Evangelical Awed and Amazed by Evolution?

I thought I’d share some thoughts I had while at work today making donuts. I never read the newspaper except when I make donuts because we spread it out to keep the oil from getting all over the nice clean stainless steel tables. Usually there isn’t much worth reading, especially in this small Kentucky town, but today this headline caught my eye, “Evangelical Awed and Amazed by Evolution”, so I began reading.

The article really had nothing to do with evolution or creation, nor of the debate between them but rather how Christians are silly to hold to their fight against Evolution which obviously is a fight against science. While I don’t have the statistics or head knowledge to fight like Ken Ham, I know that there are also plenty of evolutionists who are wowed by creation after they make the switch.

I was raised believing in creation, that God made the earth in six 24 hour days and after that He rested, end of story, the world was made. That’s fine for me, but what about the millions of other kids who were raised believing that evolution made this earth and that over billions of years we’ve gotten to where we are today. The fellow in the paper who was wowed by evolution claimed that His belief in evolution didn’t clash with his belief in God. He seemed to accept the fact that God just started this world and left us the enjoyable job of discovering this wonderful process we call evolution.

My response? So what! Apart from the Bible I could care less what way He chose to form the earth. While I can’t see how you couldn’t believe in a God with all of the information and order around us, I could see that, apart from the Bible, He very well could have chosen to use evolution. What a thrilling thing it would be to discover that process, the evidence, the finger prints of God as creatures slowly, over billions of years, progressed from one life form to the next. What a history! What a lineage! Yet, that is not what the Bible says happened, nor do I believe we see much of that evidence in creation around us. Rather, it clearly and undeniably states that God created the world in six short days, that was that, and there was man, ready to fall, and fall we did.

Adam sinned and so sin came to all men and now we are tainted with it, covered, from head to toe with a natural hatred and animosity toward God. We grew as a people, we covered the earth, we began to go after other gods, idols, and traded the image of the real God for those made by man. Yet God’s grace was still upon us and He has spared us to this day though we deny Him and try to stuff Him inside our molds and boxes. Yet, God cannot be contained nor fully understood. Science cannot explain Him and it cannot explain Him away, He is there and we are at His mercy, for Him to do with as best pleases Him.

The question of origin began when we discovered things we thought didn’t match, things our human minds couldn’t figure out, couldn’t wrap around, and so we took a pair of scissors to the Bible, to our faith and the results of our trimmings and adjustments have been detrimental. Not just because they are so false and twisted, but because we have put our own intellect and prowess over that of God’s. We put God to death and labeled His followers as fools, but God however has not died, rather it is we ourselves who have been killed, alienated from the very source of all life.

The fight you see isn’t between evolution verses creation mainly, but rather between what the Bible really says, and whether we will believe it, or not. When once we have opened the door to a wide interpretation of scripture in the beginning, we open that door to all the Bible. “Jesus wasn’t really God, just a good man.” “Christ wasn’t really born of a virgin.” “He didn’t really die, he was just severely stunned and later awoke in the tomb.” “Those miracles could never have happened, science wouldn’t allow it.”, do you begin to see what I mean? We have to let the Bible stand by itself, and either accept it as a whole or deny it completely. If the Bible isn’t true cover to cover, if it makes a fool of it’s followers, if it promises things it can’t deliver, then by all means, burn them all! But if it be true then woe to him who chooses not to accept and follow every last iota and tittle.

I also don’t believe that science and the Bible are at odds at all. I’ve read books by both creationists and evolutionists and from what I’ve read I see that there is evidence for both, much more in my eyes for creation, but never the less either could have happened. I however choose first to believe the Bible and that God’s Word is true, every last little bit. Man’s words and discoveries are subjective truth, open to debate and interpretation, the Word of God is not, that means that not only did God create the world in six literal days but also that I am a fallen, sinful human being with finite attributes who is guilty before a holy, righteous, infinite and all knowing God who is completely outside of time and space, not limited to my understanding of things, yet, even in my guilt and hatred he chose to reach down from heaven to save me by the precious blood of His only Son Jesus, who was born of the virgin Mary, who died and rose three days later and then ascended to the right hand of God where He sits interceding for His own. More then this I know that one day I will see His precious face and embrace the body that was broken for my sins.

So to sum it all up, believe the Bible as a whole, as it is written, as it was meant to be understood, or reject it, totally, all of it, claiming none of its promises and defending none of its so-called truths, that you might follow after other gods. Do not cut up the Bible so that you can fit your theories and hypotheses inside of it. Let it stand or let it fall, for if there be a God He will uphold His own words, as it is written in Luke 21:33.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Luke 21:33

“Yes Lord! Let them stand in my heart and in my life, and if they be false, and there be no God, let me fall, for I would rather die then live without You.”

Thought For The Day

Are you a Christian? Are you willing to stand firm on the Word of God, even when it seems like foolishness to your friends and to the world? Will you continue to believe that God created this amazingly beautiful, organized and ordered universe and this unique and incredible place called earth, in six days instead of some unquantifiable number of days like man would have us believe? Don’t let your mind be pulled back and forth by the false claims of man, the claims of man changes like the tide, but the Words of God stands forever.

since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. Romans 1:19-20