Witnesses of the Resurrection

Posted on 03/12/2014 by Paul Pavao

We terribly underestimate the importance of the primary job of the twelve apostles.

In fact, most of us don’t even know what it was.

It is written in the book of the Psalms, “… Let another take position.” Therefore, from among the men who have accompanied us … one must be appointed to be a witness with us of his resurrection. (Acts 1:20-22)

This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. (Acts 2:32)

The God of our father raised up Jesus … and we are his witnesses of these things. (Acts 5:31-32)

God raised him up the third day and displayed him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen in advance by God, that is, us. (Acts 10:40-41)

God raised him from the dead, and he was seen for many day by those who came with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses to the people. (Acts 14:30-31)

This last quote is from Paul, who did not include himself among those called as witnesses of the resurrection. That was the job of the twelve, those who had been with him from the beginning. (So, if you are among those who have wondered whether Paul was God’s choice for the twelfth apostle, rather than Matthias who was chosen by lot, you are wrong … like I was.)

So What?

Why does this matter? Why is this important?

The apostles were witnesses of the resurrection. Think about it. They were witnesses of the resurrection.

Is that what we think about them? Or do we think that they are explainers of the Jesus’ death?

I know the first time that I went through the book of Acts to compare the Gospel of the apostles to the Gospel of the 20th century church, I was stunned. Where were the explanations that heaven is a free gift? That we are sinners? That we cannot save ourselves? That God wants to forgive us but his justice requires him to punish sin? Where are the explanations that Jesus paid the price for our sins?

They’re not there.

Why?

Because the apostles were witnesses of the resurrection.

They were more than that … to the church. To the church they were shepherds, prophets, and stewards of the mysteries of God. To the lost, however, they were one thing: witnesses of the resurrection.

Why?

Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this same Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. (Acts 2:36)

How should the house of Israel know assuredly that Jesus is both Lord and the promised King?

By his resurrection (vv. 32-35).

The God of our father raised up Jesus … God has exalted him as a Prince and Savior. (Acts 5:30-31)

God raised him up the third day … it is he who was ordained by God to judge the living and the dead. (Acts 10:40,42)

King Jesus our Lord … declared to be the Son of God with power … by the resurrection of the dead. (Rom 1:3-4)

[God] has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom he has determined, and he has shown this to everyone by raising him from the dead. (Acts 17:31)

The resurrection is the proof that Jesus is God’s chosen king, appointed by him to judge the living and the dead.

The death of Jesus was our purchase price. For Christians, it is the center of our motivation (e.g., 1 Pet 1:18-19). We belong to him. His death also transformed the universe.

But the Good News that the apostles proclaimed to the world was not the mechanism, the death of Jesus. They reported the proof that he was God’s chosen King, his resurrection.

What if we, too, limited our discussion of kind graciousness of our God to those who believed that he is the resurrected King, righful Ruler and Judge of the living and the dead? What if we were to do what the apostles did and proclaim his resurrection, the proof of the that he is King and therefore foundation of the Gospel of the Kingdom?

Posted in Early Christianity, Gospel, History, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Becoming Deceit-Proof

Posted on 03/11/2014 by Paul Pavao

When I wonder if I’m off track, here is a sure-fire test for me.

Hopefully, we all wonder, at least at times, if our faith is fake. It is a command of Scripture to examine ourselves to see whether we are really in the faith (2 Cor. 13:5).

We read about deceived people who worked miracles and cast out demons, yet Jesus rejected them as workers of iniquity. That very passage, however, can be a tremendous source of assurance.

The passage in which Jesus speaks of these powerfully ministering pretenders is Matthew 7:21-23. That passage is almost at the end of the Sermon on the Mount (found in Matthew’s Gospel, chs. 5-7).

“Almost” is crucial. The actual end of the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus telling his disciples that if they do the things he had just taught, then they would be like wise men who built their house on a rock. No storm would take that house down. If they did not listen and do his commands, then they would be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The first storm brought great destruction.

Think of it! Jesus—the Son of God, the Judge of the living and the dead—tells us that if we follow his commands in the Sermon on the Mount, we will be built on a solid foundation, and the storms of life will not overthrow us!

The pretenders were casting out demons; they were working miracles; they were prophesying. Maybe they were pretending even to do that, but Jesus doesn’t say that. He says that they are workers of iniquity. They were not doing the will of his Father in heaven.

The test for us is whether we are turning the other cheek, whether we turning away from hate and anger, whether we are averting our lustful eyes, whether we are loving money, or worrying about tomorrow. These are the things that matter to Jesus. Are we merciful, poor in spirit, pure in heart, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and enduring persecution. Are we peacemakers or trouble makers?

Admittedly and importantly, there is more to the Gospel than the Sermon on the Mount.

The Sermon on the Mount is such a powerful and amazing way to live that centuries ago a Jewish man would say, “Your precepts in the so-called Gospel are so wonderful and so great that I suspect no one can keep them” (Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 10).

According to our Gospel, no one can live them. We all sin and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23).

There is, however, a route to keeping the commands of King Jesus. It involved being born again (Jn 3:3-8), being made a new creature (2 Cor 5:17), being freed from sin by grace (Rom 6), When we partake of his divine nature and escape the corruption that is in this world because of the great and precious promises which have been given to us, then we can “do these things” and never stumble (2 Pet 1:5-11). Those who are born of God do not continue sinning (1 Jn 3:9), and the one who walks by the Spirit will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh (Gal 5:16).

Great and precious promises.

Deceit-Proof

The issue today is not how to fulfill the commands of the King in the Sermon on the Mount, but I thought it was important to address that. Too many today agree with Trypho, the Jew, that the precepts in the Good News are too wonderful and great to be kept.

If we don’t keep them, we are foolish builders of shacks on sand.

The issue today is becoming deceit-proof.

How do we know that we are not among the deceived, the pretenders who think they are serving God, when really they are workers of iniquity, utterly unknown to him?

The answer is in Jesus’ promise at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. If you are obeying your King’s commands, then you are a wise man building your house on the rock of ages. You are not a deceived man. You are a wise man.

Long ago I was told that if I was struggling with a teaching, with whether it was from God or not, that I should reduce the teaching to one simple point: what is the teacher asking me to do?

