lacking for life. As long as he's GOD fearing, loving, caring, and appreciative of your efforts, you don't have to worry yourself. There are only two ways to regret in life. BEFORE AND AFTER. A woman who choose never to be patience for a while might ends up enduring for life. Marriage is not a bed of roses.
Becarefull of this

Don't Marry Because of S*X,
Don't Marry because you are getting OLD,
Don't Marry because you are of AGE,
Don't Marry because you are LONELY,
Don't Marry because you Need someone to Support you FINANCIALLY.
Don't Marry because you Mistakenly Got PREGNANT for Him,
Don't Marry because you don't want to LOSE the person, Don't Marry because of Family PRESSURES,
Don't Marry because you Like the IDEA Of
Marriage, Don't Marry because of PITY or Out of PITY,
Don't Marry because of TRIBE, Don't Marry because you Admire of WEDDING GOWN you See, Don't Marry because you Love KIDS,
Don't Marry because all your Friends are
getting Married, Don't Marry because of Physical/ Academic Qualifications. But

Marry Because you want to Fulfil DESTINY. I pray to God almighty to give the Best Life Partner to Settle down and enjoy the fruits of marriage in the name of God Almighty.

02/08/2022

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐲 𝐋𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐀𝐥𝐞𝐩𝐡

עֵץ־חַיִּים הִיא לַמַּחֲזִיקִים בָּהּ וְתֹמְכֶיהָ מְאֻשָּׁר׃
She is a tree of life to those who grasp her, And whoever holds on to her is happy.
Proverbs 3:18

The most important lesson we need to learn in our life is that you can’t always believe what you hear, or even what you see. This is even true of Bible study.

The Jews have been scrupulous about transmitting the Bible down through the generations through a rigorous tradition of scribes. So it is unusual in the extreme to find a misspelled word. If it is truly an error, a misspelled word renders a Torah scroll unsuitable for use. But in the section of Jeremiah read on the second of the three weeks, a word is intentionally misspelled!

Why would Jeremiah intentionally misspell a word in the Bible?
While Jeremiah is rebuking the people for abandoning God, he says:

For My people have done a twofold wrong:They have forsaken Me, the Fount of living waters, And hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, Which cannot even hold water. Jeremiah 2:13

The Hebrew word employed in this verse for “cisterns” is borot. Normally spelled בורות, in this verse it is misspelled בֹּארוֹת with an extraneous aleph. To make matters worse, the word is repeated, misspelled both times. The aleph is a silent letter and does not change the pronunciation. So why would Jeremiah add it in?

Rabbi Mendel Hirsch, in his commentary on the haftarot (reading from the prophets), gives an insightful perspective that suggests a deeper meaning to the “misspelling”. He notes that a bor (בור) is an empty pit that passively fills up with water that flows in from other sources. A be’er, spelled באר, is a spring, bringing forth living water from deep sources.

Rabbi Hirsch suggested that by adding the perplexing aleph, Jeremiah was hinting that the nation of Israel had confused a bor (pit) with a be’er (spring), running after ‘empty pits’ (i.e. false beliefs) that contained no substance and only the illusion of living waters. They rejected the be’er, the living waters of God’s Torah.

This is surely a failing that persists to this day both in Israel as well as in the rest of the world. So many people have adopted beliefs that contradict the Bible, claiming they are true. Liberal values are so attractive, looking like they are accepting, kind, and pluralistic.
In Hebrew, politically correct is defined derisively as yefoot nefesh, pretty soul.

Liberal values are designed to be attractive. But they are borot; pits of water that when they are empty, they have no sources of their own. They contain no living waters.

The greatest source of living waters is the Torah. Its source is the source of life itself and it will never run dry. In this day and age it is easy to become confused, just as the Jews in Jeremiah’s time were confused. So many religious people have begun to look at the Bible as a hobby to bring into their lives for a few hours a week while they run their lives according to the “pretty soul” values. But the Bible is a be’er; the source of life, and will give meaning to those who follow it.

SOURCE : ISRAEL BIBLE

10/10/2021

ℍ𝕖𝕓𝕣𝕖𝕨 𝕊𝕔𝕙𝕠𝕝𝕒𝕣𝕤: 𝟚𝟜-ℍ𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝔻𝕒𝕪𝕤 𝕚𝕟 ℂ𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟
By 𝗝𝘂𝗱 𝗗𝗮𝘃𝗶𝘀

The top Hebrew scholars all agree that the writer of Genesis 1 intended the word day to mean 24 hours. If they all agree . . . then why can’t we?

In 1983, as a Junior, I walked into the University of Georgia’s religion building terrified. The professor was an expert in Hebrew from Yale University. I had been a Christian for only two years, and I wanted to learn that language.

