Hard Choice: Stew or God. Hmmm…

Today’s Reading:

• Genesis 25:27-28:5

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• “Look, I’m dying of starvation!” said Esau. “What good is my birthright to me now?” – Genesis 25:32, NLT

• Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and lentil stew. Esau ate the meal, then got up and left. He showed contempt for his rights as the firstborn. – Genesis 25:34, NLT

• “May God pass on to you and your descendants the blessings he promised to Abraham. May you own this land where you are now living as a foreigner, for God gave this land to Abraham.” – Isaac to Jacob. – Genesis 28:4, NLT

Thoughts:
Faith is a matter of life and death.

Esau’s dying. Or at least he feels like he’s dying. Of starvation. And Jacob has stew simmering over the fire, ready to eat. Esau asks for stew. Jacob says, “I’ll trade you—my stew for your birthright.” And Esau agrees, saying, “What good is my birthright to me NOW?”

What exactly was this birthright?

In that culture, the firstborn son was the primary heir of his father’s estate. The bulk of his father’s assets became his when his father died. If your father was poor, inheriting his possessions wasn’t too helpful.

But Esau and Jacob’s father Isaac was wealthy. And even if he’d been poor, he possessed a treasure no money could buy: God’s promises. God had promised Abraham to make him into a great nation, to bless him, to make his name great, to make him a blessing, to bless those who blessed him, to curse those who cursed him, and to bless all peoples on earth through him (Genesis 12:2-3). And God had promised to give Abraham’s descendants the land of Canaan (Genesis 12:7; 13:14-17). In fact, God had promised Abraham Himself, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward” (Genesis 15:1).

All of these blessings from God were part of the birthright. They were meant to be passed on to Abraham’s heirs (Genesis 17:7-8).

But Abraham’s firstborn son, Ishmael, did not inherit these blessings. The birthright went instead to the promised son, Isaac (Genesis 17:18-22). And it was only passed on to Isaac after Abraham was asked to choose between God and His promises, on the one hand, and Isaac, on the other. Abraham’s choice was clear: Isaac faced death because Abraham valued God and His promises above even his own son (Genesis 22:1-18)! That’s how priceless a treasure God and His promises are.

Esau, Isaac’s son, threw this birthright away over a bowlful of stew! In exchange for stew, Jacob received the family’s primary relationship with God and His blessings!

Faith is a matter of life and death. Esau almost certainly would not have died without that stew. But even if he had literally been on the brink of death, he would have been better off to clutch his birthright promises jealously to his chest and die, trusting that God would bring him back to life and fulfill His promises (as Abraham trusted God would do with Isaac – Hebrews 11:17-19).

So perhaps this isn’t why I believe. It’s more why I cling to my faith so tightly. Given the fact that I believe in God and look forward to the day He fulfills His promises, there’s nothing that could replace Him. Nothing.

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.

Genealogical Genius

Today’s Reading:

• Genesis 25:1-4
• 1 Chronicles 1:32-33
• Genesis 25:5-6
• Genesis 25:12-18
• 1 Chronicles 1:28-31
• 1 Chronicles 1:34
• Genesis 25:19-26
• Genesis 25:7-11

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• This is the account of the family of Ishmael, the son of Abraham through Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian servant. Here is a list, by their names and clans, of Ishmael’s descendants: The oldest was Nebaioth, followed by Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. These twelve sons of Ishmael became the founders of twelve tribes named after them, listed according to the places they settled and camped. – Genesis 25:12-16, NLT

Thoughts:
How important are the genealogies, really?

I don’t know anyone who really seems to like reading all the Bible’s genealogies. It’s usually not the highlight of my year, anyway. But they’re worth reading as a reinforcement to our faith.

How so? They’re nothing incredible. All they are is a list of who descended from whom. A really, really, really long list. How can a list like this reinforce our faith?