Does the teaching exhort me to obey the commands of our King? Does the teaching equip me for every good work? (2 Tim 3:16-17). Does it move me to love from a sincere faith? (1 Tim 1:5).

You don’t have to understand everything the teacher is saying. You can judge a teaching by its goal. If in the end you are moved to obey the King, then you are being helped to be a wise man building his house on the rock. If not, someone is making a foolish man out of you.

“Do not be deceived, the one who practices righteousnness is righteous as he is righteous” (1 Jn 3:7).

Intentions and Repentance

I have a lot of problems with Martin Luther and the life he lived. I cannot justify him. I am convinced he was used by God to transform our western world and that for the most part that transformation was not just good but very good.

Either way, good or bad, I quoted a passage from him yesterday that is true and so well-said that I will not try to improve it with my own words.

Christians also fall into sin and perform the lusts of the flesh. David fell horribly into adultery. … However great these sins were, they were not committed to spite God, but from weakness. When their sins were brought to their attention these men did not obstinately continue in their sin, but repented. Those who sin through weakness are not denied pardon as long as they rise again and cease to sin. There is nothing worse than to continue in sin. If they do not repent, but obstinately continue to fulfill the desires of the flesh, it is a sure sign that they are not sincere.

When I speak of obeying the commands of the King in the Sermon on the Mount, I am not talking about sinless perfection. The apostle John gave us some of the strongest statements about obedience in the entire Bible when he wrote his first epistle. Yet he is careful to pause and tell us that if we say we have no sin, we are liars. He is careful to pause and tell us not only that we can be forgiven, but that when we sin we have an advocate with the Father, King Jesus the righteous one. God longs to forgive us, to cleanse us, and to empower us. We are his workmanship, his project, to be molded for good works that he prepared especially and individually for each of us to do (Eph 2:10).

The point of this post is to give you a lighthouse. A light shining in the distance to let you know you are going the right direction. Are you among the deceived? Look ahead at the light, the light of fellowship with and submission to the King who has made you a son or daughter to the eternal Father and Creator of all. Are you bowing the knee to him. Do you devote your life to him. Is he first and foremost. Do you meditate on his precepts and commands? Are you subjecting yourself to him.

That walk is not and cannot be a deceived one. That walk is a protected one that is not led astray by any storms of life.

Posted in Holiness | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Outing Martin Luther

Posted on 03/09/2014 by Paul Pavao

The outing of Marting Luther is long overdue. Why I have not thought to out him long ago is a mystery to me, but I thought of it today, and I feel I must follow through.

Martin Luther did not believe in eternal security. He did not believe in salvation by faith alone.

At least, he did not believe in eternal security or faith alone in any way that would be recognizable today.

Let’s take a look at the things he wrote.

Commentary on Galatians, in reference to Galatians 5:4:

We can hear [Paul] say, “I do not condemn the Law in itself, what I condemn is that men seek to be justified by the Law … It is this I condemn, because it makes Christ of no effect. It makes you void of Christ so that Christ is not in you, nor can you be partakers of the knowledge, the spirit, the fellowship, the liberty, the life, the achievements of Christ. You are completely separated from him, so much so that he has nothing to do with you any more, or for that matter you with him.”

I should point out here that Martin Luther is not abandoning his stance on faith in Christ alone. He is simply saying that this faith can be abandoned for the Law and result in eternal separation from Jesus. In the same paragraph, he goes on to say …

If you know Christ at all, you know that good works do not serve unto righteousness, nor evil works unto condemnation. I do not want to withhold from good works their due praise, nor do I wish to encourage evil works. But when it comes to justification, I say, we must concentrate upon Christ alone, or else we make him non-effective. … If you choose Christ you are righteous before God. If you stick to the Law, Christ is of no use to you.

Martin Luther then addresses the phrase, “Ye are fallen from grace.”

That means you are no longer in the kingdom or condition of grace. When a person on board ship falls into the sea and is drowned it makes no difference from which end or side of the ship he falls into the water. Those who fall from grace perish no matter how they go about it. Those who seek to justified by the Law are fallen from grace and are in grave danger of eternal death. If this holds true in the case of those who seek to be justified by the moral law, what will become of those … who endeavor to be justified by their own regulations and vows? They will fall to the very bottom of hell. …
   The words, “Ye are fallen from grace,” must not be taken lightly. They are important. To fall from grace means to lose the atonement, the forgiveness of sins, the righteousness, liberty, and life which Jesus has merited for us by his death and resurrection. To lose the grace of God means to gain the wrath and judgment of God, death, the bondage of the devil, and everlasting condemnation.

On Galatians 5:21 …

This is a hard saying, but very necessary for those false Christians and hypocrites who speak much about the Gospel, about faith, and the Spirit, yet live after the flesh. But this hard sentence is directed chiefly at the heretics who are large with their own self-importance, that they may be frightened into take up the fight of the Spirit against the flesh.

It might be said here that Luther is defending our modern version of faith alone, in which what we do does not matter. The saved, we moderns would say, are not being spoken of here.

True enough. However, Martin Luther is pointing out that those who sin without repentance are not among the saved, no matter how much they speak about the Gospel, faith, and the Spirit. Living after the flesh is proof enough that you are a hypocrite or heretic.

A little earlier, addressing veres 19, he writes:

Christians also fall into sin and perform the lusts of the flesh. David fell horribly into adultery. … However great these sins were, they were not committed to spite God, but from weakness. When their sins were brought to their attention these men did not obstinately continue in their sin, but repented. Those who sin through weakness are not denied pardon as long as they rise again and cease to sin. There is nothing worse than to continue in sin. If they do not repent, but obstinately continue to fulfill the desires of the flesh, it is a sure sign that they are not sincere.

Be sure, Martin Luther never justified those who did not repent and turn from sin. On Galatians 5:24, he writes:

True believers are not hypocrites. They crucify the flesh with its evil desires and lusts. Inasmuch as they have not altogether put off the sinful flesh they are inclined to sin. … They are likely to be provoked to anger, to envy, to impatience, to carnal lust, and other emotions. But they will not do the things to which the flesh incites them. They crucify the flesh with its evil desires and lusts by fasting and exercise and above all, by a walk in the Spirit.

Is this the person that we moderns claim is eternally secure?

