• Traditional Marriage Still the Best for Children

Here are my thoughts on the issue of same sex couple adoption and single parent adoption, as well as the destructive force they (in particular same sex couple adoptions) have on children and on society:

Yes, I am opposed to single parent adoptions. Though, I will firmly argue that a single parent is less destructive than homosexual parents – who effectively guarantee the perversion of the child’s mind from naturally understanding God as their Father and the Church as their Mother. For no one can have God as their Father if they do not have the Church as their mother.

Further, at least a child with a single mother or father can have a motherly or fatherly figure (respective of the one missing) enter their lives through other relatives or friends or future marriage. Same sex couples are claiming to be married and in need of no other member of the opposite sex to be required in the household (though I’m sure some single parent adopters have thought the same thing, wrongly).

Now, I say this not to disregard the grace of God in saving people out of their twisted thinking and broken upbringings… I am saying this as a point of genuine natural law and civil society. As Christians – by conceding this to be acceptable – we further degrade and destroy our society and our witness to those who would seek to understand what a true human society should look like.

For those of you who might think that (simply) 2 is better than 1… This thinking ultimately breaks down because all children in America today (who are not being held captive by criminals of course) have plenty of people helping to raise them in their lives – whether it is school teachers, grandparents, neighbors, fellow church members, etc.

This issue, from a Christian perspective, has everything to do with nature, the created order, and human salvation – and NOT anything to do with having enough people to help a child have some kind of ‘better’ life. For a child who has a better life and ends up not worshiping God will receive more damnation in hell than the child who was poor and needy, yet still did not believe. For we are all going to be judged according to our deeds – either for rewards in heaven or punishments in hell.

By nature – on the adoption issue – any child raised in a single parent or same sex couple situation is going to be devoid of any real life experience of how God created them to grow up naturally – thus the basic problem of allowing either kind of people to adopt. Therefore, as Christians, to have any part in “okaying” or affirming such practices in adoptive circumstances is to rip apart the very fabric of our civil society. It not only harms the child, but it also puts one more stumbling block in the way of that child growing up to see these two fundamental truths of reality:

1. No one can have God as their Father who does not have the Church as their Mother. (Galatians 4:26)
2. Marriage between a man and a woman has always stood to show this mystery – the relationship between Christ and the Church. (Ephesians 5:32)

And as we all should recall here… Jesus said, “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.” (Luke 17:2)

For any of you interested in a Christian take on the current Video Game culture, I just came across this recently published book by Brazos. It is written by Kevin Schut, a communications expert and an enthusiastic gamer himself, offers a lively, balanced, and informed Christian evaluation of video games and video game culture. He expertly engages a variety of issues, encouraging readers to consider both the perils and the promise of this major cultural phenomenon. The book includes a foreword by Quentin J. Schultze.

Of Games and God

It’s cheaper to buy it on Amazon.com if you actually want to purchase it. But the above link gives a good deal of easy access to information about the book. Here is the Amazon.com link.

Kevin has also written a good article over on Relevant Magazine’s site called Do Video Games Cause Violence?

Here’s a concluding excerpt that I think we can all agree with:

Do bloodthirsty games encourage me to be bloodthirsty? Am I less sympathetic to the oppressed after playing video games? Am I buying into attitudes and ideologies that I should not, attitudes that glorify destructive acts, inflicting pain and causing death?

The answer may not always be yes, and so the violent video games may be simply OK or even possibly beneficial. But we should always be prepared to think through our game-playing. Unexamined ideas, actions, beliefs and mind-sets can impact us; conscious engagement makes a difference. War, pain, danger, suffering and excitement will always be part of the human condition while we still live. Many video games reflect that reality. Will we use those games to grapple with or to glorify violence?

Early registration has begun. Check out this year’s Apologetics Conference topics and speakers!

2013 Conference Goals:

• Highlight the historical connection between genuine human rights and liberties and the broad acceptance of the Christian worldview… and the converse.
• Observe that beliefs tend to automatically lead to actions based on those beliefs, and call attention to the importance of having well-reasoned, well-evidenced beliefs.
• Raise awareness of the fact that those with a Christian worldview tend to have ‘pro-life’ attitudes and perspectives and argue that consequently, the defense of that worldview, that is, Christian apologetics, has an important role to play in defending Life.
• Draw a clear connection in the minds of attendees between the Gospel and life issues and take aim at the notion, often held by Christians themselves, that topics such as abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, assisted suicide, human cloning, etc, are ‘political’ issues where ‘religion’ has no business involving itself.

