Genesis One, Day Three: Edible Vegetation – Grass, Herbs, and Fruit

Posted on 12/06/2009 by Paul Pavao

I’ve taken a couple days to address day three of creation because it stumped me for a while. “Hmm,” I thought, “Maybe day 3 really is just about saying God created dry land and plants.”

I really didn’t believe it, though, so I waited. Sometimes I have to seek God just a little bit more. It’s not good for us to adopt a cavalier attitude. Some treasures have to be sought for; you have to diligently ask.

The thing that jumped out to me today was the trees. Gen. 1:11 says, “Let the earth … bring forth the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind.”

What about the other trees?

Had Moses never heard of a cedar tree? A fir tree? An oak tree? Not all trees are fruit trees. Why are only the fruit trees mentioned?

In the creation story of Genesis one, only edible things are mentioned. Nothing inedible is created on any of the six days of creation.

Have you ever noticed that?

There’s Only Food in Genesis One

It seems apparent to me that this was no accident. On day six, after the creation of man, God says that humans are to have dominion over all the fish, birds, reptiles, and mammals that he formed on day 5 and 6, and he says that the herbs and fruit trees he formed on day 3 are for our food. He doesn’t mention the grass, but the grass is food for the animals (and if grains are included among the grasses rather than the herbs, then grass is food for us as well).

Now God doesn’t say animals are food for humans in Genesis one, but after the flood, in Genesis 9:2, he gives a list that uses the same wording as day 5 and 6 of Genesis one.

Atheists and skeptics like to suggest that there are two creation stories, one in Genesis one and one in Genesis two; that there are two flood stories mingled into one, the one requiring seven clean animals on the ark and the other requiring a pair of every animal; and finally, that all of the Pentateuch (the 5 books of Moses) is a combination of works compiled later.

Ok, maybe. It’s been 3,000 years since the Pentateuch was written, so who knows. Maybe it wasn’t all planned together as one consistent message by man. That makes the inspiration and breath of God all the more amazing because the spiritual message God put in the Scriptures is consistent, amazingly consistent.

Genesis 9:2 hearkens back to the creatures created on day 5 and day 6 in Genesis one, carefully reminding us that only food is mentioned in the creation story. Nor is it an accident. Do you think the Israelites were unaware that the fruit tree was not the only tree on earth? Were they unaware that edible and medicinal herbs are not the only plants that grow in the ground?

No, they knew. The creation story of Genesis one mentions only food … on purpose.

Why Only Food?

Because skeptical, scoffing evolutionists are wrong.

If you read my blog on any regular basis, then you know that I don’t think skeptical, scoffing evolutionists are wrong about evolution. I believe all life evolved. I don’t believe the soul of man evolved. I believe it was breathed into us by the breath of God, but I believe our bodies evolved. The chain from Ardipithecus ramidus through the australopithecines and the hominids is too consistent in time, geography, and morphology for me to deny. I think the consistency of that chain is as much the testimony of God as is the consistency of Genesis.

However, skeptics and scoffers love to use evolution as an argument that man is not purpose. Man, they say, is a simple lucky side branch on the evolutionary tree. There’s no purpose to us, it could just as well have been some insect that evolved to be the dominant species on the planet. In fact, dinosaurs ruled the earth for millions of years, and we’ve only ruled it for a few thousand years. We’re meaningless; just a side show, not an end.

I wonder what double blind study or what powerful empirical evidence they used to come to that conclusion?

God doesn’t agree. The creation story is all about man. It’s not about creation in general. It’s about man. That’s why it doesn’t matter if the science is accurate. It doesn’t matter whether the sky is really a solid dome (which is what the word firmament strongly implies) with the sun, moon, and stars in it. It doesn’t matter whether water can really be above the stars. It doesn’t matter whether grass, herbs, and trees can grow before the sun is created.

Genesis one isn’t about those things. It is only about man.

Because man is the purpose of creation.

So it took 14.7 billion years to go from the big bang to us (assuming scientists are right about all that). So what? Scoffers and skeptics want to use  science to argue against our being the purpose of God, but they ignore the fact that science has seen that “time” is almost a meaningless thought. I’m reading the June 2007 issue of Discover, and it has an article entitled “Does Time Exist?”

From our perspective, it looks like it took a very, very long time to get to us. But from God’s?

We don’t have any way of knowing. It could have been a fraction of a second, or it could have been much longer that 14.7 billion years would seem to us. This is a big universe. Maybe–indeed, probably–the earth is not the only place he’s working with life.

Anyway, enough of all my scientific speculations. The point is that Genesis one announces loudly that its concern is the creation of man, nothing else. Everything else is the side show; God cares about man, and it is man into which he breathed the breath of life.

Sorry, One More Science Comment

We keep finding out about some amazing abilities of animals. Apes can count, and one managed to obtain a several hundred work vocabulary. Parrots can not only distinguish between metal, plastic, wood, and various shapes, but they can name them when presented to them. One bonobo chimp had a 3,000 word vocabulary and African Grey Parrots have vocabularies up to 2,000 words.

It is not our abilities that make us unique. Yes, we can talk better that chimps and parrots, a lot better. Yes, we can reason better than any animal on earth. Yes, we’re the ones who have dominated the earth, not lions or dolphins.

However, it is not our intelligence that makes us unique. God chose us, gave us a soul, and entered into fellowship with us.

In the long run, it will be our eternal life that makes us unique. God has called us into fellowship with himself, offered us immortality, and made us not children of the earth but children of God.

Genesis one is not some general description of creation. It is the choosing of man as the heirs of God.

Now that’s intense truth!

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Genesis One: The Waters Above and the Waters Below

Posted on 12/03/2009 by Paul Pavao

I was really having a hard time getting anything out of day 2 of creation. Maybe Answers in Genesis can deal with the science of having water above the firmament which holds the sun, moon, and stars, but I can’t. How do you have water above the stars?

And I don’t think Genesis one is about science. What does God care about whether we understand science? We didn’t know about galaxies being millions and billions of light years away until the last few decades. Surely that isn’t important.

