by Eric Hansen
There’s an interesting aspect of Christianity that I think we often overlook, and that’s the church. I don’t mean the representation of the body of Christ, but the buildings we go to every Sunday, Wednesday, or other day and sing songs of praise about our Lord.
Back in 2019 or so, God started putting it on my heart to really inspect the church – not just the one I was attending when I was youth pastor, but the overall landscape. In doing so, I started asking some really tough questions, most of which I still struggle with answering to this day. Is the church growing? If so, then how is it growing exactly? Who can I look to and see Christ working in their lives to extend grace, and not just answering prayers about self? How can I be like Christ if everyone lives their life without Christ outside of a few hours every Sunday?
Not long ago I caught an online sermon from a church my mentor was watching, and it was pretty good, focusing on Martin Luther King and his ministry for unity. During that broadcast, a man by the name of Daryl Davis came up. His fame is that as a black man he befriended someone in the KKK, and not just anyone but one with immense power within that group. You can watch one of his TEDx talks about the matter if you’re interested.
This man did what I’ve never seen a Christian do: he loved an enemy knowing very well that it may cost him his life. In return, his enemy loved him enough to have a conversation about the differences, and neither man killed the other. Whether either man is a professing Christian or not, I’m a firm believer in the sovereignty of God and see it as His working through each of them to demonstrate what unconditional love is. Neither man really gained anything by sitting down and talking, but also neither rejected the other due to some pretentious stigma.
I used to tell people that I’m a Reformist, and follow the TULIP principle to the fullest. Not long ago I even wrote an article here about what it is. I still believe in the whole acronym, but having seen that pastor talk about Daryl and really evaluating what Christ is doing around and in me, I’ve come to the realization that the church is spiritually dead. When a tree dies, it’s not just its limbs or its trunk that perishes, but every single element of it. Just like a tree, when the church dies, it causes those who keep in it to spiritually die as well, unless they are able to separate from it and replant elsewhere.
My sample size of churches is small, as I’m sure there are very healthy churches out there. The one I mentioned earlier who showcased Daryl’s story is one of those. They are inviting people of all colors, creeds, and locations into their studies and services. That is what Christ calls us to do, regardless of how we feel about it.
Going back to the tree metaphor, a tree does not mature by staying a seedling. It needs nourishment, attention, and care even if just by nature itself. These trees are the ones that grow mighty, tall, and prosperous, providing shelter and protection to all the little things like it once was. If a tree isn’t able to receive that love and care that it needs, then at best it never grows beyond a little bush. However, more often than not it dies, losing its lusciousness and ability to be anymore more than firewood.
If you’re in a church that goes out into the community for the purpose of Christ more than itself, then it's a body of believers knowing Christ will guide them.
Matthew 28:19-20 gives us the command that Christ asks each believer to follow: glorify God. How can we glorify God when we’re condemning sinners or making God out to be a vending machine, giving us what we want when we want it? Neither end of the spectrum does anything but boost our own ego. How did Christ treat the Pharisees versus the Samaritan woman at the well? He condemned those who are boasting of righteousness, while He gave grace to those who lost hope.
This isn’t to say we shouldn’t address someone’s sin, but we need to be able to read the room as well. If a person is yelling and screaming at their kid, then we should do what we can to help defuse the situation. If someone is saying, “I’m going to heaven because I donated all my money to charity,” then we should tell them that they’re only going to heaven by having faith in Jesus Christ. We are not called to condemn, because then we play God. Instead, we are to share the gospel – the truth about Jesus Christ – and let the Spirit convict the person. While we are to live a Christ-like life, we can also take to heart what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:1-3: “And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling,”
Hebrews 10:25 says to not forsake fellowship or gathering. There’s a plethora of reasons why this is so, and Jesus made it clear as well by sending people out in pairs and depending on others. Sunday services should be our primary way of fellowship, and not for the little bit before and after service, but it should be the service – gathering together, talking about how God has worked in our lives, where we need more grace, supporting one another through trials, and lifting up. When the only time we can do this is during Bible studies, and Bible studies are an afterthought for so many, then fellowship seems to be an afterthought as well.
Are you living a life glorifying God? Are you living to glorify Jesus as your Lord and Savior? In what ways are you contributing to the health (or death) of the body of Christ?
