Great post!
There is not a credible historian alive that would deny Jesus walked this earth. I have no doubts Jesus did. I also believe he was crucified, was dead for three days, and was resurrected. It was the price he paid for our sins.
Old earth / Young earth? I can beat my head against the wall but I don’t know for certain in this life-time. And truth is that I have limited time to really study it.
Agreed completely. Both evolution and creation are faith-based beliefs. And as John 1 and other passages declare, it was Jesus Himself who did the creating.
Another scary issue is false prophecy. Jesus spoke extensively about this subject in Matthew 7:15-23. The last three verses of the passage are:
Mat 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Mat 7:22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
Mat 7:23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Many don’t realize that verses 21-23 are just a continuation of His teachings about false prophets, but that’s obviously the case because there’s nothing inherently wrong with either casting out devils in Christ’s name or doing wonderful works in Christ’s name. But prophesying falsely in His name is a BIG problem.
As Christ indicated above, false prophets are self-deluded about their salvation, catastrophically so. False prophets reject God’s will and substitute their own. They essentially call God a liar, saying that God didn’t say something He said and/or say that God said something He didn’t say. We have no right to do these things. We have no right to countermand God’s Word. A Christian’s duty is to read, study and submit, not change things and declare “what God really meant to say...” This is in the same category with “yea hath God said...”
Christians simply can’t go wrong by taking Scripture at face value, viewing history as history, poetry as poetry, etc. And there’s really zero doubt at all that Genesis 1 is communicating a 6 day creation. Hard to squeeze long ages into “the evening and the morning.” There’s also zero doubt that attributing the creation to His omnipotent power glorifies God, which is job one for all Christians. But we can go profoundly wrong, as indicated above, if we start substituting our will in place of God’s will.
No idea where God draws the line between saved but mistaken and damned and self-deluded, but a mistake that robs Him of glory that He and only He deserves to receive doesn’t sound like a minor infraction.
So, for this issue of false prophecy, it boils down to which Almighty God and which Jesus Christ do we worship? Do we worship the God of the Bible, or the god of our imaginations?