For one thing, the genealogies show how much our God cares about details. The God who claims to know everything, down to the number of hairs on each human head, shouldn’t have any trouble keeping track of details about who was whose father. So if nothing else, the genealogies give us a little bit more reason to trust that the Bible is an accurate, detailed book.

But that’s not the only reason for the genealogies. God has other ways to show us how detailed He can be. What purpose is there in the genealogies?

Let’s see if we can get a hint from where the genealogies begin. This is not the first time we’ve seen a genealogy. The genealogies start with Adam, continue to Noah, go on to Abraham, and then trace their way onward from there.

What about which people are included in the genealogies? Mostly the genealogies follow the line from one man of faith to another. Noah. Abraham. Jacob. Judah. David. Sometimes the genealogies also take a little bit of time to trace their relatives, like the one above about Ishmael. They remind us that all of humanity, including Israel’s enemies, is family.

And where do the genealogies end? The last two genealogies I can think of in the Scriptures are in Matthew 1 and Luke 3, and both end with the same person: Jesus Christ. In other words, even the genealogies tell a story, and the point of the story is that God was keeping careful watch over all of human history as He guided it from the first man, Adam, who dragged all of us into sin, to the sinless man, Jesus Christ, who died for our sins and not for His own.

Even in the seemingly pointless details of Scripture, God points us to Jesus. And this happens as scores of human writers who mostly never meet each other coordinate their thoughts across centuries of Bible-writing until Jesus is born. This is no coincidence. This is evidence that God was really coordinating human history to His planned outcome. In other words, the genealogies are a reason for faith.

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.

Faith-Based Risks

Today’s Reading:

• Genesis 21:8-23:20
• Genesis 11:32
• Genesis 24:1-67

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• So Abraham got up early the next morning, prepared food and a container of water, and strapped them on Hagar’s shoulders. Then he sent her away with their son, and she wandered aimlessly in the wilderness of Beersheba. – Genesis 21:14, NLT

Thoughts:
How on earth could Abraham send his firstborn son away?

I don’t think Abraham could have done it without his faith in God—the same faith that enabled him to be willing to sacrifice his promised son, Isaac, a little while later.

Both events sound awful. We’re used to thinking about how terrible it would be for God to ask us to sacrifice a son because we hear the story of Isaac all the time. But it’s not as if being asked to send a son out into wilderness and never to see him again would be much easier. How could Abraham do it?

Here’s how: Abraham could only send his son Ishmael away if he was 100% convinced that God would truly care for his boy.

Abraham sent Ishmael away knowing he would survive…at least, if God was real and trustworthy. Just before sending Ishmael away, Abraham at least thought that he heard this message from God: “But I will also make a nation of the descendants of Hagar’s son because he is your son, too.” So Abraham acted in line with the promise he heard from God. And do you know what? Ishmael survived. And although not all Arabs are necessarily descended directly from him (at least, according to http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/OnlineDiscipleship/UnderstandingIslam/Is_the_Arab_nation_descended_from_Ishmael.aspx; and please note that I do not necessarily endorse the sites on which I find things like this), their culture is considered to be his legacy. So there’s at least some evidence that God fulfilled His promises yet again.

But the point I really want to make is this: the steps Abraham took were the steps of a man convinced that He was hearing from God. And things worked out the way Abraham trusted that they would.

So another reason I believe is that men like Abraham, throughout the Bible and throughout extra-biblical history, have been willing to risk everything on God’s promises. People don’t take such big risks without being completely convinced that someone has their back. When that Someone is God, and when He comes through like this, their conviction seems to be validated. And trusting their God seems reasonable.

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.

God Fights for Faith

Today’s Reading:

• Genesis 18:1-21:7

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• Surely you wouldn’t do such a thing, destroying the righteous along with the wicked. Why, you would be treating the righteous and the wicked exactly the same! Surely you wouldn’t do that! Should not the Judge of all the earth do what is right? – Genesis 18:25, NLT

Thoughts:
Since almost the beginning of time, one of our most grievous challenges against the existence of God has been the idea that perhaps the God who claims to be good isn’t actually on par with His claims.

