One In Jesus

God has a way of turning up in the strangest places. When we look into the skies with remarkably powerful telescopes seeing stars billions of lights away (and so billions of years in the past), we see evidence of creation from nothing, the sudden appearance of light, and the separation of light from darkness.

We see the hand of God. Continue reading →

Borrowing once again from C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity —

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say.

Continue reading →

C.S. Lewis, a former atheist, wrote in  Mere Christianity,

If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents — the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms.

And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts — i.e., of materialism and astronomy — are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.

First Point: If you’ve not already done this, go buy a copy of Mere Christianity. And then read it about three times in a row. It’s short, brilliantly reasoned and worded — and life changing. Anyone can understand Lewis’s clearly worded logic and will come away with a deeper, richer, better understanding of Christianity. Continue reading →

Dating Eden

Eden in the Fertile Crescent

Suppose we move Eden back to something like 65,000 BC, when humans were first in Mesopotamia — the traditional site of Eden. Or if we’re willing to move Eden to Africa, we can move Eden back to when man was first preparing to move out of Africa and into Asia. But the location of Eden seems pretty specific —

 (Gen 2:14 ESV)  ¹⁴ And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

Continue reading →

 The Flood

The Flood itself was either a local flood or else God chose to leave no physical evidence of the Flood on the planet. There is no archaeological or geological evidence for a global Flood.

Obviously, God could have caused a global flood and removed all evidence, which one may believe as a matter of faith. But we have no business claiming that science supports the Flood as a global flood. It just doesn’t.

Continue reading →

Proposition: Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden are a special creation within the Creation

I believe God created Adam and Eve from scratch, just as is described in Genesis 2. There was a real, literal Garden of Eden, just as is described in Genesis 2. The rest of this is admittedly speculation, but speculation with a purpose — to demonstrate that there is at least one way, perhaps more, to reconcile the archaeology of early man with Genesis 4-9. Continue reading →

The curse of
Genesis 3

If the fossil record reveals death, disease, weed, thistles, and even cataclysmic destruction of animal life long before 4004 BC, what did the curse on creation that resulted from sin produce in Genesis 3?

It’s a good and fair question — and the fossil records does not reveal a dramatic change in animal disease or the fertility of the soil in about 4004 BC.  And yet the curse of Genesis 3 is a major part of Paul’s theology, especially as discussed by him in Romans 8. Continue reading →

Take the time to read this brief interview with N. T. Wright on some topics we’ve touched on here. It’ll be well worth your time.

Wright speaks at a fairly elevated level, so be prepared to be challenged.

I’ve just GOT to buy this book (even though I STILL haven’t finished Paul and the Faithfulness of God).

 Death

(Rom 5:12-13 ESV) ¹² Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned — ¹³ for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.

“Death” entered the world through Adam. Some say that animals did not die before Adam, which is why God did not allow them to be eaten. But this, of course, means that the Tyrannosaurus Rex ate Brussels sprouts and passed on the roast beef. It’s really hard to imagine. In fact, the fossil record does not reveal any time when there were no carnivores and no death among animals. If there were no deaths, there’d be no fossils! Continue reading →