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“By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.
By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.
By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.
By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones.” -Hebrews 11:17-22
After the author of Hebrew’s brief diversion in the middle of Abraham’s story that we looked at last week, he returns here to the story of Abraham and his descendants.
The first part of Abraham’s story was significant because it set him up as the father of a great nation, which could only happen by him having faith in the promise of God to give him a son even though he and his wife Sarah were old. But, God only gave him one son – Isaac – which is significant for the piece of Abraham’s story in this passage. You can read the entire narrative in Genesis 22.
This test was likely the most difficult one that Abraham had to endure. God asked Abraham to sacrifice (kill) his only son, Isaac. Of course, that would be really confusing for Abraham. God promised to make Abraham into a great nation, but that would open happen through his biological descendants, and Isaac was not yet married nor had any children at this point. Abraham would have had an internal conflict between his love for his son and his love for God, but there’s more to it than that.
The author of Hebrews points out that it appeared to Abraham that God made conflicting revelations to him. God revealed that He would give Abraham many biological descendants. God also revealed that Abraham must kill the one son he has. Abraham believed by faith that God could not lie to him, but how could both of these be true at the same time? If Isaac is dead, he won’t bear any children!
But even without understanding, Abraham still operated by his faith in God and chose to be obedient to the most recent revelation from God. His faith was strong enough that he knew that somehow, God would work it out. God made it clear that Isaac was the son through which God’s promise of a great nation would be fulfilled (Genesis 21:12). He knew that God was powerful enough to raise the dead (even though he hadn’t seen that work being done), so maybe God would raise Isaac from the dead after he was sacrificed?
The Greek verb used for “offered” in verse 17 is a tense that implies that Abraham considered Isaac as good as dead through this offering. Abraham DID offer his son as a sacrifice and did not hold back. But then, the same Greek verb is used in another tense that implies that the action was not fully completed. So it is made clear that Abraham’s heart motivation was truly to obey God, no matter what the earthly consequence was – even death for his only son. Abraham was still obedient to God, even though God stopped the action from taking place.
Next, after concluding the story of Abraham, the author moves to the other patriarchs – Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
Interestingly, the only piece of Isaac’s life mentioned by the author of Hebrews (verse 20) is blessing his sons Jacob and Esau, which you can read about in Genesis 27-28. Even though Jacob deceived Isaac into blessing him instead of the older Esau who should have received the birthright, Isaac did end up blessing both of his sons. The author of Hebrews is focused on the faith that Isaac had – he blessed both of his sons with blessings that would not be realized in the near future. Isaac trusted by faith that this was what God would have him do, and he was obedient in that.
The author continues that theme of blessing when mentioning Jacob next in verse 21. Just like with Isaac, Jacob’s blessings of his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh went against the traditional birth order requirement for the birthright. God will do what God wants to do, and God wanted the younger Ephraim to have the blessing. The phrase about how Jacob “worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff” tells us the heart attitude that Jacob had – one of truly worshiping God, even as he gave the blessing.
The faith of Joseph, too, looked forward to the future (verse 22), though his mention does not include a blessing as Isaac’s and Jacob’s did. The next great phase of the life of the nation of Israel would be slavery in Egypt followed by the exodus where they left that land to back to the promised land of Canaan. We know from Genesis 50:22-26 that Joseph instructed his descendants to “carry my bones up from this place.” Joseph had faith that God would come through to deliver his people and bring them back to the land He had promised to them at some point.
What can we learn today from all these stories? The first and simplest observation is to just have faith in God. Even when the circumstances look extremely confusing and impossible, God has a plan and will take care of everything. We only have a short view of the immediate future, while God knows all of time, so we need to trust Him with whatever our futures hold. Like Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, we look forward to what God will do for future generations – even if we won’t be alive to see it. We need to live our lives today in faith in God so that future generations can do the same.
