Defending the Christian Faith Blog

The Sign of Noah

7/30/2014

Genesis 9: 8 And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;

10 And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.

11 And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.

12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:

13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:

15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.

19 These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.

0 Comments

The Dead Sea at Sunset Looking Toward Jerusalem and the Wilderness-2007

7/26/2014

0 Comments

Christian Reform Church Support for Evolution and My Response

7/25/2014

0 Comments

God’s Plan for Creation: Biological Evolution Revisited
Banner Magazine Sept 2013
by Harry Cook August 2, 2013 — As people of faith, how are we to understand the topic of biological evolution? This topic has been raised in the pages of The Banner and elsewhere in Reformed circles. As Edwin Walhout suggests in his article “Tomorrow’s Theology” (June 2013), there is convincing evidence to support the thesis that biological evolution has occurred. At the same time, we need to acknowledge that opinions on the topic vary widely, as indicated by the responses to that article. I believe more needs to be said. So in the spirit of engaging the church in an open and continuing conversation, here are some suggestions for broadening the discussion.

Many Christian biologists—and I include myself in this group—accept the findings of biological science as a feature of creation that we have to account for. The combined evidence from fossils and from scientific comparisons of the anatomy, physiology, and DNA of various organisms is so strong that it can no longer be ignored. As a result, most Christian biologists I know accept some form of evolutionary development.

My Response to The Banner Magazine for which I never received a response:
Evolution and the Christian Faith   sent 9-21-13 to CRC Banner Magazine

Dear Julia Hardy,

   I live in New Mexico and among a fairly large group of Christian Reform Believers in a small community. The CRC has a high school here as part of an outreach to the Native American community. I myself work at the Indian Health Service and have done so for 20 years. I am a born again conservative Christian, for 38 years.

   I am writing because a good friend, a teacher and a CRC church member, has given me the Banner magazine for September 2013. It has a lead article entitled "God's Plan for Creation: Biological Evolution Revisited." It made me weep. I have known for years the CRC position on the Creation/Evolution debate but it is a wrong position. Why I say this is that every evidence used to support "macro-evolution" is an extrapolation of the obvious variation that occurs in animal kinds. This is not the kind of change required by the microbes to man belief. But why is this important? Because by it secular man can use it, evolution, as an excuse to exclude God thus nullify or dull evangelistic efforts to reach them. For Christians it makes God out to be a harsh and detached Being. He becomes "nature red in tooth and claw", and He is portrayed as supporting the strong and aggressive rather than the weak and mild. The Righteousness and Holiness and Love of God becomes garbled.

   There is so much that can be said against the concepts of evolution at every level of debate: Science, Philosophy, And Religion but I am not trying to address that in this letter. I do have a website that you could look at: www.DefendingtheChristianFaith.org. and there are many much larger sites on the internet including: Creation Ministries International and the Institute for Creation Research.

   My point is that I am mostly concerned for the young people of the CRC. Their faith in God is being compromised by the support that the evolution worldview (and as such is it evolutionism and not a theory) is given by the CRC. If you are willing to consider my views please take a look at my website, and if you are willing I could write an article regarding this issue-but my emphasis would be on defining science, religion, and philosophy. I have enclosed a link for a published article on this subject. http://creation.com/religion-science-philosophy-interface-noah-flood

   Thank you for the nicely produced magazine and for your overall emphasis of encouraging the body of Christ.

God Bless,

Dr John G Leslie PhD, MD, PhD

Sent to: jhardy@@crcna.org

0 Comments

Combating Arguments Against Bible History

7/24/2014

0 Comments

The Carnal Nature of Man When Viewing the Scriptures: Example from an Article in Biblical Archaeology.org

“The Search for Noah’s Flood Scientists are looking in the wrong place” by Ronald S. Hendel online at 03/26/2014http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/hebrew-bible/the-search-for-noahs-flood/

He stated:
“Biblical scholars will tell you that the Flood Story in Genesis 6–9 (actually stories in the plural, since there are two versions woven together in these chapters) 2 derives most directly not from an actual event, but from earlier stories. The earlier stories are from ancient Mesopotamia, best known from the Gilgamesh Epic (Standard Babylonian version, c. 1100 B.C.E.) and the Atrahasis Epic (Old Babylonian, c. 1700 B.C.E.).”

This man confounds the truth of God’s Word. I responded in an email below:

Dear Sirs,
I strongly disagree with the overall views of this article. I have looked extensively at the Noah Flood Story evaluating it from the perspective of whether it is a True Narrative Representation or a myth, legend, or fable. I have concluded that it is a true eye witness account. Using the criteria of Dr John Oller, a linguistics expert, it conforms to the requirements of Determinancy, Continuity, and Generalizability necessary to be considered a True Narrative Representation. For Determinancy it uses ancient word forms (nouns, verbs) that a person would have used for descriptions of an event actually experienced. For Continuity it has a sequential time line and various ancient word constructs that tie it together as a single unit; and for Generalizability studies in biology, geology, and anthropology support the concept of a worldwide flood. Thus the Biblical Account is not a derivative of a Mesopotamian flood story and nor is it a local flood event. It is a true eye witness account of a worldwide flood in which a man, Noah, and his family are saved, in a boat, from a flood that covered the entire earth. Support for this view can be found in a dissertation I wrote for Trinity Southwest University in 2012 titled “Evaluation of the Noah Flood Account as a True Narrative Representation”. It is 500 pages in length. It can be found online at: http://www.DefendingtheChristianFaith.org. There many other sites that support a worldwide flood including Creation Ministries International and Answers In Genesis.

God Bless, John G Leslie PhD, MD, PhD

0 Comments

Jerusalem A City Set On A Hill

7/13/2014

0 Comments

Jerusalem, lite by the sunshine, seen from across the Dead Sea. It is a "city set on a hill". The green layer at the base of the cliffs is Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The scrolls probably came from the Temple during the Jewish War and the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. As Jesus stated "There shall not be left here one stone left upon another, that shall not be thrown down." Matthew 24:2

0 Comments

<<Previous

The Sign of Noah

The Dead Sea at Sunset Looking Toward Jerusalem and the Wilderness-2007

Christian Reform Church Support for Evolution and My Response

Combating Arguments Against Bible History

Jerusalem A City Set On A Hill

Author

Archives

Categories