I knew that the religion department doubted the authorship of Old Testament books. For them, the myth Enuma Elish was more important for understanding Genesis than was Moses, Paul, or Jesus. Most of them believed that evolution disproved Christianity once and for all. Jesus was just a man, and the Bible was a book like any other book—written only by man and full of errors.

I knew at the core of this secular approach to Bible study was the axiom that human reason is supreme. They believed that scholars are over, rather than under, God’s Word. So I anxiously wondered how studying Hebrew in a secular setting might help or hurt my faith.

The Bible, however, has an intrinsic, self-authenticating power—a power even skeptics cannot destroy. In spite of skeptical attacks, the Hebrew language has remained a passion of my life for almost thirty years. I focused my doctoral work in England on the New Testament use of the Old Testament, and my continuous study of Hebrew since then has reaffirmed the supernatural nature of God’s Word and its truth at every point.

I teach at a Christian college that hosts a conference every year on a contemporary hot topic. Last year the school decided to host one on the proper reading of Genesis 1–2. The goal was to gather all the major evangelical scholars for a two-day conference and let them present their cases for different ways to read the first two chapters of Genesis.

The school stumbled on a serious problem—we could not find a nationally recognized Old Testament scholar who held the traditional view that the world was created in six twenty-four hour days.

During my search, I even went to the national Evangelical Theological Society meeting and attended their session on Genesis 1–2. During a panel discussion, some scholars began to openly mock the traditional view. Others assured the audience that Enuma Elish, and the like, were the key to understanding Genesis. I felt like I was back in Peabody Hall. What was happening?

When I left ETS, I was confused. Did the majority of evangelical scholars really believe that the Hebrew text failed to support the traditional view? Did they believe that no one who studies Hebrew seriously believes that God supernaturally created everything in six days a few thousand years ago?

𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

This experience bothered me so badly that I started doing more research. I knew that modern critical scholars think the day-age view and the more recent framework hypothesis are grammatically untenable from the standpoint of the original author’s intent. One of the best Hebraists in the world, James Barr of Oxford University, had written in a letter twenty years ago, “So far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Gen. 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story.”

I wondered what modern “world-class” Hebraists would say about Barr’s statement today, so I tracked down several leading experts to ask their opinion.

Hugh Williamson is the current Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University. Oxford is perhaps the most prestigious university in the world, and Williamson is one of the top Hebraists anywhere. In an email he responded, “So far as the days of Genesis 1 are concerned, I am sure that Professor Barr was correct. . . . I have not met any Hebrew professors who had the slightest doubt about this unless they were already committed to some alternative by other considerations that do not arise from a straightforward reading of the Hebrew text as it stands.”

I also emailed Barr’s letter to Emanuel Tov of Hebrew University Jerusalem; he would be on anyone’s list of Hebrew experts. Professor Tov responded in kind: “For the biblical people this was history, difficult as it is for us to accept this view.” Here was confirmation from a Jewish man who spoke and thought in Hebrew.

There is a residential theological research library called Tyndale House, located outside of Cambridge University in England. You can rent a room and literally live in the library. It is perhaps the best such facility in the world. During its history some of the top scholars have been its “warden.” The current warden is a young man of encyclopedic knowledge named Peter Williams. He sent a paper to me that said, “Although the Young Universe Creationist position is not widely held within secular academia, the position—that the author of Genesis 1 maintained that the world was created in six literal days—is nearly universally held.”

I could go on, listing dozens and dozens of names, but there is no need. The scholarship is clear. The writer of Genesis 1–2 meant the text to teach chronology in terms of normal days. So why would almost the entirety of evangelical scholarship reject the author’s intent?

𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗮 𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝗜𝘀 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝗗𝗮𝘆

My inability to find many evangelical scholars who support the traditional view was puzzling for another reason: evangelicals’ public commitment to the inerrancy of Scripture. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, signed in 1978, gives the fullest statement on what evangelicals believe about the Bible. Article 12 says of creation and the Flood, “We deny that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science. We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood.”

I was confused why many of the signers did not believe in the traditional view of Genesis 1–2. So I started emailing people I knew who had signed the document. What I found out was shocking. Henry Morris had proposed the language for Article 12, and he meant it to exclude long ages and theistic evolution. Many of the signers decided to reject Morris’s intended meaning and reinterpret his words in line with their own beliefs.

This was the same thing that happened among Bible-believing churches at the turn of the twentieth century, during the early rise of modernist theology. Ministers in the Presbyterian Church, for example, would affirm the Westminster Confession, but they would self-interpret the words. So where the Confession said that Jesus is God, the liberal minister agreed but meant that Jesus had a God-consciousness like any other man.

