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New Discovery! 2023 Hottest in over 120 Million Years 2024 and beyond in prophecy Questions Status: Not Logged In; Sign In Bible Study See other Bible Study Articles Title: My pastors don’t believe Genesis. Should I leave my church? Source: creation.com URL Source: http://creation.com/my-pastor-doesnt-believe-in-genesis Published: Nov 15, 2014 Author: creation.com Post Date: 2014-11-15 19:23:45 by CZ82 Keywords: None Views: 78716 Comments: 223 My pastors don’t believe Genesis. Should I leave my church? Published: 15 November 2014 (GMT+10) We received the following question from a supporter in Australia who was surprised to discover the pastors of his church did not believe Genesis. Tas Walker talks about some of the issues that need to be considered. "Hi guys, I love your work, and have subscribed to the magazine and am continually encouraged by what you guys publish". "I have a question. I’m at a church which I’ve attended for the last 12 years (I’m now 30). I’ve since realized that none of the 3 pastors take a straightforward reading of Genesis, and at least 2 of the 3 (haven’t yet checked the 3rd) don’t even believe the Flood was global. I was wondering if you had some advice on what I should do about this. I have 2 kids and 1 on the way and I want them growing up in a biblically sound church. Apart from Genesis our church is excellent. Do you think leaving the church is too drastic? Love to get your feedback, thanks heaps"! Tas Walker replies: Thank you for your question about being part of a church where the pastors do not accept Genesis as written. Unfortunately that is more common these days than it should be. The decision as to which church you and your family should belong to depends on many different factors. Here are some issues for you to think and pray about. There is no such thing as a perfect church. In some areas the church may be really good for you but in others it may be totally unhelpful. So you have to balance a lot of factors in your life. There are usually good reasons in your life why you belong to the church you do, but churches change with time. E.g. sometimes the youth ministry is strong and other times it struggles. Your pastoral team will change and that will bring a different dynamic. So, perhaps by waiting you may see things improve. Church is not just about what you can get out of it, but it is a place where you can minister to others with your gifts. Your passion and experience with creation may be one area where you can be a blessing to others. In every church you will have to stand for and speak out the truth, and this can apply to many different issues. In this particular church the issue that you need to bring to others is the truth and foundation of Genesis. But speak the truth in love, with tact and in a winsome way. Look at this as an opportunity to share some wonderful truth that otherwise would not be shared. Rather than pushing creation in six days on people as if it is your hobby horse, use it to meet their needs as you become aware of them. Thus, you can present the truth to people along the following lines: “You may find this will help resolve some of your doubts and give you a firm foundation as you follow Christ.” I always take back issues of Creation magazine to church, as well as brochures and DVDs, which I freely give to people as the need arises. Speak the truth in love, with tact and in a winsome way. You may be influential in the thinking and life of your pastors. It’s important to love them and support them. Don’t be divisive or argumentative. Don’t be a one-issue person but show that you are interested in the wider ministry of the church and that your passion is to serve Jesus Christ and to help others come to Him and grow in Him. Here are two examples of how a person in the pews was pivotal in helping their minister come to the truth of Genesis: A young man in a church lent a book to his minister who was big enough to read the book and research the issue and who changed his mind (see Esa Hukkinen interview). This pastor, Owen Butt, believed Genesis was myth but changed his mind after attending a creation meeting, and that changed his whole approach to ministry. What this article does not say is that it was one of his congregation who fed him information and invited him to the creation meeting, where his whole way of thinking was changed (See Catching the vision). Make sure that your family is properly instructed in the truth of Genesis and creation by providing books, DVDs and other resources for them. Talk about the question and issues as they arise. However, note that it is really important to always speak in a positive way about your pastors and your church, especially with your children. If there is a critical spirit and an undermining of your pastors and your church in your home, that will poison things for your children. If the situation becomes very difficult for you, with say the pastors instructing you not to talk about the issue you may need to think about moving. In the same way, you could not accept a ministry offer from the pastors if they included a condition that you could not talk about creation in that ministry or in the church. So if there is a hardening and aggressiveness develops toward your position, say from the pulpit, you may need to think about moving. In our life’s entire journey it is important to seek the Lord and His will for our lives. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” James 1:5 God bless, Tas Walker Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread   Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Comments (1-183) not displayed.       .       .       . #184. To: GarySpFC (#181) The point being do you believe His testimony? Of course. I received and accpeted His testimony from the Holy Ghost as a gift from God. Now, I have answered every one of your questions, yet you do not answer mine. Why is that? SOSO  posted on  2015-01-16   18:40:38 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #185. To: Vicomte13 (#182) Perhaps if a man never sins.......then {he} might not die. Jesus never sinned yet He did die. But you really go along way around the barn to use logic not to come up the the most logical conclusion that God did indeed create Adam and Eve to be physically immortal. You can conclude this because God said to them that they would die if they ate the forbidden fruit. If God intend from the beginning that Adma and Eve to physically die at so time, presumably to be transformed into an after life with with Him, why would He have created the flesh to begin with? Yeah, I know God works in mysterious ways and we mortals can't know the Mind of God. As soon as any of us applies human logic, human reasoning to describe or understand God we fail in that endeavor and are left to our own devices. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-16   18:53:04 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #186. To: SOSO (#175) If anythnig you are certainly thorough. Yeh. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-16   19:07:31 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #187. To: TooConservative (#161) I have no doubt he's not religious he's just trying to make religious people out to be a hypocrites while trying to portray himself as a saint, talk about a legend in his own mind. “Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.” CZ82  posted on  2015-01-16   20:29:46 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #188. To: SOSO (#185) Jesus never sinned yet He did die. But you really go along way around the barn to use logic not to come up the the most logical conclusion that God did indeed create Adam and Eve to be physically immortal. You can conclude this because God said to them that they would die if they ate the forbidden fruit. Jesus was MURDERED, which is not the same thing as just dying from natural mortality. Adam and Eve, or you or I - being IMMORTAL doesn't mean we can't be killed by lightning or drowning or poisoning, or get cancer from exposure to plutonium. It would mean that our bodies would not age and wear out on their own, causing us to die of old age if nothing killed us sooner. And maybe if we didn't sin, we wouldn't age and die. This proposition is difficult to test, because we've sinned. One proposition that is not so difficult to test is that notion that "Original Sin" is the sentence to