God cares about transforming us into his image, making us sons and daughters. So what do the waters above the firmament and the waters below the firmament have to do with that?

As I looked at it this morning, that was a mystery to me. So I waited, hoping God would give me something.

I think he did. Here’s my best shot. That’s what teachers do on subjects like this. They ask God and give it their best shot. Teachers need to get the important traditions of the Church right; those are the basic teachings of Scripture. Then, afterwards, if teaching is really their gift from God, then God will give them some insight into deeper things for one purpose: the building up of the saints.

It’s good for us to be excited about God and excited about the Scriptures. Teachings like these help that happen.

One Day Wasn’t So Good

What God showed me (I hope it was God) is that day 2 is the only day where nothing is said to be good.

Is that interesting, or what?

Now the typology is simple. Water can represent people, and it can represent purity and washing. In this case, I think it represents both. God separated heavenly wisdom and heavenly beings from earthly wisdom and earthly beings.

And this wasn’t good.

It wasn’t good, but it was necessary.

What encouraged me this morning was the tremendous full feeling I got as I saw that God had everything under control from the beginning. He had a plan, and nothing on earth was a surprise to him.

Now, I already knew that, of course. All of us Christians know that. But it was really driven home for me in this passage, and I hope I can pass that feeling on.

God knew there would be a rift between him and the earth. Right at the beginning he separated the waters above from the waters below. He knew there would be problems on earth, so he preserved heavenly beings and heavenly wisdom by pulling them far away from us … beyond the sun, moon, and stars, in fact.

That was not good. It was just necessary.

Heavenly Wisdom, Heavenly Things, and Heavenly Places

Those things were preserved. Seemingly, they are far away, but God doesn’t deal in distances. Science is discovering that space and time are not necessarily what they seem. They can be bridged in ways we don’t yet understand.

God understands, though. He’s beyond space and time, and heaven is not a planet in some solar system. Its distance cannot be measured in light years. It is further than the stars, but it is also near at hand.

(Okay, my explanation is just my guess. But the idea, the idea that heaven is not a matter of space and time and is not a planet–I think that’s a given; we Christians know it to be true.)

Here we are now. Earth has already fallen. All of creation is groaning, waiting for the deliverance that will one day come with the glorious revelation of the sons of God.

While we wait, there are things that did not fall. They are preserved. There is a heavenly wisdom. There are “things above,” where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of the Father. Those things are accessible to us who have been born again.

This is just one more evidence that “you must be born again.” You will not be able to access the pure waters that come from above by good works. You will not pull things down from heaven by your own righteousness.

There is a righteousness that comes from God, and if we will walk in that righteousness, much comes with it. The things that come with it are from above, from the Father of Lights, which home there is no shadow of changing.

The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle, and willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. (James 3:17)

Before we go to day 3, I need to do a short, interim post on righteousness being a gift to the upright in heart and the difference between righteousness and uprightness in heart. Maybe I’ll make a web page and link it from here. I can’t do that right now, though. I have to go grade a friend’s son’s math exercise so he can pass his next test …

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Light and Darkness

Posted on 12/02/2009 by Paul Pavao

I started back through Genesis today, and I decided to really devote myself to the principles of Scripture interpretation that I talk about all the time. It made for a very short but very pleasant reading of only a part of Genesis chapter one.

In its early days, the church taught that Jesus came to fulfill the Law in the sense of “expand” or “bring to fullness.”  The Law given to Moses was necessarily limited because it was given to a fleshly people, not a spiritual one. When Jesus came to change us, giving us a new heart and pouring out his Spirit on all flesh, then the Law could be brought to its fullness.

What does that mean?

Well, one of the things that it means is that when the Scriptures address split hooves and the chewing of cud, we can forget about pigs and cows. As Jesus said, nothing going into a man can defile him. The food God really cares about is his Word, for man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

If you wish to be clean, this is what you must partake of. You must fellowship with those who meditate on the Word of God and who separate from the world. (This tie between meditating on the Word and chewing the cud used to be well-known enough that the word “rumination” still means both things.)

Genesis One and the Creation

So when I opened to Genesis chapter one this morning, I was not looking for a step-by-step, scientific description of the creation of the world. I was looking for the things God really cares about … spiritual things.

The stage opens on this world with the Spirit of God hovering over the face of a massive sea. There is not emptiness. There is the Spirit of God hovering. God waited no time at all to begin his work. He has been watching and setting the stage from the very beginning.

On day one, the very first thing that God creates–though water already exists and, seemingly, a globe as well–is light. God separated the light from the darkness, and he called the light day and the darkness night.

Day and night and light and darkness are constantly used in Scripture to represent the conflict between God and satan and between knowledge and ignorance.

God set up this battle in the very beginning. The very first thing he created was the conflict between light and darkness. He made the light, and he saw that it was good. He doesn’t say the darkness is good. Nonetheless, he doesn’t banish the darkness. He keeps it. He separates it from the light, and he calls it night.

I learn from this that God meant for this earth to be a place of battle. There is a kingdom of light, which is the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and there is a domain of darkness. That is not an accident. God meant for that to happen. In fact, it was the very first thing he meant to happen. He created that battle on day one.

Interesting, isn’t it?

Evening and Morning

What else is interesting is that God created evening and morning the first day.

We Americans consider the day to start in the morning. A Jewish day, however, starts with sunset. The night is the first part of the day, and the day is the last part, pretty much opposite from us.

God set the day up to be evening first, daytime second.

This is because the light delivers from darkness. It is darkness that comes first, then the light comes to rescue us.

All of us began in the domain of darkness. We did not begin in the kingdom of God. We’re children of Adam first, and only after does Jesus Christ deliver us from the death of Adam to be children of life and light.

Well, that’s my take on day one. Hopefully, I’ll get day two up tomorrow. I hope God gives me something! Waters above and waters beneath? hmm …

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David Servant and Grace

Posted on 11/17/2009 by Paul Pavao

I put David Servant’s name in the title because I’d like this post to be found under his name to provide him a little free advertising. I do that because what he provides is good, very good.