This is theological doublespeak. I am surprised that evangelicals are stumbling down the same dead-end path that wrecked mainline churches a century ago.

Days Ahead
I would ask my evangelical brothers some basic questions. If the text of Genesis 1–2 does not mean to teach traditional chronology and twenty-four-hour days,6

Why does Jesus take Genesis 1–2 as teaching history (Matthew 19:4; Mark 10:6)?
Why does Paul take it as history (Romans 5:12; 1 Corinthians 11:8–9; 15:21–22; 15:45; 1 Timothy 2:12–14)?
Why do nearly all world-class Hebraists assume that the writer of Genesis intended normal days and the text as history?
Why did the ancient, medieval, and modern church—until about 1800—have few commentators (if any) who believed in an ancient universe?

Why do all of the ancient translations and paraphrases, such as the Aramaic Targums, take the words at face value and translate them as “days,” with no hint that they might mean “ages” in Genesis 1?

Why is there little or no classical Rabbinic support for an ancient universe?

Why are there well-qualified PhD scientists who still support physical data as consistent with a young-earth view?

Nobody has provided me with answers that point to anything but a traditional view of the original meaning. Anyone who says that a closer study of the Hebrew leads elsewhere is simply incorrect. The original intent is plain—a day was a day, from the very first miraculous day.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
𝘿𝙧. 𝙅𝙪𝙙 𝘿𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝘼𝙨𝙨𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙛𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙤𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙂𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙠 𝙖𝙩 𝘽𝙧𝙮𝙖𝙣 𝘾𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙜𝙚. 𝘿𝙧. 𝘿𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙨 𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙚𝙙 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙋𝙝𝘿 𝙞𝙣 𝙗𝙞𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙐𝙣𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙎𝙝𝙚𝙛𝙛𝙞𝙚𝙡𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙀𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙙. 𝙃𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙖𝙡𝙨𝙤 𝙬𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙉𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙒𝙖𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙇𝙤𝙧𝙙: 𝙊𝙡𝙙 𝙏𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙨, 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝙏𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝘾𝙝𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙮.

10/10/2021

𝕌𝕟𝕚𝕥𝕪 . . . 𝔸𝕥 𝕎𝕙𝕒𝕥 ℂ𝕠𝕤𝕥?
By 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐇𝐚𝐦

𝚁𝚊𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝙲𝚑𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚊𝚗 𝚌𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚐𝚎𝚜’ 𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠𝚜 𝚘𝚗 𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙵𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚜𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚔𝚜 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚖𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 “𝚍𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜” 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚛 “𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚝𝚢.” 𝙱𝚞𝚝 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝙹𝚎𝚜𝚞𝚜 𝚙𝚛𝚊𝚢𝚎𝚍 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝙷𝚒𝚜 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚒𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚜 “𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚋𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚎, 𝚊𝚜 𝚈𝚘𝚞, 𝙵𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛, 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝙼𝚎, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙸 𝚒𝚗 𝚈𝚘𝚞” (𝙹𝚘𝚑𝚗 𝟷𝟽:𝟸𝟷), 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝙷𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚊𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚏𝚘𝚛?

The major survey by America’s Research Group, published in the book Already Compromised, questions the theological soundness at the core of many Christian colleges. When reputation is at stake, invariably many respond with accusations of divisiveness that sound something like this: “Christian colleges should concentrate on our unity in Christ and the essentials of the gospel, while tolerating different interpretations of Genesis.” Is this really the case?

At least believers can agree on one thing: our unity should be centered in Christ. We all desire unity. The question, however, is what kind of “unity” Christ really desires, and whether the foundational truth in Genesis is essential for Christian unity.

When Christ prayed for the unity of His church (John 17), He was referring to much more than mutual assent to a few basic “truths.” His call demanded a total commitment to God Himself, including all that He is, all that He loves, all that He says, and all that He does.

Christ didn’t just talk about the truth; He is the truth. He didn’t just give us the Word; He is the Word. You can’t separate one from the other.

So the real question is this: does a literal, historical understanding of Genesis 1–11 promote the unity that Christ desires? Or does it impair Christian unity and our effective presentation of the gospel?

𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐞 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐖𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐔𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐁𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐥

Christian leaders who claim that only “the essentials of the gospel” should be the focus of our unity are forgetting that sinners only come to know Christ through His Word. We can’t downplay the Bible’s all-encompassing authority because we depend on it for answers to all our important questions about the gospel, such as:

How do we know we are all sinners?
How do we know that death is the penalty for sin?
How do we know that God’s Son became a man—the God-man, Jesus Christ?
How do we know Jesus died and rose again physically?
How do we know Jesus paid the penalty for sin on the Cross?

The authority of the whole Bible is foundational to the gospel. If His Word is not authoritative, in all its parts, how can anyone be sure that its message of salvation is reliable?