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Christianity comes with a cost. This is a message that so few hear today. Let me make this crystal clear: this message will drive many away from the faith. I, personally, would rather chase someone away from the faith, having them knowing what it comes with, than welcome them into a faith that is superfluous and based on false pretexts. The Western church today has nearly all but lost the point or purpose of what it means to be a Christian because we have embraced pragmatic methods instead of God’s way of doing things. Instead of proclaiming God’s message as God gave it, with the focus being on worshiping God and holiness, they focused on “getting people into the church.” So as a result, the premise became to make people as comfortable as possible and don’t dare speak against their sins, and especially don’t make it personal. In all this, a key aspect of Christianity that is all but missing is that to claim the name of Christ and to live accordingly comes with a cost, and that cost is steep.
“But… I thought the gift of God was free.” “Isn’t our salvation by grace, not works?” “Does that cost mean I have to earn my salvation?” These are valid objections, but if we are going to be followers of Jesus, let’s let Jesus Himself describe what it means to be His followers.
To be a Christian, Jesus is to be your very life and source for sustenance. This is the whole message of John 6. Jesus fed the 5000, He crossed the lake, and the crowds followed Him, expecting more food. Jesus didn’t give them another bite and instead declared that to follow Him, you need to eat His flesh and drink His blood. There is a big debate as to whether Jesus was talking literal cannibalism or not, but we need to understand the culture. Drinking blood was completely taboo, and one reason is because Leviticus declares that the life is in the blood. Jesus is saying that the only true life is found in His blood, which would be shed at the crucifixion and would be something we do on a regular basis at the Lord’s Supper. The point I’ll emphasize here is that to be a Christian, Jesus Himself must be our sustenance, not even physical food or water. Jesus Himself said this. Do we believe Him?
To be a Christian means to give up your previous life. Jesus even said that our previous life was to be given a criminal’s death and we are to give it up as such: “Take up your cross daily and follow me.” Paul followed suit when he said, “I am crucified with Christ. Not I but Christ who lives within me.” Crucifixion was a Roman invention for the execution of the worst of criminals. It was so bad that they said they would not carry it out on Roman citizens. This is why Paul never was crucified but rather beheaded; Paul was a Roman citizen by birth.
This teaching about giving up your life is a key one that I find lost today, and don’t think I’m being all pious here. This is something every believer struggles with. A man I admire is Paul Washer, and he admitted that he regularly lives for self and not for the purposes and glory of Christ. It’s not something to be proud of. I do not condemn those who know this truth and so weakly attempt to carry it out, but I am challenging those who make excuses for their discrepancy and use the grace of God as a cover for it. Jesus did indeed die for these shortcomings because we’ll never make it on our own. But He died so we would no longer make that our lifestyle. Jesus asked, “Why do you call me Lord if you do not do as I say?” If Jesus is not acting as Lord over your life, then He is not your Savior either. Or rather, if you are not submitted to Jesus being Lord over your life (because He is Lord whether we acknowledge it or not), then why should He acknowledge you when you call upon His name to get into heaven?
What we have lost is a result of being “church raised.” I am a product of being raised in the church, so I can speak of the dangers involved in being church raised. It is so easy to be a false convert when being raised in the church. There are great blessings to being church raised, but there are grave dangers to it, too. In the 1st century, there were no people raised in the church. When you became a Christian, your life changed. You ceased your former lifestyles, running with the old crowds, going to the old businesses, etc. It was such a thing in Ephesus that the business owners who made their lifestyle on the idolatry of the city were running out of customers and their income went to nothing. That’s why they instigated the riot against Paul. It came with a cost to be a Christian because you were then seen as the troublemaker. Guess what? In every generation since Christ, the ones who preached the true Gospel and where the Gospel transformed society were all seen as troublemakers because they disrupted the sinful status quo. It came with a cost – it would cost them jobs, family members would turn against them, mobs would drive them out of the city if not “lynch” them as they did Paul at Lystra by stoning him, and the list goes on.
But we don’t live in a culture where true persecution happens and people are literally losing their lives for their faith yet. Even in this setting, to be a true Christian and to preach a true message comes with a cost. Ray Comfort is a very zealous evangelist, and he has made some grave blunders in his ministry career which resulted in him becoming known as the Banana Man. He is among the most ridiculed evangelists by the atheist community, and he greatly struggled with it. Yet as a result of that high level of stigma, he got to witness to atheists and high-level professors like Lawrence Krauss and Penn Jillette, just so they could have the privilege of having to talk with the very man they’ve ridiculed for so long. Comfort has gotten to witness to so many people who wouldn’t hear the Gospel from anyone, because he paid the price of his reputation among unbelievers and even other believers.