die because of Adam's sin, that Adam lost his immortality because he sinned, and that THAT is this "Original Sin". If THAT were really true, then if baptism washed away "Original Sin", then people who were baptized would be immortal, because their sins, including Original Sin, were all washed away. Truth is, we may very well STILL be immortal, each of us, right now (if we ever were), because Scripture does not say that Adam incurred inheritable Original Sin for eating the apple. All that God said is "If you eat of it, you will die." He did, and he did. Nothing says that Adam would not have eventually been killed by something else - probably not, because he was in God's garden and the animals were tame and the humans had dominion. Nothing says that they wouldn't have aged. Tradition says that, but Adam and Eve in the garden, and their original condition, is only a few sentences long. Nor does anything in the Scripture tell you that if a man is born and grows up and never sins, that he will die of natural causes. Nothing there says that man must die of natural causes. What God DOES say is that certain sins are deadly. He'll kill you for them. And he does. Lots of passages (none of them spoken by God directly) say that all men sin. That's probably right: all men DO, and there are at least two reasons for that; conditions are bad, and we do have active, aggressive and intelligent enemies: Satan and demons, aggressively pushing us to do bad things and die. Now, if Original Sin really meant the removal of immortality, then if baptism really removes Original Sin (as some men tell themselves), then the baptized man who never sins again is immortal...but when he commits a mortal sin, then he's back on the cycle of degradation and death. Want to live forever in the flesh? Then be perfect and don't sin and you very well might...except that somebody else will kill you, or an accident will intervene, but that's not mortality, that's getting killed. Mortality is wearing out and dying of natural causes that are not externally inflicted. Query as to whether terrible environmental conditions are themselves deadly things ways by which sinful men inadvertently kill other men. The problem with the concept of Original Sin, that Adam did something that taints the blood and causes us to die, is that God never said anything like that. To the Jews, he said that men were punished for THEIR sins, not the sins of their fathers. Of course that was a principle of Jewish law and doesn't directly apply to anybody else (but it shows you how God thinks). To us, he said that if you sin, God pays you with death. The good news is that it's just physical death, and just for a time. It's logical to assume that Adam and Eve were immortal, and that sin is what killed them. And it is equally logical to assume that the identical thing is true of every man or woman ever born. YOU were immortal, but you sinned, so now you're under a death sentence. Same with your wife, children, everybody. The case of Jesus tells us that an immortal sinless man can STILL be MURDERED - immortality is not superhuman. It is not logical to assume that Adam's sin created a taint in the blood that passes. It's not logical to assume it because God never said it. We die because we sin, not because he sinned. That's what God said, and THAT is logical. Now, it may be that that is just too unpleasant to bear: that you WERE immortal, but you yourself did the same thing that Adam did and went ahead and did what you know was forbidden, so now you're going to die. But on a straight read of Scripture, unpleasant or not, that's true. I'm not going to die because of Adam's sin. I'm going to die because of my own. Adam lived 930 years, sin and all, so maybe you or I will too. The REAL lasting effect of Adam's and Eve's sin is that they got kicked out of the natural habitat of man. So now, instead of living naked and eating fruit at ease like we're supposed to, we're living in really bad conditions that wear us down, with violence and death and disease all around us. Perhaps Adam was immortal IN EDEN, because there were no diseases IN EDEN, and perhaps aging and disease are things that are imposed by the bad environment, so perhaps the WAY that Adam's sin killed us all isn't because of some taint of the blood that gets washed off (makes no sense: baptism doesn't stop aging, disease and death, and it should if those things are the consequence of Mortal Sin, and Baptism washes away mortal sin). Perhaps the WAY that Adam's sin killed us is by getting us kicked out of our perfect habitat where we would live forever, into a hostile one that wears us out. We used to live in Paradise. But now we're wearing out in the disease infested jungle. THAT, and not mysterious taints in the blood, is probably why we wear out and die. But again, focusing on the flesh is kind of pointless. Flesh is grass. Be immortal, live "forever", and "forever" is the end of the world, in fire, so you get to burn to death at the end. Great. We can't hold onto it even if we're sinless Adam. And we're not. The good news is that we get it back. The bittersweet news is that we get it back, and then we get judged. The good news is that if we pass the test, we get to live on and on in the City of God. The bad news is that if we fail the test, we get thrown into the fire and killed again. The good news is that we already have the crib sheet and know how to pass. The bad news is that we have an insubordination problem. So, the bottom line is that we each need to get over our insubordination problem if we want to live until the end of times in God's City. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-16   20:56:56 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #189. To: Vicomte13 (#188) Jesus never sinned yet He did die. Jesus was MURDERED, which is not the same thing as just dying from natural mortality. Here's my accepted definition of mortality, one which I believe is widely accepted: mor·tal·i·ty noun: mortality; plural noun: mortalities 1. the state of being subject to death. What's yours? SOSO  posted on  2015-01-16   21:27:38 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #190. To: CZ82 (#187) I have no doubt he's not religious he's just trying to make religious people out to be a hypocrites while trying to portray himself as a saint, talk about a legend in his own mind. He's looking for cover by posing as a Christian or, more likely, he's trying to annoy us so much that we bozo him (again) so he can sneak around like a backstabbing stalker on the forum and badmouth us behind our backs while high-fiving his fellow-Canaries in forum mails. Pretty much one or the other. Tooconservative  posted on  2015-01-16   21:49:41 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #191. To: SOSO (#189) mor·tal·i·ty noun: mortality; plural noun: mortalities 1. the state of being subject to death. What's yours? I think that word immortality means what it does to biologists: "will not die of its own accord". I do not think, for example, that if Adam, before he sinned, were suddenly picked up and hurled into a lava pit, or thrown into the sun, or if he had a millstone tied around his neck and he were thrown into the deepest sea, that he would not drown. I think that he would have died. When biologists say that certain cells are immortal, what they mean is that they continuously regenerate, and they never wear out and die. They keep on going, keep on repairing themselves, and do not age. This is the problem with cancer cells, the thing that makes them so deadly: they're immortal. Your regular tissue cells are mortal: after a certain amount of time, they age, break down, degrade and die. But cancer cells don't do that. Cancer stills stay alive and vibrant. They keep on sucking energy and nutrients, and taking up space, and throwing out waste products, and reproducing, but they never wear out, age and die - they just keep on living. And so over time there are more and more and more of them, reproducing, but not dying. The regular tissue is dying. So the immortality of the cancer cells causes them over time to take the place and nutrients of the normal cell. But all a cancer cell does is eat and reproduce and keep on living, forever. It doesn't fulfill the FUNCTION that a cell in that organ should. It just LIVES and EATS and MULTIPLIES. Cancer cells are immortal. That doesn't mean that if you take a cancer cell and hit it with a