So when we question any part of the Bible, including the first eleven chapters that answer many of the basic questions above, the authority of the entire Bible—and the gospel that’s founded upon its authority—is undermined.

𝗧𝗿𝘂𝗲 𝗨𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗪𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱𝗻’𝘁 𝗗𝗲𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗰𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁

Most evangelical Christians will agree that Christ’s saving work on the Cross is the Bible’s central message. But the question is whether we can separate Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary from His supreme position as God, the Creator of all things (John 1:1–3) and the revealer of truth (John 14:6).

As God, Christ is the author of the Book that recounts His redemptive work. So if Christians question any part of the Bible, they are questioning the supreme authority of the One who is the ultimate source of our written record of the gospel.

If Christ is the preeminent revealer of truth, any search for truth must always start with Him, not human philosophies. When Christian leaders encourage people to unite around flawed human interpretations of the Bible (such as the evolutionary view of earth history over millions of years), rather than Jesus’s own words (God’s recent creation in six literal 24-hour days), then we shift supremacy from Christ to man.

If a Christian claims to be committed to Christ’s centrality, how can he or she possibly tolerate such a shift, which degrades Christ’s supremacy?

Yet most of today’s calls for “Christian unity,” particularly in Christian academic circles, seek consensus around fallible human opinion rather than God’s infallible Word. Nowhere does Scripture teach unity through consensus. The truth from God trumps consensus every time. As Paul said, “Let God be true but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4).

Efforts to dethrone God by letting man decide truth (trusting man’s word above God’s Word) have plagued the human race ever since Genesis 3, when the serpent tempted Eve to question God’s Word.

In contrast, Christ’s prayer in John 17 shows what He is really seeking in the unity of His church: “That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You” (v. 21). Christ does not desire unity based on consensus. He desires that we join in the unity that has always existed in the Trinity. That unity comes when we submit to Christ, the Son of God, who is supreme over all men. Our job is to join in the Godhead’s unity, not to establish it.

In this same prayer, Christ asked that His church be kept in the truth—His truth (John 17:17–19). According to the Savior, biblical unity is centered in His everlasting truth found in His Word!

𝗧𝗿𝘂𝗲 𝗨𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗪𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱𝗻’𝘁 𝗧𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗮 𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗚𝗼𝗱’𝘀 𝗛𝗼𝗹𝘆 𝗡𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲

Scripture makes two amazing claims. It tells us that God is holy, pure, and perfect, but man’s heart is “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). How can both be true, if God created man?

The only explanation that is consistent with God’s holy nature is the literal, historical interpretation of Creation and Adam’s Fall in Genesis 1–3.

God must have created a perfect and unblemished world, free of death, disease, suffering, and evil—otherwise His pure character would be in question. Adam’s sin is the only consistent way to explain the cursed ground, thorns, carnivores, groaning, and death of today’s world (Romans 8:22).

Only a literal understanding of Genesis makes sense of these facts, and of Christ’s need to come in the flesh so He could die and then rise again to conquer death and all the other consequences of man’s sin. Any other understanding of Genesis makes a mockery of the whole gospel.

Truth is essential to unity; this fact is echoed throughout Scripture. Ephesians 4:11–14, for example, says that God gave church leaders to equip believers “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.” The end result is “that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.”

If our unity is truly in Christ and Christ is God, then God’s character is vitally important. Those who teach an imperfect creation before sin essentially deny the Bible’s authority in Genesis and cast aspersions on God’s pure and holy character. If God has even one character flaw, then we can never have perfect unity because our unity is in Him.

𝗣𝗮𝘂𝗹’𝘀 𝗖𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗨𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗵

While Paul condemned compromise with such empty human philosophies, he also condemned divisions among believers. The Corinthian church, in particular, was full of contentions. Some people were following Paul, others Apollos or Peter.

Paul’s solution was to exhort the Corinthians to follow God’s wisdom rather than human wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:20–25). The apostle knew that the truth is found in Christ, and biblical unity can only arise within that truth. Paul stressed that Christ’s truth is not compatible with the man-centered wisdom of the Greeks (see verse 22 especially).

Acts 17 shows how Paul handled the great challenge of preaching to the unbelieving Greeks, who did not have any real understanding of biblical history. The Epicurean philosophers, in particular, held to an atheistic, evolutionary philosophy that all life had come from the one basic component of all matter and had evolved over long ages of time. To them, the preaching of Christ sounded like complete foolishness. Without a rewrite of their history, the Epicureans could not understand who Christ was and what He had done for them on the Cross.

So Paul corrected their history. He first defined God as the Creator of all things. Then he proceeded to summarize the true world history, explaining that all people were of one blood—descended from one set of parents (through whom sin originated). This history set the stage for understanding why all humanity needed a Savior.