We experience so much pain. We experience so much agony. Whole nations, and even continental regions, endure the most distressing times. Tragedy seems to strike good people as often as bad people.

And a good God’s supposed to be in charge of all this?

If only every person’s story were recorded from God’s perspective, the way Abraham’s is.

We already know that Abraham’s a man of faith. He trusts God. But that doesn’t mean that Abraham shies away from the tough questions. In fact, it is precisely because Abraham trusts God that He begs God to go easy on Sodom and Gomorrah, if only to spare fifty…no, forty-five…no, how about forty…or thirty…maybe twenty…or even a mere ten righteous people. Abraham believes God is good, and so He asks God, “the Judge of all the earth,” not to treat good people like bad people.

And do you know what? God makes it clear right from the beginning that He is as good as He claims to be. In this particular story, God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah because not even ten righteous people live within their walls. And what’s more, the few righteous people who do live there are rescued….Not that they turn out to be perfect, themselves (which I take as a note of hope for those of us who are seeking after God, even if imperfectly).

Of course, there are plenty of stories not only outside of the Bible, but inside of it, that give us pause and make us wonder all over again, “Do all people really get what they deserve? Or is God perhaps not perfectly fair?” But between stories like this, where the line between good and evil seems black and white and God is always clearly good, and God’s explanations elsewhere that perfect justice will not be completed in this complex world where we can’t always see either good or evil clearly, I’m willing to believe in Him. I think He’s trustworthy. I mean, He’s God. He has nothing to prove. If He were evil, why would He care what I thought of Him? I can’t vote Him out of office. So why claim to be good if He’s not? He has no need for falsified PR.

God cares that we think He’s good. He takes the time to tell us stories about how much He hates evil and loves good, stories intended to answer our most doubt-filled questions. The fact that He’s fighting like that for our trust—when He’s God and doesn’t have to—makes me trust Him even more.

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.

I Trust the One I Hear

Today’s Reading:

• Genesis 15:1-17:27

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• Then the LORD said to him, “No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.” Then the LORD took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!” And Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD counted him as righteous because of his faith. – Genesis 15:4-6, NLT

Thoughts:
I’m playing catch-up, so I’ll be brief.

Part of the reason I believe what I believe, to be honest, is personal experience. I believe the God I hear.

No, I don’t hear God’s voice audibly. And if I did, I would probably double-guess my hearing so often that the experience would be more painful than blissful. But when I’m reading the Old and New Testament Scriptures, I hear God. And just as some would argue that I can prove my existence because “I think, therefore I am,” I would argue that, “I hear, therefore He is.” Let alone, “I am, therefore He is.” But I won’t get into that argument here.

I hear. Therefore He is. When I read this passage, where God announces the incredible to an aging, childless man, I hear God announcing the incredible for me. Not the same incredible. I’m not going to be the father of celestial numbers of descendants. But all the same, that promise was for me because I am one of the descendants who gets to receive God’s blessings.

People are still hearing God today. I’m one of them. And because I hear, I believe. Do you hear Him?

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.

Books Needed for Indonesia Seminary

Hi everyone,
I have an invitation especially, but not only, for the members of Swanton Alliance Church. Would you like to help the Sekolah Tinggi Theologia Jaffray (Jaffray School of Theology), a seminary in Makassar, Indonesia? One practical way that you can help is by buying and sending some books their direction. Below is a list of desired books sent to me by a member of their faculty. Please contact me if you would like to help by buying and sending specific books or by simply donating finances to be used for these purchases.