UPDATE: The Conference went great and as many of you might have seen below in the comments, I posted a link to my talk on “Reading Genesis as History”. The entire talk with Q&A are available for your free viewing at the following location. Enjoy!

I will be presenting at this year’s online Apologetics conference. Click on this link and see the schedule for the conference. Thursday’s (April 19th) sessions are free to the public and that is the day I will be presenting – at 8 PM EST. My topic is entitled, “Reading Genesis as History: Implications for Science and the Age of the Universe.” Please do consider attending and check out the other topics that are going to be discussed and make sure you check them out too!

When we say, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” we confess that what God said in Psalm 2 has come true, “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill” (v.6). God says to this King, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery”(v.8,9).

Saying, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” is akin to saying Obama is President, but, of course, completely different in terms of magnitude. I tell my son, “Jesus is king of the whole world.” That is what the confession means. Jesus (Yahweh saves, God the Son in the flesh) Christ (The Messiah–Prophet, Priest, and King–of God’s people) is Lord (the man who rules over the all nations). The One who loves us, died for us, and cleanses us–our Brother–is the one who rules the world.

That is why we can be confident no matter who the ruler of any particular nation is, because they are all on our turf, our inheritance.

As of this coming Fall semester, I will be the managing director of Athanatos Christian Ministries’ online apologetics academy.  October 3rd is when several classes begin.  Dr. Gary Habermas will be guest lecturing on the historical Jesus and the evidence for the Resurrection.  It is possible to attend these lectures without being enrolled in the academy.  Those enrolled in the academy, regardless of course, can attend his 90 minute lectures to be held in early November.

With the name of the facilitators listed alongside, here are the Fall 2011 courses offered:

• The Historical Jesus: A Survey of Evidence & Arguments – Anthony Horvath
• Defending the Faith: The Accessible Apologetics Workshop [ADVANCED] – Mikel Del Rosario
• Defending the Faith: The Accessible Apologetics Workshop [BASIC] – Mikel Del Rosario
• Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking 1 – Brian Auten
• The Truth of the Bible and Its Inerrancy – Jim Tofflemire
• Survey of the Old Testament – Anthony Horvath
• Studies in Atheism – Mariano Grinbank
• Jesus According to… – Mariano Grinbank
• Basic Christianity – Glenn Jones
• Biblical Greek 1 – Glenn Jones

062611amsermon

061911amsermon

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

In conclusion, there are many things that could be said about modern science and what earth geology may or may not tell us about the age of the earth. But one thing is for certain, modern science does not regard Scripture as a reliable historical source of information and thereby neglects to address the many issues of history that the Bible does clearly speak to: 1) the reality that a global flood happened around 4500 years ago that altered the planets geology and ecology in a catastrophic way. 2) Adam and Eve were the first two humans, thus making man’s fossil record is no older than 6,000 years according to the genealogy of the Bible. 3) God created every living creature according to its own kind (the study of Baraminology). This makes the evolutionary claim of a ‘tree’ of common descent – starting from a single celled organism to what we see today – completely untenable. All of this simply means that the modern scientific ‘evidence’ for an old earth has presupposed the wrong starting points and is therefore completely unreliable to tell us the age of the created universe.

Given my argumentation above, I believe that a strong case can be made for a Biblical understanding of the creation of the universe as taking place in six 24-hours days and having occurred roughly 6,000 years ago. I commend this three part series as food for thought as you continue to study the Scriptures and submit yourself to God’s worldview.

This post concludes my three part answer to the question: What is your view of the Creation account in Genesis?