Paul was passionate about helping the Greeks come to salvation and to experience unity in Christ. To accomplish this goal, he believed it was necessary to show the Greeks that their philosophies were foolish compared to the wisdom that is in Christ.

How do you think Paul would feel to see so many modern Christian leaders embracing a new version of Epicurean philosophy (Darwinian evolution), even though it undermines the true history of Genesis, which Christ revealed in His Word so that sinners could understand their need for Him?

Surely Paul would be appalled. If anyone is guilty of divisiveness, it must be the church leaders who have compromised the Bible by teaching that the earth is millions of years old. If we Christians truly desire unity, it is high time that the church reviewed Christ’s prayer in John 17 and recommitted itself to unity in Christ alone.

Doing so could spark a new reformation, as happened in the sixteenth century. All it took was for Christians to reject their divisive leaders, who trusted in man’s word above God’s Word, and choose instead to stand on Scripture alone, placing their faith in Christ alone.

As God’s people reject such teaching, we should also appeal to our leaders to renew their hearts toward the preeminence of Christ, as they teach the whole counsel of God’s Word.

10/10/2021

𝕎𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕚𝕤 𝔹𝕚𝕓𝕝𝕚𝕔𝕒𝕝 ℂ𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕎𝕙𝕪 𝕚𝕤 𝕚𝕥 𝕀𝕞𝕡𝕠𝕣𝕥𝕒𝕟𝕥?
𝐃𝐫. 𝐃𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐝 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐤, 𝐖𝐞𝐬 𝐎𝐥𝐬𝐨𝐧, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐲𝐥𝐯𝐢𝐚 𝐁𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫

𝕭𝖎𝖇𝖑𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖑 𝖈𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 𝖎𝖘 𝖘𝖚𝖕𝖊𝖗𝖓𝖆𝖙𝖚𝖗𝖆𝖑. 𝕴𝖓 𝖕𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖓 𝖑𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖚𝖆𝖌𝖊 𝖎𝖙 𝖜𝖆𝖘 𝖆 𝖒𝖎𝖗𝖆𝖈𝖑𝖊. 𝕮𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 𝖜𝖆𝖘 𝖇𝖞 𝖉𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖈𝖙 𝖆𝖈𝖙𝖘 𝖔𝖋 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕮𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖔𝖗 𝖆𝖘 𝖔𝖕𝖕𝖔𝖘𝖊𝖉 𝖙𝖔 𝖘𝖔𝖒𝖊 𝖓𝖆𝖙𝖚𝖗𝖆𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖎𝖈 𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖈𝖊𝖘𝖘.

Irrespective of particular beliefs, one thing that seems very widespread and I hear continually in various forms goes something like this: “Genesis was never intended to tell us the ‘how’ of creation, but rather only the ‘who’ (God) and the ‘what’ (everything). May God, our great Creator, be forever praised…”.

I believe whole-heartedly that 6-day, young earth creationism is Biblical truth, but could you please tell me exactly why you feel it is IMPORTANT Biblical truth? I think you’d agree that some Biblical truths are more important than others. For example, I believe that the Bible supports immersion baptism. However, if I attend a church service where a friend of mine is sprinkle baptized, I’m not going to tell him, “No, that doesn’t count. There’s never any sprinkling mentioned in the Bible. You aren’t REALLY baptized until you’re dunked…” because I consider the truth of the METHOD of baptism to be relatively UNIMPORTANT truth.

However on things like the doctrine of salvation, now that’s IMPORTANT truth. So my question is 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗺 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘁?

A lot of people I know would classify the whole creation/evolution issue as unimportant and in the same realm as the immersion/sprinkling issue. They would say that it is IMPORTANT to honor God as the Creator of all things, but UNIMPORTANT and perhaps even detrimental to advocate one method of creation above another.

The faculty here at [name of institution removed] are scientists but would consider creation/evolution issues unimportant and irrelevant. Not only that, but they would probably consider creationist beliefs to be detrimental because of the division they would cause among Christians over an UNIMPORTANT issue.

What about advocating creationism? Does this not cause division and disunity in the family of God? At the very least wouldn’t it represent wasted time that could have been spent preaching the core truth of salvation? This would all be true if creationism were unimportant truth.

That’s why it’s so crucial that I understand WHY 6-day, young earth creationism is indeed FOUNDATIONAL and IMPORTANT truth.

My two roommates are both progressive creationists. We’re fairly close friends, but I’ve caused a certain amount of division and tension between us by bringing up my creationist beliefs. Should I not rather talk with them only about our shared desire to know God, to seek His will, and grow closer to Him? One of my roommates (he’s my best friend on campus) is a progressive creationist engaged to a girl who’s a 6-day creationist (she went to some Ken Ham meetings). One day when the three of us were together I brought up the subject, mentioning that I wouldn’t court or consider marrying someone who has different creationist beliefs than I do (seeing that I consider these beliefs important and foundational). This caused a slight bit of tension between them.

