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Why Christians Need to Know History
Jun 30, 2017
Recently, my daughter showed me a Huffington Post article reviewing the book Noah, Man of Resolve. It is a fictional story based on events in the Bible and written from a creationist worldview. I haven’t read the book, and I hope people understand it is a beyond-the-Bible representation of Noah, but it does make the effort to show a realistic setting. The article took the liberty of correcting the viewpoint with evolutionary “real” science, and comments were vicious in their criticism of creationism.
What was not considered is the increasing discoveries in science that present problems for evolutionary theory. It is said by evolutionists that the similar DNA of man and chimps and gorillas proves there is evidence of a common ancestor. The difference in the similarities is about 4% which makes us seem very close indeed. A closer look, however, reveals that while the percentage seems small, it represents 125 million differences. Trying to explain these differences proposes another problem called Haldane’s Dilemma. And that is only scratching the surface of their claim.
Many believe, mistakenly, that science, in its modern interpretation of the method of knowing, has proven the Bible wrong. But it is science that has proven to agree with the Bible. Matthew Maury who wrote the first book on modern oceanography saw the reference in Job 28:25 that refers to paths in the sea. He decided to investigate and ended up charting the currents in the Atlantic. Ironically, this verse also points out that air has weight. Maury said, “…though the fact that the air has weight is here so distantly announced [in Job], philosophers never recognized the fact until within comparatively a recent period, and then it was proclaimed by them as a great discovery.”
Indeed, scientists have discovered that stars sing (Job 38:7), the universe is wearing out (Psalm 102:26), which points to the fact the universe had a beginning (Genesis 1:1), the quantity of energy and matter in the universe remains constant (Genesis 2:1-2), the field of quantum physics (Hebrews 1:1, Genesis 1:3-4, 2Peter 3:8, 2Corinthians 4:18) and that man is what he thinks in his heart and truly, the power of life and death is in the power of the tongue. Scientists have even discovered the medical wisdom behind the dietary and cultural practices of the ancient Israelites. God even promised them in Psalm 91 that the sun would not harm them by day nor the moon by night, a kind of supernatural sunblock.This is a short list.
Our worldview affects all areas of our life. In the academic world it affects all disciplines: science, math, history, grammar. It is the lens that interprets the discoveries. But what if this lens is flawed?
Skeptics point out that if the Bible is known to be in error concerning science and the chronology of history, then it must be in error when it speaks of the spiritual nature of man. But this premise has been proven false again and again by science and archeology.
In the field of archeology, a relatively new science that had its origins in claims the Bible made concerning ancient empires, cities and people groups, new developments are upsetting the Traditional Chronology of Egypt based on evolutionary theory and the history of man. A revision may soon be coming that will set their timeline back to agree with the timeline of the Bible. The effect will be revolutionary.
It seems that truth really is springing from the earth. (Psalm 85:11)
In fact archeology has shown its skepticism to be invalid concerning the Hittites and other empires, King David, King Solomon, a slave population of Asiatics in Egypt, the names of people groups, their cities and gods, and…etc.
The point is, the Bible cannot be shoved to the side in our modern era. If the premise is in error and we use the skeptics’ logic, that if the Bible is wrong about science and history then it is wrong about the spirituality of man, what can we conclude if the Bible is right about science and history?
Christians need to know the answers to the debate intended to undermine their confidence in the Bible.
The lens we use to view our world matters. It is the difference between fact and fiction. But like a Picasso painting, evolution has rearranged the truth into an alternate reality. It is a view that will never give us an accurate view of our world.
Image by Hans-Peter Gauster courtesy of StockSnapi.o
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