laser, it won't cook and die. It just means that under normal conditions, it won't wear out and die. Adam and Eve had to eat. The first commandment they were given was to reproduce, but the second was to EAT. If immortality simply meant: will not die, no matter what, then they didn't have to eat. They could not eat, not drink, not breathe, go underwater to breathe, burn themselves up in fire and not be harmed, club each others brains out, leap off of cliffs, cut themselves open and play with their own entrails, swim in hot lava - do anything, and not die. That's what your definition of immortality would seem to permit. Not mine. Mine is the biological one: it won't age, wear out and die of its own accord. You can still kill it by removing its food, or air, or by physically destroying it. It just won't ever die of its own accord. We have different ideas about what immortality is. But it's pretty irrelevant, because the word immortality never appears in the Torah or in the Gospels. Man is never called immortal, and immortality is never taken away from man in the Scriptures either. That's a traditional gloss. I find the tradition to be unsupported by the text, and unneccessary because it explains nothing that requires explaining, so I don't accept it. It doesn't bother me that people do, but it seems pretty irrelevant to what God said. Our SPIRITS are immortal: they don't age or die. Body dies, spirit goes on. But even the spirit can and will be killed if God throws it into the Lake of Fire to utterly destroy it for good. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-16   23:37:36 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #192. To: Vicomte13 (#183) I saw your post clarifying your point. The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.”(Isaiah 40:8) redleghunter  posted on  2015-01-16   23:42:54 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #193. To: All (#191) (Edited) I find the tradition to be unsupported by the text, and unneccessary because it explains nothing that requires explaining, so I don't accept it. It doesn't bother me that people do, but it seems pretty irrelevant to what God said. One further point of clarification: what I mean is that I don't think that anything was taken from Adam and from us that Adam had before. Adam may very well have been immortal, and we likewise also may very well have been born immortal. God sentenced Adam to death for sin. That's why he died. He was immortal, unless he committed a sin, then God would execute him. What was true of Adam may very well be true of each of us. Like Adam, we too were born immortal. The Scripture does not speak of anything intrinsic to Adam that was taken away from mankind forever because Adam sinned. Scripture says that Adam died because he sinned. Scripture says that WE die because we sin (or, like Jesus, because we are murdered). The wages of sin is death. Scripture says that. So, Adam, and you and I, were all born immortal. Adam's sin did not take our immortality from us. Each man and woman is born capable of living forever and ever without ever wearing out of our own accord. We can be killed, but we will not die. Immortal. Every one of us. BUT the wages of sin is death. Commit a serious sin, a sin bringing death, and then we are sentenced to death, and our bodies wear out and we die, if we're not killed by something else first. The concept of "Original Sin" - that Adam was immortal, but sinned and so now WE'RE no longer immortal - but baptism washes away Original Sin: it's incoherent (because baptism does not make us immortal), and it's not in the Scripture, and it's a doctrine that serves no purpose other than to explain a question that Scripture doesn't ask. The better answer, on the text, is that each man is born immortal (in the biological sense), but that everybody wears out and dies because of the decision to commit mortal sin, and the wages of mortal sin is death. THAT fits Scripture and its inference. It also means that you were not born doomed to die any more than Adam was. You were born immortal. But you're going to die nevertheless, and the REASON you're going to die is the same reason Adam did: you committed mortal sin, and God has therefore sentenced you to death just exactly as he did Adam, for exactly the same reason. The only difference between you and Adam is that you know you will rise again and have a second chance. Of course, if you're just going to be judged AGAIN at the resurrection for the same sin, that seems a cruel trick. And this is why the mechanism for the forgiveness of sin is so very important: because THAT is the way to regain immortality when you get your life BACK. You live, you sin, you learn, you face your death penalty as the bitter penalty for what you did. You repent, you forgive others as Jesus said; if your forgiveness is perfect you die and await the resurrection in Paradise. If your forgiveness is imperfect, you pass into Gehenna and remain there "until the last penny [of debt to God for sin] is paid". Either way, you are resurrected, as are all, and then you face judgment. You died the first time because you sinned. Had you not sinned, you would have been immortal. But you did. Of course, just exactly like Adam and Eve, you had help. Eve didn't walk over and eat, she was TEMPTED to do it by Satan. Think back to your first mortal sin. You remember it. We all do. You knew it was wrong, that's why you hid it. You were lulled into it. Your eyes saw that the fruit was lucious, and you stretched forth your hand and took it knowing you shouldn't. This is an old refrain, God sees it run in every life, and on center stage with each of us when it happens is the serpent. God knows that we didn't commit the sin that killed us completely of our own accord. He knows we , like Eve, were pushed, tempted. The question is, then what? God is prepared to forgive us. But he doesn't change his mind about his opinion of the physics. He is just: you sinned, the wages of sin is death, I sentence you to death, and there will be no reprieve. And so we each lose our immortality, that we could have had, with our first mortal sin. Now we walk through the world as men on death row, which we are. We know we're doomed and that we will one day be taken and executed. The question is: what do we do with the time we have left? And Jesus has told us that if we use it properly, we can be forgiven our sins, go to Paradise, and pass the second judgment so that when we get our life back, we can walk sinless into the City of God and live there with God. But he also said that if we refuse to learn even from our punishment, and refuse to do what he said now that our eyes are opened and we know good from evil, and we know we've done evil and must die for it - if we don't avail ourselves of the chance at forgiveness, that we will die with the sins on our head, unforgiven, and will pay dearly in Gehenna for it all. And maybe be thrown into the lake of fire too, at the end. He would spare us that. We don't have much of a chance against Satan the first time around. We're young and dumb (and full of come), and we are purposely led astray by the Devil. And then we're sentenced to death for it. The Devil is sentenced to death for it too. We lose our immortality on this go-round, but because we are not wholly to blame - God knows that Satan, whom he also made, before he made man - pushed us to it. We didn't lead ourselves astray any more than Eve did: we were pushed. So God gives us a second chance, not at regaining immortality in THIS life, but with the hope of the next one. Indeed, death is a pretty trivial thing once one realizes that flesh is sloughed off and put back on again: the spirit is the thing. So, why doesn't God just destroy Satan and the demons? The question is asked again and again. Scripture doesn't answer directly, but we can discern why in Scripture from Satan's conversation with God in Job. God breathes out spirits - the angels first, then us. And the spirits are his companions. God refers to the angelic host as "us". He has prepared rooms in his city for us, to live with him. He loves us, we are told again and again, and he wants our company and the company of the angels. He's not done making us. He keeps making more and more of us. We have characters. He likes that. He makes us this way, and gives us sub-creative license, for the same reason he made stunning, useless things like the Grand Canyon and the