Paul Washer and Leonard Ravenhill have paid the price for preaching unpopular messages. Ravenhill was often scathing in his sermons, and Washer became known as American’s “blast the church” pastor after his Shocking Youth Message. Both often only got to preach one time at places because the church would not want them back. Many churches want these celebrity preachers to come support them, and they would not give a blessing message but rather a lashing message that the church needed.
Finally for this post, David Wilkerson had to pay the price, too. He had a burden for the gangs of New York City after seeing an article about seven gang members severely wounding a disabled teen. In his desire to help these criminals, he approached the judge during the trial and the media branded him as a Bible-thumping preacher. He was given a black eye for that, but when the street kids recognized him, they thought he was cool, because they both had the police and “proper citizens” against them. Before Wilkerson could gain the respect of the gangs, he had to be viewed as someone who was not prim and proper by media and police, and he did so without sinning himself. Revival took place among the gangs as a result. Wilkerson paid the price so he could fulfill God’s calling on his life.
Christianity comes with a cost. Your life will not be as it was. Jesus is not an accessory that you add to your life to “complete” it. Christianity is not a set of doctrines that you believe, and you can still go about thinking and living as you would if you didn’t have Christ. If you are going to follow Christ, your life is no longer your own, and you no longer have the freedom to simply do what you want to do. You are freed from sin and your rebellion against God, but you are freed also to servitude to Christ. True conversion simply exchanges one master (the indulgence of self) for another Master (the perfect God-man Christ Jesus).
If your faith doesn’t cost you anything, is it real? A faith that costs nothing is worth nothing. We can tell how real your faith is when the cost comes, and it will come. Your faith will be proved by whether you stand by it no matter the cost, or whether you cave to the pressure to give it up. Most do the latter; few do the former. Jesus warned us of the types of costs we will pay to be a believer. Very few of us have any clue what that means until it happens. Have you counted the cost?
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by Steve Risner
Last week, we started looking at the law of biogenesis and what this theistic evolutionist from a group I frequent on Facebook had to say about it. He was responding to a meme that said evolution violates the law of biogenesis. His exact statement was this:
The theory of evolution cannot violate 'biogenesis,' if there were actually a law of biogenesis. Evolution requires some sort of living, reproducing organism. Evolution requires biogenesis. Christianity requires abiogenesis, as well as biogenesis. The Bible clearly states (whether read figuratively or literally) that the first living organisms were generated from non-living matter. We came 'from the dust.' Other organisms are described as arising from the sea or the soil. It is also simply reasonable to think that the first living organisms were made of previously non-living chemical precursors. Hence an argument that evolution violates some requirement of 'biogenesis' is both a falsehood and an argument against the Bible. You have provided another piece of evidence that young-earthism and other anti-evolutionary notions are anti-biblical.
He erroneously claims that abiogenesis is a foundational block for evolution and Christianity alike, but I believe that’s a ridiculous claim. While it can be read in Genesis 1:24 that God said, “Let the land bring forth…” or some variation of that depending on your translation, this does not mean the land or earth or dust or whatever produced something by its own power. It has no power to do so. I consulted our local Greek and Hebrew egghead, Katie Erickson, about this passage. Her take, based on the word usage was as follows: “The verb for ‘produce’ can also mean bring forth, or cause to come out, or something like that. But the earth is clearly the subject of that verb, and it is a jussive, meaning it's translated as ‘Let the earth bring forth...’ rather than a more indicative statement like ‘The earth brings forth.’” This tells me God is the creative agent here. It’s not God asking the earth to do something as though it has the power to create; only God has this ability. His mind brings forth life. This is not abiogenesis by any stretch of the word. The author of life created life.
If we are going to suggest God is not the source of life and giver of life, then we need to read a bit of the Bible before making any further claims about the one who inspired it. Again, the creation of life by God Almighty is not an example of abiogenesis, although I’ve heard this canard many times from theistic evolutionists. The Bible doesn’t say only that we’re made of dust or clay or whatever variation he wants to throw in there. God formed dust and breathed life into it. His act of giving life is the key. It’s not that dust was used; it’s that God made us. In fact, using the dust makes us unique. He did nothing like this for any other living things He made. These facts make it all the more appropriate for the Old Testament writers to use concepts like the potter and the clay and so forth.