Here is the list:

Book List for STT Jaffray, Makassar, Indonesia

1. Dictionary of New Testament Background (The IVP Bible Dictionary Series) by Craig A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter (Nov 16, 2000)

2. Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch (The IVP Bible Dictionary Series) by T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker (Dec 13, 2002)

3. Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry & Writings (The IVP Bible Dictionary Series) by Tremper Longman III and Peter Enns (Jun 6, 2008)

4. Handbook of New Testament Exegesis, A (New Testament Studies) by Craig L. Blomberg and Jennifer Foutz Markley (Nov 1, 2010)

5. Contextualization in the New Testament: Patterns for Theology and Mission by Dean E. Flemming (Oct 12, 2005)

6. Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (The IVP Bible Dictionary Series) by Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, and I. Howard Marshall (Feb 18, 1992)

7. Children's Ministry in the 21st Century by Group Publishing (Dec 2006)

8. Children's Ministry That Works !: The Basics and Beyond by Craig Jutila, Jim Wideman, Chris Yount, and Thom Schultz (Jul 31, 2009)

9. Best Practices for Children's Ministry: Leading from the Heart by Andrew Ervin (Sep 1, 2010)

10. Christian Counseling 3rd Edition: Revised and Updated by Gary R. Collins (Jan 16, 2007)

11. Christian Counseling: An Introduction by H. Newton Malony and David W. Augsburger (Feb 2007)

12. Counseling: How to Counsel Biblically (MacArthur Pastor's Library) by John MacArthur, Wayne A. Mack, and Master's College Faculty (Aug 23, 2005)

13. Killing Cockroaches: And Other Scattered Musings on Leadership by Tony Morgan and Andy Stanley (Mar 1, 2009)

14. The Monkey and the Fish: Liquid Leadership for a Third-Culture Church (Leadership Network Innovation Series) by Dave Gibbons (Jan 20, 2009)

15. Communicating for a Change: Seven Keys to Irresistible Communication by Andy Stanley and Lane Jones (Jun 1, 2006)

16. Visioneering: God's Blueprint for Developing and Maintaining Vision by Andy Stanley (Oct 3, 2005)

17. Basic Christian Leadership: Biblical Models of Church, Gospel and Ministry by John R. W. Stott (Mar 23, 2006)

18. Christian Theology: An Introduction by Alister E. McGrath (Oct 12, 2010)

19. The Book on Leadership by John F. MacArthur (Oct 3, 2006)

20. Cross and Christian Ministry, The: Leadership Lessons from 1 Corinthians by D. A. Carson (Feb 1, 2004)

21. Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible by Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Nov 1, 2005)

22. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Baker Reference Library) by Walter A. Elwell (May 1, 2001)

23. Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God by John Piper and Mark A. Noll (Sep 15, 2010)

24. Jesus: The Only Way to God: Must You Hear the Gospel to be Saved? by John Piper (Aug 1, 2010)

25. A Sweet and Bitter Providence: Sex, Race, and the Sovereignty of God by John Piper (Dec 21, 2009)

26. Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament by G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (Nov 1, 2007)

27. Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus (Re:Lit) by D. A. Carson (Feb 3, 2010)

28. What Does God Want of Us Anyway?: A Quick Overview of the Whole Bible (9Marks) by Mark Dever (Mar 9, 2010)

29. It Is Well: Expositions on Substitutionary Atonement (9Marks) by Mark Dever and Michael Lawrence (Apr 1, 2010)

30. 12 Challenges Churches Face by Mark Dever (Apr 1, 2008)

31. Ryken's Bible Handbook by Leland Ryken, Philip Ryken, and James Wilhoit (Sep 19, 2005)

32. Art for God's Sake: A Call to Recover the Arts by Philip Graham Ryken (May 2, 2006)

33. Discovering God in Stories from the Bible by Philip Graham Ryken (Feb 10, 2010)

34. The Great Commission: Evangelicals and the History of World Missions by Martin Klauber, Scott M. Manetsch, D.A. Carson, and Glenn Sunshine (Apr 1, 2008)