However I doubt that this difference will ever amount to much seeing that [the roomate’s fiancée] doesn’t see her 6-day creationist beliefs as all that foundational, important, or relevant to everyday life, even though she does hold to them.

You were telling us of the primary importance of helping people ask themselves about why they believe what they believe rather than trying to convince them with evidence. Could you explain this again please? What about people who are Christians and think that they are doing their best to serve, glorify, and honor God, their Creator and Savior, while de-emphasizing the “how” of creation?

I’m friends with a Prof. who’s published a fascinating paper which basically states the following: “We’d expect the Bible to correlate with the truth revealed by science. If it doesn’t, we have two options: either the science is biased or needs to be reinterpreted OR we are misinterpreting the Bible.” I think that our faculty believes a science biased towards evolution and have accordingly had to reinterpret the Bible as being poetic and non-literal in Genesis. They believe that I’m misinterpreting Genesis by taking it literally, and thus have adopted a science biased towards literal creationism.

I had dinner with Dr. Howard Jay VanTill. The main theme and purpose of his talk (and life) is to make Christians realize that they don’t need to be anti-evolutionist. He starts by saying that throughout history it has been commonly thought by both the Christian and secular world that to be a Christian you must be against evolution. Dr. VanTill firmly believes that as Christians we can no longer let naturalism claim the truth of evolution for itself. Christians must claim the truth that God, in His great power and wisdom, created the first “something” with all of the incredible potential of evolving into what we see (and are) today. It was scary how he tried to give God glory through having caused everything to evolve!

I’m planning to go to grad school this fall and will need be applying shortly. I’m in the process of trying to find a faculty member to research with. Recently I was thinking that it might be very difficult to research with and write papers in conjunction with someone who believes in evolution, without compromising my standards. Have you dealt with or thought at all about this?

One point of important difference that I think is primary in helping progressive creationists to rethink their beliefs, is the issue of death before the Fall. Could you please write me or tell me where I could get info on this specific issue?

Progressive creationists downplay the Fall because they “need” for there to have been death before it. They underline the fact that plants and plant cells died, and the Bible doesn’t tell us that no animals died, before the Fall. I sense that in God’s eyes there’s a distinct difference between animal and plant death. Is this so?

Also, the Bible tells us that at the Fall, physiological changes occurred (e.g. women would give birth in pain). This change would have included animals developing characteristics for carnivorous lifestyles, right? However some animals have an anatomy so entirely constructed for feeding on flesh that it seems they would have not existed or would have been unrecognizably different before the Fall. How did this take place?

To give a genuinely adequate answer to your questions would require almost a whole book. However, I shall at least try to summarize my responses for you here.

You asked why creation is more important than (say) the issue of the mode of baptism. Obviously, both are important, because anything in God’s Word is important. All that is there is there by God’s will. 2 Timothy 3:16–17 says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”

However, as you suggest, there indeed may well be a hierarchy of truth. In geometry, for example, we have a theorem and it is more important than corollaries derived from it, so a similar situation may hold here with respect to creation vs. mode of baptism. Creation is a fundamental theorem, as it were.

In providing a summary of my assessment of the situation I will first consider the question, “What is biblical creation?” and then consider why it is important. The bottom line, though, is a conflict between religious worldviews. Literal, direct creationism is in conflict with what Phillip Johnson has termed “theistic naturalism” (theistic evolutionism, progressive creationism, etc.). That, in summary, is why the issue is important. Now let me try to amplify that by providing a few details.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻?
Biblical creation is supernatural. In plain language it was a miracle. Creation was by direct acts of the Creator as opposed to some naturalistic process. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Creation took place in the beginning and was finished and complete. Creation was not spread out over a major portion of the supposed evolutionary vast time history of the universe. Creation was by the word of the Creator. The Creator spoke things into existence. In Genesis 1, we read of a series of “And God said” statements. Also we read in Psalm 33:6 & Psalm 33:9, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.”

Biblical creation is also creation ex nihilo. First there was nothing and then there was something. No time was involved. The Creator did not need matter or energy or anything else. He is first. All else is second. In fact, the basic meaning of the word create implies that there was nothing and then there was something. Some other religions have concepts of creation and a creator, but in all other cases the creator is inferior to the biblical Creator. Other creators had to use material that already existed and they simply rearranged it.

