January 27, 2014

An Evolutionary Creation: Oxymoron?

By Clarke Morledge
How good a pool player is the The Lord of all Creation? Does God sink all of the balls in one shot, or does He take multiple shots to demonstrate His Glory?

How good a pool player is the The Lord of all Creation? Does God sink all of the balls in one shot, or does He take multiple shots to demonstrate His Glory?

When most Christians think about “evolution” and “creation”, they think of things that simply do not mix: Oil and water. Vinegar and milk. The Red Sox and the Yankees. Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins. Me and mornings. Forget it.

When I was a young Christian studying science in college, I was repeatedly told that I had to choose between what evolutionary scientists have to say with what the Bible says about creation. Now, if the choice was between what atheists like Richard Dawkins have to say and what the Scriptures teach, well OK then, I would have to clearly agree that there is a serious conflict here.  Atheism masquerading as science is clearly incompatible with the Bible.

The problem is that while outspoken atheists like Richard Dawkins tend to hijack the public discourse on evolution, they represent only a small slice of the debate. Most practicing biologists are not terribly interested in atheistic ideologies (at least in my experience). They just want to study plants and animals and they happen to do it within the context of Darwinian evolutionary theory.

So, the question remains:  is modern evolutionary science today completely opposed to the God of the Bible?
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January 25, 2014

End of the Beginning

By John Paine

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
Genesis 50:20

Tale Of Two Cities


“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness….” Charles Dickens’ famous opening line, from the top-selling fictional work of all time, is about dualism.


 
Have you ever thought about how Joseph (the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham) could have just given up and succumbed to his circumstances? Times when he must have felt he was at the end of his rope? Times when everything and everyone seemed to be working against him? Times when his story could have been told and that would have been the end of it?

The beginning of the Bible—the book of Genesis—ends with the biography of Joseph. More than one-third of Genesis is devoted to telling his story (so it’s important), and it’s full of the kind of details a family would prefer to forget. If you don’t remember the story of Joseph, give it a read here, or get this app and listen on your mobile device.

Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers (who debated whether to kill or sell him). He became the servant over an Egyptian household. He was framed and sent to prison. He became the inmate-overseer of the Egyptian prison. He was left behind in a dungeon and forgotten for two years after correctly interpreting the dreams of Egyptian officials. But eventually Joseph was brought before Pharaoh and put in charge of Egypt—where he was able to save many lives. His descendants (Joshua, Gideon, and Samuel among others) became leaders of the Hebrew people, writing significant portions of the Old Testament.

There’s a tremendous amount of dualism in Joseph’s life. That dualism gives us a clear picture of the providence (and sovereignty) of God. God can and does use bad situations and circumstances to accomplish good.

In case you haven’t noticed, lately on Veracity we’ve been paddling a bit around Calvinism and what goes with it. I’ve had more than a dozen offline (and very interesting) discussions with friends and readers, and received several emails on the topic. But this isn’t a post about Calvinism.

Our home church has been through a tumultuous year.

If it were solely up to me everything would work out well for everybody, all of the time. No controversy, just happy faces in the pews, all singing in perfect harmony. But that’s not how life works. As Jim Davis notes, “Sometimes it’s going to hurt.” God has a plan for our lives, and that plan includes having to deal with trouble—to accomplish God’s purposes (there’s that Calvinism thing again). Ultimately we can trust God or not.

So…as wearisome as discussions about our tumult have become, we clearly have quite a lot to be thankful for. God cares for and about us. God has blessed us richly.

Our church has a mission statement that says, in part, we are “called to make disciples of Jesus Christ by meeting people where they are on their spiritual journey.” We are all on a spiritual journey. Truth be told, we often can’t tell the beginning of the end from the end of the beginning. The biblical pattern is not to dwell in the difficulties, but to overcome them just as Joseph did by trusting that God is in control.

Joseph’s Tomb

Here’s an aside for those who are interested in seeing how the Bible fits on the ground.  We’ve written previously about the Cave of the Patriarchs, the second-most venerated site in Judaism, which has indisputable historical ties to the text of the Bible and to Joseph’s family (drill deep into the hyperlinks contained in that post and you’ll see how Old Testament Scripture about the Hebrew patriarchs and matriarchs fits in Hebron).

Joseph's Tomb in Shechem

Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem (photo credit: Ferrell Jenkins)

The Bible tells us that Joseph was not buried with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but that his bones were buried at Shechem in the tract of land that Jacob bought for a hundred pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem.

Shechem has a violent history, and violence continues to plague the site of Joseph’s tomb.  Here’s a 2009 video that documents recent events at the site from a Jewish perspective, and another from 2013 inside the tomb featuring Joel Kramer, a well-known tour guide and videographer (who’s not a Mormon).