35. The God Question: An Invitation to a Life of Meaning (ConversantLife.com®) by James Porter Moreland (Jan 1, 2009)

36. The Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask: (With Answers) by Mark Mittelberg and Lee Strobel (Oct 11, 2010)

37. Voices of the Faithful: Inspiring Stories of Courage from Christians Serving Around the World by Beth Moore and International Mission Board (Dec 28, 2010)

38. Paradigms in Conflict: 10 Key Questions in Christian Missions Today by David J. Hesselgrave (Jan 15, 2006)

39. Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader by Ralph D. Winter (Jan 2009)

40. Ephesians (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament) by Frank Thielman (Nov 1, 2010)

41. Acts (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament) by Darrell L. Bock (Oct 1, 2007)

42. The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians (New International Commentary on the New Testament) by Gordon D. Fee (Jul 10, 2009)

43. The Letter to the Hebrews (Pillar New Testament Commentary) by Peter Thomas O'Brien (Feb 22, 2010)

44. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament by John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas (Nov 8, 2000)

45. Sustainable Youth Ministry: Why Most Youth Ministry Doesn't Last and What Your Church Can Do About It by Mark DeVries (Oct 10, 2008)

46. The Power of a Whisper: Hearing God, Having the Guts to Respond by Bill Hybels (Jul 25, 2010)

47. Too Busy Not to Pray by Bill Hybels (Apr 10, 2008)

48. The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism (Veritas) by James Porter Moreland (May 30, 2009)

49. The Promise-Plan of God: A Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments by Walter C. Kaiser (Apr 8, 2008)

50. Recovering the Unity of the Bible: One Continuous Story, Plan, and Purpose by Walter C. Kaiser (Oct 13, 2009)

Linguistic Diversity

Today’s Reading:

• Genesis 11:1-26
• 1 Chronicles 1:24-27
• Genesis 11:27-31
• Genesis 12:1-14:24

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• That is why the city was called Babel, because that is where the LORD confused the people with different languages. In this way he scattered them all over the world. – Genesis 11:9, NLT

Thoughts:
In an interesting article/bulletin put out by the Linguistic Society of America, Stephen R. Anderson says that one source puts the number of languages in the world at 6,809, and these languages are broken into 250 families of languages. But from a biologist’s perspective, he says, the similarities of all these human languages far outweigh their differences and distinguish them as a class from any other organism’s communication patterns to the extent that a biologist could say that they’re really just one language (http://www.lsadc.org/info/pdf_files/howmany.pdf, pages 3 and 10).

This seems to me to make the best sense if the Bible’s account of the Tower of Babel is true.

As the Bible tells it, all mankind originally came from one couple, Adam and Eve. And then, after a while, there was a flood that wiped out all mankind except Noah, his wife, and their children. They were all speaking the same language. And that continued until the Tower of Babel.

Whether you believe in Creation or not, doesn’t it make sense that humanity would begin by all speaking the same language? I mean, no matter what theory you believe, how many humans would there have been at the beginning? 1? 5? 10? And they would have needed to exist in the same part of the world, or humanity would have died out within the first generation. So you would think that they would have to communicate with each other.

And the benefits of communicating with each other outweigh the advantages of being unable to understand one another by far. Just look at what’s happening to our world today. The biggest languages are growing stronger because people are finding that communication leads to mutual success and prosperity, so everyone wants in on the world’s most widespread and useful languages. And the smallest languages are dying out as fewer and fewer people find them to be worth spending the time to learn.

So why would humanity start off with a united language and then divide into so many individual languages, let alone dialects, when being unable to communicate leads to misunderstandings and mistrust and war rather than to prosperity?

