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

Evolution Evidences

Posted on 02/03/2014 by Paul Pavao

I think most of my readers know I believe in evolution. I don’t care if you do. My interest is not to convince you that evolution happened. My interest is to convince you to do one of two things:

  1. Limit your opposition to evolution to your interpetation of Genesis.
  2. Actually learn something about science, about evolution, and do so at least 50/50 from secular and creationist sources.

Anti-evolution campaigning is embarrassing. It is full of dishonesty, ignorance, mischaracterization, and slander.

If you don’t want to talk about evolution, don’t read this. I don’t care if you believe in evolution. I care if you get recruited into the foolishness, dishonesty, and slander practiced on a regular basis by creationist organizations like the Institute for Creation Research, Answers in Genesis, and the Discovery Institute. I oppose them strongly as defaming the Gospel and Christianity by their behavior.

That said, for those who are interested, here is a really excellent article on
three basic evidences for evolution.

My apologies for the title of the article (“Evolution Is a Fact”). Evolution is a theory that has withstood 155 years of attempts to falsify it (the job of scientists), and it has become the foundation of the biological sciences, resulting in incredible medical advances and an astounding insight into the mechanics of life, perhaps so great an insight as to be morally dangerous. “Fact” is not really the right word to apply to a scientific theory, no matter how well established, but human nature often brings scientists to acknowledge the obvious: the history of life on earth is so well-document that there is no longer any doubt that all life evolved from one (most likely) or a few single-celled ancestors.

Posted in Evolution | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

The Old, Rugged Cross

Posted on 02/03/2014 by Paul Pavao

I am going to post two VERY unrelated posts today. Here’s the first.

I have a lot of sources of fellowship, but at the moment the main one is a house church I am part of. This last week we sang hymns rather than more modern songs. I was reminded of how much I love some of the old hymns.

In particular, I want to mention “The Old, Rugged Cross.”

That may seem strange, given my strong opposition to the modern “paid penalty” theory. Just because I think the idea that Jesus “paid the penalty” for our past, present, and future sins is unscriptural, and even monstrous, does not mean that I don’t love what Jesus did on the cross and, in fact, cherish the cross “where the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners was slain.”

Here is the YouTube link if the song doesn’t play for you on this page.

Here are the words:

On a hill far away, stood an old, rugged cross
The emblem of suffering and shame.
How I love that old cross
Where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain.

Refrain:
I will cherish the old, rugged cross
Till my trophies at last I lay down
I will cling to the old, rugged cross
And exchange it some day for a crown

Oh, that old, rugged cross, so despised by the world
Has a wondrous attraction for me,
For the dear Lamb of God left his glory above
To bear it to dark Calvary

In that old, rugged cross, stained with blood so divine
A wondrous beauty I see,
For ’twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died
To pardon and sanctify me.

To that old, rugged cross I will ever be true,
Its shame and reproach gladly bear.
Then he’ll call me some day to his home far away
Where his glory forever I’ll share.

Basically, I cry at the last two lines of every stanza, and I have for years.

Another I really love is “Oh, Sacred Head Now Wounded.” I’ll just quote a couple lines from it:

What thou, my Lord, has suffered
Was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression
But yours the deadly pain

I remember hearing another song years ago, and I want to add a couple sentences from it because they explain my love for these hymns:

I know not why the sovereign King
Would leave his throne on high
To dwell here in this barren land
‘Mongst mortals such as I.
He left his home in paradise;
Oh, why I’ll never know
But his precious blood has washed me purer
Than the driven snow!

I may not like how we’ve translated the atonement into some sort of legal thing, nor made God some kind of slave of cosmic law who is forbidden mercy unless he kills something or someone, but I love the cross. How could we ever be more grateful than to know that we were purchased with precious blood, that ours was the transgression, that his was the deadly pain? How can we not fall on our knees and rejoice in the Master who bought us with his blood?

I love even the words of Paul: “God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus the King, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.”

The cross may be an instrument of torture and death, but we must die that we might live. Let us embrace it, cherish it, cling to it, and carry it down the Via Dolorosa, the way of pain.

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

The New Testament and “Plenary, Verbal” Inspiration

Posted on 01/25/2014 by Paul Pavao

I believe that every Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

I read through the Gospels as a non-Christian, perhaps even an anti-Christian, in 1982. I was looking for contradictions to use against my shoutin’, Pentecostal boss. He engaged me about Jesus every day for four months, and I loved backing him into corners.

Between his prayers and the Jesus I saw in the Gospels, however, I was doomed. Most powerful praying man I ever knew. I fell in respect with that man in the Gospels, and somehow it became easy to believe that he, and only he, could convince 11 men who had lived with him for 3 years that he was the Son of God.

So I became convinced, too, and in frightful, yet somehow delightful, acknowledgment of the authority of the Son of God over my life, I was swept into the kingdom of God, as naive as a baby, in the summer of 1982. (July 21, to be exact. Yeah, I’m one of those stake-in-the-ground people.)

What a rush the last 31 and a half years have been. I have been some places, and done some things.

I have also read my Bible for 31 years. Lots of read-throughs, lots of studies, lots of intense hours and years trying to sort out Scriptural principles.

When you do that, there are things you don’t miss. I’m going to mention a couple, but first, here’s why I’m writing this …

Reading through the New Testament

Glenn Roseberry says that studies show you can read through the NT in 6.5 hours. I thought I’d try to get through the whole NT today, while I’m mostly lying on the couch recovering from pneumonia, and my family is off enjoying this sunshine-filled day.

I’m not going to make it if I keep stopping to write blogs, but I’m always trying to reshape the way we Christians think.

I didn’t like getting punched in the stomach over and over again as I found out that this and then that and then this that Christians told me were just not true. I want to warn you in advance, give you a different–and in my opinion, more Christian–mindset. We Protestants lean toward Bible worship, and I want to move us over to the worship of the Word himself, Jesus the Son of God and our King. I want us to stop referring to the Bible as the Word of God, for the Bible never does that, and go to referring to the Lord and his Gospel and to the seed of our spiritual life as the Word. That’s biblical terminology, and I like scriptural terminology because the Scriptures are inspired by God for teaching.

I didn’t get two chapters into this morning’s reading before running across two of those old punch-in-the-gut passages.

Verbal, Plenary Inspiration

Lots of Protestant denominations believe in “verbal, plenary inspiration.” To this they add the term “inerrancy.” Here is how it is put by the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, in “The Baptist Faith and Message”:

The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy.

No error. Really?

I have to say that I believe we are misunderstanding inspiration. You might as well find out now, rather than blow by painful blow, that the above statement is wrong. Simple as that, it is wrong.

Matthew 1:17

So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations: from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation of Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations. (Matt. 1:17, NASB)

The fourteen generations from Abraham to David match the Hebrew Scriptures well. Matthew, however, must have gotten Ahaziah and Azariah confused because he skipped Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah in his second set of generations. Joram did not beget Uzziah, as Matthew says, but he is actually Uzziah’s great, great grandfather.

One more generation is missed when Matthew says that Josiah begat Jeconiah and his brothers. Actually, Josiah begat the brothers Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim. It was Jehoiakim who fathered Jeconiah and his brothers.

In 1 Chronicles 3:17, we see that Salathiel (Matthew: Shealtiel) is listed as a son of Jeconiah, but two verses later we find out that it is Pedaiah, the son of Jeconiah, who is the father of Zerubbabel.

Nonetheless, we can’t fault Matthew here. Zerubbabel is called the son of Shealtiel in Ezra 3:2,8; 5:2; Neh. 12:1; Hag. 1:1,2,4; and 2:2,23. Apparently, in this case, it is 1 Chronicles that is wrong.

So all the generations from David to the deportation to Babylon are actually 18, not 14.

Matthew 1:23

Learning about this passage was not really a punch in the gut. By the time I found out the source of this prophecy, I found it liberating.

We westerners love logic. We love for things to be precise and accurate. I used to be as guilty of that as anyone, but God has little tolerance for people  who worry about tiny details. They are distracting, and they build only arrogance.

We have a saying: “A text without a context is a pretext.”

Really? Then all the apostles should be rejected as comedians because they pulled verses out of context all the time.

Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.” (Matt. 1:23, NASB)

Here’s reality. If you go read Isaiah 7, where this prophecy came from, it is obvious, in context, that this is a prophecy about a young lady, not a virgin, who would bear a child named Emmanuel as a sign to King Ahaz that his foes, Pekin of Samaria and Rezin of Damascus, would be defeated by God.

Fortunately, by the time Matthew wrote his Gospel, the Septuagint–the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures–was in vogue among Hellenistic Jews. The Greek version of Isaiah 7:14 really does use the word virgin.

So, if you pull Isaiah 7:14 out of context and even rip it out of its own language, then you can use it as a prophecy of Jesus’ virgin birth, like Matthew did.