If this is the person that is eternally secure, then we are agreed. Those who crucify the flesh with its passions and desires, and who do so by the Spirit, these are the children of God, and they will appear before the throne of God without fault and blameless.

Why? Because they have never sinned?

No, but because they walk in the light and thus the blood of King Jesus, God’s Son, cleanses them from every sin (1 Jn. 1:7).

But if you claim that what you do does not matter, you are a hypocrite, and you will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Martin Luther and Galatians 6

It is concerning Galatians 6:6-9 that I received the biggest shock in anything I had read in Martin Luther’s writings.

I regularly reference Galatians 6:9, because there Paul felt free to say doing good—and doing so without growing weary—will result in the reaping of eternal life. I was very curious what Martin Luther would say about that passage. I am finding that Luther was not one to dodge difficult verses, at least not in the letters of Paul.

Luther showed me that I was the one who was missing the context of Galatians 6. I was stunned to read this exposition of sowing to the flesh and sowing to the Spirit in verses 7 and 8:

This simile of sowing and reaping also [like 1 Cor. 9:13-14] refers to the proper support of ministers. “He that soweth to the Spirit,” i.e., he that honors the ministers of God is doing a spiritual thing and will reap everlasting life. “He that soweth to the flesh,” i.e., he that has nothing left for the ministers of God, but only thinks of himself, that person will reap of the flesh corruption, not only in this life, but also in the life to come. The Apostle wants to stir up his readers to be generous to their pastors.

If we don’t give to those who minister to us we will reap corruption, even in the life to come? Surely Martin Luther isn’t tying selfishness to eternal condemnation!

He is.

He pronounces those who sow to the Spirit blessed for this life and the life to come, while those who sow to the flesh are accursed now and forever.

Luther does apologize for how selfish this sounds. He explains that a minister of the Gospel fears to explain passages like this lest he seem to be speaking for his own benefit. Still, he says, the people must be told these things so that they know their duty.

Is Galatians 6:7-8 really talking about supporting the shepherds and servants of the church? I had never considered such a thing! Have you!

Yet Luther is clearly correct. The context is indeed the support of Christian teachers. Verse 6 reads, “Let him who is taught in the Word share in all good things with him who teaches.”

Beyond Galatians

Martin Luther wasn’t suddenly stricken with heresy during the time he was writing the commentary on Galatians. The statements above are consistent with other things he taught. For example:

[The Lord] cautions his Christians against becoming secure, so that the day of his coming might not come upon them unawares. … We must not become like those secure and ungodly people who crowd their hearts with surfeiting [excess] and concerns about earning a livelihood. … When they are at their securest … they will suddenly be laid low and burn with a fire that will never be extinguished. (The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther. Baker Book House:2000. Vol. V, p. 38)

True, it is difficult to do good and in turn receive nothing but ingratitude. Remember, however, that you are a Christian, and if you wish to remain a Christian, you will have to exert yourself more earnestly than the non-Christian, as exemplified by our Father in heaven. That is a promise. If you in your heart forgive him who has offended you, so in turn you will be forgiven by God and men. (ibid., Vol. VI, pp. 273-74)

Whatever you think of Martin Luther and some of the more awful things he said in his lifetime, including his crusade against the Jews and his support—no, his cheering on—of the slaughter of the peasants in the Peasant’s War, he was no supporter of sin. He preached not only an imputed righteousness, but an imparted one, and he took Paul’s warnings more seriously than many of us do.

Posted in Evangelicals, History, Modern Doctrines, Protestants | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Sneering, Honesty, and Homosexuality

Posted on 02/26/2014 by Paul Pavao

Is homosexuality inherited or acquired? This New Scientist article is among the most honest I’ve seen.

WARNING: 1.) This blog post is not suitable for children. 2.) I’d love to say I outlined this and stayed on topic, but this post covers two or three topics at least.

I am not posting this because I want to comment on the new anti-homosexual law in Uganda. I am not posting this because of any political stance. I am posting this for the same reason I usually post things: I crusade for honesty.

I believe that King Jesus, Lord of the universe, is the Truth. I believe that honest seekers of truth will find it, and when they find it, it will be HIM.

Here’s something I read on Facebook today, concerning the creationism/evolution debate, from an unbeliever:

“… they will simply lie about what those theories are, what those theories predict, and what the evidence is supporting them.
“It is thus that they intend to prove that ‘the truth shall set us free’…
“<rolls eyes>”

It is not just in evolution that we present such a face to the world.

Do you believe that homosexuality has no genetic source? Do you believe that all homosexuals choose to be same-sex oriented?

If you do, it is almost certainly because you want to believe that, not for any other reason. You wish it was so, so you believe it is so.

And you use it to justify smugness, sneering, and haughtiness.

I’m not talking about namby-pamby “do whatever you want because Jesus died for you” Christianity. Jesus was very clear about sin. He was loving and filled with compassion, but he was not sweet. If you think he was sweet, you need to pay more attention the next time you read the Gospels.

Jesus was straightforward, bold, and a preacher of righteousness. In fact, he was such a preacher of righteousness that generations of people have wondered if it is even possible to live out just his Sermon on the Mount.

But sinners flocked to him!

He was bold, even blunt. He didn’t let people off the hook. He was straight about God and about judgment.

Sinners flocked to him, anyway … because he never sneered.

He did not trust men because he knew their hearts.

He did not sneer at men because he knew their hearts. He knew what they were up against.

Think about that a bit.

Then, let’s get back to the point of this post.

Is a Tendency to Homosexuality Inherited or Acquired?

Here’s why I think the New Scientist article is a good resource on the topic.

  • The author not only references studies, but the article provides links to them.
  • The author deals honestly with the results of those studies, despite the fact that he reveals his own views in the article.
  • The author acknowledges the limitations of his knowledge, and is careful to limit what conclusions he draws from the studies he references.

You don’t have to wonder why this scientist wrote the article, nor why he gives the answers he gives. You can look at his sources. You can think through the conclusions with him. That is good research writing.

In the article, he gives evidence for a genetic origin for homosexual tendencies. He also lets us know that if one identical twin is homosexual, the other usually is not. That is evidence against a genetic origin for homosexuality, but he does not dodge it. As a person who is ill-informed for a scientist, but very well-informed as a layman, I know that the explanation he gives for that bit of evidence is accurate. Just because a trait is not in the DNA does not mean it was not inherited or that it did not arise apart from choice.

What If Homosexuality Is Inherited?

The question we Christians are faced with is why God condemns homosexuality if it is inherited?

I was glad to see this scientist point out the answer to that question:

Should we make decisions on the acceptability of homosexuality based on the science of sexual orientation causation?
No. The acceptability of human acts should depend on their consequences rather than their causes. (bold in original)

I would go one step further. At the moment, we have only been talking about tendency or desire. Tendency or desire does not equate to action, and God does not judge us on our temptations, but on our actions.

I was born heterosexual. As a teenager, I was the same as most other teenage boys I knew. We had an extremely overactive sex drive. Jesus teaches us to overcome it. He does not only forbid heterosexual activities before marriage, he forbids entertaining them in our minds.

Homosexuality is not the only sinful trait that is inherited. There are many. We are all born selfish, and a great many of us are born with a hot temper. Most of us are born greedy, and the love of the world and its goods is at least as bad a temptation as sexual lust.

Jesus did not come here to make the world nice. He came here to save us from our bodies and the bodies of everyone around us.

Sorry for the strange terminology, but let me justify it. Peter talks about escaping “the corruption that is in the world through desire.” James said, “You ask and you don’t receive, because you ask amiss, wanting to fulfill your own desires.”

Jesus came here to bring the kingdom of God. The benefit of the kingdom is fellowship with God and immortality in his presence. The cost is the fulfillment of your desires, no matter what your desires are. The kingdom of God means obeying God, the King.

Jesus came to give us a new life, not of this earth, so that in rejecting and overcoming the life of this earth, with its passions and desires, we could enter into that new life and never die. The body is now our enemy on that path. Like Paul we have to discipline and subdue it. In fact, he puts it this way, “If you put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, then you will live.”

The Church and the World

I’ll keep this part short.

What have I to do with judging those who are outside? (1 Cor. 5:12)

If you want the government to ban homosexuality, then why aren’t you asking the government to ban sex outside of marriage? Why aren’t you demanding that we go back to prosecuting adulterers? Many states in the US used to do that, you know. Adultery is certainly as much an attack on “the institution of marriage” as homosexuality is.

So is divorce? Why aren’t you demanding that divorce be outlawed?

Oh. ‘Cause you’re divorced.

The church is the fellowship of those who have crucified their own body with its passions and desires. We, the family of God, are responsible to give ourselves to purging God’s church and our bodies of sin. Sometimes that means loving, patient, forgiving counsel; sometimes that is help by watching, teaching, and staying close to someone; and sometimes it means harsh rebuke, or even banishment, for the hard-hearted.

Let’s not confuse the church and the United States government.

Posted in Miscellaneous, science | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Spiritual Things

Posted on 02/15/2014 by Paul Pavao

I get an email every day from Austin-Sparks.net. Today I was convicted of forgetting some of the importance of spiritual things.

There are many things to which the name of the Lord is being affixed which are being constructed, and which appear fine and great and like “the Church,” but the twofold reality is neither in the builders or the buildings. They are destined to collapse when God’s hurricane and fire test every man’s work. Good works: philanthropy, hospitality, reform, education, religion, relief, etc. may be the products, or by-products, of what is called “Christian civilization,” and things for which to be profoundly grateful, but let us not confuse these with “a new creation,” regeneration, a being “born from above.”

I don’t have time now to comment on this, which is probably beneficial for you :-). I agree with this, and I am grateful for the reminder. I meet many socially active doers of good, and Mr. Austin-Sparks is right in saying we should be profoundly grateful for such.

But we are seeking immortality, and there is only one route to that.

The Church is an organism, not an organization. “Behold, I show you a mystery, we are members of His flesh and of His bones.” Build that, if you can! Launch that; organize that; “run” that! It cannot be done. It is the spontaneous outworking of spiritual forces released, in the acceptance by faith of tremendous facts concerning Christ; which facts are proclaimed out of experience in the power of the Holy Ghost. Not the theological Christ; not the doctrinal Christ; not the Christ of the letter, much less the Jesus of history; but the Christ of eternity in all the meaning of His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension into the Throne of God revealed in the heart by the Holy Spirit. This alone is authority to preach, to serve, to occupy position, to “build” in relation to the house of God. It is folly to spend time and strength otherwise. It is wisdom to labor on this foundation.

This is well said, and I see no reason to add to it.

Posted in Church | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Sinner’s Prayer & the Gospel

Posted on 02/12/2014 by Paul Pavao

The “Sinner’s Prayer” has come up a lot for me lately. On Sunday, I was in a “Life Group,” which the other, more long-term members do not hesitate to call Sunday school. We’re going through a book on prayer, and the last two chapters were on healing and the sinner’s prayer.

Крамской И.Н. Молитва Моисея после перехода израильтян через Черное море 1861

Like most other Sundays, we tried to get through two chapters of the book. Like most other Sundays, we failed. We have a whole hour and a half for the study. We chat for 15 minutes, use an hour or more for the first chapter, and then we race through the second chapter in 5-10 minutes so we can say we did it.

Thus, the need for speed spared me from being asked any questions or commenting on the chapter on the sinner’s prayer. The leader did, however, ask at the end, “We’ve all prayed the sinner’s prayer, right?”

I didn’t know what to say. Yeah, I prayed the sinner’s prayer for a month, every day when I was 12 or 13, because I had read The Cross and the Switchblade and a whole bunch of Jack Chick literature.

Nothing happened. I learned that God doesn’t answer that prayer and that Christianity doesn’t work, so I gave it up.

Eight years later, God drew me back to him, I said out loud that I believe Jesus is the Son of God, and the I was instantly transformed.

That’s an understatement. The whole world was transformed.

A few months later, trying to figure out what John 3:5 (“born of water and Spirit”) meant, I looked up every New Testament word that started with “bapt” and every occurrence of “water.”

I can’t say I wasn’t warned. My friends said I had no business trying to find out what John 3:5 meant. I needed to be satisfied that it didn’t mean baptism. Never mind what it did mean. Looking for that could only lead to heresy.

Really. I’m not making that up.

I made the unfortunated discovery that the apostles never had anyone say a “sinner’s prayer.” They baptized their converts, although one verse does point out that they were baptized “calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16).

Check it out for yourself. They always baptized them, and it was always immediately. The Philippian jailer and his household were baptized in the middle of the night! (Acts 16).

Baptism was the apostles’ “sinner’s prayer.”

If we use the NASB, then Peter calls baptism a sinner’s prayer. He says it is “the plea to God for a good conscience” (1 Pet. 3:21).

I’ve looked up that translation in the most respected lexicons and Greek dictionaries. It’s impossible to determine whether it ought to be a plea to God “from” a good conscience or “for” a good conscience, but “plea to God” is definitely the preferred translation of Liddel-Scott and other respected lexicons.

I have to suppose that’s why Paul says that baptism is what brings us into Christ (Gal. 3:27), and that it is the place that we are buried and rise again in Christ (Rom. 6:3-4; Col. 1:11-12). It is why Peter says baptism is for the remission of sins and Ananias tells Paul to wash away his sins in baptism (Acts 2:38; 22:16).

I don’t want to fault those of you whom God was gracious to save despite the fact that we have replaced baptism with a prayer. I, too, was not baptized for a month after the day that Jesus baptized me with the Holy Spirit and released me from sin.

In Prayer
By Senia L (Flickr: in Prayer) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

So I was baptized wrong, just like you probably were.

This post isn’t supposed to be about baptism, though. Let’s get back to …

The Sinner’s Prayer

In the book we read on Sunday, the author admitted that there’s no direct evidence in the Scripture for a “sinner’s prayer.” He pointed out that the Bible doesn’t use the word Trinity, either, yet the Scriptures not only teach the Trinity (well, not our modern version of it), but they list the persons of the Trinity on purpose repeatedly (e.g. Matt. 28:19-20; Rom. 15:16; 2 Cor. 13:14).

True enough, but where are the Scriptures supporting a sinner’s prayer? When did the apostles employ a sinner’s prayer?

The book referenced Romans 10:9-10.

If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart one believes leading to righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses leading to salvation.

There you go. Confession leading to salvation is the sinner’s prayer.

Let’s assume this is true. I want to ask a different question.

What Are the Contents of the Sinner’s Prayer?

Everyone in a conservative evangelical church knows how to pray a sinner’s prayer. It goes something like this:

Father, I believe that Jesus died for my sins. I believe that I am a sinner and cannot save myself, and I am trusting only in Jesus for my salvation. Thank you for making me your child and bringing me to your heaven because of Jesus’ blood. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Not every sinner’s prayer is exactly like that, but they are all very similar.

I wrote a booklet called The Apostles’ Gospel (available at Amazon and on Kindle). It is a simple, easy-to-read study of the sermons the apostles preached to the lost. It is simple, but it is not easy to swallow or digest. It makes it clear that we have taken a message meant for the church, a message not once preached to the lost by the apostles, and we have turned into a gospel that bears little similarity to the Gospel the apostles preached.

Our sinner’s prayer does exactly the same thing.

What confession did Paul say would save us? What belief did he say would bring us to righteousness?

We are to confess Jesus as Lord, and we are to believe that God raised him from the dead.

This is perfectly in line with what the apostles preached in Acts to the lost.

Look for it in the sinner’s prayer I wrote above. Doesn’t bear much resemblance to Romans 10:9-10 now, does it?

Where is the proclamation that Jesus is Lord? Where is the acknowledgement that God raised him from the dead?

We emphasize Jesus’ death to the lost. It is the emphasis of the sinner’s prayer. It is shocking, I know, but the apostles never told a lost person, not anywhere in the New Testament, why Jesus died.

They did tell them that Jesus died. They had to. They were appointed to be “witnesses of the resurrection” (Acts 1:22; 2:32; 4:33; 10:39-42; 13:30-31). That was their mission, the heart of their Gospel.

We Christians know the amazing effects of his death. We know that he purchased us with his blood. We know that he bore our inquities. We count his blood precious, and it is a motivation to holiness for us.

The lost may know this, but we are not called to preach this to them. The apostles never did. They were witnesses of the resurrection because the resurrection established that Jesus was God’s King, God’s Judge, God’s Chosen One, the Lord of all.

According to the apostles, if the lost want their sins forgiven, then they need acknowledge him as King and bow their knee to him. They don’t need to know he died for their sins. It will be emphasized to them later. They need to know that they must repent and do works befitting repentance (Acts 26:20). They need to know that they must be baptized and enter the kingdom of King Jesus, submitting themselves to his rule.

Because we don’t know this, we have a sinner’s prayer that tells God we understand the atonement. He wants to know that we understand that who the Lord, Judge, and King is (Acts 2:36-37).

Through this Man, the remission of sins are preached (Acts 13:38). Later they will find out the role of Jesus’ death and great cost of that remission, but when they hear the Gospel, they need only to know that he is Lord, Judge, and King, and he is the only one who can forgive sins.

Do you want to be saved? Confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord. Believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead to prove that he is the Son of God, the one to whom you owe all allegiance.

If you’re going to pray a sinner’s prayer, let it be that one. Let it be the one that is actually prescribed in Romans 10:9-10, not the one that we justify with Romans 10:9-10, though it bears no resemblance to what Paul prescribed.

Posted in Evangelicals, Gospel, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Know YE Not?

Posted on 02/09/2014 by Paul Pavao

Today in the shower I got to singing that old charismatic chorus, “Know ye not, know ye not, ye are the temple?” I like singing the song, but most people have no idea what the temple is in 1 Cor. 3:16, nor that 1 Cor. 3:17 is not about smoking.

Those who know me know that I think the King James Version is good for two reasons:

KJV-King-James-Version-Bible-first-edition-title-page-1611
Original frontispiece of the 1611 King James Bible
  1. It’s not copyrighted, so you don’t have to bother with version references and footnotes about copyrights.
  2. It distinguishes plural yous from singular yous.

Otherwise I don’t recommend it, unless you just want to read it once to get a feel for the influence it has had on the English language and its idioms. It’s an average translation at best, and it is translated into a 400-year-old dialect. If you’re going to bother to translate the Bible from Hebrew, Chaldean, and Greek (or just Greek), you should really translate it into a dialect people still speak.

I’m off track again, sorry.

The point I want to make is that contrary to popular belief, “thou” is not a holy word.

It is a singular word.

“Ye” is a plural word.

So the really wonderful thing about the King James Version is that with it, you can determine, without any Greek lexicons or study aids, whether a “you” is singular or plural.

1 Corinthians 3:16-17 is a place where it really matters. Here is the KJV of that passage:

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which ye are.

I left out the italicized “temple” at the end of that passage because, in case you didn’t know, italicized words in the KJV are added to fill out the meaning of a sentence. I don’t see that the last word “temple” helps us know the meaning, so I left it out.

Anyway, notice the ye’s throughout the passage. Thou art not the temple of God, my brother. We are the temple of God.

It’s a fascinating passage. “Know ye [plural] not that ye [plural] are the temple [singular] of God?”

1 Corinthians 3:16-17 is right in line with the tenor of 1 Cor. 3. The discussion is about the ministry to the Corinthian church. Paul, Apollos, Cephas … no matter who does the building (the ministry) there in Corinth, God is the builder, and he will judge the workers. Paul laid a foundation, and anyone who comes along had better be careful to build with gold, silver, or precious stones. If he builds the Corinthian church with wood, hay, or straw, then his work will be burned up; completely lost.

Not only that, if his work is even worse that wood, hay, or straw—if he actually defiles the church of God—then God will destroy that minister.

So beware, teachers and ministers. If you minister poorly, building with a perishable rather than eternal materials, your work will reap you no rewards, but you will be saved. But if you defile the church of God … much worse. God will destroy you.

You can read more about this terrible situation in 2 Peter 2 and in Jude. God’s not very happy with those who defile the temple of God, which temple YE are.

Next time we’ll take a look at 1 Corinthians 6 and a similar passage there. The plurals and singulars are not so simple in that passage.

Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A Word in Season

Posted on 02/08/2014 by Paul Pavao

The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a disciple so that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. (Is. 50:4)

How man times have I heard, have I given, have you given advice that is “one size fits all”?

USMC-090407-M-1318S-001

When I went through leukemia, the word God gave to me was, “It’s all good.” A 6-year-old girl sent that message to me on a T-shirt.

The whole word of God for me was “All things work together for good for those that love God and who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

During leukemia, I really got to know that verse. I loved it, and it kept my attitude not only positive, but joyful. I have nothing but fond memories of chemotherapy, radiation, hemorrhoids that made me sweat and shiver in pain, spinal taps that frightened me, and literal “taps” by the needle on my spinal nerves that jerked my legs and sent bizarre sensations firing down my legs.

All of that was fueled by the fact that I knew “it’s all good.”

Nonetheless, one day someone asked me how things were going, and I was explaining my “adventures.” As I did so, a brother jumped in to say, “Well, all things work together for good.'”

The table went quiet. I love that verse. It was my theme verse. But the brother did not say, “All things work together for good,” even though that is what he said. What I and everyone else present heard was, “Quit your griping, and get your attitude right. I really don’t want to hear all this. I have other things to do besides empathize with your plight.”

Before you judge him, ask yourself if you do that.

There is always a “one size fits all” answer. How quick we are to throw out a Scripture that is a “solution” to the “problem.”

Try that on your wife. If you think that’s a good idea, I’ll show you a marriage with real problems.

Jesus could have picked anyone or said anything the day that Zaccheus climbed into a tree to get a glimpse from him. He could have talked to him about money and the love of money. He certainly did that on other occasions. He could have told a story about tax collectors vs. Pharisees. He certainly had several of those at hand.

No, Jesus had the tongue of one taught by God. He told Zaccheus to hurry out of the tree so he could serve lunch to Jesus and his disciples.

It saved Zaccheus on the spot.

Geneticcounseling

The Scriptures are profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and instruction. However, a depressed, frightened saint who wishes he/she could live up to the standards of the King does not need a lecture or fear. That person needs a hug. We are told to “comfort the fainthearted.” It’s the unruly we warn. (1 Thess. 5:14)

There is a big difference between the tongue of a disciple that dispenses “a word in season” and a one-size-fits-all Scripture quote.

Sometimes what a person needs a healthy dose of straightforward truth, no matter how much it hurts their feelings. Other times, the same truth is not healthy, but potentiall fatal.

We are dispensers of love who comfort the fainthearted, help the weak, and warn the unruly. We  love enough to learn like a disciple (1sa. 50:4 again) and differentiate between these three types of situations. We learn when to instruct, when to reprove, when to console.

The next time you know just the Scripture for a person’s situation, make sure that when you quote it, you are quoting it and not saying, “Stop talking. I’m not interested anymore. Here’s the solution to your problem.”

Individuals are individuals, and God’s word to them is God’s word to them. That is why God wakens you morning to morning to learn like a disciple, so that you will know to speak a word in season and a not a one-size-fits-all Scripture you learned in a Sunday school class or a pastor’s sermon. God’s not impressed with your intellect but with your love.

Posted in Holiness, Miscellaneous | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Grand Results of Living by the Spirit

Posted on 02/07/2014 by Paul Pavao

What benefits I would reap if I could just reject evolution and accept (the evangelical version of) salvation by faith alone!

I know how things work in a business. It doesn’t matter what you are getting paid today or what job you are doing. Do it well. Wow your bosses, and you will reap your reward. You will advance, you will be courted, you will find your path.

That works in Christendom as well if I could just be less honest. Churches love my work ethic. They love my participation. They love my knowledge of the Scriptures. I have had two offers to become a youth pastor. I have had requests to speak. I have been nominated for deacon in a church where I was not even a member!

In the end, though, all those things can only go so far. In modern evangelicalism, I am either a heretic, or I border on one. In Tennessee, had a new organization not arose at the last minute, I could not even have home schooled my children because I could not sign the statement of faith of any home school oversight organization.

Bellevue Baptist Church has some ministries I would love to be a part of. I have to be a member, however. I don’t approve of their “system,” but that wouldn’t be any problem for me. I am required to approve certain statements of faith, however, and I can approve neither their statement on Biblical inerrancy nor their belief that heaven is a free gift.