massive nebulae: he likes it that way. God is a God of emotion, throughout the Scripture. Greek and Latin Stoics and Mathematicians have attempted to turn him into a passionless pagan God of logical principles, but he never revealed himself as anything other than an emotional and opinionated being all across Scripture. We're in his image - we look like him, and there is much of him in us. He likes our company, and we CAN understand this: we like the company of our children, even though they come from us and are younger and don't know as much and aren't as wise. He made up his mind to destroy Satan and the evil spirits eventually, but he tarries, for he has a relationship with them too, and they were made before us. Jesus, the Son of God, hates Satan with a passion that God the Father does not equally demonstrate when he speaks to him in the case of Job. The Father knows what he has to do, in the end, and he will do it. Jesus was destined to be a man and to suffer in the flesh the outrages that Satan does, and to see and feel it up close and personal. Jesus really HATES Satan. The Father tarries in destroying Satan, just as he tarried in killing Adam, and tarried in killing Cain, and tarried in killing bad King Ahab. And has tarried thus far in killing you. Bring on the end of the world, and with that comes the end of Satan. But it also means the end of the world, this beautiful, marred world that the Father made good and that he loves, and it means ceasing to create new sons and daughters in us, for the spirits don't marry and reproduce like we do. It means that the Father will not have any new spirits of men from this earth past that point. And he actually does love us and doesn't want to stop making us yet. So he tarries. He knows what Satan does, but he tarries in ending it just as he always tarries, because he still loves the world. And because the Father's relationship with Satan is not the same as the Son's. Satan will be no prodigal son who returns, but given time, God makes more men, and many of them return. If God ends time, that ends too. God doesn't change his mind about the physics. We see the Son and Satan interact in the Desert. It is not a kind interaction. It is cold and formal, two enemies confronting, Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau. Jacob and Esau were reconciled. Cain and Abel could never be because Cain's act was so irrevocable. We see the Father and Satan interact in Job, and that is a much friendlier, jesting interaction, a Father with a rogue son, who DOES obey him and who IS limited by him. The Scriptures make it clear that God himself sends devils to test men, and destroying angels. Jesus the Son will drive all that from his reign when he comes again in Glory, and he will do it swiftly. But he hasn't come nack yet, because the Father is not swift to move, he tarries. He tarries in carrying out the death sentence on us, and he tarries in carrying out on Satan too. And from Scripture we do see why, if we think about it. The Son is eager to see the Kingdom blossom and Satan destroyed. The Father will do it, eventually, but he is not so eager to destroy his beautiful world, to stop fathering new spirits, or to permanent end any of his creations. One day the Father will bring himself to do it, and to end forever his interactions with Satan, to doom Satan, and the world, and bring those he wants with him into the Kingdom. But he hasn't been ready yet. Revelation tells us that he's going to let Satan have his run first, to let Satan win, or nearly so, for a little while. Then he'll let the end come. He has never shown himself eager to cut things off. He let Adam live on for a long time. He let Cain live on. He let Moses live on even after Moses committed murder, and used him as a great Prophet, but finally took him in the end. He's going to let Satan have his moment and then it will be done. In good time. The Son is more impatient, and really hates the terrible things that Satan does to men. Of course, the Son has been in the flesh and knows just exactly how bad the bad is. And so it is no paradox, really, that the Father has decided to make the Son the judge of man. Because the Son knows what we go through, all of it. The Son hates Satan and would destroy him right now. The Father doesn't hate Satan the same way the Son does - there isn't hatred in Job - the Father somes sends Satan on errands. The Son does not. The Father knows what he needs to do, and he'll do it, but he tarries... And that's a good thing for us, because it gives us time to repent and prepare for execution and then living again. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-17   9:17:49 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #194. To: Vicomte13, redleghunter, GarySpFc, liberator (#191) I think that word immortality means what it does to biologists: "will not die of its own accord". So here we are in 2015 arguing over the definition of a contemporary word in a contemporary language about something that happened thousands, if not millions, of years ago. How ironic, no? SOSO  posted on  2015-01-17   13:28:39 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #195. To: SOSO (#194) So here we are in 2015 arguing over the definition of a contemporary word in a contemporary language about something that happened thousands, if not millions, of years ago. How ironic, no? Not really. We're discussing two things, really. The first is what exactly DID happen all those years ago. I don't see Scripture speaking of human mortality in terms of Adam. I see it saying that Adam sinned and therefore he died, and we sin and therefore we die. The second is the definition of a word - mortality - that doesn't appear in the original story. So, what I am seeing is that you (and you are not alone in this - I am not making an accusation here, you are simply stating the traditional belief) believe that Adam's death had something to do with ending his pre-existing immortality, and that what he did caused some sort of taint to pass into the whole world that causes the death of everybody (and everything) since. That's what you think it says. I think it says that Adam died because he sinned, and we die because we sin. I don't think that there is any LINK in the story between Adam's death and our death. I think that the only place where a link SEEMS to be made is in a writing of Paul, that says "By one man death came into the world", but that sentence is read to say more than it actually DOES say. So, I think that the hoary tradition is not actually IN Scripture, and therefore I ignore it in my own thinking. But because other men do think it, and think that their traditional story is in Scripture (it isn't), that it's Truth. Really what we're arguing about in this respect is tradition versus revelation. The tradition inserts the concept of mortality. Scripture can't help us here, because that whole concept and word isn't there. So, we're arguing about an extra-biblical word that is central to an extra- biblical tradition. To me, what this has to do with is human mythmaking, and nothing at all to do with revelation from God. That says what it says, and it doesn't talk about immortality or losing it, in those terms. So, our second discussion, about the meaning of the words "mortal" and "immortal" is, to you, a discussion of Scripture, because you think that concept is in Scripture. But to me it's just a discussion of the parameters of a modern word, because neither the word nor the concept in the tradition you believe is actually IN the Scripture. It's added. When you add things, you have to argue a lot, and no answer is possible, because the text is silent and there's nothing to consult. Not sure that there's anywhere to go with this. I suppose a brief synopsis of our two beliefs is in order, so that at least we're both sure that we're fairly discussing the other's view. To my eyes, Scripture says that God made Adam substantial, told him that if he ate the fruit of a particular tree he'd die. Adam ate the fruit, and God was true to his warning: Adam died. The wages of sin is death. I see each of us as having been born under the same deal, and each being sentenced to death. Of course, the bigger picture now that Jesus came, told us, and was resurrected proving it, is that death isn't as big a deal as it appears to be: life goes on in the spirit on the other side, and eventually we'll get bodies back. That's what