Posted on 03/26/2009 7:20:22 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
‘But the New Testament does not make a big deal out of the Age of the Earth…’
by Peter Milford
...
The issue of the age of the earth parallels circumcision. In my experience, the first response from Christians who do not accept the age of the earth that the Scriptures indicate, is to say something like “The New Testament does not make a big deal out of the age of the earth” or “It is not the purpose of the Bible to give the age of the earth”. Their point is that (1) the issue of the age of the earth is a non-essential, and (2) therefore not something we should argue about. They believe we are free to hold whatever view our conscience permits. They are right in the first part. In and of itself, the age of the earth is not a central focus of Scripture. But the distortions a long-age view brings to the gospel message make them wrong on the second part...
(Excerpt) Read more at creation.com ...
Food for thought, ping.
Have a blessed day!
Honestly, is it better to argue about the age of the Earth or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin... or, perhaps, show some moral outrage at Congress’s retroactive, punitive onerous taxation or “Mandatory Volunteerism” and pursuing some sort of real Justice?
In short, is God more concerned about you ‘being right’ or ‘DOING right’?
God wants us to be both. You can’t very well do right unless you understand what is right first.
I think there is enough ambiguity as to what happens before and during the first day of creation to allow for a old earth even with a very literal reading of Genesis.
>God wants us to be both. You can’t very well do right unless you understand what is right first.
This is true. But there is something you are overlooking: justice, morality, and legality CAN be known, absolutely. In this sense there is a right and a wrong that are quite knowable.
On things like the details of ‘how’ God created, we really DON’T know absolutely; this is confirmed by God’s reply in Job which, paraphrased, was: “Were you there when I created the universe?”
Job, who we are told again and again, was righteous and blameless in God’s sight. We are encouraged to have his patience (in James), that is a big and sometimes hard order. If this righteous man was basically given the “And who are you to question me?” treatment, then shouldn’t we be a bit more cautious on these questions?
I’m not saying that the questions of how old the universe is or how old the Earth is aren’t valid... They are. (We just need the humility to see that as we strive to answer these questions, our answers are dependent on incomplete understandings and possibly fallacious assumptions.)
I don’t think so, there is nothing separating the creation of the heavens and the earth from creation week.
Good works are not the source of salvation. Turning to Him and Jesus and truly believing in His Way is what is required for salvation and eternal life.
Why do people waste time with this trivial garbage? To the literalists: God created light on the first day, the heavens on the second, and the land and sea on the third. In other words, the universe, the stars (including the sun), and then the Earth. That means until the third day of creation, THE EARTHLY DAY DIDN’T EXIST. Gee, think our omnipotent God who exists beyod our understanding of time might have his own definition of “day”? One not limited by our mortal existence? And that He might have simplified the explanation for a bunch of people with no understanding of cosmology?
Sheesh.
You did.
Why?
There is nothing that ties them together either. God created the heavens and earth before he created day and night, so there could have been millions of years go by before. There are too many assumptions in the young earth reading of the Bible to say must only be 6000 years old.
And yeah, I know that’s not directly related to the old/new Earth debate, but the same concepts apply.
Also, does it matter? Nope, waste of time. Do you believe in Him, believe He bacame man and died for our sins, and then He rose of the third day? Do you try to emulate Him in your life even while realizing that you can’t because only He is without sin? Those are the ONLY things that really matter, right? How does being right or wrong about the age of the Earth affect ANY of that? It doesn’t. It just gets in the way, esp. with respect to bringing others to Him because non-believers (and frankly many believers) hear “the Earth is only x thousand years old” and dismiss us Chistians as nuts.
You are making the heretical implication that God doesn’t measure his “yom” (Hebrew for Day or Age) by the rotation period of a planet he had not yet created? Blasphemy!!
Well said.
Because (1) I’m imperfect - no shock there - and (2) this whole debate is in the end meaningless and destructive. Am I claiming to know or understand how He created the heavens and Earth? Nope. I’m just venting because frankly I’m tired of having non-Christians use this idiocy to maginalize us, so I’m speaking out against it in my small Freeper way.
“Let the dead bury the dead”
Indeed, to Christians, actual age as we compute it matters not. The rhythm and cadence is meant to be eternal and devoid of faithless interfering anxieties over “how long” this or that will take.
Another way to look at it is that the Earth is round (Moses can only flee so far, the key is the health of the soul as per the Gold Calf incident) and so is time, and the so called bucks “stop” at Christ on the cross.
Maybe it strikes you as trivial because you don’t understand the issues involved. God created both the Earth and light on Day 1. And the Earth must have been created already rotating because the Bible says that there as an evening and a morning on the very first day of creation.
Why is that Blasphemy?
2 Peter 3:8
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
To you perhaps. To some of us it is not.
I’m just venting because frankly I’m tired of having non-Christians use this idiocy to maginalize us, so I’m speaking out against it in my small Freeper way.
Seems to me that you are using this thread to marginalize those of us who take this stuff both seriously and literally.
Does it hurt you if I believe that God created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them in 6 days?
Do you believe in miracles?
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