Does dust have the ability to create life? Obviously not. As A. E. Wilder Smith wrote, “The necessary information to build man does not reside in the few elements it takes to compose him.” We’re not even proportionately put together comparable to the earth’s crust. We are mostly oxygen like the earth’s crust, yes. But silicon is the second most abundant element in the earth’s crust. We are .026% silicon. That’s not in proportion to the 27% that’s found in the earth’s crust.
The fact is that all life on earth was born out of the mind of God. No natural process can account for its existence. Literally. There is no natural process that causes living things to be brought out of non-living matter. This theistic evolutionist even kind of hints at his own contradiction when he speaks of the first living things being “generated” from non-living matter. What did that? Was it necessary for God to do it this way? He doesn’t even believe this is a true account of the history of the world, so using it is a fairly strange happening. He also even states, after saying there is no law of biogenesis, that evolution hangs on it! Again, he says, “Evolution requires some sort of living, reproducing organism. Evolution requires biogenesis.” You can’t make this stuff up. In just a few sentences, he says two opposite statements.
His cop-out that evolution only deals with living things is noted. Unbelievers love to point out that universal common descent begins AFTER the first living thing was spontaneously generated billions of years ago. But the truth is, if this process cannot begin—if there’s no way for life to arise from non-living matter—then there’s no point in discussing the process after that because it couldn’t begin. That’s like asking, “If my car grew legs and walked away, where would it walk to?” It can’t grow its own legs, so the question is a non-starter.
He then deceptively describes evolution and Christianity in terms that don’t pass the sniff test. First, evolution clearly requires abiogenesis, but he fails to mention that. I know, I know – evolution describes how life diversified while abiogenesis describes how life began. But if life doesn’t begin, diversification isn’t a possibility. The two are very clearly intimately connected. You can read more on that here.
But does Christianity rest on abiogenesis? I thought Christianity rested on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but maybe my theology is messed up here. I hope he’ll see my confusion here and explain it to me in the future. Now, he’s going to suggest that the creation narrative tells us God allowed the earth to produce living things and all that sort of gibberish.
Genesis 1:24 says, “And God said, ‘Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.’ And it was so.” Does this mean God used abiogenesis and evolution to make all the animals and plants on earth? Easy question, the answer is obviously NO. It means that from the mind of God, the earth was filled with living creatures. He seems to forget a verse just a few before where God calls sea creatures and birds into existence but does not call them out of the water (which would be weird for the birds, right?). “And God said, ‘Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky’” (Genesis 1:20). There is no mention of God telling the water or air to produce these creatures. It’s a bit of a stretch, is it not? And using verse 24 to support his beliefs while simultaneously NOT believing the verse is a true representation of the creation week is dishonest, in my opinion. You can’t reject the entire narrative as history and then cherry pick one verse and say it supports your man-made creation narrative.
Also, I’ve heard creationists criticized because they believe in “hyper-evolution” because we believe organisms diversified and developed the variety we see from their created kinds since the Flood—just 4400 years ago or so. This theistic evolutionist is saying that all the diversity developed in 24-48 hours, I guess. The timeline for creation is exquisitely clear. Genesis 1 tells us it took a week to make everything. Exodus 20:11 and 31:17 both confirm for us that God created everything and then rested in a 7-day week. There’s no arguing that. So, I guess I have to assume theistic evolutionists believe in a level of “hyper-evolution” that is beyond description. Or, the alternative is God created each individual species as it is today. Either way, they want to force the text to read in a way that is clearly erroneous and stretches their credibility.
Something is described as pseudoscience when it violates a known law of nature. The humanist origins myth is given a pass here even though ALL evidence (every single piece) tells us life can ONLY come from another living thing. The law of biogenesis, whether a person accepts it as a law of nature or not, is solid because we cannot point to a single instance—not one time—that we know life originated from non-living matter. So universal common descent and abiogenesis violate this law that has not one exception that we know of. Does that qualify it as pseudoscience?
