Recently I was listening to a recorded teaching by Dwight Pryor (jcstudies.org). In the course of the teaching, Dwight mentioned that “Greeks” (Gentiles, western thinkers) study the Word of God for understanding – Jews study the Word to revere. In fact, many ancient rabbis taught that the highest form of worship was to study the Word with the intent to obey. This is not new to me, but it got me thinking again about my own study of God’s Word. Why am I reading the...
Read MorePut on Your Own Mask First
On a recent flight, the flight attendant went through the “safety talk.” You know the part about “If there is a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the compartment above you. Pull down on the bag, secure the mask over your nose and mouth, and breathe normally. . . . If you are travelling with a small child or someone who needs assistance, secure your own mask first, before helping them.” Wait a minute! Secure your own mask first? How...
Read MoreGems From Genesis – Are the Days in Genesis 1 Really Days?
My first year of college, I went to a liberal “Christian” college. I remember being taught that the days of creation were not “real” days, but were periods of time, millions of years long and were representative of the long ages of evolutionary history. This is a common belief in our world today. However, I believe that there are many reasons to reject this “Day-Age Theory” and to confidently affirm the literal accuracy of the Creation account in Genesis. First, God...
Read MoreFalse Gods Will Perish
“The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens.” (Jeremiah 10:11) I often find myself thinking about Jer.10:11 as I consider the importance and the seriousness of the creation message. The people of Jeremiah’s day were worshipping idols of wood, silver, and gold which they made with their own hands. God, through Jeremiah, points out the futility of their idolatry. He tells them: “Learn not the way...
Read MoreGod Still Speaks
God is a great Communicator. From the very beginning of time, He has been speaking. Just notice how often the phrase “God said” appears in Genesis 1. Truly, the universe was created by His powerful Word. Hebrews 11:3 says, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” Then, after creating man, God established communication with him. Even after Adam fell into sin, God came...
Read MorePlants Have Immune Systems
Malachi 4:2a “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings….” People and mammals have a multi-pronged immune system. When a bacterial infection is detected, cells begin to release nitric oxide, which kills bacteria, and they begin a cascade of other defense strategies. Ultimately, antibodies that directly attack any invader are produced. In recent years, scientists have discovered that even in certain...
Read MoreFly Genome Puzzles Evolutionary Scientists
Psalm 119:73 “Your hands have made me and fashioned me; give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments.” Genes carry the biological information to make specific living things. Evolution says that simpler living things evolved first and more complex life evolved later. This would lead us to believe that more complex living things would have developed more genes. The creation approach suggests that each creature was designed with the genetic material...
Read MoreThere is No Genetic Code for the Human Soul
“For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” James 2:26 The $250 million Human Genome Project is attempting to map all the human genes. Some observers have been saying that the human genome project will define what it means to be human. Such talk, however, is based on evolution. We are not the sum of our DNA. It is well known, for example, that two people can inherit the same weakness for alcohol. One may become an...
Read MoreGems From Genesis – What Happened to God’s Good Earth?
In our last Gems From Genesis article,, we focused on Genesis 1:31: “And God saw that it was very good.” And truly it was, but as we look around our world today, we see many things that are NOT good. How do we reconcile these things with the Bible? How do we reconcile them with a loving, powerful Creator God? We need to read further in Genesis. Genesis 3 describes the steps leading up to the tragic event that theologians have come to call The Fall. The first human...
Read MoreGems From Genesis – In the Image of God pt. 2
In the last article, we looked at some ideas of what it means to be made “in the image of God.” In particular, we talked about the fact that as a result of Adam’s sin, the image of God has been blurred and distorted in mankind. However, in the fullness of time, God sent Jesus, “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15 AKJV), to be the “last Adam” and to undo the damage done by Adam’s sin, that we may be “conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29 AKJV). This is truly...
Read MoreGems From Genesis – In the Image of God
At the end of Creation Week, after God had prepared the world and filled it with a spectacular array of plants and animals, He performed His crowning work of creation – the creation of mankind. Genesis 2 describes this creative act in some detail, but the verses in Genesis 1 majestically declare the essence and position of man in creation. While the animals were created “after their own kinds,” only mankind bears the image of the Creator. Over the ages, Bible scholars...
Read MoreGems From Genesis: Conflicting or Complimentary Accounts?
After a lecture at a university, a student told me that although he had a church background, he had become an atheist. When I asked him why, he said that one reason was because of all the contradictions in the Bible. I asked for an example, and he replied that there are two different creation stories, one in Genesis 1 and another in Genesis 2. Personally, I was glad that he chose this example of a so-called contradiction, because I myself had struggled with it in the...
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