At 11:48 PM 02/05/02 +0100, Vernon Jenkins wrote:
>Like your YEC friends, I am unashamedly a 'Category A' man who
>regards the 'scoring of points' in this life as having little eternal
>merit. More reasonable, and far safer in my view, to accept God's
>Word as it has come down to us; certainly more assuring, and far less
>complicated!
>
>Sincerely, and with regards,
So am I. However, the trouble is that "accept the Word of God" is still
complicated. I have never known any one, who is not influenced by a
certain theory. The trouble is not only, the fact that "truth",
"faithfulness' does not mean the same for everyone. All of us are born in
sin, and all of us learned to look at life, at truth, at faithfulness in a
certain way. All of us are imperfect. Still, we all want to learn to
understand the Bible, the Word of God, properly. The discussions now show,
that not all read Gen.1 - 11 in the same way, since we have not started our
discussions at the proper point: "How do we look at God's word and
world." All of us are struggling with it. Some want to do away with what
thorough studies in nature have taught us, others keep on struggling with
what God wanted to tell us in the beginning chapters of the Bible. Some
scientists, not studying geology, physics etc., but computer-science, and
other similar sciences, seem sometimes easily shoving aside natural
sciences and just saying "I believe God's Word." Others say: "I believe
God as he showed Himself in the Bible and in the world He created." God
did not contradict Himself, so we must have made mistakes either in reading
the Bible or in reading God's Creation.
To say one side is more faithfully christian than the other does not get
any discussion anywhere. I have seen too often that questioning the
faithfulness of other people who struggle with these questions may push
them out of the community of saints, the church. Please, do not question
the motives and faithfulness of others, by making statements like "more
assuring", since what assures you, may be the cause of pushing others out,
since they cannot fit it in with the God who shows Himself in nature
(biology, physics, etc.).
The only thing that all of us must accept the Christ of the Scriptures, who
died for our sins, is our Saviour.
And, a discussion on the internet cannot take the place of studying the
original sources.
Jan de Koning
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