Fortunately, outside the evangelical system, there are plenty of people who look at my life, my commitment to our Master, and my obvious love for and belief in the Scriptures. There is fellowship to be had, and even a close, family, sharing, loving church life based on relationship and discipleship.

It’s found by living in gratitude and not complaint.

I was thinking this weekend about my first visit to Bellevue Baptist a few months ago. I was pleasantly surprised–well, stunned–at the message I heard from the pulpit and the refreshing focus on discpleship that included a churchwide plan for making discipleship training happen in small groups and on an individual basis.

I’m not really capable of attending a huge production like theirs ever Sunday. I don’t want to have to struggle week after week with a skilled, impressive, Broadway-style production masquerading as the church.

Nonetheless, I want to find those that love the Lord and pursue him with their whole heart. I want to encourage them and be encouraged by them. I want to model and be a part of the love that comes from heaven and proves that we are Jesus’ disciples and that Jesus was sent by God (Jn. 13:34-35; 17:20-23).

So the first week I visited, way back in August, I looked for a “Life Group” (Sunday School) that I could attend. There was an “over-50’s men” group meeting at the 11:00 hour, so I attended the 9:20 service, then headed for the Life Group. I made it there about 10 minutes early.

Three people were already there, so I sat down. I heard about 5 minutes of discussion before I realized these were not Over-50 Life Group members arrived early, but the 9:20 Over-40 men’s group running late.

In those 5 minutes, I knew I had to go back. (Of course, that probably tells you that in the next hour and 15 minutes, I knew I wasn’t going to go back to the Over-50 group.)

Circumstances, primarily home church meetings on Sunday morning, prevented me from returning for several months.

Then, last month, we moved our weekly gatherings to Saturday night because one of our house church members is going to nursing school and doing clinicals most of the day on Sunday.

Most of us were thrilled because of the opportunity to get to know other Christians here in Memphis. I made it back to the Over-40 group, and I didn’t remember a single person. A couple of them remembered me, though, and there were 6 or 7 of them rather than 3.

That particular meeting wasn’t that great (not all are “awesome”), but once again I felt very much like I was supposed to be there.

The following week, I got sick on Sunday morning. A week later I was in the hospital with pneumonia. The week after that, I was back in the hospital with a torn rectus abdominus muscle with a pressurized hematoma (bruise, basically) inside the stomach muscle. The antibiotics for the pneumonia had thinned my blood to a dangerous level, and the pain in my stomach from the bleeding was intense.

The day I was to be released, after my blood had been thickened to a more normal level (with Vitamin K), I got a call from the Over-40 Life Group leader. He was checking up on me. We had had a really good talk after my previous visit.

I explained that it was difficult to make it from the hospital, but that I hoped to be there Sunday. There was just something wonderful about talking to him.

So this last Sunday I did make it.

I am so glad I did. We talked about prayer. We were going through a book (written by the pastor of Bellevue) on prayer, and we were supposed to cover chapters 9 and 10. Due to the diligent efforts of Oscar, the Life Group leader, we got through chapter 9.

It was hard, though, because everyone was talking. There were 7 other guys there beside me, and I was horribly convicted by the discussion.

These guys, going to “the system” and in a big Sunday morning production, knew some things about prayer, and they knew them from experience. They talked about their battle for intercessory prayer time and about learning how to spend time with God. No one boasted, everyone shared humbly how they were learning to overcome their own tendency not to pray, and I was thrilled by everything.

Usually I hate Sunday school book lessons because most are “shallowed down” so that nominal, half-hearted believers can be encouraged, just a little, to live like a Christian, without being offended or directly admonished or reproved.

This book, however, assumed that you wanted to pray as much as possible and be with God as much as possible, and it presented practical steps for organizing your prayer life in a personalized way.

The ideas helped me, and I made a notecard system to handle all the prayer requests I run across. It works great for me, and I carry it in my pocket.

Oscar talked about using time standing in line at WalMart to pray. He’ll pull out his prayer list in line to pray over it. He said, “I used to hate it when I chose the ‘wrong’ line, like I always do, but now I like having to wait.”

Wow. I wasn’t there last week, but I’m there now.

So this anti-“sola” evilutionist opposer of “the system” has found a home in a Life Group in the largest Southern Baptist Church in the United States.

Walking by the Spirit, though, has always served me well. Being who I am in subjection to the Spirit of God, and to spiritual leaders in congregations of mostly spiritual believers, has been a delightful, albeit painful, race through life. I have met friends, experienced church life, met some of the weirdest people on the plant, traveled all over the worlds, been a part of transforming and even saving lives, and unfortunately also being a hindrance to the faith of some in my over-zealous youth. (Some would charge me with continuing to be over-zealous.)

A friend of mine used to say, “I devote myself to being a principled man, but I do not live by principles. I live by the Spirit of God.”

Thank God for spiritual living. Thank God for fellowship with people whose eyes widen as they learn what I believe, but whose hearts remain joined to mine because of the mutual work of the Spirit of Jesus within us.

Finally, thank you to Gabrielle Songe, with whom I spent at least an hour reminiscing about the work of God in our lives today. A very, very enjoyable time sent to us by the kind hand of our loving Father and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Posted in Evangelicals, Miscellaneous, Unity | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Ken Ham vs. Bill Nye Debate

Posted on 02/05/2014 by Paul Pavao

Part I

Assessment of the Debate

Okay, I’m going to join half the blogging world and comment on the Ham-Nye debate. I think I’ll keep my review of the debate short, but boy, do I have some follow-up!

I took notes, but the tenor of the debate was pretty simple.

  1. Ken Ham produced a few scientists who on video professed to be young earth creationists. Very impressive beginning.
  2. Ken Ham distinguished between observational science and historical science. anything in the present can be observed, so that’s okay, but since we can’t observe the past, all historical science is invalid, purely based on faith.
  3. Bill Nye presented abundant evidence from tree rings, ice cores, radioactive dating, fossil-filled layering in the Grand Canyon, the massive amount of near human skulls, the lack of a fossil trail from Mt. Ararat to Australia and the lack of evidence for a land bridge, the amazing prediction and finding of Tiktaalik, and the prediction and finding of background radiation from the Big Bang.

Bill Nye pointed out that only Ken Ham distinguishes between “observational” and “historic” science. I don’t really have any problem with that. I have a huge problem with his dismissing “historic” science in fell swoop.

Doing so eliminates the entire science of forensics, as Nye pointed out. Clearly, then, we are finding suspects and convicting people on faith in the “historical” science of forensics, which is invalid because we were not there and we are trying to reconstruct the past. Finding gunpowder traces on a person’s hand is completely irrelevant to whether they ever shot a gun. We weren’t there; we didn’t see it. Finding fingerprints in a victim’s house does not indicate that a suspect was there. We didn’t see it, so we have no way of knowing except by faith.

Not only is that, um–thinking of a nice word for really stupid … uh, unreasonable(!), but Ken Ham took it so far to say that counting tree rings is invalid because we weren’t there to see the tree rings form.

How do you respond to such a  statement except with laughter or stunned disbelief?

If in any instance mirth be excited, this will be quite as much as the subject deserves. There are many things which deserve refutation in such a way as to have no gravity expended on them. Vain and silly topics are met with especially appropriately with laughter. Even the truth may indulge in ridicule because it is jubilant; it may play with its enemies because it is fearless. Only we must take care that its laughter is not unseemly and so itself be laughed at; but wherever its mirth is decent, there it is a duty. (Tertullian, Against the Valentinians 6, c AD 210)

I do want to say it was a great debate. Both guys were respectful and interesting. Ken Ham avoided slandering people and just stuck to “the Bible says so, and it’s impossible to know anything about the past.”

He did appeal to his “the flood predicts billions of dead things buried in the earth and that’s what we find argument.” Once again, I have to answer that with, “Does it predict that billions of dead things should be found buried in the earth in a progression from simpler (and extinct) life to more complex life progressively becoming similar to modern life?”

Part II

Published Scientists Who Are Young Earth Creationists

I have to start with the last creationist scientist. Dr. Andrew Snelling of Australia. What a story!!!

Apparently there are two Dr. Snellings. Both have the same name, the same impressive credentials, both us the same address, and that address is shared with Australia’s Creation Science Foundation.

The first Dr. Snelling publishes in CREATION ex nihilo. He never cites Dr. Snelling 2.

The second Dr. Snelling publishes in peer-reviewed journals, but he is pro-evolution! Or, at least he is old earth. The first Dr. Snelling is clearly young earth, attributing all the deposits of the earth to the “creation week,” the flood, and the modern era. The second Dr. Snelling, publishing in refereed journals, talks about billions of years of earth history.

What??? Again, see the article containing the quotes and citations from the two (one?) Dr. Snellings.

Note that Dr. Snelling wrote promoting a young earth and flood geology in ex nihilo in 1983, then wrote against a young earth in 1990 in a scientific journal, and now works for Answers in Genesis? He can be listed as a young earth creationist who has been published and cited in scientific journals, but all his journal articleas oppose a young earth and flood geology.

Dr. Danny Faulkner

The person I really wanted to read about was Dr. Danny Faulkner, an astronomer and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Univeristy of South Carolina, Lancaster. A young earth astronomer with leading credentials at a state university? How could that be?

He really is a young earther. He primarily studies orbiting dual stars, and this really doesn’t require him to put his young universe theory to the test in scientific journals. In fact, I read one entire paper, and it never even mentioned the distance in light years to the binary system he was studying.

So I read a couple of his creationist articles (not in scientific journals, of course), and I think the most telling quote was this one:

Very Brief discussions of stellar structure and evolution have been presented. Though it would seem that creationists would not have much with which to quarrel in the former, most would largely dismiss the latter. However, the two are intimately related, and one cannot be rejected without seriously calling into question the other. We are appealing to readers to give much attention to the study of stellar evolution, and we hope that much lively discussion follows. (ref)

In case you don’t understand what this says, here’s my rewording: “We creationists are okay with the structure of stars as described by science. Most of us have to dismiss the evolution of stars because the time it takes for them to burn out is way too long for our system. The trouble is, we can’t dismiss the evolution of stars because it’s so related to the structure of stars, and I agree science is correct on the structure of stars. So I’m asking readers to help discuss this topic so we can find some way to prove the universe is young.”

In other words, he said, “I got nothing, and we need something. Can you help out?”

Not, in my opinion, a big feather in the cap of the creationist movement.

Dr. Stuart Burgess

This is another real creationist with real science degrees. None of his journal articles touch on topics related to evolution, so that doesn’t do much for the creationist argument except that there are scientists like Dr. Faulkner and Dr. Burgess who want a young earth to be true, so they are hunting around for evidence … not very successfully.

A creationist article he wrote argues for the “irreducible complexity” of the human knee joint. He says:

The irreducibility of the knee joint is most clearly demonstrated by identifying the critical geometrical characteristics that must be defined in the genetic code. The knee has many critical geometrical characteristics because the two cruciate ligaments and the two leg bones form a very sophisticated and precise mechanism, called a four-bar hinge.

It is always smart to look these things up. I read one irritated answer to this claim by Dr. Burgess, but it was unsatisfactory to me. I also found a refereed journal abstract that says:

The complex asymmetrical design of the human knee is ancient in origin. The distinctive characteristics of this design were well established more than 300 million years ago.

So far, so good for Dr. Burgess on the irreducible complexity of the knee. The basic components of the human knee joint have been around for 300 million years. We don’t have all the intermediate steps leading to the human knee.

That’s really not very promising for the young earth movement, though. It is no evidence at all against a young earth, only a hope that there is a big, inexplicable leap in the design of the knee that happened more than 300 million years ago and required God to step in to make it happen.

What is a lot more likely is that within the next ten years we will have found enough fossils to give the full evolutionary history of the human knee. That’s what has happened to pretty much all of the “God of the gaps” arguments that have come in the past. The gap has filled in, and the argument has had to disappear.

That said, Stuart Burgess is a scientist with real credentials who is a young earth creationist.

Dr. Raymond Damadion

This is another guy with real credentials, although he is the designer of an incredible machine, the MRI scanner, not a student of life sciences. He is a young earth creationist. Not much to report here. We do know there are other famous young earthers, such as Dr. Benjamin Carson and John Baumgardner.

Okay, that’s my report. Thanks for reading!

 

Posted in Evolution, Evolution and Creation | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments