the Days of Creation

[Old-Pilgrim]

That's not exactly what I'm asserting. The Gospel message stands on it's own. However, when one begins to investigate the claims of the Gospel, all of its tenets point back to the truths proclaimed in Genesis. If we, as believers, muck up the understanding of Genesis, we run the risk of making the Gospel become nonsense to those we're trying to lead to Christ.

Simplistic Example: (assume there is adequate conversation leading up to this point)

Christian: Jesus died to pay for your sin

Unbeliever: I'm not a sinner

Christian: The Bible says in Romans 3:23 that all are sinners

Unbeliever: What about kids? They haven't done anything wrong.

Christian: The Bible says in Romans 5:12 that we've all inherited in a sin nature because of Adam (insert explanation on how that makes us all sinners)

Unbeliever: Wait, so you're you believe Adam was a real person...?

Christian: Yes, of course.

Unbeliever: You mean like he was the first human to evolve or like God literally created him.

Christian: God literally created him, just like it says in Genesis.

Unbeliever: So you take that whole creation thing literally? No way, science has proven that the earth is billions of years old. There's no way that all happened in six days. Your Bible doesn't make any sense. I'm not sinner, I live a good life.

Here is an alternative scenario:

Simplistic Example: (assume there is adequate conversation leading up to this point or that the Christian is a recent convert and is too zealous to consider small talk  )

Christian: Jesus died to pay for your sin

Unbeliever: I'm not a sinner

Christian: The Bible says in Romans 3:23 that all are sinners

Unbeliever: What about kids? They haven't done anything wrong.

Christian: The Bible says in Romans 5:12 that we've all inherited in a sin nature because of Adam (insert explanation on how that makes us all sinners)

Unbeliever: Wait, so you're you believe Adam was a real person...?

Christian: Yes, of course.

Unbeliever: You mean like he was the first human to evolve or like God literally created him.

Christian: God literally created him, just like it says in Genesis.

Unbeliever: So you take that whole creation thing literally? No way, science has proven that the earth is billions of years old. There's no way that all happened in six days. Your Bible doesn't make any sense. I'm not sinner, I live a good life.

Christian: God could create a universe in six seconds if he likes, whether it took him six days or six epochs, is irrelevant, the point is that he created man upright and man sought out sin.

Unbeliever: mmm that makes more sense, cos it says somewhere in the Bible that a day to God is like 1000 years.

And now the irrelevant bone of contention has been lost in the unknown. Making way for a continuation onto the more Important things.

[John81]

Explaining away Scripture and unsaved person doesn't understand, or accepting a false view of Scripture to try and get someone to listen about something goes totally against Scripture.

Those lost souls who choose to focus upon anything other than Christ and their need for salvation are exhibiting evidence of resistance to the Holy Ghost. It's a common tactic to avoid confronting, facing or dealing with something a person wishes to avoid by deflecting. So, whether someone turns from hearing about Christ by trying to argue about creation or dinosaurs, or Catholics, or what angels look like, or homosexual politics or anything else, it's the Christians duty to continually steer the conversation back to Christ, back to the salvation message.

Denying what Scripture clearly says and what was clearly understood by Christians for nearly 2,000 years, in order to appease lost people is telling the world the Bible is not accurate and we don't believe everything in Scripture. Might as well join with those who get the latest rebellious haircut, sport a bunch of tattoos, wear a sideways ball cap, leave your pants hanging halfway down your backside and learn to use hip-hop gestures and rap at least part of your message so you can be like the world to reach the world.

[Ukulelemike]

This is similar to what I am told by Gap theorists, that to accept the 'unscientific' idea of a very old earth is a stumbling block to the unsaved. Well, I can tell you that if one isn't going to accept that God created in six days, which is what the Bible SAYS, he's going to quickly see the ideas of day/age or gap theory as a cheap invention to try to answer what now they believe even more to be unanswerable.