Mormonism is an example. In the Bible and only in the Bible do we have the high concept of creation ex nihilo. Scriptural passages documenting creation ex nihilo are Psalm 19, Proverbs 8, Colossians 1:16–17 (“For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”) and Hebrews 11:3 (“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”). Thus biblical creation is supernatural.

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁?
Literal biblical creationism identifies God. Our culture today is confused over the meaning of the word god. In today’s culture, God could mean a set of moral standards, or an idea, or the universe itself, or an individual such as Shirley MacLaine, or even each individual himself.

When I lecture on university and high school campuses, I seldom use the word God, because it has lost its meaning. Instead I use the word Creator. Generally people understand this word and concept.

The first verse of the Bible identifies who God is (see The Creator). He is the Creator, not an idea, not a moral standard. All of Scripture agrees and supports that point. The Bible begins that way, and continues on through the Psalms (Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork”), the epistles (Colossians 1:16–17), and the last book of the Bible (Revelation 4:11, “Thou are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created”). Thus the concept of an actual, historical creation identifies the Creator.

The second point is that creation identifies man. Man is not just a body—not just a stack of chemicals that arrived by natural processes. Yes, man does have a body, but he also has a mind and a spirit (Genesis 1:26–27 says, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”). Man is in the personality image of the Creator (see Man: The image of God).

That is the basis for our praising the Creator, our worship of Him (Psalm 100, “Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.”).

The third point is that creation is the basis of the gospel. Man was created perfect, but in Genesis 3 we have the account of the Fall. Man was tempted to substitute his own autonomous truth standard for the Creator’s absolute. Up until the Fall, the Creator’s Word was the test and standard for truth. The Creator said, “Don’t eat this fruit.”

All ideas were compared to what the Creator said. Any idea that didn’t agree would therefore be wrong because the Creator would not lie. At the Fall, man was tempted to move away from the Creator’s standard of truth and substitute his own standard.

As a result, death came into the universe. Death is an intrusion. Man was not created to die. We have a right to cry at a funeral. Romans 5:12 says, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

Death entered the world when man sinned. In fact, man’s sin affected the entire creation (Romans 8:22, “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.”). Man therefore needs a Savior and the first promise and prophecy of that was Genesis 3:15. The phrase is, “the seed of the woman.” That phrase should stand out like a red neon sign. All of the rest of Scripture, and even in our culture today, children take the father’s name. But here we have “seed of the woman" (offspring of the woman); a child would be born, a virgin-born Son of God, “seed of the Woman,” to be our Savior. So man was created, has fallen, and needs a Savior.

Now, when man fell, it wasn’t just a moral fall (it was that), it wasn’t just a spiritual fall (it was that), it wasn’t just an emotional fall (it was that), but it was also an intellectual fall. Instead of being spiritually in tune with our Creator, man is now spiritually dead and normally uninterested in spiritual things. Instead of being excited and at peace with God, man is emotionally estranged from God and angry at Him. Instead of normally wanting to do what is right, our normal tendency is to do what is wrong; we fell morally. We have to work at being good. A baby does not have to be trained to be bad, but to be good. Bad comes naturally.

But we also fell intellectually. Instead of using the Creator’s Word as our test of truth, our natural tendency now is to use our own opinions, the opinions of rebellious, fallen man.

Because the Fall affected all aspects of man, salvation also is for all aspects of man. Man has to be converted spiritually (to be alive and alert and responsive to God the Creator); he has to be converted emotionally (to have peace with the Creator); and there has to be repentance (a moral change); but man also needs to be converted intellectually. He has to again move back to the Creator’s Word as his test for truth. Romans 12:2 describes this, “And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

Conversion involves a renewed mind. Saying it in our terms, we start with a new worldview, the worldview of absolute truth given to us by the Creator. The Fall was a rejection of the Creator’s word as truth test. Conversion involves a rejection of man’s opinions as truth test and a return to the Creator’s word. Our presupposition now is that Scripture is our standard for truth.

Conversion may involve all four steps at once, spiritual, emotional, moral, and intellectual. Often it does, but many times it does not. I was spiritually converted, emotionally converted, and morally converted before I was totally intellectually converted. It took a long while to sort out all the issues. Therefore I must be patient with those who are still working on these issues.

So we have, then, two methodologies. Before conversion, our test of truth is man’s opinions, usually “secular science as standard for truth.” If the Bible doesn’t agree with something secular science says, then this pre-conversion intellectual methodology dictates that we should reinterpret the Bible. For example, one using this approach might claim that the early Genesis account is only myth or poetic imagery. After conversion, the Holy Scripture is our standard for truth. If man’s opinions (secular science) disagree with what the Scripture says, then reinterpret the secular science. These two methodologies are in conflict. They are two antithetical worldviews, two contrasting approaches.