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“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” -Hebrews 11:13-16
Are you ever in the middle of telling a story (or stories) and then need to make a sidebar comment so that what you’re saying makes sense? That seems like exactly what the author of Hebrews does with today’s passage. He was just telling us about the first part of Abraham’s story in verses 8-12, and he’ll resume the story of Abraham in verses 17-19. But in the middle of the story, he decides that his readers need some important information.
In verse 13, the author begins by clarifying that the people who have been mentioned so far (Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham) did not see God’s promises fulfilled in their lifetimes. They were only living by faith, which is “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (verse 1). They were still confident and assured of God’s promises, even if they did not see the fulfillment of those promises. While Abraham was still alive to see his son Isaac born, of course, he did not live to see his descendants become as many as the stars in the sky or the sand on the seashore. All of these people knew that God’s promises would be fulfilled but only saw that fulfillment “from a distance.”
All of these people were “foreigners and strangers” here on earth. Yes, they did have homelands and families, but the point is that they knew that there was something greater than this earth to live for. Even many generations before Jesus would come as the promised Messiah, they knew that God had something better in store for them. They would one day all be citizens of heaven and were simply passing by so to speak on this earth while they lived their lives.
The rest of this section elaborates on the idea that this earth was not their true home. Verse 14 tells us that they were “looking for a country of their own.” If they were only focused on the things of this earth rather than God’s heavenly promises for them, they would not have been looking at the bigger picture of being foreigners and strangers on earth, preparing themselves for what God had in store after this life.
If they were only looking behind to what they had left, verse 15 tells us they could have just gone back there. But they weren’t focused on the past; they were focused on the future that God had promised them. They were completely focused on walking out the path that God had for them in faith, no matter what.
Rather than only looking at their current earthly lives or desiring to live in the past, they instead longed for the better heavenly country (verse 16). Their commitment to looking forward to their next life in heaven was a firm one, no matter what.
Because of their faith, God was not ashamed of them. They were obedient to Him through living their lives in faith, and God was proud of them for that. God is often referred to as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which demonstrates the faith of those men that God wants to be associated with them, even though they are sinful human beings. Because of their commitment to following God by faith even though they didn’t see the fulfillment of that, God honored them by preparing a city for them. Note that it doesn’t say that God will one day prepare a city for them, but it has already been accomplished.
What does this passage mean for us today? While we have already seen the fulfillment of God’s ultimate promise in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that brings us salvation, there are still times we need to live by faith in the things that we cannot see. We do not know the details of how our lives will play out, but we need to forge on anyway by faith in God that He will work everything out according to His good purposes (Romans 8:28).
Like these men of the Old Testament, we are all foreigners and strangers here on this earth as well. We know that this is not our ultimate home; for believers in Jesus Christ, heaven is our home. We are here for a time journeying through this world so that we can live our lives in faith in God. We are here to bring God glory and share about Him and all that He has done to our fellow sojourners here on earth, especially those who are not yet living by faith.
When we live by faith, God will not be ashamed of us either! He has already honored our faithful lives by preparing a place for us in heaven (John 14:1-4). We simply need to continue walking in that faith, focused on whatever God has in store for us and confident in that hope, even when we can’t see or understand what God is doing in our lives.
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Throughout church history, for the most part it was clear in society that when trouble came, the church was where you would find the answers for hope. When 9/11/2001 hit, the nation’s response was to get to church and to cry for help. But that repentance was short lived. The organized, visible church has been made nearly completely irrelevant to the culture of our nation today. There are two main reasons for this that I can think of. 1) The American church has, as a whole, so embraced teaching that is comfortable and seeking prosperity that whether it comes in the form of Prosperity Gospel or “Christian Nationalism,” the purpose of faith is not seeking what God wants but seeking what makes life easier. 2) The apologists of our faith have become so academic and intellectual that we chase away those who need truth and light because they were consumed by the lies of the world. I’ll be up front that I am just as guilty on these issues as anyone else, especially on the 2nd problem. So, I’m pointing to myself here too.
I ended last year on a 20-post series on apologetics and how/why we should be defending the faith. We absolutely must defend the faith. It’s a command, not a suggestion. We must bring the light to a world that knows nothing but darkness. In the Bible, light is a symbol of truth. It even describes God. As physical light enables us to see around us and what is going on, it is the truth that enables us to understand the times, the circumstances, and the arguments that we face. And much to the dismay of many, truth is exclusive. In a world that hates absolute truth, you will not make many friends by proclaiming the unadulterated truth.
Jesus said that we are the light of the world. Paul said the Church’s role is to be a pillar of truth. We are to stand out, be unique, and give answers to a world lost in darkness. Yes, we have answers, and we need not be ashamed of them. Yet, the intellectual world has given us post-modernism that denies any truth and any single source from having the final say about reality. Many have so embraced post-modernism that to break free of it and rebuke it will turn many who claim to be Christians against you. It’s like in Hezekiah’s day or Jeremiah’s day when Hezekiah and Josiah cleaned out all the idols from the land. The people were so entrenched in idolatry, thinking they were worshiping God that they thought Hezekiah went apostate. They ultimately rejected Jeremiah’s advice proudly declaring they would go back to worshiping their idols because when they worshiped their idols, they thought they had success. Yet the judgment that came upon them was due to their idolatry, not due to their abandoning their idols.
In 2018, my last of six times at the Colorado Christian Writers Conference, Tim Shoemaker made the closing keynote titled “Shooting Higher.” The context was for Christian writers to shoot higher with their writing. Go for the best standards, go proclaim the truth, and don’t hold back. He made this very quotable remark: “Where do we get the idea that we can reach darkness with more darkness?” How is it possible that we, who have the light, have been duped into thinking that in order to reach the world, we have to look like the world, sound like the world, and act like the world? This is how seeker-sensitive churches operate. In order to attract those in the world, we offer what the world wants, and the world does not want to hear sin-piercing, soul-penetrating, soul-saving truth of the gospel. Instead, they want to hear what makes them feel good and makes them acceptable in their sin. As a result, churches who do this cease being a church and become nothing more than a Sunday Social Club for the heathen. And that’s putting it nicely. This argument is what I have heard MANY Old Earth Creationists use, too. One even said, “You won’t reach the scientific community with these arguments.” My response was that if you are seeking their approval, you aren’t getting God’s approval. Since when did the church ever have to cater to the opinions of the lost?
We are to be light, and darkness hates light. We have to understand this. If we are going to present the unadulterated truth, those who are of the world will hate us. They will strive to silence us, mock us, or even kill us. Why? Because our message convicts them of their sin and reminds them of the judgment that is due to them unless they repent. But how can people be saved unless they see the light? Christianity is not meant to be a place where you learn your doctrines and your catechisms and then just sit comfortably in the pews. The church is meant to arm and equip the saints for going out there and being the light to people who have no light otherwise. At my job as a public school teacher, I may be the only Christian influence the students get. I’m not “allowed” to share my faith as part of my lectures in the classroom, and while it is an extreme battle to get kids to do it, I seek to teach my kids how to think independently of what they are being fed. I am also working on getting involved with Fellowship of Christian Athletes now that we are back on campus.
The underground church understands what it means to be the light, but they also know what happens when they do so. Light is not just visible to those who want to be able to see and to get answers.; it’s also visible to those who hate the light and don’t want anyone else to receive it either. There is a cost to being a Christian and especially to being a light in this world. I’ll save that in more detail for my next post, but today’s youth raised in church seems to think that all you need is to wear a Christian T-shirt or wear a cross on a necklace and that’s all you need to showcase your faith. You can certainly use those as witnessing tools, but if you are going to be the light in this world, expect to be ostracized and singled out. You will be the “weird one.” But those who count the cost, and have paid the cost, have reaped countless benefits and rewards.
Do you want to be the light of the world? You should, but you need to know what it comes with. Jesus was up front about what it meant to be His follower. Most walked away, unwilling to pay the price to get there. There is a cost to being a Christian. We’ll see what that is next week.
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by Steve Risner
Today, we’ll look at another wonderful example of poor logic, poor theology, and a terrible misunderstanding of both the arguments Biblical creationists make for their position and against the position a person who believes in abiogenesis and universal common descent (we call them evolutionists but this description as to what they believe is more useful, I think). We’ve discussed for some weeks the statements made by a theistic evolutionist and, frankly, how crazy much of what he says is. You can find the previous installments of this series here, here, here, here, and here. We began by outlining his initial statements and then, as he described what he felt were some inaccuracies concerning some arguments a meme had made about his beliefs.
