Approximately 20 of us gathered today to watch the movie, EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed. I cannot impress upon you enough the importance of viewing this timely film. If you watch only one movie this year, let it be this documentary. To learn more, access the internet link: http://www.expelledthemovie.com/ Consider inviting others to go with you; bring the children too! It is wonderfully done! Everyone needs to know how evolution is impacting our society.
As a side note, we (members of the Lord's true church) need to be people who have the freedom and fortitude to think for ourselves. We ought to be people who study various issues with a willingness to test and be tested. Some folks/preachers/members embrace the attitude of the current scientific establishment exposed in "Expelled" and expel any who challenge their thinking/teaching. The Bible tell us to "test the spirits" (1 John 4:1). Hence, if I am doing the teaching I need to be prepared and willing to have my students test what I am saying. At the same time, when I am doing the listening, or the reading, I am responsible for investigating what is being taught and comparing it with what is written in God's word. If it matches the Scriptures, duty demands that we believe it. If it is weak or full of holes, we are to repudiate it.
I also need to have sufficient wisdom and humility to discern whether the issues that we sometimes make into issues are really worthy of being considered issues at all. Some things are simply matters of judgment and make no difference; as was the case with the eating of meats (see Romans 14). Some people get hung up on personal scruples and then attempt to bind, as doctrine, their consciences on others. The result is the birth of an issue over which brethren debate and divide; but the sad thing is, it was never an issue with God. Likewise, we need to be certain we do not bring into the covenant of Christ unauthorized ideas and practices that never were, and should not be, there. We need to guard against including our thinking in the Scriptures and be content to reason out of the Scriptures.
Some, incidentally, made circumcision, a big deal in the New-Testament church, when it was to be considered nothing (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:19; Acts 15:1ff). Problems arise when men bring into Christ's covenant ideas or practices that are foreign to it. Similarly, but equally wrong, people sometimes define New-Testament terms according to modern and cultural definitions, rather than by the definitions that were in place when the Bible was written. Whatever may be the result, it is not sound doctrine! For example, this has recently been the case with some, who insist on reconciling Jesus' usage of divorce with American civil law (see Gk. apoluo, Matthew 19:9; 1:19; 14:15,22, 23; 15:23, where courtrooms, lawyers, papers, etc., are not intrinsic to the meaning).
Likewise, when all of the educated and sophisticated opinions of the world's scholars are driven by their pride and pomp to the book of Genesis, the recorded fact is still going to stand through time--God created the heavens and the earth in six literal days (Genesis 1; Exodus 20:11). All the scholarship of vain imagination weighs lightly on God's clear and unchanging word.
Insisting on the figurative uses of the word day lends no more value to understanding the Genesis record than courtrooms, lawyers, and papers do to defining "apoluo" when Jesus described a man putting away his wife.
No matter how bloated or thin, no matter how complicated or simple a man's argument may be, the record will always stand--God made man, and on day six stood he!
The Centerfold of the Bible: "Know that the LORD, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves ..." (Psalm 100:3, NKJV)
"So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." (Genesis 1:27, NKJV)
"Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." (2 Tim. 2:15, NKJV)
Brother Wallace has an excellent website where he discusses these issues. It's called "Revelation and Creation." ( http://revelationandcreation.com/) I highly recommend it if you want to read some quality material on the subject of creation. Sadly, in the past few years, some of our brethren have decided they're not quite certain that God created the earth in six literal days. What must they be thinking? An all-powerful God could have created the earth in SIX SECONDS! Why not allow Him to give us the facts and then accept them. Sounds like a novel concept to me.
Why do brethren have trouble accepting God's revealed truth about some subjects? There may be many reasons, but because of some personal discussions about the subject, there's one that I think is most plausible. They're trying to find common ground between those who believe in evolution and those who accept the Biblical creation account. There is NO COMMON GROUND!
Those who believe the creation account believe in intelligent design. Those who hold to the evolution process explain creation by natural cause. The two views are opposite. But wait-to clear the difficulty, another new concept has been introduced to the discussion. This position is called theistic evolution. Those professing this position have combined the other two-God created by intelligent design, and natural cause. In other words, God, during the passage of millions of years, allowed natural causes to create the world. There is no proof for this theory, just as there is no proof for the evolution process. For this reason, evolution is still a theory and not a law.
By the way, when those who do not believe in creation by intelligent design tell you there's no supporting evidence, they are mistaken! We have the very same evidence they do; we just arrive at a different interpretation because we allow God's voice to be heard in the discussion. GOD SAID...what more does anyone need? How can we explain the world's intelligent design without the involvement of God's hand? Only the blind cannot see this truth; it's everywhere around us. Take time to examine the world-it's HIS EVIDENCE! (KMG)