David Noebel, in his excellent work (see, for example, Understanding the Times and The Battle for Truth), has pointed out:

When presenting the Christian worldview, then, we take the Bible at face value. Call it literal interpretation if you wish, but it is difficult to see how else the writers of the Old and New Testaments meant to be taken. Figures of speech, yes; typologies, yes; analogies, yes; but overall they wrote in simple, straightforward terms. When a writer says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” we understand him to say that there is a God, there was a beginning to creation, that heaven and earth exist, and that God made them. When a writer says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him shall not perish but have everlasting life,” we understand him to say that there is a God, that God loves, that God sent His Son, and that those who believe Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. It does not take a Ph.D. or a high IQ to comprehend the basic message of the Bible. God’s special revelation is open to everyone.
In talking with people, I have observed that those who reject a literal interpretation of the Creator’s words in early Genesis do so because they insist that “science” disagrees with that and “science” is absolute truth. When the claim is made that literal creationism must be rejected because it disagrees with science, it indicates philosophical confusion or philosophical ignorance or both. In this context, “science” is actually just philosophy in disguise.

Ardent evolutionist Dr. George Wald states:

[M]any scientists a century ago chose to regard the belief in spontaneous generation as a “philosophical necessity.” It is a symptom of the philosophical poverty of our time that this necessity is no longer appreciated. Most modern biologists, having reviewed with satisfaction the downfall of the spontaneous generation hypothesis, yet unwilling to accept the alternative belief in special creation, are left with nothing.
Much of the confusion over creation and evolution would be cleared away if the philosophical foundations behind the two views were more openly discussed. Fortunately, the situation may be improving.

Judging from scientific literature and letters to editors in scientific publications, there are indications that the philosophical roots of the creation-evolution controversy are being recognized. For example, after an article derogatory toward the creation position appeared as an editorial in a science magazine, a subsequent editorial made the following observation:

The scientist enters into a study with certain preconceived notions and interprets the results of the study with the same preconceived notions. True objectivity simply does not exist in the scientific world. A creationist and an evolutionist can agree on the data, the physically observable phenomena (whether it be the distribution of radioisotopes in a given geological structure or the bone formations of a living animal or fossil). They will then proceed to interpret that data according to their own presuppositions (“God created this” or “It all happened by accident”). Both employ the same data, but reach strikingly different conclusions. (Donald F. Calbreath, The Challenge of Creationism: Another Point of View, American Laboratory, November 1980, 10.)

We must pray that the role of presuppositions will become more widely recognized. If the miraculous is rejected for early Genesis, then on what basis can it be accepted for the resurrection? Certainly the resurrection is a key truth of Christianity.

Again noting that the issue is one about philosophy or worldviews, and not about facts, Phillip Johnson writes:

Ironically, while my critique of Darwinism and scientific naturalism has gained a hearing in secular academic debates, it has met with surprising resistance from theistic evolutionists in the Christian academic world. That many Christian college and seminary professors are ardent defenders of Darwinism may seem astonishing, but it is true. … What theistic evolutionists have failed above all to comprehend is that the conflict is not over “facts” but over ways of thinking. … The specific answers they derive may or may not be reconcilable with theism, but the manner of thinking is profoundly atheistic. To accept the answers as indubitably true is inevitably to accept the thinking that generated those answers. That is why I think the appropriate term for the accomodationist position is not “theistic evolution,” but rather “theistic naturalism.” Under either name, it is a disastrous error. (Phillip Johnson, Shouting Heresy in the temple of Darwin, Christianity Today, October 24, 1994, p. 26)

Phillip Johnson is entirely correct. He continues:

I decided to start using the term “theistic naturalism” instead of “theistic evolution” because it’s more accurate. Many of the people who call themselves “theistic evolutionists” use that term because it enables them to be orthodox within their church community, and orthodox within the scientific community. What they’re conforming their theism to, however, is not a gradual process that God guides and provides the information for. That’s not what mainstream science teaches. They have to conform their theism to naturalistic evolution, but especially to the naturalistic ways of thinking employed within the scientific community. I give some examples in Chapter 5 of Reason in the Balance (InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove IL, 1995). I think “theistic naturalism” is the precisely accurate term. It’s been very much resented, for the same reason that I think it’s appropriate: it calls attention to the inherent incoherence of attempting to conform a meaningful theism to a naturalistic worldview.

I hope you will bear with me for such an extended answer. Your questions are so very important. I thought it worthwhile to take this time to answer your basic one, about why literal creation is important. For answers to questions about how the Fall affected the world, please see our Suffering topic page.

May the Lord grant you His wisdom as you continue to search for His truth.

Your brother in Christ,

𝐃𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐝 𝐄. 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐤