Monthly Archives: August 2023

The Bible Created the Church

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It is not the church that gave us our Bible, rather it is our Bible the gave us the church. When the church made a list of the inspired Scriptures, these were already acknowledged to be so in the Christian community. The Church did not stand over the Scripture in authority but submitted to them, using the Latin phrase “Recipimus” meaning “We Receive.” That is vital to understand. The Scriptures are self authenticating, having their source in God. The church merely recognized and received the word of God. God created the world by His word and creates Christians the same way – “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” (1 Peter 1:23)

– John Samson

Compromise Positions

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An article by Ken Ham:

There are many different, what I call “compromise positions,” on Genesis such as theistic evolution, progressive creation, gap theory, day age theory, and many others. They actually all have one thing in common: trying to fit the supposed millions/billions of years into Scripture. Let’s look at one of these positions that has been fairly prevalent, progressive creation.

This position (popularized by Dr. Hugh Ross) allowed Christians to use the term “creationist” but still gave them supposed academic respectability in the eyes of the world by rejecting six literal days of creation and maintaining billions of years.

In summary, progressive creation teaches:

The big-bang origin of the universe occurred about 13–15 billion years ago.

The days of creation were overlapping periods of millions and billions of years.

Over millions of years, God created new species as others kept going extinct.

The record of nature (as interpreted by man) is just as reliable as the Word of God.

Death, bloodshed, and disease existed before Adam and Eve.

Manlike creatures that looked and behaved much like us (and painted on cave walls) existed before Adam and Eve but did not have a spirit that was made in the image of God, and thus had no hope of salvation.

The Genesis flood was a local event.

The big bang origin of the universe

Progressive creationists claim that the days of creation in Genesis chapter 1 represent long periods of time and that day three of creation week lasted more than three billion years! This assertion is made in order to allow for the billions of years that evolutionists claim are represented in the rock layers of earth. This position, however, has problems, both biblically and scientifically.

The text of Genesis 1 clearly states that God supernaturally created all that is in six actual days. If we are prepared to let the words of the text speak to us in accord with the context and their normal definitions, without influence from outside ideas, then the word for “day” in Genesis 1 obviously means an ordinary day of about 24 hours. It is qualified by a number, the phrase “evening and morning,” and for day one, the words “light and darkness.”

As their name indicates, progressive creationists believe that God progressively created species on earth over billions of years, with new species replacing extinct ones, starting with simple organisms and culminating in the creation of Adam and Eve. They accept the evolutionary order for the development of life on earth, even though this contradicts the order given in the Genesis account of creation. Evolutionary belief holds that the first life forms were marine organisms, while the Bible says that God created land plants first. Reptiles are supposed to have predated birds, while Genesis says that birds came first. Evolutionists believe that land mammals came before whales, while the Bible teaches that God created whales first.

Progressive creationists have stated that nature is “just as perfect” as the Bible and call nature the “sixty-seventh book” of the Bible.

Now God tells us in Romans 8:22 that “the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs” because of sin. And not only was the universe cursed, but man himself has been affected by the fall. So how can sinful, fallible human beings in a sin-cursed universe say that their interpretation of the evidence (nature) is as perfect as God’s written revelation? Scientific assertions must use fallible assumptions and fallen reasoning—how can this be the Word of God? It can’t.

Christians should build their thinking on the Bible, not on fallible interpretations of scientific observations about the past.

Progressive creationists believe the fossil record was formed from the millions of animals that lived and died before Adam and Eve were created. They accept the idea that there was death, bloodshed, and disease (including cancer) before sin, which goes directly against the teaching of the Bible and dishonors the character of God.

But God created a perfect world at the beginning. When he was finished, God stated that his creation was “very good.” The Bible makes it clear that man and all the animals were vegetarians before the fall (Genesis 1:29-30). Plants were given to them for food (plants do not have a nephesh [life spirit] as man and animals do and thus eating them would not constitute “death” in the biblical sense).

Concerning the entrance of sin into the world, progressive creationist Dr. Ross writes, “The groaning of creation in anticipation of release from sin has lasted fifteen billion years and affected a hundred billion trillion stars.”

The Bible,however, teaches something quite different. In the context of human death, the apostle Paul states, “Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin” (Romans 5:12). It is clear that there was no sin in the world before Adam sinned, and thus no death.

