Who Believes the Word of God?

Today someone wrote and accused me of handling the Word of God irreverently and casually. I understand. She had happened upon my Proof of Evolution site, and the evidence on it had shaken her.

However, there is nothing irreverent or casual about my handling of the Scriptures, which I have followed wholeheartedly for 28 years.

I hope the following answer is helpful for all those that have to face the fact that truth is truth, whether God sends it through nature or through the Scriptures.

I know you have to disagree with me on many points. I understand that.

I do have to point out a couple things:

You mention not having a background in science, and then you follow that by saying you haven't investigated the waters separated by the firmament. However, the waters separated from the firmament is a Biblical issue more than a scientific one. The waters are above the sun, moon, and stars according to Scripture, not science.

That creates an issue for you to have to deal with. For most Christians it creates a real crisis of honesty.

I have investigated science, so my crises of honesty are bigger.

In the end, I am willing to choose God over science. However, I've been watching God for 28 years. I've been watching him back up the message of Jesus Christ as Lord. I've also taken note of what messages he completely ignored and didn't back up.

For example, I used to avoid holidays like Christmas, thinking they were pagan. God, however, showed no interest in that message. He didn't back it up. He didn't give me peace. Instead, he appears to back up mercy, love, and kindness. I still avoid the commercialism of Christmas, but I tell people merry Christmas, and I teach my children to enjoy and commend the "good cheer" the world promotes for a few weeks each year.

I have also never seen God support the people who are defending a literal Bible. They don't have peace, and God just doesn't support them or back them up. Most of them eventually embrace dishonesty in their attempt to defend God from something God doesn't seem to care at all about defending himself against.

I am anything but irreverent and casual about the Word of God. Standing up for the Word of God has cost me everything that the world holds dear. I have given up jobs, and I have camped out homeless and jobless next to a lake with my wife and three children because I was trying to follow God. God backed me up doing that, too. He worked daily miracles to supply our needs.

Fortunately, God has taught me to hold none of those things I lost dear.

Over time, because of a devotion to knowing the will and Word of God, I have studied the writings of the earliest Christians, hoping to learn better what it is the apostles taught. I got to see situations throughout history where God moved on behalf of the church, raising up godly and powerful men. I got to see other situations where the church was weak and powerless.

It was commitment to obeying Jesus and overthrowing the flesh that made the difference. Commitment to strict, literal Bible interpretation was not one of the things that made a difference. Theophilus, bishop of Antioch around 165, was a literalist. he thought the earth was 5698 years old. Origen, bishop of Caesarea 60 years later, thought such a viewpoint was ignorant.

Both were powerful men of God. Origen was tortured for Christ until he was crippled. Later he was arrested and tortured again, and God let the 2nd torture heal him!!!

Neither Origen nor I thought that figurative means useless or not the Word of God. Have you read any of my blogs on Genesis one? We had a teaching recently about Genesis 3 from a young man that was incredibly powerful. He tied the creation of plants to Christ as the Word of God. The third day represents the resurrection, and Christ the Word rose within us, not needing the natural sun, but only the light of God to blossom in our hearts.

The Word of God is referred to as a seed a couple times in James and 1 Peter.

God has incredible things to say through the creation stories Moses chose.

Moses did not need to choose a creation story. He was writing a law. A law in those days needed three things. First, it gave what the king had done for the people, then what the king required of the people, and then the blessings and cursings for obeying or disobeying.

Moses' Law had all those things. Only in this case, the King was God, so the creation of the earth was the first thing he had done for the people.

Literal is not the only way to be a Bible believer. In fact, for a long time it was not the normal way. It has been for the last few hundred years, but do we really want to use the divided, worldly Protestants as the standard we want to follow?