It would be one thing if all these languages seemed to be clearly related to each other. You might then be able to argue that the original humans just split into different groups and spread apart, then developed different accents, and over time the accents got to be too strong for mutual understanding. But there are around 250 language families. They share the same basic underlying linguistic foundation, but the language families themselves are completely different and unrelated in their sounds and grammars. Within this common human linguistic capacity that makes it possible for any human baby to learn any human language as it grows up, there are very real differences that are completely unrelated to each other. How do you get so much unity and so much diversity at the same time?

The Tower of Babel. God created man, as the Bible says. They all shared one language. But then one day God saw that they were not filling the earth as He had commanded them to do (Genesis 9:1). Instead, they were banding together to keep from being scattered (Genesis 11:4). So God decided to make humans become foreigners to one another to force them apart. The result? A history filled with different languages and scattered throughout the earth by their differences. A modern day where humanity is abandoning linguistic differences and seeking linguistic unity for the sheer benefits that come from mutual understanding and cooperation. Considering how important the ability to communicate is, why else would humanity have ever given it up besides the events that took place at the Tower of Babel?

How can I believe it? It just makes sense to me. How about you?

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.

The Ark Could Preserve the World’s Life

Today’s Reading:

• Genesis 7:1-10:5
• 1 Chronicles 1:5-7
• Genesis 10:6-20
• 1 Chronicles 1:8-16
• Genesis 10:21-30
• 1 Chronicles 1:17-23
• Genesis 10:31-32

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• Take with you seven pairs—male and female—of each animal I have approved for eating and for sacrifice, and take one pair of each of the others. Also take seven pairs of every kind of bird. There must be a male and a female in each pair to ensure that all life will survive on the earth after the flood. – Genesis 7:2-3, NLT

Thoughts:
When you think of all the varieties of life forms that exist, and then imagine trying to fit a pair of each species (seven pairs of some of them) onto one boat, it seems impossible. But could it have been do-able?

After reading some thoughts on this from an article on the Answers in Genesis website (http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n2/two-of-every-kind#fnList_1_10), I have enough clarity to at least be able to give you one scientist’s (Todd Charles Wood, Ph.D.) explanation of how it was possible. It does require me to eat a little bit of humble pie as I admit that in my very first post of the year I was using scientific terminology (species) imprecisely, and should probably have gone up the biological classification system two steps to the “family” level to argue my case about plants and animals reproducing their own kinds. So, that done, let’s look at this Wood’s ideas.

What Wood does is return to the idea that we have already examined, the Bible’s declaration that God created life to reproduce itself within created kinds. He also returns to the notion that mutations and variations exist within various created kinds of life, as also agreed to above. And Wood, a published biochemist, has done about a decade of preliminary biological research whose results are beginning to show a pattern. He suggests that, when the Bible describes God creating life forms to reproduce their own kinds, those “kinds” correspond to what biology now calls “families.”

For instance, the coyote, wolf, jackal, dog and fox all share the Canidae family name. So without arguing for evolution in the sense that all today’s dog varieties spring from a common single-cell organism which itself sprung from non-life at some point way back in history, Wood argues that varieties within biological families probably came from a micro-evolutionary process following the flood. He says it would not have been necessary for Noah to have two dogs, two wolves, two foxes, etc., on the ark with him, but just to have had one pair of Canidae. If Noah’s ark simply included a pair of animals from each biological family, Wood says that as few as 2,000 individual animals may have been on the ark, probably a few more than that. And for that number of animals, he claims that “there would have been plenty of room to house these and their food, plus Noah and his family.”

This is not a new idea. In his article, Wood records that as far back as 1559, 1675, and 1668, scholars were arguing the same kind of thing. Humans have understood the concept of micro-evolution for a long time, far prior to Darwin’s claim that the process of evolution could be responsible for life itself.

I know that I have only addressed one challenge to believing that the story of Noah’s ark is factual. Other challenges include the concept of a global flood and the length of time that Noah and his ancestors lived (which would be required if one man like Noah was going to have time to build a massive boat). Also, to believe the story of Noah’s ark requires being willing to believe that God exists and cares enough about His creation to be concerned with whether men are living morally or immorally and to intervene through both a flood and an ark. Thankfully, there are plenty more people who are writing and have written volumes and volumes of books helping anyone who is willing to read them to understand why faith in these things can be and is reasonable.