I’m not going to tell you what he does because I could never describe anything as well as he can. Incredible writer.

I’m sending you to his mutual fund page because I think it’s so well said. Don’t stop there. Feel free to be a part of what he’s doing. God will reward you.

 He who gives to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him his good deed (Prov. 19:17).

David’s daily eteaching–which is way too hard to find if one of you from Heaven’s Family is reading this–is an excellent resource. Today it provided a thought for my blog. I want to disagree with him … just a little bit.

Grace

David’s eteaching says:

Only those who do the will of the Father will enter heaven (Matt. 7:21). Where’s the grace in that, some ask? … God’s grace is not a license to sin, but a temporary opportunity to repent and receive forgiveness.

Actually, grace is the power of God to overcome sin (Rom. 6:14).

The emphasis Protestants put on grace as forgiveness for sins is just crazy. Mercy is the term for forgiveness of sins. Grace has little, if anything, to do with the remission of sins. Grace has to do with overcoming sin!

Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under Law but under grace. (Rom 6:14)

Everything else on grace in the New Testament is the same way. Grace will help you in your time of need (Heb. 6:14). Grace is the power and force behind spiritual gifts (1 Pet. 4:11). In fact, in most cases it is the Greek word charisma that is translated as spiritual gift,  which is a derivation of charis, the Greek word for grace.

In a sense, grace is the spiritual gift of holiness and righteousness.

Grace vs. Works

So why is grace contrasted with works in Rom. 11:6?

If by grace, it is no longer by works. Otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, then it is no longer of grace. Otherwise work is no longer work.

Here Paul is not contrasting working with sinning. He is not contrasting the works of the Law with living lawlessly. I hope it’s readily apparent in every one of Paul’s letters that he has no tolerance whatsoever for the works of the flesh, whether in himself or anyone else. He says in 1 Cor. 9:27 that if he didn’t discipline his body and bring it into subjection, then he’d be disqualified. (A word that he contrasts with being in the faith in 2 Cor. 13:5. It’s bad to be disqualified.)

Even in Romans, Paul is very, very clear that neither grace nor mercy is sufficient if you choose to live in the flesh:

So then, brothers, we are debtors–not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, because if you live according to the flesh you will die. But if you put to death the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit, then you will live. (8:12-13)

So again, we have to ask, why is Paul contrasting grace with works?

Because there are two ways to avoid living by the flesh. One  works; one doesn’t.

Work

One way is to work in accordance with God’s will as at is written down.

Paul describes the ineffectiveness of this method in Romans 7. Work hard and fail is what it basically says. You cannot overcome the deeds of the flesh by human will.

The carnal mind is the enemy of God. It is not subject to the Law of God, nor indeed can it be. So then, those that are in the flesh cannot please God. (Rom. 8:7-8)

Grace

The other way is grace.

In this way, you believe in Jesus Christ–for that is the route to grace (Rom. 5:2)–and you receive grace. As Paul puts it, “The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2).

Neat, huh? Here’s another way Paul put it in Romans. I love this verse. This is the ultimate salvation promise verse. It is the answer to Romans 7, and since it’s written in Rom. 8:3-4, it’s clear that Paul meant it to be the answer to Romans 7.

For what the Law could not do, since it is weak through the flesh, God did.

Let’s pause and dwell on that  for a moment, shall we, before we go on with this passage? The Law could not deliver us from our flesh. We cannot simply study the commands of God, whether old or new covenant commands, and go out and do them. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Okay, let’s go on:

By sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

That, my friend, is grace.

Ephesians 2:8-10

One of our favorite and most misinterpreted salvation passages begins in Ephesians 2:8:

For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,  which God has prepared beforehand for us to do.

Wow, another great, great passage.

Notice first that it is “by grace” that we are saved. It is “through faith.” That is because faith gives us access to the grace by which we are saved (Rom. 5:2). You can’t be saved without grace. That’s what’s going to deliver you from Romans 7 so that “by the Spirit” you can “put to death the deeds of the body.”

Mercy will take care of those times when you fall, but grace will be what prevents you from falling!

There’s a great passage in First John that mentions both grace and mercy:

If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1:9)

The first is mercy. God’s forgiveness is known to us in English as “mercy.” The second is grace. Grace is not mercy. Grace is deliverance from the power of sin.

Here’s another way Paul describes grace:

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age. (Titus 2:11-12)

You really can’t miss it. Grace is what saves us, and it does that by delivering us from the power of the flesh that causes us to sin.

Again, I’m not talking about sinless perfection here. John tells us that if we sin we have an advocate with the Father. Christians sin. But there is an “obvious” difference between the children of God, who have grace, and the children of the devil, who don’t.

At least, that’s what John says:

Little children, let no one deceive you. He that practices righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous. He that is committing sin is of the devil. … In this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he that does not love his brother. (3:7,8,10)

You probably won’t need a concordance and lexicon to figure out what that passage is saying. Could anything be more clear? It’s stunningly clear, wouldn’t you say?

Grace vs. Works

So that’s grace and works. You’ll never be able to work your way into heaven, and God wants it that way because he doesn’t want you to boast (Eph. 2:9). However, you still have to have works to get to heaven!

There’s so many verses that say that, it seems silly to list them, but here’s some anyway:

  • Romans 2:5-8
  • 1 Cor. 6:9-11
  • 2 Cor. 5:10-11
  • Galatians 5:19-21; 6:7-10
  • Ephesians 5:3-7
  • Philippians 3:17-19;
  • Colossians 1:22-23; 3:5-6

Those are Paul’s. You can imagine how many verses we could find in Hebrews, and then there’s the old standard, James 2:24. But how about this one from Peter?

If you address as Father the one who impartially judges according to each one’s work, then conduct yourself throughout the time of your sojourning here in fear. (1 Pet. 1:17)

The question is not whether you can have works. The Bible is very clear over and over and over again, in every book of the New Testament, that you must have works. The question is, how will you get good works?

The answer is: grace.