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January 23, 2014

Shibboleths

By John Paine

Doctrine that’s right in our wheelhouse! Want to see what systematized theology looks like in person? Here’s an example of the power of the “Fifth Gospel.” HT: Bobby Conway

Dick Woodward's avatar4SpiritualSecrets

“… ‘Then say, ‘Shibboleth’!’ And he would say, ‘Sibboleth,’ for he could not pronounce it right. Then they would take him and kill him at the fords of the Jordan. There fell at that time forty-two thousand Ephraimites.”  (Judges 12:6)

Although we Americans have a common language we all have accents that show our origins to a discerning ear.  The above incident demonstrates how thousands of years ago different regional accents caused the death of 42,000 people.

There had been a civil war among people of the same ethnicity.  As the victors captured survivors, the only way to tell if they were the enemy was to force them to say “Shiboleth.”  When prisoners could not pronounce the “sh” sound because of their regional accents, 42,000 of them were executed.

What does all this have to do with us today?  Metaphorically speaking, when we meet people we often have a…

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January 21, 2014

Four Views on the Historical Adam

By Clarke Morledge

How are we to understand the teaching of Genesis regarding Adam as an historical person? What is your view?

Want to know more about the debate? Get a copy of Four Views on the Historical Adam, part of the Zondervan Counterpoint series of debates within the Christian community among scientists, Old Testament scholars, New Testament scholars, Ancient Near East literary scholars, church leaders/pastors and others in-between about how we are understand the message of the Bible.

Introduction #1 — Matthew Barrett, California Baptist University:

Introduction #2 — Ardel Caneday, Northwestern College:

Young-Earth — William D. Barrick, The Master’s Seminary:

Ancient Near East Literature/Archetypal View — John Walton, Wheaton College:

UPDATE: For a summary of each view discussed in the book, BibleGateway has a succinct description of each perspective. Extended audio talks given by each one of the four main contributors from the 2013 Evangelical Theological Society have just been made available.

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January 16, 2014

Memory: Kenneth Curtis

By Clarke Morledge
Thanks to the remarkable vision of Kenneth Curtis (died 2011), Christian history comes alive.

Thanks to the remarkable vision of Kenneth Curtis (died 2011), Christian history comes alive. Enjoy the feast.

I am a total Christian history fanatic now. Even though I grew up in Williamsburg, “History Town”, Virginia, I had a so-so interest in history for many years. But Ken Curtis changed all of that.

I met Ken Curtis in the early 1990s when I was working on my seminary degree. I thought the class would be a dull recitation of dates and names. Boy, was I wrong. Here comes this heavyset man with a thick Bostonian accent walking into class with great passion. He lived and breathed the great moments of church history. From the Early Church to the Reformation, Ken’s zeal was contagious.

And he had films.

Ken Curtis got his big start in the film business in 1972 with the story of David Wilkerson, a young pastor working in the tough gang ghettos of New York City, titled The Cross and the Switchblade.  But Ken’s real heart was for church history. Sometimes we get so focused on our own problems and our own little world that we forget that God has been in the Kingdom building business for centuries. When we get overwhelmed with life’s challenges, it really helps to take a step back to figure out where we in our current circumstances fit within God’s long term plan. Ken Curtis knew that the church needs to remember the past for the sake of understanding the present and even guiding us for the future. With this vision, Ken Curtis was able to scrounge up enough money to put together a series of classic Christian history films, including several available here at Ken’s Gateway Film’s Vision Video.

I was hooked. Ken Curtis made the history of the church come alive on film. I have used Ken’s stuff several times over the years in Sunday School classes to help fellow Christians remember the faithfulness of God over the centuries. But Ken’s work was not limited to film. Ken’s family and friends have continued to publish a weekly church bulletin insert, Glimpses. But perhaps Ken’s greatest legacy is the Christian History magazine he founded. With over one hundred issues, Ken and his group have been able to publish high quality issues on almost every subject imaginable. While I throw out most magazines after awhile, I have never thrown out an issue of Christian History.

The magazine floundered in the late 1990s with the advent of the Internet, and Christianity Today picked up the magazine, only to kill it a few years later due to poor sales, yet another casualty of the demise of print journalism these days. However, just before Ken Curtis died of cancer a few years ago, his group at the Christian History Institute resurrected the magazine. There are print editions still available, but now they also publish full-color PDF versions on-line. They ain’t got much money, but they are committed to providing the PDF versions free of charge to folks who can not afford it. In honor of Ken’s legacy, the Christian History Institute wants to help the church to remember with high-quality photos and artwork, very accessible reading and interviews with the top scholars of the world.

At our recent Facts and Faith Symposium, many of the evaluations indicated a real interest in learning more about church history. The timing could not be better. The Christian History Institute has published a recently new issue, Debating Darwin.  If you have an interest in how the church responded to the challenge of Charles Darwin in the 19th century, one of the topics that came up during the Symposium, you can find no better place to do your research than to start by downloading the PDF or getting the full print edition delivered to your door.

And if we ever have a future Symposium on Christian History, there stands a great chance of viewing some of Ken’s amazing films. Enjoy!

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