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

My first contention, mentioned at the end of Part 1, pertains to human testimony and God’s ultimate revelation of the creation account from Adam to Noah to Abram to Moses. Some theories, such as the framework theory, conclude that the creation account is structured in light of the Sinaitic covenant in which Moses was writing Genesis as a ‘preamble.’ In contrast though, it has been noted by some that the book of Genesis is structured in accordance with the word ‘generation.’ This then could easily imply that writings (before Moses) were in existence as historical record in which Moses was God’s instrument of compilation. Now, I acknowledge that all of these things are theories, but it only makes good sense that God’s people would have actually had records of God’s work before Israel was constituted as a covenant nation at Sinai. With this alternate theory stated, it does not follow that the best theory of the books origin is as a mere ‘preamble’ to the Sinaitic covenant for Israel. This makes a framework theory of Genesis chapter one unnecessary because it was not strictly written as a critic of the ancient-near eastern pagan worship that Israel had seen in Egypt. Further information provided to us in Exodus clearly affirms that Israel maintained their faith in the Creator God as their cries to Him were heard. If Israel did not know of the previous covenants before Sinai, then why is it that the Hebrew midwives feared God? (Exodus 1) Why is it that God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when the people cried out to God in their slavery? (Exodus 2) The only way to explain these things is to conclude that the information in Genesis was readily available to the Israelites well before Moses ever came on the scene. Thus, in conclusion, it does not follow that the framework theory of Genesis chapter one is the primary meaning or purpose of the creation account. Instead, we must consider the evidence that shows the Genesis creation account is a historical record of creation, just as the rest of the book of Genesis is a historical record of the genealogies of God’s people leading up to Joseph in the land of Egypt.

My second contention deals directly with the meaning of the word ‘day’ in the Genesis account. I do acknowledge that the meaning of the Hebrew word for ‘day’ can mean something other than a 24-hour period, but I intend to show that an alternate meaning of the word is not necessary or encouraged by what is written in the Genesis account of creation or the account at Sinai. First, any other scholarly reading of the rest of the book of Genesis lends itself to an understanding that God created each thing, in each day, with respect to the human concepts of ‘morning and evening.’ In other words, no one questions the other occurrences of the words ‘day’, ‘morning’, or ‘evening’ in other places within Genesis. Thus, one does not need to imagine much beyond a normal earth day cycle for the meaning of the word ‘day’ in Genesis chapter one. This is more clearly seen in what follows with chapter two of Genesis – there the seventh day may be viewed as an un-ending day in which God rested from all His labor. This understanding of the seventh day must be contrasted with the six days of creation to understand that they were in fact finite periods of time. ‘Morning’ and ‘evening’ do not occur on the seventh day. So if we cannot then conclude that the days were 24-hour earth days, what were they? Well, as another theory (the Day-Age Theory) often states – with the sun, moon and stars not appearing until the 4th day, we do not know how long the days were since we tell time based on the earths rotation around the sun, etc. But this argument fails to take into account the language of ‘morning’ and ‘evening.’ Not only does it fail to take into account the language of Genesis one, but it also fails to account for the testimony of God at Sinai where He says, in the Ten Commandments, “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.” The reason for this statement is not to newly structure the nation of Israel in their work week. Instead, it is to re-affirm the covenant of creation in which man was always to work six 24-hour days and then to rest on the seventh in anticipation of entering God’s un-ending rest once man had completed his work to fill the earth and subdue it. In other words, God created the world in such a way that man would understand how he was to work. This then leads me to my third point of contention.

The testimony of God in creation was given for the purpose of revealing himself primarily through mankind as His image-bearer. This means we must understand that an ‘old earth’ theory decentralized the glory of God in the creation account by opening up our minds to the idea that history went on for thousands of years before the glory of God was displayed in man as the image bearer. Note how the Apostle Paul speaks of these things, “For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God.” (1 Cor. 11:7, emphasis mine) God is not playing some hide and seek game about why and for what purpose He created the universe in six 24-hour days and rested on the seventh. Jesus himself points out that man was not made for the Sabbath, but that the Sabbath was made for man. (Mark 2:27) Thus, once again, we see the anthropocentric nature of the creation account in Genesis chapter one. An old earth makes no sense of God creating mankind as his image bearer. As many scholars know, the context and meaning of ‘images’ in the Ancient near-east would have meant that God did not place an image bearer in his creation for thousands or millions or billions of years! This is tantamount to God saying that He himself was not King of His creation! Are we as Christians really willing to say that about God?

Lastly, I would like to close by arguing my fourth point regarding the nature of the living things that God created. It is clear, from Genesis chapter two, that God created the creatures of the earth, especially man, in physically mature states. It was not as though the ‘chicken came after the egg’ in God’s account of His creation. It only stands to reason then that God would have easily created the universe in a short period of time, but in a physically mature state that could easily have the appearance of age without actually having existed for for more than 6 days.

To be continued… on Monday, Part 3 will be published.