The Bible, Science, and Pseudoscience

Pseudoscience has an iron grip on large parts of the Christian community. The people in these various camps will find it next to impossible to engage with intelligent, educated people to any real degree. They'll be laughed off, and they're deluded enough to think they're being persecuted for the Lord's sake. Meanwhile, they accuse Christians who reject their interpretations of being "compromisers" and agents of deception.

I well remember the time when a lady tried telling me that dinosaur bones were a satanic deception. She was completely serious and was actually angry that I believed otherwise. I was a small child at the time, and remember that I just nodded compliantly in response, hoping to put some much-needed space between me and the big, angry lady as quickly as possible.

The Bible is not a science book. It was written to, and by, ancient peoples who didn't know even a fraction of what we know today, and it often employs poetic language that should not be interpreted literally or as some kind of scientific commentary.

For instance, Psalm 104:5 says that God "set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." Some have taken this to mean that the modern understanding that the Earth rotates on its axis and orbits the Sun must be false (another alleged NASA hoax). It must be remembered, however, that the psalmist did not understand the "earth" in the sense that we do, that is, of its being a planet. The term is probably better translated "land," as this is what the ancients knew (and, often in scripture, "the land" refers to the limited area in which particular events are taking place, rather than all land everywhere). To the ancients' way of thinking, the land, the sky, and the sea all had their designated "places" in the scope of creation. That's what the psalmist is talking about here: how all things are subject to the order God has established in creation rather than being in some kind of chaotic flux. This certainly conforms to what we have learned by the scientific method (and particularly so within the lifetime of human beings), but it should not be taken as an exhaustive commentary on the composition of our planet.

Even those passages where God himself speaks of what he has made should not be taken as necessarily literal or precise. God used simple terms to communicate with people of simple understanding, and he often used poetic comparisons, just as we do today when explaining things to children. When my six-year-old son tells me, "Look, Daddy! The sun's going down!", I don't subject him to a lesson in cosmology. He has some growing up to do before we get into all of that, just as the human race has had some growing up to do in terms of its understanding of the universe.


* Image courtesy of NASA.

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The Cure for Broken Relationships

It's tragic to see so many marriages falling apart, including Christian marriages. In many instances, this is attributable to stubbornness and selfishness on the part of one or both spouses. In other instances, it seems to be the result of years of unresolved frustration and anger that give rise to bitterness. In the latter case, things tend to come to a head quickly, with one spouse abruptly storming out on the other, who is then left bewildered and broken. Where children are involved, it's all the more tragic.

What's the remedy for this? Counseling? Therapy? Medication?

The answer became more fully apparent to me some time back while I was praying for a Christian couple that was in turmoil. This was one of the rare instances in which the Spirit actually answered me, and he did so as he almost always does - by interrupting me, which I suppose is his way of letting me know that what I'm hearing is not my own thought. He said, very simply, "I can't help them if they won't yield to me."

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are all essential to establishing and maintaining the harmonious relationships that God intended us to have with one another, and all are called "fruits of the Spirit" in scripture (Galatians 5:22-23). They are manifestations of the transformative work of God in our character, and they can only be developed in us as we learn to yield to him rather than indulging our own desires, which typically manifest as lust, anger, stubbornness, selfishness, unforgiveness, bitterness, vengeance, and the like - all the things that typically destroy relationships.

If you're facing turmoil in a relationship today, it may well be that - contrary to conventional wisdom - marriage counseling should not be your first step toward reconciliation, at least not for the Christian. As I see the teaching of scripture, the first step may well be to spend time apart for awhile, seeking God individually, repenting of selfishness and learning to hear his voice and yield to his gentle prompting. Ephesians 4:3 refers to a "unity of the Spirit" that results in "the bond of peace." If you are both focused on him and yielded to him, the Spirit will naturally facilitate peace between you. Counseling tends to focus on working out your animosities, which shifts your attention to yourself and will likely cause you to become defensive. By giving control over to the Spirit of God first, you learn to see things (including one another) through his eyes, and the old complaints and battles will be far easier to overcome because pride and selfishness will no longer be in the way.

What, then, if your spouse is not interested in yielding to the Spirit of God? The hard truth there is that reconciliation may not be possible. As painful as this may be, regardless of what your spouse may choose to do, remain focused on the Lord, yielding to the Spirit rather than to succumbing to despair. The Spirit is not only capable of producing a unity that results in peace between persons, but also between us and our Lord, and it is this peace that the Bible tells us "surpasses all comprehension" and is able to "guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus."

When the peace of the living God has hold of you, there is nothing you cannot endure. Jesus was able to face the specter of the cross, in spite of being abandoned by his closest friends, simply because he knew "I am not alone, because the Father is with me" (John 16:33).

Your Father will be with you, too. Look to him and yield to his Spirit, cultivating the bond of peace that unity with him results in, no matter how even those closest to you may wound and betray you.


* Scriptures taken from the NASB

Matthew 24 and the Rapture Debate, Part Two: The Rapture as a 'Mystery' revealed by Paul

The second video in my series on Matthew 24 and the rapture debate focuses on the pre-tribulationist argument that the coming of Matthew 24:29-31 cannot be the rapture because Jesus was relying on Old Testament prophecies for his teaching and the rapture is a New Testament "mystery" never revealed in the Old Testament.

Most pre-tribulationists that I've heard who hold to this belief argue that Paul first revealed the rapture in 1 Corinthians 15. I break this position down in two ways: 1) Examining what a biblical "mystery" is and how the rapture fits in with that, and 2) Demonstrating why the 1 Corinthians 15 argument ends up unraveling.

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Trump, Syria, and the March toward World War III

After campaigning on a non-interventionist foreign policy and articulating why the Clinton-Bush-Obama era policies were fundamentally flawed and counterproductive, Donald Trump has taken the unexpected step of launching cruise missiles at the Assad government in retaliation for an alleged chemical weapons attack on civilians.

Given the fact that the Syrian chemical weapons attack in 2013 (Obama's infamous "red line" incident) was perpetrated by the Syrian opposition, we should have taken the time to conduct a more thorough investigation before retaliating. As it is, we are now, in the words of the Russian prime minister, "one step" from direct military confrontation with Russia and the threat of world/nuclear war. We are on the brink of the ultimate disaster. Are you ready?
 

* If you enjoyed this article and would like to support the author so that he can create more such content, you can donate via PayPal to rhawes73@gmail.com (or send an email to this address if you would like to donate some other way). Thank you for your support!

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