You can’t work for good works. You will fail (Rom. 7). You need grace. With grace, sin will not have dominion over you.

What is the end of grace?

For by grace are you saved through faith … For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. (Eph. 2:10)

For the grace of God has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us so that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works. (Tit. 2:11-14)

And how do we get grace?

… our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. (Rom. 5:1b-2)

Awesome, isn’t it?

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Evangelism and the Church

Posted on 11/10/2009 by Paul Pavao

This blog started as a comment on one of my other posts, but it kept growing. This post is self-explanatory without seeing the comment I’m responding to, but if you’d like to, it’s on my September 20 post.

The Great Commission

The statement that the great commission was for more than the apostles is made often, in the same way that you just made it … without justification or reference.

It’s simply the doctrine of the Evangelicals. There’s nothing Scriptural about it, though.

As I said, there is nothing in the epistles exhorting the church to evangelism. Nothing at all. The absence is very noticeable when one compares it to modern doctrines.

You add, “the book of Acts evidences what manner of preaching the apostles and the scattered church primarily actively engaged in.” However, there’s nothing in any of those Scriptures about anyone except the apostles preaching. When Acts speaks of the church, it says the church shared their possessions and spent time together and the apostles gave witness to the resurrection.

How Shall They Preach Except …

Stephen and Philip preached, too. Timothy did as well, and Timothy is exhorted to do the work of an evangelist. Remember, to the church, Paul said, “How shall they preach except they be sent?” Some are sent.

We have to stop sending those that God has not sent. Even Paul went nowhere preaching for over a decade before God sent him.

The Word in the Believer

Yes, the scattered believers went everywhere preaching the Word. A believer that has the Word in him cannot help but speak it. The Word is the Word. It is not the Silence. However, the fact is, today we exhort Christians to evangelize, evangelize, evangelize. The Scriptures don’t. It’s really as simple as that.

If Christians were doing what the Scriptures do command, then they’d have something to speak. They would be obedient to the Word, and the Word would grow inside of them. They’d speak automatically. In fact, quite often people would ask them the reason for the hope that is in them, which happens to us quite often.

Fruit

It is the results of the message RCV preaches that I love. I evangelized all the time in the 80’s. There was little fruit, and what fruit there was did not remain except with rare exceptions.

Preachers hold great revivals nowadays. Thousands “come to Christ.” Six months later, church attendance is not one iota different. Thousands of backsliders, not Christians, were created, inoculated against the Gospel.

Or, there’s people who proclaim a less “user friendly” Gospel, as your friend Chesterton put it. Those basically get no results, at least not in the US. That’s because there’s no demonstration of the life of Christ.

Henry Blackaby wrote a book called Experiencing God. He had people going to a college to witness. He basically told them to stop preaching and start following God around. Within a week, an unbeliever had invited one of their members to a Bible study to teach her unbelieving friends the Gospel.

The Navigators call that method “Friendship Evangelism,” and it is remarkably effective because it is close to the method recommended by the Scriptures. It involves believers being together and being in the world but not of it. It was so effective that one believer said, “I don’t like to invite people to our Bible studies because they always get saved there. I don’t get a chance to lead anyone to the Lord.”

The fact is, the reason people were being saved at their Bible studies is because those people were being led to the Lord. The Lord is present wherever two or more are gathered in his name.

The Effectiveness of the Church

When Paul was struck down on the road to Damascus, Jesus himself appeared to Paul. Jesus did not preach to Paul, though. Jesus sent him to the church in Damascus.

As anyone who reads my blogs knows, I have been reading the writings of the 2nd century church for a couple decades now, getting light from them on the writings of the 1st century church (the New Testament).

It’s interesting to note that there are no famous evangelists of the 2nd century. However, the 2nd century church was so effective that by the end of the 2nd century, around A.D. 200, Tertullian could write the emperor (who likely never saw Tertullian’s letter) and tell him that if he banished all the Christians for refusing to participate in war, he would be left with no one to rule over.

That’s an exaggeration, of course, but it does tell you the extent to which Christians had spread by the end of the 2nd century.

How did that happen?

When Justin, who also wrote a letter to the emperor, but fifty years earlier, describes those who have been converted, he mentions just three ways. They …

  1. Saw the consistency of their [Christian] neighbors lives
  2. They saw the honesty with which Christians transacted business
  3. They saw the extraordinary forbearance of Christian travelers when they were defrauded

The testimony of the Church is powerful, just as Jesus said it would be. Our unity and love will convince the world (Jn. 13:34-35; Jn. 17:20-23). Together we create, not a little light, but a light so bright that it cannot be hidden (Matt. 5:13-16).

Thus, Isaiah cries, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.”

That’s from Isaiah 60:1. Read what the results of our arising and shining are. Talk about effective evangelism!

Preaching

Preaching is excellent. Preaching is a wonderful thing. As I said above, when a believer is attached to the vine, which means being in the church, which is the many-membered body of Christ, then he will be full of the Word. Wherever he goes the Word will come out of him, whether by speaking or by extraordinary forbearance when defrauded. People will actually ask him for the reason for the hope that is in him.

If you read through Romans 3 and 4 and James 2, you will see that Paul had a much different emphasis than James when it comes to faith and works. This isn’t because James and Paul had a different message. This is because the Christians in Rome needed faith emphasized in order to deliver them from the bondage of the Law. The Christians to which James wrote needed to be delivered from their belief in a false faith detached from works.

There is a time for everything. It would have been inappropriate to send James’ letter to the Christians (there was likely no church yet) in Rome. It would have been inappropriate to send Paul’s letter to those with a false faith that James wrote to.

So, it is wrong to emphasize preaching to evangelicals today. It is time to emphasize the church to the Protestants, who have forgotten it, its authority (1 Tim. 3:15), and its promises of truth (1 Jn. 2:27).

If this blog, and the comments in it, were being written to Mennonites or Amish, then probably an emphasis on evangelism would be a good thing. The fact is, though, that Protestants have created, by their emphasis on evangelism, a false doctrine that gets in the way of Christian growth, divides the saints, causes many to fall away, and prevents far more people from coming to Christ than it brings to Christ.

