Tag: <span>bible</span>

Several years ago, working as an IT Consultant I was on site with a client when a member of staff asked for assistance with a problem on her computer. The problem had defeated her, and so I was asked to take a look. I’ve long since forgotten the problem and the cure, but I do recall that I took a look at the computer, hit a few keys and walked away, saying “Done!”. I’d only travelled a few steps when the woman called out after me “But you’re a Christian!”. That may seem a disjointed conversation, but let me tell you the flow of thought behind the woman’s response.

  1. By fixing her computer I exhibited extremely logical behaviour
  2. Christians believe in Creation
  3. How could I be both extremely logical and hold to a Creationist worldview?

My response to this woman was to say that the Christian understanding of the origin of the universe is entirely logical and therefore the most natural position for me to take as someone whose thinking is logical.

Fast forward a few years and increasingly we are seeing the use of the term Creationist in a pejorative sense. Since when did Creationist become a term of abuse? I know that in every generation there are a small number of aggressive, vocal, and mindless shouters who decry anything and everything with equal vehemence and prejudice, but today’s world sees fit to universally deny the validity of the Creationist worldview with extreme prejudice and with next to no understanding of either their own position or the reasons to take a Creationist stand.

Those who have been reading carefully will notice that I haven’t yet used the word ‘believe’ – that’s deliberate. The argument below is also intended to be taken outside of the context of belief or trust in the God of the Bible. But, just for the sake of clarity, let me state that I believe the Bible to be God’s revealed word to us, and as such I believe what he says in the book of Genesis about how he brought this universe into existence. I have studied this narrative in detail and am convinced that what God intended to tell us is that he made the universe in 6 literal days. I choose to believe him.

Now, to the logic:-

The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

— Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

As much as I love IT and computers, I have a healthy interest in Physics. Learning about the Second Law of Thermodynamics has been something that has grown on me over the years as I have begun to understand how overwhelming it is in terms of our understanding of the world in which we live. The quote above from Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington sums it up very well. What he is saying, in layman’s terms is this:

No matter how far back in time, no matter how far into the future, no matter how far out into the universe you go, this law holds true. And this law tells us that everything that is is tending towards chaos.

Let me expand on that a little. It is seen in the world around us, and demonstrated empirically, that everything is falling apart. Buy a new car, it begins to deteriorate from the day you buy it. I’ve never yet had a car that grows a fresh set of tyres, never mind one that acquires a Bluetooth connection for my new smartphone. Buy a new home, and watch the woodwork rot, the tiles fall off and the mortar between the bricks begins to disintegrate. Every new born child will one day wear out and die. Common sense tells us what science confirms. This observation is just the icing on the cake of a universe that is winding down. The phrase ‘entropy always increases’ describes a universe that will one day, without some sort of injection of energy and order, fail completely.

So, observation, science and our own common sense tell us that nothing improves on its own. If you want a better car, then you trade in your old rusting hulk for a new one: designed, manufactured – order and energy are put in to produce something new. When your house begins to fall apart you engage workmen (or do it yourself) to repair and restore – order and energy put in. Alas, poor humanity succumbs to the fact that you don’t get out of this world alive.

If all the above holds true then there are a couple of logical outcomes:

  1. It is contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics to see any increase in order in the universe. As evolution is an increase in order then it cannot occur.
  2. The order and energy that produced the closed system that is the universe must have a source outside the universe

That’s the logic, as far as I’m concerned. I’m sure anyone with a smidgen of plain old common sense can extrapolate from there.

To conclude:

No matter the pejorative stance of many who have thought less about Creation and Evolution than I have, or the statements of those scientists and individuals committed to a different worldview who fail to admit their a priori exclusions it is entirely logical to hold to a view that the universe was created. I know that this is not a full explanation, but it is logical and consistent.

So, for me, to be accused of being a Creationist is a compliment, not an insult. As a Christian, hold your head up high, not only is what you believe entirely rational, it is also what God has told us he did and is doing. Let’s continue to believe with confidence, knowing that, as we would expect, the universe we see is entirely in keeping with the facts that God has revealed.

Bible General

Opening the Door

We have a sign on our front door, it reads ‘Welcome Friends’. It’s interesting the difference friendship makes to a welcome. It’s not that we’re unfriendly, or don’t welcome people we don’t already count as friends, but just think for a minute about the difference in your attitude when you are expecting a knock on the door and when you’re not.

When we’ve arranged for friends to come round we are expecting them, we are looking forward to what’s to come. We go to the door with a smile already crossing our face. But sometimes, usually when we’ve just sat down with a cup of tea, we hear an unexpected knock on the door: is it a cold caller? As we go to the door we are usually just that bit more wary, not sure of how to receive until we know who it is we are receiving.

In Revelation 3:20 there is a direct message from the risen Jesus to the Church. It’s directed at those who already know him – he’s a friend. But the shocking thing is that he’s on the outside, knocking to get in! Remember, these are Christians that Jesus is talking to!

When we invite friends round, it very often comes with the offer of a meal. As we eat together folks relax, relationships are built, questions are asked and answers given – we get to know one another.