I’ve only had time to re-explain an argument that shows how the ark could preserve the world’s life. This modern look at the story of Noah’s ark is one of the reasons that I can believe the Bible. I’m well aware that there are plenty of stories that don’t even try to appeal to the laws of the natural world, though, stories of God’s miracles. And yes, I still have reasons for believing them, even if scientists can’t help me out the way they can with the Flood. We’ll get there. But for now, part of the reason that I can believe the Bible is that stories like this can still be understood through modern science. To be a Christian does not require me to ignore my experience of the world around me.

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.

I Believe Because Sin Is Real

Today’s Reading:

• Genesis 4:1-5:32
• 1 Chronicles 1:1-4
• Genesis 6:1-22

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master. – Genesis 4:7, NLT

Thoughts:
The Bible teaches that sin is real. For some of us, that’s not too faith-stretching a concept. But there is a fairly large group of people that believes humanity is inherently good, good by nature.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe that every person in the world is an obvious sinner. It’s not like we’re all stealing all the time, or cheating on our spouses, or killing everyone like Cain does in this passage.

But since Adam and Eve disobeyed God and took the fruit He commanded them to leave alone, we’ve all been sinful and vulnerable to sin’s control in our lives. Think of the kindest, gentlest person you know, the white-haired saint of a grandmother you have who never seems to do anything wrong. And ask her (or him, whoever you’re thinking of), “You never seem to do anything wrong. Have you ever sinned? What’s something bad that you’ve done?” And even that elderly saint will have an answer for you. You might think that their sin is so insignificant that you personally wouldn’t worry about it. You might wish that your life contained such minute sins instead of whatever it is you’ve done. But still, they’ve sinned. Sin crouches at the door of every human heart and, at some or many points in life, every human heart is mastered by it. Sin is a pervasive human reality.

And since the Bible teaches us that sin is a reality in this world, sin itself is another reason to trust that God knows what He’s talking about. God is in touch with reality, and reality includes sin. So if God says that there’s sin, and life proves it, maybe we ought to listen to God a little more when He talks about other things, too.

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.

Why Creationism? Why Not Evolution?

Today’s Reading:
• Genesis 1:1-3:24

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• The land produced vegetation—all sorts of seed-bearing plants, and trees with seed-bearing fruit. Their seeds produced plants and trees of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. – Gen. 1:12, NLT
• So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that scurries and swarms in the water, and every sort of bird—each producing offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. – Gen. 1:21, NLT
• God made all sorts of wild animals, livestock, and small animals, each able to produce offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. – Gen. 1:25, NLT
  

Thoughts:
In Hebrews (I’m jumping ahead, I know) we’re told that it’s by faith that we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command so that what is seen was not made out of visible matter. That was true around 2,000 years ago when Hebrews was written and it’s still true today; creationism has always been a faith-based understanding of our origins.

But I’ve always loved science, especially biology. And one of the questions that scientists seek to answer is the question of where all us living beings came from—the question of origins. Modern science has some pretty amazing tools at its disposal, tools that help us to observe our world in more detail than ever before and, we hope, to therefore to understand it better. And modern science has been largely developed around the theory of evolution—the theory that life as we know it developed and mutated over millions of years from life as it once was, that organisms which exist today have not existed since the earth’s formation.

So why would a science-loving, reason-based, intellectual (at least intellectual wannabe) like me believe that the world’s life forms were created rather than that they evolved?

Faith. Reasonable faith. Genesis, like all Scripture, claims to be authored by God. Written through men (in this case, Moses, for instance), but authored by God. And one of the counter-evolution notions in the verses above (besides the idea that God made the things mentioned) is the notion that God created plants and animals to reproduce themselves rather than to produce new types of creatures.