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Roman Catholics, Quote Mining, and Honesty

Posted on 11/10/2009 by Paul Pavao

I debated whether Roman Catholicism was really a topic that fits this blog. I thought some about the name of the blog. It is “The Rest of the Old, Old Story.”

This post definitely fits the blog title because I’m going to spend most of the time giving you the rest of the story left out by the Roman Catholics.

Quote Mining

Today, I was accused of quote mining for my teaching on apostolic succession.  The person accusing me of quote mining was Roman Catholic, of course, since it is a Roman Catholic doctrine I’m refuting on that page.

First, what is quote mining?

Quote mining is pulling quotes out of context to make an author say what he never said. One common example used is that the Bible says that Judas went out and hung himself. It also says, “Go thou and do likewise” and “What you do, do quickly.”

Put together, those verses say that you should hang yourself and do it quickly. Obviously, the Bible teaches no such thing.

Another example of quote mining could be obtained from my last paragraph. Someone could say, “Shammah said, ‘Those verses say that you should hang yourself and do it quickly.'” Obviously, I’ve said no such thing even though that’s an exact quote.

Roman Catholic Quote Mining

It’s funny that a Roman Catholic should accuse me of quote mining because they’re masters at it. The person who accused me of quote mining sent me to a page that he says has passages from the church fathers in context.

Really?

Let’s see. Let’s begin with this quote:

Thereupon Victor, who presided over the church at Rome, immediately attempted to cut off from the common unity the parishes of all Asia, with the churches that agreed with them, as heterodox; and he wrote letters and declared all the brethren there wholly excommunicate.

They quote a little before that sentence in order to explain the topic over which Victor excommunicated all the churches of Asia. The issue was on what day to celebrate Passover. Victor and the church at Rome thought it ought always to be on a Sunday, and the churches in the east were celebrating it on the actual day of Passover.

Victor excommunicated them for it.

Well, there you have it. Look at Victor’s power. He was able to excommunicate all the eastern churches. This was A.D. 195, they say, though it was actually closer to A.D. 170. So there must have been a pope as early as 170, thus refuting Protestant charges that there was no pope in the early church.

But what’s the rest of the old, old story?

But this did not please all the bishops. And they besought him to consider the things of peace, and of neighborly unity and love. Words of theirs are extant, sharply rebuking Victor. Among them was Irenæus, who, sending letters in the name of the brethren in Gaul over whom he presided, maintained that the mystery of the resurrection of the Lord should be observed only on the Lord’s day. He fittingly admonishes Victor that he should not cut off whole churches of God which observed the tradition of an ancient custom.

The Catholic web site didn’t actually give the reference for the passage they cited. I had to go find it. Fortunately, it wasn’t too difficult because I already knew about this passage. It’s in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, book V, ch. 24.

Talk about quote mining! They didn’t mention that the reason Victor wanted to excommunicate them is because he wrote a letter in the name of the church of Rome telling the eastern churches to observe Passover the western way. Polycrates, the bishop of Ephesus–a church that carried the exact same authority as Rome because both were founded by apostles–was upset about this. Rather than just give vent to his anger, he conferred with other bishops in Asia (which would be modern Turkey, not Russia or China or India) and was told it was fine to write Victor back telling him no.

The letter says they had always celebrated Passover on Nisan 14, and they would continue to do so. They were not going to forsake the tradition passed down to them from apostles.

Then, when Victor, who also had to be helped by Irenaeus in order not to slip into some gnostic heresy, couldn’t handle the response and flew off the handle, “bishops” sharply rebuke Victor, and Irenaeus, perhaps the most respected bishop of his day, “fittingly” admonished him.

So you decide for yourself. Did the Roman Catholics give you the whole story? On the matter of the papacy, they never do because there is no evidence whatsoever for a pope in the early church unless you quote mine.

More Quote Mining

Most of the quotes that aren’t ambiguous on the page I linked above are quote mines. Here’s another example:

And he says to him again after the resurrection, ‘Feed my sheep.’ It is on him that he builds the Church, and to him that he entrusts the sheep to feed. And although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single Chair, thus establishing by his own authority the source and hallmark of the (Church’s) oneness. No doubt the others were all that Peter was, but a primacy is given to Peter, and it is (thus) made clear that there is but one flock which is to be fed by all the apostles in common accord. If a man does not hold fast to this oneness of Peter, does he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he deserts the Chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, has he still confidence that he is in the Church? This unity firmly should we hold and maintain, especially we bishops, presiding in the Church, in order that we may approve the episcopate itself to be the one and undivided.

They do at least reference this one. It’s from The Unity of the Church, a tract written by the great bishop Cyprian. He was bishop of Carthage in north Africa from 249 to 257.

Cyprian does talk a lot about Peter’s primacy. He’s the first early Christian writer to talk about Peter having the keys of the kingdom and passing them on.

However, do you notice anything missing from that paragraph above? How about a mention of Rome?

Those who read Cyprian know that the key phrase in the passage above is “in order that we may approve the episcopate itself to be the one and undivided.”

That’s translated pretty poorly there. The Ante-Nicene Fathers set has it as “that we may also prove the episcopate itself to be one and undivided.”

What does he mean by the episcopate being one and undivided?

Well, the episcopate means all the bishops. Shortly after, he adds, “The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole.”

In other words, all the bishops together are one leadership of the Church. They, together, received the keys of the kingdom from Peter. Not the bishop of Rome. Sorry.

Is that really what Cyprian meant? Well, as it turns out, Cyprian actually talked about whether the bishop of Rome had primacy. In fact, he called a council of 87 bishops in 258 to discuss the claims of Stephen, bishop of Rome, who is the first bishop of Rome that we know of to claim he has authority over other bishops.

According to the records of the council, Cyprian opened up the council with a speech in which he said:

For neither does any of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience; since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power,
has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another.

Hmm. I wonder why that Catholic web site didn’t quote this?

So now you know … the rest of the old, old story.