We touched on entropy in our last two posts (linked above). I’ll wrap that up quickly and move on to biogenesis, this theistic evolutionist’s next argument. He finishes his critique of the claim that the second law of thermodynamics is violated by abiogenesis and universal common descent with this statement:
You'll note that this principle is so well established and provides such a clear source of increasing order for evolutionary purposes on planet earth that even the major anti-evolutionary organizations warn against using the argument that evolution violates the law of entropy. It's just too easy to point out that the argument is a falsehood.
He's right, you know. The principle of the second law of thermodynamics is one of the most well established in science. But it has nothing to do with “increasing order for evolutionary purposes on planet earth.” Not only does it not do this, but he didn’t even try to explain how.
He goes on to say the case is so strong (although he failed to tell us how) that “major anti-evolutionary organizations” (do you see how universal common descent has become an idol for this man?) tell us not to use this argument. Again, he’s right but not in the way he thinks. There are applications of this argument that are not profitable. They don’t seem to work. However, much of the talk on these “anti-evolutionary organizations” websites is replete with arguments explaining how abiogenesis and universal common descent require massive disruptions in this fundamental law of science. He provided a link (which I didn’t post here) that doesn’t work. It was nice he tried to offer some evidence for his claim, but the evidence is apparently outdated. Let’s move on to biogenesis and get the ball rolling with it.
On this topic, this theistic evolutionist, probably joined by most if not all others who share his beliefs, says:
The theory of evolution cannot violate ‘biogenesis,’ if there were actually a law of biogenesis. Evolution requires some sort of living, reproducing organism. Evolution requires biogenesis. Christianity requires abiogenesis, as well as biogenesis. The Bible clearly states (whether read figuratively or literally) that the first living organisms were generated from non-living matter. We came ‘from the dust.’ Other organisms are described as arising from the sea or the soil. It is also simply reasonable to think that the first living organisms were made of previously non-living chemical precursors. Hence an argument that evolution violates some requirement of ‘biogenesis’ is both a falsehood and an argument against the Bible. You have provided another piece of evidence that young-earthism and other anti-evolutionary notions are anti-biblical.
Biologyonline.com tells us that the law of biogenesis is the principle stating that life arises from pre-existing life, not from nonliving material. Now this evolutionist wants to act like this law isn’t real. Biologyonline.com disagrees. Medical-dictionary also disagrees, telling us it’s “a term given by [Thomas] Huxley [known as “Darwin’s Bulldog” due to his fierce advocacy for Darwin’s theory] to the principle that life originates from preexisting life only and never from nonliving material.” There were numerous other definitions on that page that essentially stated the same thing. Some seem to think that biogenesis is certainly a concept to be understood by biologists and laypersons alike. And to be honest, I don’t know a single person who has ever witnessed this not being the case. There has never been, in the billions, or more likely trillions, of organisms we’ve witnessed on this earth, a single time a living thing—whether a single cell or as complex as you’d like to imagine—has come from something not alive. They’ll sidestep this issue by claiming this was only applicable to spontaneous generation but doesn’t apply to abiogenesis. That’s hogwash. In fact, if you look at the definitions of those two ideas—spontaneous generation and abiogenesis—they are nearly identical.
Oxford defines abiogenesis this way: “the original evolution of life or living organisms from inorganic or inanimate substances.” Notice how they accidentally slipped the word “evolution” in there. Our theistic evolutionist doesn’t think the two are related. Oxford says that spontaneous generation is “the supposed production of living organisms from nonliving matter, as inferred from the apparent appearance of life in some supposedly sterile environments.” Do you see how these two definitions are very similar? They are, really. Huxley (mentioned above) changed the term from spontaneous generation to abiogenesis for the exclusive purpose of getting away from this backward, naïve, thoroughly proven false idea. Oops. It’s still the same thing, no matter how you change the name.
I think this is a good place to rest. Next week, we’ll look at the rest of his comment on the law of biogenesis, which evolution gets a pass on. Is abiogenesis a foundational pillar of Christianity? We’ll take a look at his theology here and use some of our resources on Hebrew to discover what the deal is. Thanks for reading and may God bless you richly.
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