Since evolutionary radiometric dating methods have dated certain humanlike fossils as older than Ross’s date for modern humans (approx. 40,000 years), he and other progressive creationists insist that these are fossils of pre-Adamic creatures that had no spirit, and thus no salvation.

Progressive creationists accept and defend evolutionary dating methods, so they must redefine all evidence of humans (descendants of Noah) if they are given evolutionary dates of more than about 40,000 years (e.g., the Neanderthal cave sites) as related to spiritless “hominids,” which the Bible does not mention. However, these same methods have been used to “date” the Australian Aborigines back at least 60,000 years (some have claimed much older) and fossils of “anatomically modern humans” to over 100,000 years. By Ross’s reasoning, none of these (including the Australian Aborigines) could be descendants of Adam and Eve and so wouldn’t have souls. However, Acts 17:26 says, “And he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings”. All people who have lived on earth are descendants of Adam.

In addition, the fossil record cannot, by its very nature, conclusively reveal if a creature had a spirit or not, since spirits are not fossilized. But there is clear evidence that creatures, which progressive creationists place before Adam, had art and clever technology and that they buried their dead in a way that many of Adam’s descendants did. They were fully human and actually descendants of Adam, and they lived only a few thousand years ago.

Progressive creationists will say they believe in a “universal” or “worldwide” flood, but in reality they do not believe that the flood covered the whole earth. They believe in a local flood. They argue that the text of Genesis 7 doesn’t really say that the flood covered the whole earth. But read it for yourself and you will find the language overwhelmingly speaks of a flood covering the entire earth and everything on it.

Now it is true that whether one believes in six literal days does not ultimately affect one’s salvation, if one is truly born again. However, we need to stand back and look at the “big picture.” In many nations, the Word of God was once widely respected and taken seriously. But once the door of compromise is unlocked and Christian leaders concede that we shouldn’t take the Bible as written in Genesis, why should the world take heed of it in any area? Because the Church has told the world that one can use man’s interpretation of the world (such as billions of years) to reinterpret the Bible, it is seen as an outdated, scientifically incorrect “holy book,” not intended to be taken seriously.

Beware of compromise positions that attempt to fit man’s evolutionary/millions of years beliefs into the Bible.

Can You Love Theistic Evolutionists?

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An article by Ken Ham:

I have been traveling around the world and speaking on creation-apologetics for over 40 years. I’ve also been on many media interviews and radio talk shows during that time. I’ve met thousands of people. You could imagine that during all this time I have been asked a lot of questions relating to what I teach concerning Genesis chapters 1-11, the authority of Scripture, and the gospel. Surely by now you would think I’ve heard every question possible. But no, I think almost every week I’ll hear a question I haven’t been asked before.

During one of my trips to Australia, a reporter with a Christian media outlet had some different questions for me. I think you’ll be very interested in these questions and how I did my best to answer them. Often, after answering certain questions, I said to myself, “I need to remember how I answered that for next time!”

I always pray for wisdom and ask the Lord to help me answer new questions, and I do believe he also helps me recall things I’ve heard or read.

I’ve been in apologetics ministry for more than 40 years. My first creation-apologetics talk was in 1975. Along the way, I’ve had so many media interviews, I can’t remember most of them—TV broadcasts, radio programs, and newspaper and magazine interviews across the globe!

In a sense, I have learned to deal with being thrown to the wolves in this Answers in Genesis ministry. I’ve had to learn how to answer the most-asked questions about Genesis, creation, evolution, Noah’s flood, moral issues, the gospel, biblical authority, and so forth and do it quickly. And we hear many of those questions over and over again. That’s why we complied the 5 Answers Books to answer these most asked questions.

Actually, being out of the office and teaching in churches and colleges and interacting with Christian and secular media certainly hones our ability to answer new and sometimes difficult questions.

Over the years, every time I hear a question that I don’t know the answer to, I follow up with research, sometimes meeting with our resident scientists/theologians at AiG. We discuss the topic to ensure I can answer the question even better next time.

But let’s get to the interview I had with a reporter for a Christian media group in Australia.

The media outlet heard I was speaking at a conference in Sydney and contacted the church to ask if a reporter could talk to me. The reporter called me a couple of days later, and I spent nearly an hour on the phone with her. I wasn’t able to record the conversation, but I took careful notes and compiled them to the best of my ability.

I wasn’t surprised that it didn’t take long for her to ask a question about whether I believe someone has to believe in six literal days and a young earth to be a Christian. I emphatically stated that salvation is not conditional on the age of the earth or the six literal days, but on faith in Christ. I explained why it’s really a biblical authority issue, and I gave her many examples of how incompatible millions of years is with Genesis.

But then she asked a question that I must admit I had never been asked before, “Can you love theistic evolutionists?”

I told her I had recently spoken at a secular university (the University of Central Oklahoma) with many of the LGBTQ group from the university present. I told the crowd that as a Christian, I didn’t hate them, because I’m a Christian. And as Jesus tells us, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. However, I told the audience that I disagreed with the LGBTQ worldview—but that should never be interpreted as hate. I then said to the reporter, “I can love LGBTQ people, and I can love theistic evolutionists.”

Sensing why the reporter might be asking the question, I added that because I speak boldly about what I believe, sometimes people will falsely interpret my beliefs as hate. I often find that those who don’t take AiG’s stand on Genesis will demand we agree that people can have different views. I told the reporter that Christians can have different views, but I’ll tell them why I believe those views are wrong—and how they undermine biblical authority! Sometimes people get angry when I respond like this, and they may even, ironically, show hate toward me! They want me to say their position is a valid one. But I can’t do if I do not believe it!

I explained to the reporter why such matters are biblical authority issues. In detail, I pointed out that adding man’s ideas to Scripture in Genesis is undermining the authority of the Word of God—that it undermines all Christian doctrine, even the gospel.

The reporter asked me many other questions, and she got to the topic of climate change. Now, I would say that this was the only time during the interview when I believe things became somewhat contentious with this Christian reporter. (Climate change can be an emotional topic.)

First, I told her there’s been climate change ever since the flood. I said I didn’t deny climate change, but the details as to why it’s happening and how serious it is (or isn’t) were matters that needed to be discussed. I referred to one of the articles in our Answers magazine where a scientist shows that there have been warming and cooling periods in the past and that our current (quite small) warming trend could be a normal fluctuation.

I further explained that we don’t have enough data to know for sure what has really been occurring. I added that scientists know the sun’s activity has a significant effect on climate change and that the main greenhouse gas is not actually carbon dioxide but water vapor.

Then it became a bit tense. I said that if you ask most people who are climate change alarmists (including most young people) to explain the data and give the facts behind what they’re claiming, most have no clue. They just regurgitate what they’ve heard.

She then said something to the effect that she didn’t need to do that. The reporter said that she could rely on the experts who have done the research. I replied that this is not the correct approach and that as Christians, we all need to search things out and be prepared to give reasons (1 Peter 3:15) for what we believe.

I told her my father wanted his kids to know why we believed what we did—and wanted us to be able to defend our beliefs. She then essentially accused me of refusing to accept what the majority of scientists are saying: that man-made climate change is a big problem.

I replied by saying that the majority of scientists say there’s no God and that life arose by naturalistic evolution. Should we then say we have to reject God because the majority of scientists say so? I emphasized that we are obligated as Christians to check things out.

I also explained that after the Flood, God told Noah, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22).

She responded with, “Are you saying we should do nothing then?” Well, of course I wasn’t saying that. I responded that God gave man dominion over the environment, not the environment over man, and that Christians should have a biblically based worldview in regard to environmental issues. We should responsibly use the creation for man’s good and God’s glory.

I gave an example that in the USA, trees are harvested for various reasons, but more trees are planted than are harvested. I also said that we need to understand how sin and the curse of Genesis 3:14-19 have affected the world.

I recalled the verse, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6).

Actually, that’s a major problem in the world and in the church! One of the reasons so many young people are being led astray by evolutionary ideas, climate change alarmists, abortionists, the LGBTQ movement, and so forth is that they have been told what to believe and not taught how to think about such issues or look at all the evidence available. And sadly, much of the church has not taught their congregations how to think about these issues from a biblical worldview perspective, and how to defend the Christian faith against the secular attacks of our day by equipping with apologetics.