For many people today their relationship with God is transactional. Let me explain that: we make our relationship with God a deal, an agreement, an acknowledgement of our sin and God’s forgiveness through Christ. But we leave it there. The deal’s been done, we’re saved. That’s what makes for Revelation 3 lukewarm Christians! We often use the term ‘accepting Christ’ as a description of our salvation. That somehow seems such a poor concept of what Jesus is and what he wants. He doesn’t want to be accepted, he wants to be welcomed!

Read Revelation chapter 1 through to 3:20 and try to see the risen, exalted, incandescent Jesus of chapter 1 standing outside the door to you: knocking, waiting. Try to imagine what it would be like to open that door to Jesus as the best of all friends, and to welcome him in with open arms and a laden table. Try to imagine a life spent around the table of our hearts with the Lord Jesus Christ breaking bread with us, getting to know him as he knows us. That’s a relationship, not a transaction.

Jesus is saying to each one of us in our apathy and lukewarm faith: LOOK! I’m outside knocking! If anyone opens up and welcomes me to the table, I WILL come in and share it with them!

What an incredible offer and privilege – let’s all throw wide the doors with glad abandon and welcome our Lord into our lives.

Bible

What do the conversations revolve around in your home? What is it that animates you and yours? What gets your passions roused enough to discuss, debate, express yourself?

There’s so much to capture our attention these days and there are so many ways of being captured. For many people it’s the TV that sits in the corner of the room, always on, always directing our thoughts. For others it’s social media, stuffed chock full of memes and breaking news.

It’s good to have interests, it’s great to have passions, it’s healthy to be aware of what’s going on in the world. But, when these things pervade our lives then we are subject to them. This is why God explicitly tells us to deliberately determine what pervades our lives. Here’s my paraphrase of Deuteronomy 6:4-9, the great ‘shema’.

Listen up, people: the I AM God, the LORD is the only One
Love the LORD with all of who you are: heart, soul, strength
Keep these instructions in your heart
Teach and talk of these things: to your family, to your friends, in the home or out and about,
First thing in the morning and last thing at night
Make these words of God guard and guide what you do with your hands, what you see with your eyes
Make these words of God the gateway to your home

Bible

Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer.

Daniel 9:3

What was Daniel’s life really like? He was abducted from his homeland as a young man, probably in his early teens. He and his friends were put under the Chief of the Eunuchs – the logical deduction is that as part of Daniel’s incorporation into the retinue of the king of Babylon he and his friends were made eunuchs. Daniel was also a slave. No matter what position he was given it didn’t change the fact that he was owned by the king. Reading between the lines of the book of Daniel he was down more than he was up – at times of crisis he was remembered, at other times he could be completely forgotten. With every change of regime, and Daniel suffered quite a few, Daniel would have lost whatever position he had (apart from the Belshazzar/Darius change, where things went the other way).

Why the background? To show that Daniel didn’t ‘have it good’. He wasn’t recognised by all around him as some giant of faith and righteousness. He was often hated, occasionally recognised, but mostly it was just him and his God. But God recognised him as a giant of faith and righteousness (see Ezekiel 14:14,20)! We need to understand how he came to be who he is while under the constraints that he suffered. We need to know that we have the same access to the same God that Daniel did, if only we would avail of that access.

It’s strange, but I struggle to read books on prayer – they just don’t seem to work. In one sense, it’s such a simple act that I wonder how someone can write a book about it, and yet in another it’s one of the most difficult acts for a believer to truly indulge in. I’m not going to write a book on it, but I do think Daniel exemplifies how we should go about it when we don’t know how to pray.

Daniel was at his wit’s end, he couldn’t see a way out of the domination by a succession of superpowers. He himself was powerless and subject to the whims of those superpowers. Where could he turn, where did he turn?

He turned to God’s word! “I, Daniel, perceived in the books” Daniel 9:2. We’re often told that we should listen before we speak. This is all the more vital with prayer. How can we worship aright if we don’t first remind ourselves of who God is. How can we ask aright if we don’t read of God’s sovereignty and grace. How can we seek God’s plans if we have not first imbibed them into our own souls?

Before we turn to prayer we must turn to the word.

Then, like Daniel, we can turn our faces to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer. Daniel used what he learned in God’s word to direct his prayers. He confessed not only his sin, but that of the nation. Remember that God chose a people, not just persons; we should pray for God’s people as a people. Daniel reminded God of the promises made in his word and asked God to fulfil them. We need to be seekers after God’s plans and purposes so that we can pray that God would fulfil them, we need to understand the times in order to see God’s providence in them and seek the progression of his kingdom.

Most of all, we need to seek God’s glory in our prayers, because in that is everything else made right. Our peace, our prosperity, our salvation and redemption, our future hope are all bound up in the God of this universe bringing about his plans and purposes. As we see the reality of this we will see the part that our lives play in the greatest story of all: God and his people. As we look at the world around us, and the church, which is God’s dwelling place on earth, till he comes, we can honestly pray with Daniel:

Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your sake O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. Daniel 9:17

Bible