Aesop’s fables, anyone?
Editorial
I had been invited to speak to a conference of librarians from what I thought were Christian schools. It transpired that the schools were ‘independent’ (private) schools, and many were not strongly Christian. I spoke about the real events of Creation, the Fall and the Flood, showing how they related to the Gospel. I provided evidence for divine design in living things and examples from geology and geography of evidence for the global Flood of Noah (which Jesus spoke about in Luke 17, saying that “the flood came and destroyed them all”).
I could see this man, leaning back in his chair, arms folded, looking quite puzzled as I spoke. At the end, in the Q&A, he asked, “What has evidence got to do with faith?” This man came from a church tradition that saw ‘faith’ as a work that earned merit with God. He seemed offended by the notion that faith could relate to real-world evidence. To him, ‘faith’ was believing despite the evidence, and the more difficult it was to believe, the more merit in the faith. With me providing evidence, it diminished his ‘faith’!
Because of the prevalence of this faith/evidence divide in some mainstream churches, it is not surprising that the media often portray Christian faith as like Alice in Wonderland, when, in Through the Looking Glass, the Queen said, “Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Supposedly, faith is believing things that have no evidential support.
This was not the apostolic approach. The Apostle Paul strove to supply evidence for the Resurrection, for example (1 Corinthians 15) and talked of the reality of the events to King Agrippa, when Paul said, “I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this has not been done in a corner.” (Acts 26:26).
Because of the deep-time false history that now saturates the world, if the Bible is read, the reader often sees the historical accounts (of Creation, Fall, Flood, etc.) as being akin to Aesop’s Fables; quaint moralistic stories that tell of things that never really happened. Even ‘evangelical’ pastors will often dodge the question of the reality of the events. ‘Was Adam a real person; when did he live?’ can get an answer from the preacher, ‘That is not a question that we can ask of the text’. Aesop’s Fables, anyone?
Creation magazine stands for the reality of the Bible’s history from the beginning. We present much positive evidence for divine design (pp. 39, 51, 56), and learn about the recent discovery of the world’s oldest colours (p. 47).
Dinosaurs feature strongly in this issue. It’s fascinating that the depictions of the story of St George and the Dragon from different countries feature a spectrum of different creatures, but they are recognizable as different types of dinosaurs that have been reconstructed from fossils only recently (pp. 12–15). This flies in the face of the deep-time, millions-of-years paradigm that saturates ‘education’ today. We provide yet more evidence for the Flood (52–55), which explains the origin of the rocks and fossils in a short timeframe.
‘Apemen’ are entrenched in the minds of many, but Dr Peter Line’s careful analysis shows that the evidence now strongly favours creation (pp. 44–46). So, too, when it comes to the origin of the universe (pp. 48–51). And there’s more!
Please share this life-changing information with your family and friends!
Readers’ comments
Kind regards
Frank
Rom 4:3 For what saith the scripture? And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness.
Abraham's faith was something he did--he believed against hope!--and his faith earned him merit with God. His belief, his faith, was reckoned unto him for righteousness.
Thus, Abraham's faith was not due to his effort/work from within himself that earned him merit with God.
Grace = 'unmerited favour'. We are saved by faith alone by grace alone in Christ alone.
It is this fundamental knowledge and belief that has a person in absolute awe of our Creator/GOD and helps us to comprehend who GOD is and puts man in his place also. It also enrages the atheist (Romans1:) "Because ......., they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Prayerfully I am not to firm with those that will not Glorify God as God, but this is a very serious matter.
They claim that faith is believing in things NOT SEEN. So even though they think science has it basically figured out, they believe that God was behind it all in some fashion. I see a contradiction between the scientific claim of random processes and God's involvement, but some claim that the processes were really random and that God simply used them somehow to create all things.
I see a real problem with this personally. To me it is blind faith, but they are OK with that because faith, to them, is believing in things not seen and that includes evidence to support the biblical record.
However, Jesus often pointed people to His works to encourage them to believe His radical claims. Miracles in the early church - signs and wonders - were also given to support the message of the gospel and encourage people to believe. Plus, God tells us we can see evidence for His existence in nature, so I feel this approach/view of faith is mistaken.
Several scholars [Adam Clarke, Albert Barnes] teach that the word **this** here in Eph 2:8 is in the neuter gender and thus cannot refer back to either grace [feminine] or faith [feminine] but refers ***to the subject*** under discussion--saved. It thus must follow that salvation is the free gift, as seen in Rom 6:23. God's gift unto us is eternal life, 1 John 5:11.
Therefore personal faith cannot also be the gift--Abraham **believed** [active] and it was reckoned to him for righteousness. It thus seems that Paul is teaching Abraham believed ... and we must believe, Hebrews 11:6.See also Acts 16:30-31.
This is my understanding. How am I wrong?
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