That’s the nature of inspiration. Inspiration has to do with breath, and the Holy Spirit, the pneuma hagios, is the source of both prophecy and the interpretation of prophecy. The issue is, we should believe the Logos of God was born of a virgin, with or without that prophecy, because of the testimony of the apostles. (That won’t work for atheists, but it ought to work for us believers.) The Holy Spirit favored us with a prophecy about his virgin birth after first using that same prophecy to prophesy a different event.

If I Don’t Tell You …

Let me make you aware of how easy it is to get punched in the gut, caught unawares, if you are confused by modern Protestants into thinking that the Bible is “inerrant in every matter.”

I have a computer version of the Bible called “The Online Bible.” Anyone can get it. Works pretty well, better on a Windows computer than on a Mac, but it works well enough on both. It’s free. I like it because it’s very easy to look up the Greek or Hebrew word behind an English translation.

I did that in Isaiah 7:14, clicking on the word “virgin,” which is almah, Strong’s # 05958. Definition 1(b) is “maid or newly married.”

To help “apologize” for the Christian prophecy, the definition adds, “There is no instance where it can be proved that this word designates a young woman who is not a virgin.”

Yeah, except that creates a new problem. How many virgin births have their been? If almah always means a virgin, then there was a virgin birth in Ahaz’ time as well, and no one found that amazing enough to comment on.

Inspiration

I found out about the King of heaven and earth by reading the Gospels. This was aided along by events I am convinced were inspired by the prayers of Roger Thomas, my first boss in the Air Force.

I know the power of the Scriptures. What they say will come to pass, down to every jot and tittle.

We are not in danger from honesty. Jesus is the Truth. Our honesty will lead to Jesus, not to the abandonment of Jesus. Our honesty will increase our awe of nature and our awe of God. We will find intricacies of his plan we’ve never known, and we will experience inspiration, rather than just talk about it.

The Cave of Secrets

Remember the old “Planet of the Apes” with Charlton Heston? The orangutan priests had a whole religion of origins that they had to maintain. Out in the forbidden land was a cave that no one was ever supposed to find. There, they knew there was irrefutible evidence of a civilization before theirs, and the the original Simian was not the first race to rule this planet.

A great case can be made from the Bible for things like inerrancy and scientific and historical accuracy of the Bible on every page and in every word. But if you go in that cave, you’re going to find out it’s all a story.

I hear “stay out” from the orangutans a lot. I’m just not one of those apes that can do that. I have to know. I’ve seen the human baby doll and the fallen head of the Statue of Liberty.

Yet, because I am a follower of Jesus, who has never let me down, I press on. Jesus said the Scriptures cannot be broken. They cannot be broken. I don’t worry about breaking them by being honest with them. Jesus told us, “Keep seeking and you will find,” not “Be careful about observing, thinking, and seeing because you’ll fall off the path.”

 

 

Posted in Bible, Evangelicals, Evolution and Creation, Modern Doctrines, Protestants, science | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

For My Orthodox Friends: A Veniaminov Story

Posted on 01/23/2014 by Paul Pavao

Most of my readers already know that I got pneumonia last week, and that it will take a while for me to fully recover. I am grateful for the prayers of my friends and acquaintances, those who know me from my blog and from Facebook. I wondered a little over the weekend whether I was going to die. I wondered if I’d been unfaithful with the extra time God gave me by pulling me through leukemia.

I drive myself pretty hard. I put a lot of effort into following Jesus, but I see where I can improve.

Fortunately, I’m well taught. We live by the power of the Spirit, and God is not tallying up our minor transgressions to read them back to us on the last day. I got the “pneumonia-as-punishment” ideas out of my head.

Quick story: I read a book a couple years ago that really motivated me to become disciplined, especially in prayer. I was working at increasing my time in prayer and trying to have a fervent, intercessory spirit.

One day, not long after I started this, God said to me, “What are you doing?”

I said, “Becoming fervent in prayer.”

God said, “No, you’re not. You’re multiplying words thinking I’ll hear you. Please go back to praying like you know me.”

Well, that’s the conversation I think I had with God, anyway.

Note: I told you about the pneumonia primarily to tell you I may be sharing the articles of others more than my own until I’m fully recovered.

I really liked this story of the Orthodox Apostle to America, John Veniaminov, so I’m sharing it with whoever reads this blog.

Posted in History (Stories), Roman Catholic & Orthodox | Tagged , | 6 Comments