By the way, a day as a thousand years/a thousand years as a day has often been inserted into this discussion for years, and each time I must insist that it has nothing to do with the subject. Contextually, that is referring to prophecy, and to God's timing in what he WILL do. In context, people are complaining that God STILL *sigh* hasn't come...Where is the promise of His coming? Man gets impatient, because for us, we dwell on this timeline where we can't see tomorrow, nor affect yesterday anymore, and in our short, momentary, vapor-like lives, we get impatient. But Peter reminds us that for God, time means nothing, a day to Him is no different than a thousand years, and vice-versa. He will come when He comes. Prophecy.   But at creation, God created time, because what He created, He created with US in mind, and WE are subject to time. So the first thing He created, day one, was the concept of time-He settled it on day one, so there could BE a day one, a first day. He did it even before He created what would be the eventual light sources, because He doesn't need any other source than Himself. But WE would need something, something that would be for times and signs and seasons, so He gave us the sun and moon and stars, all working in perfect concert with one another and with the earth, so all would conform to God's set time and life He placed here. And He interwove all things perfectly to prove it could not be done another way-plants need sun, plants need insects, insects need plants, etc. They could not survive without one another. It HAD to be literal, 24hr days, otherwise God, for no good reason, had to maintain through direct intervention, all the parts and pieces of creation He put here over thousands or millions of years, until everything was in place to work together, as He designed them to do. That would not seem like a very efficient God: He created these things to rely upon one another, INCLUDING the earth to need man as a steward to properly use it, so He placed everything in its place in six short days.

[TheSword]

Hello Matt, (I guess threads end naturally not by being grafted. )

>>>obvious and plain<<< I have never thought Gen 1 had an obvious and plain meaning,  for example what's ‘ a firmament in the midst of the waters’, or ‘the face of the deep’?

A "firmament" is an expanse or extended solid surface. It is the land between the oceans/seas on the earth's surface (Gen 1:10) those underground (Gen 7:11). A firmament can also be a non-solid expanse such as the sky (Gen 1:8). It is likely that the firmament is the sky between land and seas below and the cloud/vapor canopy above it. Either way, it's still pretty plain.

>>>The source of the light is largely irrelevant<<< but this light once divided from the darkness WAS the first DAY. 

What does that have to do with anything? At one moment there was no such thing as light and in the next moment there was. Where it emanated from is inconsequential to the point of the statement was that God made light.

 

 I think bad moves by the church does lead to endless suffering, but I would trade a 'safe' error for a 'dangerous' truth.

Here's the problem and it explains everything else you've said on the subject. I accept no error and always seek the truth no matter how dangerous it may be. This is not a church issue. This is a Bible truth issue. If you willfully accept error over truth then you're making God in your image and not conforming yourself to His. I've explained it to you in plain English backed by plain Hebrew and then plain old common sense. There is no way to get what you're asserting directly from the text. You see it in there because you want to see it. Since you won't accept the truth as it is plainly written, and I certainly can't and won't force you to accept it, then there is nothing left to do here.

[Old-Pilgrim]

 

Old Pilgrim Said: I think bad moves by the church does lead to endless suffering, but I would trade a 'safe' error for a 'dangerous' truth.

Here's the problem and it explains everything else you've said on the subject. I accept no error and always seek the truth no matter how dangerous it may be. This is not a church issue. This is a Bible truth issue. If you willfully accept error over truth then you're making God in your image and not conforming yourself to His. I've explained it to you in plain English backed by plain Hebrew and then plain old common sense. There is no way to get what you're asserting directly from the text. You see it in there because you want to see it. Since you won't accept the truth as it is plainly written, and I certainly can't and won't force you to accept it, then there is nothing left to do here.

 

Hello Matt I must clarify on this point, when I said '

I think bad moves by the church does lead to endless suffering, but I would trade a 'safe' error for a 'dangerous' truth.

What I mean here is that I think any Christian, myself included, when The Holy Spirit reveals some truth from the Scriptures, It might hold certain Dangers to speak it out or to act on it (such as the Anabaptists who were persecuted for seeing things differently) and it might seem like dangerous thinking to the mainstream church who holds a safe accepted view on the topic, I was saying I think I would rather reject the safe traditional view and believe what the Holy Spirit shows me in Scripture, otherwise, how could I expect him to continue leading me into the ways of truth.

I was not saying that I would willfully accept error.

 

 

[TheSword]

Hello Matt I must clarify on this point, when I said '

I think bad moves by the church does lead to endless suffering, but I would trade a 'safe' error for a 'dangerous' truth.

What I mean here is that I think any Christian, myself included, when The Holy Spirit reveals some truth from the Scriptures, It might hold certain Dangers to speak it out or to act on it (such as the Anabaptists who were persecuted for seeing things differently) and it might seem like dangerous thinking to the mainstream church who holds a safe accepted view on the topic, I was saying I think I would rather reject the safe traditional view and believe what the Holy Spirit shows me in Scripture, otherwise, how could I expect him to continue leading me into the ways of truth.

I was not saying that I would willfully accept error.

Ok, I think I read that sentence wrong the first time, so I apologize for that.  However I stand by the final part of my post:

I've explained it to you in plain English backed by plain Hebrew and then plain old common sense. There is no way to get what you're asserting directly from the text. You see it in there because you want to see it. Since you won't accept the truth as it is plainly written, and I certainly can't and won't force you to accept it, then there is nothing left to do here.

[Old-Pilgrim]

Explaining away Scripture and unsaved person doesn't understand, or accepting a false view of Scripture to try and get someone to listen about something goes totally against Scripture.

Those lost souls who choose to focus upon anything other than Christ and their need for salvation are exhibiting evidence of resistance to the Holy Ghost. It's a common tactic to avoid confronting, facing or dealing with something a person wishes to avoid by deflecting. So, whether someone turns from hearing about Christ by trying to argue about creation or dinosaurs, or Catholics, or what angels look like, or homosexual politics or anything else, it's the Christians duty to continually steer the conversation back to Christ, back to the salvation message.

Denying what Scripture clearly says and what was clearly understood by Christians for nearly 2,000 years, in order to appease lost people is telling the world the Bible is not accurate and we don't believe everything in Scripture. Might as well join with those who get the latest rebellious haircut, sport a bunch of tattoos, wear a sideways ball cap, leave your pants hanging halfway down your backside and learn to use hip-hop gestures and rap at least part of your message so you can be like the world to reach the world.

Hi John you are talking to a bloke who believes that Balaam's ass spoke to him, need I say any-more on the topic of any notion that I lack the faith to believe in the plain Scripture, I take it as I find it, literal if intended so, and in context as I perceive it etc.

>>>Explaining away Scripture and unsaved person doesn't understand, or accepting a false view of Scripture to try and get someone to listen about something goes totally against Scripture.<<< I agree with that.

>>>Those lost souls who choose to focus upon anything other than Christ and their need for salvation are exhibiting evidence of resistance to the Holy Ghost. It's a common tactic to avoid confronting, facing or dealing with something a person wishes to avoid by deflecting. So, whether someone turns from hearing about Christ by trying to argue about creation or dinosaurs, or Catholics, or what angels look like, or homosexual politics or anything else, it's the Christians duty to continually steer the conversation back to Christ, back to the salvation message.<<< I agree with that.

>>>....and what was clearly understood by Christians for nearly 2,000 years<<< I don't know how long you have been saved John, I can't remember if you mentioned that before, but I don't put allot of weight into what traditional views of Christians has allegedly been for 2000 years, bearing in mind many Christians believe in things which both ye and me and most people who attend this forum know are wrong, and some Christians I know who have taken on board TULIP and Covenant theology  display much  fruit of the Spirit, even though I think their doctrine is somewhat off. I guess this is because someone with wrong doctrine who prays often and does the commands of Christ (believes in him and loves the brethren) will fair better than someone who has some better doctrine but doesn't pray much and so doesn't bear much fruit.

As I read the New Testament it teaches that the Holy Spirit is going to lead us into all truth, I believe that the whole body of Christ has got to mature. Eph 4:13 So that the lost can see Christ in us. Joh 17:23 Straining at gnats and swallowing a camel might be an extreme example, but we do need to prioritise truth, and that is why  started my original post. How long it took God to create the earth is about as reliant to salvation as how many morning stars there was singing in the book of Job and how many sons of God shouted for joy as God finished the work. I assume you also believe Balamm was rebuked by a dumb ass, how much more might a faultering church be rebuked by the heathen?

[John81]

I was saved in 1981 (the reason for the 81 in my name).

None of what you said in any way gives any valid reason to question the very clear Scripture which consistently says that each of the six days of creation were literal days (24 hours). For reasons not in accord with the clear wording of Scripture, you choose to believe this portion of Scripture to be untrue and therefore search for ways to circumvent the clear statement of Scripture on the matter.