It’s a claim that seems trustworthy. For one thing, I see exactly this sort of thing going on today. I see pine trees bearing pine cones which lead to more pine trees, guppies reproducing guppies, rabbits reproducing rabbits, etc. Are there variations within these species? Yes. Mutations? Yes. Microevolution? Yes. It’s observable. But microevolution does not oppose the Bible’s account of creation; it fits this biblical teaching that species reproduce themselves.

‘What about the fossil records?’ someone might ask. After all, there used to be other species alive, species similar to today’s species, but that no longer exist today. Didn’t today’s life forms come from at least some of these now-extinct species? Similarities make it seem possible. The fossil records supposedly support the theory of evolution.

Fossils are observable. But they also need to be interpreted. And they do not require an interpretation that favors evolutionary theory. They can be interpreted to support creationism. For instance, as a creationist I happen to agree that there used to be many species alive that are not alive today. Extinction is still occurring. According to http://www.petermaas.nl/extinct/lists/mostrecent.htm (today, Jan. 1, 2011) at least six species have become extinct since the year 2000. And yet no one claims that any new species have arisen from any of these recently extinguished gene pools. Their similarities to other creatures are documented and can be used to speculate on what their evolutionary history could have looked like. But the fact is that none of them can be proved to have come from any other species. To come to this conclusion requires an interpretation of the observable data. And interpretations can be wrong.

So we have two interpretations of the data that I think are worth considering. One interpretation says that life has evolved over time and that current species arose from prior species. This interpretation agrees that species generally reproduce themselves; it simply argues that, over time, mutations and variations can and do lead to new species. And the other interpretation says that the reason we observe species reproducing themselves is because that is precisely how God created the world to work.

Which one’s right? Which one’s wrong? Do I go with the interpretations of mortal men like me who have previously unimaginable capacities to observe life’s structures and whose interpretations have the support and trust (faith) of most of the scientific community? Or do I go with the interpretations that are scorned by most of the scientific community but that claim to come from God? Either way, I have to trust someone.

Here’s why I choose creationism: I trust God. God exists. I know that I can’t prove to everyone that He exists, but I am personally convinced that He does (and possibly at some point this year, I’ll talk a bit about my reasons for this). The God who exists has an advantage over every single one of today’s scientists—and not just today’s, but history’s. He observed what we can’t observe. Science begins with observation. So if I’m going to choose to trust in a scientific theory, and one scientist’s theory is based on fewer observations than the other’s, I’m going to trust the scientist who has observed more so long as his theory can still fit with the data.

In this case, that scientist is God. What He teaches about creation (not that the Bible was written to be a scientific manual) fits today’s observable data just as well as the evolutionary theory, or better. It simply offers a different interpretation. But that interpretation is based on God’s own observations and experience of history.

So I follow the theory of creationism because it fits the data I can observe today while evolution seems to oppose it (teaching species arising from other species) and because it follows the interpretation of the One who has experienced and observed more than any human scientist. It seems reasonable to me to trust Him. How about you?

Why Do Believers Believe?

In this New Year, I’ll be reading the Bible chronologically, and I invite you to join me. As I read, I hope to keep my thoughts focused on the question, “How can I believe this?” It seems to me that we’re living in a time when a growing number of people who know the Scriptures have come to the conclusion that the Scriptures simply aren’t credible. My hope is to show that those of us who believe do so reasonably, and to invite those who are struggling to believe or who don’t believe at all to join with us believers in standing firmly in our reasonable faith. I invite all readers into a dialogue. I do not claim to be a genius, so I doubt that my reasons for believing the Scriptures will always be unassailable. Feel free to show me where my logic falters. But also feel free to add your reasons for faith to mine. Let’s see where this journey leads as we pursue the truth together.

To review the Bible reading plan options, please visit http://tinyurl.com/yj2o7jz.