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Revival Preaching

Posted on 11/09/2009 by Paul Pavao

A fellow named Daniel Hamilton left me a link on one of his comments. It has videos of the preaching of one B.H. Clendennen.

Excellent preaching. Completely based in the traditions of men.

Listen, my friends, Jesus did not raise up a church that is a building. He did not raise up a church that is a series of meetings, no matter how good the preacher is at those meetings.

He hates your pews!!!

And your revival preaching isn’t much better.

The Church

In the church, leaders can have confidence that every one of the people of God is going to be growing until they enter the grave (Php. 1:6). The grace of God will be coming to them, and they will be blossoming like a branch on a healthy vine.

That is not the product of individual relationships with Christ. A hand is never joined directly to the head.

John 15 is not talking about individual relationships with Christ. It is not talking about revival. It is talking about the Church because today, unlike 2,000 years ago, Christ is a many-membered body (1 Cor. 12:12), not an individual man walking the earth.

In the church, John 15 happens. Branches just grow on their own due to being attached to the vine.

In revival-preaching religions John 15 doesn’t happen. Whether a preacher is preaching regularly or not, lots of members of that organization–I don’t care to call it a church–are not growing. If there is no preacher preaching revival, then almost all of the members will fall away.

Not so in the church. The church is a family of individuals joined to one another by their birth into a heavenly life, mediated by the blood of Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God unites them as though they were one body, and they live one life together.

They care for one another. There are no “visiting” members. Their members have given up their own lives to be a part of this one new life which is the church of God.

In that place, where no one calls anything their own, but they have all things in common (Acts 4:32; but by this I do not mean enforced communism, but a lack of care about possessions and a great care about one another)–in that place, there is “great grace” (Acts 4:33).

In that place, life flows to the branches whether there is revival preaching or not. Let there be a B.H. Clendennen, a Leonard Ravenhill, an Evan Roberts … or let there not be. Because life flows from Christ into the body, the blood circulates through it, and the members are so joined that if you pinch one another will cry ouch–because of this, each member grows.

Oh, yes, there are exceptions, but look how Christ described those exceptions:

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. (Jn. 15:2)

Why is such a branch taken away? Because it is that branch’s fault that it is not bearing fruit. Grace and life always flow to every member of the church–where there is a church as I’ve described it. If a branch is not bearing fruit, it is because that branch is resisting the grace of God.

I do not speak here from Bible interpretation but from real experience. In the church there is a power that is unknown to the preachers of revival. It is unknown to the attenders of Christian clubs. It is unknown to denominational Christians clinging to brilliantly-devised doctrines.

What I’ve described here I’ve seen happen, repeatedly, and now it is my ongoing experience at Rose Creek Village.

So, listen to Mr. Clendennen’s preaching. It’s inspiring. Be inspired.

If, however, you wish to continue in the faith, join yourself to the body of Christ. Repent of your denomination and your pew-sitting. Find a brother and act like he’s a brother. Find a sister and act like she’s a sister. Promise one another that you are bound for life, that you will never make a decision alone again, but that you will together seek the wisdom that is present where two or more are gathered in his name.

Obtain the learning that is promised only to the local church, the pillar and support of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), the anointing given to a plural you (1 Jn. 2:19,27). This alone will provide for the saints a revival, a life, that will cause them–across the board–to continue to the end.

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Salvation Is Not a Plan, It’s a Man

Posted on 11/09/2009 by Paul Pavao

Except the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus make a man sick of his opinions, he may hold them to doomsday for me; for no opinion, I repeat is Christianity, and no preaching of any plan of salvation is the preaching of the glorious gospel of the living God.

– George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, and III, p. 391

To remind people that Jesus Christ is real and that he himself can save has been a priority of my speaking about Christ for many years.

Recently my father in the faith, Noah Taylor, used the phrase, “Salvation is not a plan, it’s a man,” in a men’s meeting. The words captivated me.

I decided I wanted to write a booklet on those words, when, lo and behold!, I found out that George MacDonald already had! Over a century ago!

I don’t want to share the whole thing with you; just a few excerpts. These are from The Truth in Jesus:

When you say that to be saved a man must hold this or that, then you are forsaking the living God and his will and putting trust in some notion about him or his will. To make my meaning clearer: Some of you say that we must trust in the finished work of Christ. Or you say that our faith must be in the merits of Christ–in the atonement he has made–in the blood he has shed.

All these statements are a simple repudiation of the living Lord in whom we are told to believe. … No manner or amount of belief about him is the faith of the New Testament. (emphasis in original)

It goes without saying that I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Look around. Christians know that “trusting in the finished work of Christ” and “trusting in the merits of Christ” doesn’t work. We’re always looking for a better way to say it. We tell people they have to “really” believe. We tell them they have to “actually trust, not just give intellectual assent.” We give them illustrations about sitting in a chair or getting in the tightrope walkers wheelbarrow.

It does no good. Jesus doesn’t have a wheelbarrow, and no one can see the chair. “Really” believing doesn’t produce any better results than mere intellectual assent, and as soon as we remove works we remove the ability to tell the difference.

The Problem’s the Gospel You Preach

Some of you will be offended by being told the problem is in the Gospel you preach. Others of you will be thrilled. You’re tired of leading people to the Lord, then watching them show no interest in God or church. If anything, they’re frightened to see you again.

The problem’s the Gospel you preach.

Jesus shed his blood for our atonement and for the forgiveness of  our sins. That’s the true doctrine of the atonement.

It is not the Gospel.

The Gospel is to believe in Christ, not in the doctrine of the atonement.

If you read the letters to the churches you will find the doctrine of the atonement discussed regularly. It provokes us to obedience, awe, and praise to know that the precious blood of the Lamb of God was shed for our salvation.

If you read the book of Acts, you will find that the doctrine of the atonement is NEVER discussed with sinners. It is NEVER preached to the lost.

Because it’s not the Gospel.

The Gospel

I’m going to let George MacDonald finish this blog entry out. Again, all of this is from The Truth in Jesus.

It is the one terrible heresy of the church that it has always been presenting something else than obedience as faith in Christ.

Do you ask, “What is faith in him?”
I answer, the leaving of your way, your objects, your self, and the taking of his and him. It is the leaving of your trust in men, in money, in opinion, in character, in atonement itself, and doing as he tells you. (emphasis in original)

While the mind is occupied in enquiring, “Do I believe or feel this thing right?” the true question is forgotton: “Have I left all to follow him?”
To the man who gives himself to the living Lord, every belief will necessarily come aright. The Lord himself will see that his disciple believe aright concerning him.

Sorry, I lied. I’ll let the writer of Hebrews have the final word:

 [Jesus] became the author of eternal salvation to all that obey him. (5:9, emphasis mine)

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Christian Parenting: How to Keep Your Children from Jumping Ship

Posted on 10/17/2009 by Paul Pavao

We all want to know about Christian parenting. We would all like to know how to keep our children from jumping ship and going to the world.

Today, I heard a speech by Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, who blames belief in modern scientific evidence for things like evolution as the reason why children jump ship. It’s “doubts about the Bible,” he says, that cause children to fall away from the faith.

“Why did these people leave the church? They didn’t trust the Bible, they weren’t taught to trust the Bible, they weren’t taught it was a book of history, and they weren’t taught to defend their faith and to have answers for the secular attacks.”

Hmm.

I have six children. I realized evolution is true—that humans and all of life evolved from one or a few common ancestors—in 1995. My oldest child was 4 at the time.

I’ve told them since then that I believe in evolution. I conducted a class for high schoolers on the evolution-creation debate, allowing the children–who all knew which side I was on–to research the subject for themselves. 10 out of 11 walked away confident that evolution was true.

Most of those high schoolers are walking with God as adults today. By this, I don’t mean that they pray, read their Bible, and attend the church. I mean that they are avidly walking with God, seeking his will, and wanting to bring the Gospel to the world.

My three teenage sons love God and are respected young men. My fourth child, a daughter, is just coming into her teen years, and she is following in her brothers’ footsteps.

I have taught them to treat evidence honestly. I have taught them that the Bible is not a book of science, and that the history of Genesis one–at least–is not literal. I have taught them that there could not have been a worldwide flood.

Not one of those young people or my children has fallen away because of knowing I believe those things or because of adopting those things themselves.

Why should they fall away? I believe those things, and I gave up pursuing the world in order to build God’s kingdom. I love and serve the people around me because I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, not because it’s just my habit or nature inherited from evolutionary ancestors.

In fact, I’ve taught my children to look for the fingerprint of God everywhere. I’ve taught them not to miss the work of Jesus Christ and the Spirit of God in themselves or other people, and they are wholeheartedly devoting themselves to that pursuit.

They’ve managed to do all this without believing that the Bible is a book of science.

What Really Makes Kids Jump Ship

Michael Pearl has written an incredible book called Jumping Ship. It talks about the real reason children quit believing that they ought to live for Jesus Christ.

The primary reason is because you don’t.

Living for Christ is a spiritual thing to do. It doesn’t matter whether you think Genesis is literal or figurative. It doesn’t matter even whether you believe the Bible is inspired.

What matters is whether you think Jesus Christ is worth obeying and you obtain the spiritual power from him to do so.

That, my friends, is everything.

There are other things that affect whether your children grow up into faith. I don’t want to insult some good, godly Christian parents that have seen their children snatched into the world. Your parenting, the influence of society or an unbelieving spouse, and numerous other issues can cause your children to jump ship.

Doubts about a literal Bible will, however, never cause children to stop following Jesus Christ.

Doubts about a literal Bible will cause children to doubt the Bible is literal. And if your faith is completely summed up in a literal, scientifically-accurate Bible, it will topple when your children are educated.

An educated child will know that the Bible is not scientifically accurate. He or she will figure out rapidly that when the Bible says the sky is hard–as it does in Job 37:18 directly and in Genesis 1 by implication and by use of the word firmament–it is not scientifically accurate. They will realize that when the Bible says that the earth is set on pillars, as it does in 1 Sam. 2:8, it cannot be scientifically accurate.

What will you do then if your faith is based on the Bible’s scientific accuracy?

What will you do when they realize there is no reconciling Genesis 1 and Genesis 2–at least not if you use any reasonable thinking? What will you do when they realize that rabbits don’t really chew the cud, it only looks like they do? What will you do if they really take a hard look at the earth screaming out to them in its layers and fossils that life has changed over long geologic periods?

You will lose them; that’s what you’ll do.

Unless you’ve taught them to follow Jesus Christ and given them an example by your life that he’s real and powerful.

Christian Parenting and the Commands of Christ

I can find many commands for Christian parents to give their children an example of faith. I can find many commands for Christian parents to teach their children the things God has done.

I can’t find any that tell Christian parents to hide their children from science and the testimony of the earth.

My children know that the molecules we’re made of are produced by supernovas. They’re awestruck by the fact that we’re made of stardust.

They, like myself, think God did that.

My children know the story of Rose Creek Village. They know about some amazing Scriptural prophecies about how God builds the house of God that he did in founding the church here in Rose Creek, TN. They know about the numerous miraculous events that established the church here and that keep it going.

My children know about God’s work in the hearts of people. They know about the devil’s work in the hearts of his children when the work of God expands and threatens the domain of darkness.

They believe all that is the hand of God.

My children know that following Christ is spiritual. They know that when they’re weak, they need a strength that comes from heaven.

My children know that dad is human and makes some really bad mistakes. They also know that public and private repentance, the forgiveness of the saints, and the mercy and cleansing of God are part of following God. They know I’ll come back even to them to repent for my human failings and to pray to God for grace to do better.

They know about everything I can possibly give them about the work of God throughout the ages, and they believe.

It is not questions about a literal Bible that make people fall away. It is questions about the reality of Jesus Christ that make children fall away.

Do you want your children to stand? Plant their feet upon the rock. The rock is obedience to Christ, and the Bible commands you to teach them about the works of God, not about the scientific accuracy of the Bible.

