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by Steve Risner

This week is the last in a series of posts focusing on Scriptures that a theistic evolutionist gave me, telling me they were 1) supportive of deep time and universal common descent and 2) that they were difficult for “young-earthers” to explain. We’ve looked at several passages and found that not one is remotely supportive of deep time or universal common descent. We’ve also found that, while none of them poses any sort of issue for a Bible-believing creationist, some were actually passages commonly used by creationists to support their position. It’s been bizarre to say the least.

Last week, I looked at a series of Scriptures, most from Psalms, that used figures of speech and/or poetic language to make their statements. I guess this was supposed to be tough for creationists because we read Genesis “literally.” But we don’t read every word of the Bible literally. That would be silly, and no one does this. For instance, if it says, “God has pitched a tent for the sun,” we don’t believe the sun has a tent around it that God built. If the Word says, “The skies proclaim the work of Your hands,” we don’t believe that the sky actually speaks or that God used His hands, getting them dirty and blistered, to make the universe. I think any elementary school aged child could determine these things without an issue. We read the Bible naturally, allowing it to be read as it was intended. We sometimes call this the plain reading of Scripture. Read poetry as such. Read figures of speech as such. Read narrative as such. You get the idea. As with so much of Biblical reading, context is critical to understanding what the text is trying to say. There are very often clues within the text or within other parts of the Bible that will tell us how the passage was intended to be read.

Today, we’ll start with Acts 1:7 which reads, “He said to them: ‘It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.’”

I have no idea how this is supportive of theistic evolution or problematic for Biblical creationists. No explanation was offered, so I have to figure it out on my own. The only connection I can make is perhaps that he’s suggesting this means we aren’t supposed to know when events happened in Scripture. But, really, that seems to be a ridiculous claim. God seems very interested in us knowing when events happened and remembering them. There are numerous holidays that He prescribed for the Jews, and there is a day of the week He commanded the Jews to set aside to remember His creative works. All of these days are set aside to remember something—usually an event. But the creation, one of the most important events in all of history, is one God not only told the Jews to remember with a holiday—He told them to remember it every week! If you are curious how Biblical creationists calculate the approximate time of creation, you can read about that in the blog post I wrote in March of 2019 called “Is Young-earthism New?”

Like so many other verses this person has used in this series, he’s totally taken the verse out of context and given it an application that is not indicated or appropriate by the context (if my understanding for his use of it is correct). Why did Jesus say this to His disciples? In verses 4 through 6 of this chapter, we find the disciples are told by Jesus to wait in Jerusalem until they are baptized with the Holy Spirit. They replied with a question: “Will you restore the Kingdom at that time?” Jesus’ response begins in verse 7 where He tells them, essentially, that God has determined when that will happen and they don’t need to worry about it. He goes on to tell them they’ll be baptized in the Holy Spirit and will be empowered to go and tell everyone about Him.

I can find no way to connect this passage to a belief in deep time or universal common descent or to even suggest that knowing when creation took place is not for us to know. That is a complete misapplication of Scripture. However, I find that many times, this is exactly why theistic evolutionists (this person is no exception really) get their theology wrong. They come to the Bible already believing in deep time and universal common descent and try to pluck out verses that will support that. They fail miserably since there is no Scriptural support for deep time or universal common descent. But having a very weak understanding of what the Bible says and how to read and apply the Word of God is a major problem, in my experience, with those who reject the plain teaching of Scripture about creation.

The last passage for this series will be 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which reads, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

This is interesting because theistic evolutionists want to essentially omit or completely rewrite the first 11 chapters of Genesis, but we are told here that “all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching…” I believe that the whole of Scripture confirms that God created everything there is in 6 days about 6000 years ago and that He caused a Flood to happen about 4500 years ago that wiped out all animal life and humans on earth except a small portion that was saved on the Ark. There is no way around this if “all of Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching.”

As I rack my brain trying to figure out how this can apply to the argument to support theistic evolution, I realize I just can’t think about the Bible as these folks do. This list was given to me by one theistic evolutionist, but I don’t feel he is unique in his misapplication and misunderstanding of Scripture. Old earth creationists have similar issues but theirs are not so nearly magnificent. Scripture could hardly be clearer as to the creation account—what God did, the order He did it, when He did it, and why He did it. It could hardly be more specific when the Bible tells us He destroyed all land animals and humans except a few He allowed to go onto an Ark built by a man and his family that God chose to survive. There’s no wiggle room here. Any argument is either based on semantics or is just a terrible misapplication of Scripture from them. Not a single text I have gone over here with you is remotely supportive of theistic evolution. Not one little bit. And none of them are even sort of difficult for a creationist to explain and apply to their beliefs on origins.

I am reminded of something Martin Luther said: “When Moses writes that God created heaven and earth and whatever is in them in six days, then let this period continue to have been six days, and do not venture to devise any comment according to which six days were one day. But if you cannot understand how this could have been done in six days, then grant the Holy Spirit the honor of being more learned than you are. For you are to deal with Scripture in such a way that you bear in mind that God Himself says what is written. But since God is speaking, it is not fitting for you wantonly to turn His Word in the direction you wish to go.”

It comes down to this: Do you believe God Almighty or not?

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