Sorry, Ken Ham. I just can’t agree with you about what the problem is because I’ve yet to see it be a problem.

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Obedience and Christian “Salvation”

Posted on 09/26/2009 by Paul Pavao

What is salvation? I like to use the example of a saved drowning person. The saved person is the one who’s standing on the shore. The unsaved person is the one in the water, flapping their arms in the air and going under for the 3rd time.

It’s the same with Christian salvation. Peter likes to talk about escaping the corruption or pollution that is in the world through lust (2 Pet. 1:4; 2:20).  The writer of Hebrews describes people who are enlightened and taste of the heavenly gift and the power of the world to come (Heb. 6:4-5). Paul tells the Corinthians that they “were” unrighteous, but now they’re “washed,” “sanctified,” and “justified.”

Those are impressive religious words, but if we don’t define them, then they don’t mean anything at all.

  • “Washed” means baptized. (Everyone–and I mean everyone–believed that from the time of the apostles until a 100 years after the Reformation. So if that’s not true, then the apostles didn’t know how to preach the Gospel.)
  • “Sanctified” means made holy. It means separated or set aside for the use of God.
  • “Justified” means made righteous. It literally means that. It’s a cousin to the adjective “righteous.” It’s popular today to define righteousness as nothing more than being seen as righteous by God. George MacDonald called this a “revolting legal fiction,” and that’s exactly what it is. “Justified” means to actually be made righteous so that you walk in righteousness (1 Jn. 3:7).

So how does one obtain all these things?

Obedience: The Path to Christian Salvation

The Bible makes the general statement that Jesus has become the author of salvation to all who obey him (Heb. 5:9). (Did you know the Bible said that?)

However, it has a lot more specific things to say about obtaining salvation by obedience.

At the top of this post, do you remember I defined salvation from drowning as standing on the shore? There are a lot of specific ways that you can see the fruit of your Christian salvation in the way of a transformed life. I’ve been listening to Psalms and Proverbs on tape the last couple days, and they have a LOT to say about that.

Obedience and Tangible Salvation in the Psalms

Let’s start with Ps. 111:10. It says:

A good understanding have all those who do his commandments.

I quote that a lot because Noah, the head elder of our church, quotes it a lot. What I didn’t realize is how often that’s repeated over the next 40 Psalms and the first few chapters of Proverbs.

It starts in the very next Psalm:

Praise the Lord! Blessed is the man that fears the Lord and takes great delight in his commandments.

His descendants shall be mighty on the earth.  The generation of the upright shall be blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in his house, and his righteousness will last forever. To the upright light will arise in the darkness; he is gracious, full of compassion, and righteous. (112:1-4)

Now that’s standing on the shore, rescued from drowning! That’s real, tangible salvation!

Psalm 112 goes on and gets better than that, but so do later Psalms. How about this incredible passage from Psalm 119. It’s not even just a promise. It’s what David says was his actual experience:

Through your commandments, you make me wiser than my enemies … I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients because I keep your precepts. … How sweet are your words to my taste! Sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through your precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way. (vv. 98-104)

Wow! You can’t beat that!

How’d David get so wise? How did he understand more than the ancients?

He kept God’s precepts.

A good understanding have all those who obey him.

Obedience and Tangible Salvation in the Proverbs

What sort of wisdom can you gain from Proverbs?

The proverbs of Solomon … to give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. A wise man will hear and increase learning; a man of understanding will obtain wise counsel to understand a proverb and its interpretation, to understand the words of the wise and their riddles.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. (1:1-7)

Proverbs is all about obeying God. Proverbs is practical wisdom. Leaf through the proverbs. They do not talk about esoteric things or deep theology. They talk about lending money, border disputes, laziness, getting up early, and a lot of other very down-to-earth, practical things.

But if you will obey, Jesus–who is the Wisdom of Proverbs–will give you understanding in all those other things.

If you try to get understanding of deep theology by study, then Paul tells you what will happen:

The purpose of the command is love out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. Some have turned aside from this to empty words. The desire to be teachers of the law, but they don’t understand what they teach nor the things about which they make confident assertions. (1 Tim. 1:5-7)

Solomon begins the Proverbs by telling his son–probably a general reference to any student listening to his Proverbs–to avoid stealing and murder and the people who steal and murder (1:10-18).

Pretty basic, isn’t it!

The fear of  the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, not deep study!

After saying only that, Solomon says that Wisdom is walking around in the streets, crying out to the simple, trying to get someone to listen.

So later, she says, when they are in trouble and crying out for her, she will not answer.

Why? Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord.

Discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you; to deliver you from the way of the evil man, from the man who speaks perverse things. (Prov. 2:11-12)

Do you want to be delivered from error? Obey God. Discretion will preserve you. Understanding will keep you.

Uprightness and Righteousness

This is really important. I don’t know where to put it or how to phrase it so that its importance is properly emphasized, but this is really important:

Uprightness is a choice; righteousness is a gift.

And the gift of righteousness is given to the upright in heart.

Ps. 36:10 reads:

Prolong your lovingkindness to those that know you, and your righteousness to the upright in heart.

Ps 112:4 says:

To the upright light arises in the darkness; he is gracious, compassionate, and righteous.

All these things are another way of saying what Hebrews 5:8 says. Jesus is the author of eternal  salvation to those that obey him.

Faith and obedience were intertwined in the Hebrew mind. Only we western legalists could conceive of something so utterly ridiculous as claiming to have faith in someone and then ignoring what he tells you.

Imagine a guide on an African safari. He’s leading a group through the jungle. One of the guys keeps patting him on the back and telling him, “I have faith in you.” However, the next time the group stops to rest, and the guide calls an end to the break and starts forward, Mr. I-have-faith-in-you says, “Hey, I thought this trip was by faith. I don’t have to do what you say.”

What do you think? Spiritual? Or just ridiculous?

  • The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them. (Prov. 11:6)
  • Righteousness keeps the one that is upright in the way. (Prov. 21:18)
  • He became the author of eternal salvation for them that obey him. (Heb. 5:9)
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