Scripture says or what can be directly implied from it, to my eyes. To your eyes, as far as I can tell, is the traditional belief: man was immortal, then Adam sinned and man became mortal through inherited sin. This sin is inherited, and it is this "Original Sin" that baptism washes off in babies. Mary had to be immaculately conceived (conceived without Original Sin) so that she could bear Jesus, otherwise Jesus would contract this Original Sin from Mary, and Jesus had to be sinless. That's the logic and the tradition. It's not in Scripture, but it's how traditionalists have reasoned it out, in part to explain why infant baptism is "necessary". The same logic produced Limbo, as the indeterminate state of unbaptized babies. I see an error that then creates further logical conundra that have to be resolved by making up stories. Of course, Marian apparitions are said to resolve these issues. There are lots of real, medically documented healings at Lourdes, and Mary is officially reported to have told Bernadette Soubirous "I am the Immaculate Conception". If Mary really did say that to Bernadette, then the vast body of Lourdes healings would be God's post-Biblical, 19th and 20th (and 21at) Century direct revelation of the Immaculate Conception, with the truth proven by miracle. And that, in turn, would mean that an Immaculate Conception was needed, which would mean that the doctrine of Original Sin would be true, and the doctrine of Baptism washing it away would also likely be true. And that would all mean that my cosmology of sin and death are wrong. It would not mean that my logic is wrong, because my logic comes directly from what Scripture says and doesn't say. It would mean that Scripture is not the complete revelation of God, and that we have to rely on what God has revealed SINCE the First Century, also, as being of greater weight than what God said in Scripture, just as what Jesus revealed is of greater weight for us than what God said to Moses. The revelation nearest in time contains the most relevant information. So, from my perspective, the REAL question at the root of this is whether or not revelation stopped in the First Century and we have to rely on Scripture Alone, or does it continue to this day, which means that we have to take the miracles that God has done since, and place them as being of equal authority to the Bible, and of greater directive power, because they answer questions that the Bible doesn't, and tell us what to do. So, to me, ultimately, that is REALLY what the discussion is about: are there any revelations from God since the written book of Revelation? The answer to that question is "Of course there are". So, I study the Bible in sequence, and see layers of revelation in it, and I see the revelations have continued since then. And I notice that all of the concrete physical miracles that can be forensically examined are Christian, which means Christianity is the one true faith. And I notice that the nature of certain of the revelations demonstrate the truth of certain things: transubstantiation of the eucharist, the peculiar blessing of saints, the special status of Mary...and I notice that the only Christian denomination that incorporates the result of all of these revelations into its doctrine is the Catholic Church. And therefore I think that the Catholic Church is the one that has God in it fully. I recognize that if the evidence of the miracles is a lie, then the logic fails. Therefore, my faith in the Catholic Church reposes on the honesty of the scientific reporters who detailed the aspects of the miracles. However, because I have directly spoken with God, if the scientists are liars and the miracles are frauds, that would leave the Catholic Church a fraud, and reopen the question for me about the reliability of Scripture as perhaps the full revelation from God. But nothing can raise a doubt in my mind about the actual EXISTENCE of God, because I have directly experienced miracles, spoken with him, seen the Holy Dove, seen a demon, seen the City from below and afar, been plunged into the black Abyss, and felt the heat of the flames beneath the soles of my feet. So all of those things I know directly and empirically are true, and I know that anybody who doubts any of THOSE details is wrong. Curiously, I note that there is very, very little about the Black Abyss in Scripture. There are only hints. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-17   17:20:29 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #196. To: Vicomte13 (#195) So here we are in 2015 arguing over the definition of a contemporary word in a contemporary language about something that happened thousands, if not millions, of years ago. How ironic, no? Not really. Yes really. "The first is what exactly DID happen all those years ago. I don't see Scripture speaking of human mortality in terms of Adam. I see it saying that Adam sinned and therefore he died, and we sin and therefore we die." The generall accepted position of all the christian based sects is that thanks to Adam and Eve man is born with sin, namely Original Sin. Some sects believe that the newborn's soul is lost if it dies before it was bapitized. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-17   17:35:07 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #197. To: Vicomte13 (#195) So, our second discussion, about the meaning of the words "mortal" and "immortal" is, to you, a discussion of Scripture, because you think that concept is in Scripture. But to me it's just a discussion of the parameters of a modern word, because neither the word nor the concept in the tradition you believe is actually IN the Scripture. You are totally wrong. The word die is in introduce the very beginning of Scripture. It was introduced in Scipture by God Himself. If that isn't a direct reference to mortality by God nothing is. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-17   17:39:28 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #198. To: SOSO (#196) The generall accepted position of all the christian based sects is that thanks to Adam and Eve man is born with sin, namely Original Sin. Some sects believe that the newborn's soul is lost if it dies before it was bapitized. That is indeed the generally accepted belief of all of the major Christian denominations that I know of: Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, Baptists, etc. The universally accepted belief of all Christian denominations before 1500 included prayers to saints. Today, many Christian denominations abhor the practice. Consensus gentium is consensus gentium. I don't accord it any weight at all. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-17   22:27:38 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #199. To: SOSO (#196) The generall accepted position of all the christian based sects is that thanks to Adam and Eve man is born with sin, namely Original Sin. Some sects believe that the newborn's soul is lost if it dies before it was bapitized. That is NOT the belief of all Christians. John 3:19 states the basis of the Judgement is rejection of the light (Christ), because men love sin. Babies do not qualify as moral agents. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”h The Holy Bible: New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), Jn 3:19–21. “Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org/Bible GarySpFC  posted on  2015-01-17   22:44:05 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #200. To: SOSO (#197) (Edited) The word die is in introduce the very beginning of Scripture. It was introduced in Scipture by God Himself. If that isn't a direct reference to mortality by God nothing is. I don't dispute that. What isn't introduced is the word immortality, nor the assertion of it. "Do this and you'll die" is a warning. The rest of it - don't do this and you'll never die - and because you did it everybody after you will also die and they would have otherwise never died - that is quite a tarte-a- la-creme there. It doesn't follow. Indeed, the notion that there was a tree of life in the garden, the eating of which would instill something sounding like immortality, seems rather superfluous if Adam and Eve were already immortal. But really, what is all of this? It's building a whole vast edifice of doctrine on Inferences built on inferences. Apparently you see the traditional beliefs right there in Scripture. (I don't say "apparently" to be provocative. Rather, I say it because you've spoken about what "Christian sects" believe, but I haven't seen you say what you personally actually believe, or if you believe anything in particular. This is not a criticism. It's just that I can speak TO you and WITH you, and I am, but I can only speak OF sects and what you and I think sects believe. So, I think that I'm discussing these things with you because you believe certain things, some of which are traditional denominational beliefs, and I have different views of the issue, and we are in contention over the facts. That's what I think we're doing here.) I read it, and I certainly see the statements on which those traditional beliefs are constructed, but I don't find the actual statements there. I see less than you do there. I see a handful of facts and a great towering cream cake of inferences. I'll draw an inference myself from this conversation: this is where the trench line is going to settle on this particular subject: you see something, I see something different. We keep looking at it again and again, and we're still not seeing the same thing. I already shed a lot of Internet ink. I'm not sure that it does anybody any good for me to repeat myself over and over again. Perhaps it would help if we isolated the actual text about which we speak. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-17   22:58:41 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #201. To: GarySpFC (#199) That is NOT the belief of all Christians. I am aware of that. So what? That only adds to the weight of my contention about the imperfections of the written Bible. Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. " Man had no sense of good and evil until Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. One of the consequences of that was that God condemned them to death. The implication is that if they had obeyed Him they would have lived in their mortal state forever. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-17   23:42:46 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #202. To: Vicomte13 (#200) "Do this and you'll die" is a warning. It is more than that. Christian notion of original sin. It explicitly appears first in 2 Esdras 7:118 (a book of the Apocrypha) and was developed by Paul who said, “Sin came into the world through one man” and “One man’s trespass led to condemnation for all” (Romans 5:12, 18 in the New Testament). Tag Adam, you're it. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-17   23:52:05 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #203. To: SOSO (#201) I am aware of that. So what? That only adds to the weight of my contention about the imperfections of the written Bible. Your unbelief in the face of Scripture amazes me. “Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org/Bible GarySpFC  posted on  2015-01-18   9:53:13 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #204. To: SOSO (#202) Christian notion of original sin. It explicitly appears first in 2 Esdras 7:118 (a book of the Apocrypha)... I am sitting here with my Orthodox Study Bible open to 2 Esdras, Chapter 7. There are 27 verses in this chapter, and it's all about Ezra's arrival in Jerusalem. I'm sure that you have a specific document in mind, but it's not 2 Esdras 7:118, because there is no such line. Please check the cite again. When you say "Apocrypha", do you mean the Deuterocanonical works accepted by Catholics and Orthodox as canonical, that are called "Apocrypha" by Protestants, or do you mean the Pseudepigraphical words traditionally called "apocryphal" by the Catholics and Orthodox, but not treated as canonical by anybody? If the latter - if nobody calls the work you're citing sacred - then we're not talking about Scripture. If the Catholics or Eastern Orthodox call it part of the Canon, then certainly we should consider it. I simply can't consider the text you've suggested, because it doesn't exist. So please check your cite and come back to me. What you've cited from Paul is the place whence comes the idea of Original Sin as inherited, but what Paul wrote does not in fact say that. Read him again, carefully: what he is saying is that sin came into the world because of Adam. First, he's wrong. Sin first comes into the world because of the serpent. The serpent lies to Eve. Neither Adam nor Eve had yet eaten the forbidden fruit, but the serpent was right there in the world, and committing a mortal sin - lying is a mortal sin (see Jesus including it twice in the list of mortal sins on the last page of the Scriptures, and elsewhere condemning lying). So Paul's flat statement - sin came into the world because of Adam - is false. The first sin in the Bible is the serpent's lie. The first human sin was not committed by Adam. It was committed by Eve. Eve told the serpent that God had warned both her and her husband not to eat of the tree, or even touch it, or they'd die. She knew what she was doing. The serpent tricked her with a lie - a sin - and she sinned, and by her sin, she incurred the death promised to her. Adam's sin of eating the fruit was the THIRD sin that came into the world, and it was the same sin that Eve already committed. And he and Eve were sentenced to die for that. And we know explicitly that Adam died because Scripture tells us. We can assume Eve did also. Now, if we are more careful about reading the text and understanding the word "adam", which is ancient Hebrew name for the human SPECIES, as well as the specific name of the first male (sort of like calling your dog "Dog"), and if we read Paul's word "anthropos", which we translate as "man" as the equivalent of "adam", which is to say "human", then we can save part of what Paul said: "Sin came into the world because of one man"...and that man's name was Eve. Of course we can't save all of it, because sin did not come into the world because of Eve. Eve's sin came second. The serpent's lie came before that. Sin came into the world because of the serpent. Eve fell to temptation from the serpent, and Adam foolishly listened to his wife. Any way you dice it, what Paul writes here makes for a good sermon, but it is factually incorrect. Paul will go on to press the point of Jesus as a second Adam, who undoes the sin of the first. And the Church will go on to press the point of Mary as the second Eve, who says to God "Thy will be done" and allows herself to become impregnated by the Holy Spirit. While that's all great sermonizing and powerful metaphor, it is factually inaccurate, at least as far as what Paul said. Paul's errors begin with the first statement: sin came into the world because of one man. False. The first (recorded) sin in the world was the serpent's lie. They continue with Paul saying that it was because of one man. False. It was a woman not a man. Adam's sin was the third sin in Scripture, not the first. One can save the second point for Paul if we admit that Eve was the man by which sin came into the history of mankind, and we can save Paul's first point is we decide that "the world" just means "the world of men", and not the planet. If we insist that the world means the planet, and that "one man" means Adam and not Eve, then Paul made two factual errors in his proposition, and we only need read farther out of interest and out of respect for a good man whose rhetoric had carried him beyond the facts. To save Paul, I understand "world" to mean "world of mankind" - and not planet - (because what Paul says is false if it means "planet"), and I understand "man" to mean "human", not "male human" (because, again, what Paul says is false if he means Adam, as it was Eve who brought sin into the world of men). Now, let's look at Paul's conclusion: one man's tresspass led to condemnation for all. You've excised quite a bit of language of Paul's right in this section that rather makes the point I have made, but I'll stick with what you have presented because that's what interests you. There is no doubt that one man's tresspass - that would be Eve eating the fruit at the serpent's behest - led to condemnation for all. But you're reading into it that death passed through the blood as an inheritance. Rather, look at what the story says: the first adams were cast out of the garden into a world whose ground was cursed. No longer was life easy. Now it was very hard, and man was designed for a life of ease eating fruit from a tree. Now, things were very hard, very nasty, very spare. The first ancestors were easily tricked by the serpent. The serpent's still there, but now people aren't walking every afternoon side by side with God. Now they're dealing in a world of misery, scarcity, work that is harder than what we're designed for, violence, imposition...of course all of that presses man after man after man to sin, in lust and greed and desperation. The conditions are bad, and the bad conditions rot the fruit. This is because we're not in the Garden. In the Garden, it took the serpent directly to tempt Eve, and Adam's weakness at listening to his wife instead of recalling what God had said, that cost them both their home and their ease. Outside of the Garden, in the sweaty, nasty, dangerous world where we eat blood, there's no fruit easily hanging on the trees, we're always in danger, we don't need the serpent to tempt us directly to fall, the sheer badness of what we live in and with tempts us to cut corners and fall. And when we do that, we are condemned, for the wages of sin is death. So yes, one man: Eve, by her act, did indeed LEAD TO the condemnation of all, by getting us tossed out of the Garden, and by estranging us from the daily walks with God. Paul is right, read right. The tradition doesn't read him right. It reads things in that are not there. It turns a discussion of mankind into the physical planet and then raises questions about whether earthworms died before Adam ate the apple. (And yes, I purposely used the word "APPLE" there about the fruit, to make the point. Apple is the traditional gloss, but Scripture doesn't tell us that. It's trivial, but people get used to saying "the apple", and then the apple gets reified, and people who don't know better think it's the apple. Then we're talking about apples. The same thing has happened with what Paul wrote here.) It reads "man" as "male" and thinks "Adam", when it should read "human" and think "Eve", because she was the first human to sin. And then tradition goes into contortions and backflips to say no, it's ADAM that we're talking about...because Adam was male, and people traditionally liked the idea of male leadership (even into bad things), and to be able to draw the metaphoric pairing with Jesus. (And all this even though we're made in God's image, male and female.) There is a lot of heavy seas of tradition here, but it's all added on tinsel to what Paul said. Paul can be read to be saying what happened: sin came to humans because of one human - Eve, and Eve's tresspass did indeed lead to condemnation for all: first for Adam, because she led him into sin, then for the rest of mankind by getting expelled from the Garden and away from the daily walks with YHWH in the afternoon. Estranged, in a tough planet with a lying serpent slithering around in it tricking people into doing bad things, men sins and sins and sins and sins. And that is how the sin of one person - Eve - LED TO the condemnation of all: by creating the conditions in which it's inevitable. Pretty clear, and doesn't do violence to the text OR to reality. But insisting that physical death of anything on the PLANET came from the sin of the male, Adam, because ADAM brought sin into the world...well, that's a traditional read of Paul - and Paul may have even been thinking that - but that is factual false and directly contradicts Scripture, so it's not sustainable. The tradition is false. What Paul said is true, if you read it right. Read him wrong, and he's very easy to misunderstand and be led astray. The worst place this happens is by listing to Paul in Romans and understanding him to say that the only thing that matters is what you believe about God in your head, when Jesus said over and over again, including on the last page of the Bible from Heaven, that men are judged on their DEEDS. Tradition will get you to the main things you need to know. But it frequently goes down blind allies on factual details. Scripture does conflict with itself sometimes. Other times it only appears to. In the case of Paul and Original Sin, it only appears to. The Tradition reads three words wrong, and creates a doctrine that is not there, that is contrary to fact, and that in turn leads to a bunch more crazy doctrines and speculations that have no basis in the text at all, or anywhere else - they're just logically "necessary" for the precedent to be true. The first recorded sin was the serpent's lie. The first sinner was Eve. Eve LED Adam to sin, and their sin LED to the expulsion from the Garden and loss of personal walks with God in the spiritual part of the day, and the conditions outside of the Garden plus the serpent/Satan doing his work among mend stumbling around without walking with God led men to each individually sin, and therefore die. That's why we age and die. We inherited a broken world because of sin, and what led to all of that was Eve listening to the serpent and breaking God's dietary law. God doesn't change his mind often, and he didn't then. We do indeed pay for it, and we sin because of it, it LED to our sins - but Eve didn't CAUSE us to sin, she got our family evicted from Paradise and got her family - us - dumped out into a ghetto where the temptations are awful and everybody falls. That does not mean that God put a taint in our blood from that point on, an Original Sin, that makes us die, but that is magically washed away by baptism, which is why babies need to be baptized, because otherwise if they die they still have "Original Sin" and God may reject them from Heaven. That's all made up out of wholecloth. Scripture says none of that - not a word of it. There's that quote of Paul's, which properly read is not offensive, but which read "traditionally" has two falsehoods in the first clause of the first sentence (demonstrating that the traditional read is false). And there's the fact that baptized babies, washed from of their Original Sin, often die anyway. We have to be Baptized, to have our Christian mikvah, because Jesus said it was necessary. He did not explain why. We have tried to explain why. We've made up a story. It fails on the details. All we know is that we do need to be baptized. We are not told we need to choose it, and we are not told what it does. We are told JUST DO IT, pretty much like the Hebrews were told to follow the various cleanliness practices without any explanation as to why. Just do it. WE know, now, that those practices protect from disease, and God DID say that if the Hebrews did everything he said (not just in those practices) he wouldn't inflict disease on them like he did in Egypt. So WE know, with germ theory, part of what God was doing and the mechanism he was using. We ALSO know that baptism is part of what we have to do to be pleasing to God. We know that because he told us. He did not tell us what it does, or why. Nor did he tell us that he does not retain the discretion to give favorable judgment to faraway people who never heard of baptism. Perhaps he baptizes them himself, with the rain. One thing is for sure, he did NOT say that it had anything to do with "making a choice" or "washing away an original sin". Those are the traditions of Christians, and they are pure fantasies made up from nothing...other than maybe later divine revelations that are not in the Scriptures. So, we've spoken of Paul. If you stick with Tradition, then you've actually found three gross factual errors in the Bible: glaring ones. If you read "world" as "planet" as opposed to "mankind", then you have Adam committing the first sin in the world, bringing sin into the world. But his was the third. People who look for Bible contradictions can have a field day with this sentence of Paul's, but only if the traditional interpretation is stipulated. However, the traditional interpretation is foolish and based on nothing, and ought to be discarded in favor of the truth, which is what Genesis tells us happened, and then read Paul in that light. It CAN be done, without twisting Paul's text, and without contradiction. So, that's what Paul means, and the conflict disappears. Give me the right 2 Esdras cite and we can explore that. Until then, I will repeat: we die because we sin, or because we're killed by somebody ELSE'S sin. Abel had just pleased God, and Jesus didn't sin - they were MURDERED, by other people who thereby drowned in their own sin and cast their spirits into Gehenna, and probably after the resurrection and judgment, into the Lake of Fire. In Gehenna it may be possible to pay the price for a lie, but the price for murdering the Son of God is probably inexpiable. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-18   12:58:07 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #205. To: Vicomte13 (#204) I am sitting here with my Orthodox Study Bible open to 2 Esdras, Chapter 7. There are 27 verses in this chapter, and it's all about Ezra's arrival in Jerusalem. I relied on the link for that information. Frankly I never heard of Esdras prior to reseaching that link. Is not the citation of Paul correct? SOSO  posted on  2015-01-18   19:02:43 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #206. To: GarySpFC (#203) Your unbelief in the face of Scripture amazes me. Not as much as your belief that the present day translations of Scripture are perfect, each and every version of them, amazes me. So you do believe that the Earth is only a few thousand years old after all. Suffice it to say I have belief in Scripture but not as a perfect document in which every qword is to be taken literally as exact respresentation of historical physical fact. Yet I still have an abiding belief in God. Go figure. We should leave this aspect of our dialogue where it is. Though you haven't answered my questions in the past I will ask again. When does someone first come to faith? For those born into a Christian family whether quite religious church goers or not, generally when does one first hear about God and Jesus? From who? How? At what point does the Holy Ghost come to that person? At that point exactly what does that person know of Scripture? Hint: When do they celebrate their first Christmas? SOSO  posted on  2015-01-18   19:13:51 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #207. To: SOSO (#205) Is not the citation of Paul correct? It gives the basics, yes. I wrote a lot about what Paul said, above. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-18   20:58:50 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #208. To: Vicomte13 (#5) Status: Logged In; Check Pings Bible Study See other Bible Study Articles Title: My pastors don’t believe Genesis. Should I leave my church? Source: creation.com URL Source: http://creation.com/my-pastor-doesnt-believe-in-genesis Published: Nov 15, 2014 Author: creation.com Post Date: 2014-11-15 19:23:45 by CZ82 Keywords: None Views: 60571 Comments: 207 My pastors don’t believe Genesis. Should I leave my church? Published: 15 November 2014 (GMT+10) We received the following question from a supporter in Australia who was surprised to discover the pastors of his church did not believe Genesis. Tas Walker talks about some of the issues that need to be considered. "Hi guys, I love your work, and have subscribed to the magazine and am continually encouraged by what you guys publish". "I have a question. I’m at a church which I’ve attended for the last 12 years (I’m now 30). I’ve since realized that none of the 3 pastors take a straightforward reading of Genesis, and at least 2 of the 3 (haven’t yet checked the 3rd) don’t even believe the Flood was global. I was wondering if you had some advice on what I should do about this. I have 2 kids and 1 on the way and I want them growing up in a biblically sound church. Apart from Genesis our church is excellent. Do you think leaving the church is too drastic? Love to get your feedback, thanks heaps"! Tas Walker replies: Thank you for your question about being part of a church where the pastors do not accept Genesis as written. Unfortunately that is more common these days than it should be. The decision as to which church you and your family should belong to depends on many different factors. Here are some issues for you to think and pray about. There is no such thing as a perfect church. In some areas the church may be really good for you but in others it may be totally unhelpful. So you have to balance a lot of factors in your life. There are usually good reasons in your life why you belong to the church you do, but churches change with time. E.g. sometimes the youth ministry is strong and other times it struggles. Your pastoral team will change and that will bring a different dynamic. So, perhaps by waiting you may see things improve. Church is not just about what you can get out of it, but it is a place where you can minister to others with your gifts. Your passion and experience with creation may be one area where you can be a blessing to others. In every church you will have to stand for and speak out the truth, and this can apply to many different issues. In this particular church the issue that you need to bring to others is the truth and foundation of Genesis. But speak the truth in love, with tact and in a winsome way. Look at this as an opportunity to share some wonderful truth that otherwise would not be shared. Rather than pushing creation in six days on people as if it is your hobby horse, use it to meet their needs as you become aware of them. Thus, you can present the truth to people along the following lines: “You may find this will help resolve some of your doubts and give you a firm foundation as you follow Christ.” I always take back issues of Creation magazine to church, as well as brochures and DVDs, which I freely give to people as the need arises. Speak the truth in love, with tact and in a winsome way. You may be influential in the thinking and life of your pastors. It’s important to love them and support them. Don’t be divisive or argumentative. Don’t be a one-issue person but show that you are interested in the wider ministry of the church and that your passion is to serve Jesus Christ and to help others come to Him and grow in Him. Here are two examples of how a person in the pews was pivotal in helping their minister come to the truth of Genesis: A young man in a church lent a book to his minister who was big enough to read the book and research the issue and who changed his mind (see Esa Hukkinen interview). This pastor, Owen Butt, believed Genesis was myth but changed his mind after attending a creation meeting, and that changed his whole approach to ministry. What this article does not say is that it was one of his congregation who fed him information and invited him to the creation meeting, where his whole way of thinking was changed (See Catching the vision). Make sure that your family is properly instructed in the truth of Genesis and creation by providing books, DVDs and other resources for them. Talk about the question and issues as they arise. However, note that it is really important to always speak in a positive way about your pastors and your church, especially with your children. If there is a critical spirit and an undermining of your pastors and your church in your home, that will poison things for your children. If the situation becomes very difficult for you, with say the pastors instructing you not to talk about the issue you may need to think about moving. In the same way, you could not accept a ministry offer from the pastors if they included a condition that you could not talk about creation in that ministry or in the church. So if there is a hardening and aggressiveness develops toward your position, say from the pulpit, you may need to think about moving. In our life’s entire journey it is important to seek the Lord and His will for our lives. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” James 1:5 God bless, Tas Walker Post Comment Private Reply Bookmark Ignore Thread Edit Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest #1. To: CZ82 (#0) If you don't believe Genesis. Then what exactly would be the reason for Jesus? To redeem us from what? A K A Stone posted on 2014-11-15 22:03:18 ET Reply Trace Private Reply Edit #2. To: A K A Stone, BobCeleste, liberator (#1) The article's title is simple to answer. Ask the pastor if he supports homosexual 'marriage.' Ask the pastor if he supports human life beginning at conception. Ask the pastor if he supports church members divorcing and remarriage and remaining in the assembly. Ask the pastor if he believes God through Moses literally parted the Red Sea; if God through Joshua made the walls of Jericho collapse. (If they answer all of the above affirmatively, then ask why not believe Genesis is literally true) If they have problems answering the above questions find another assembly. If the pastor happens to be a woman, then you don't even have to ask the questions, leave immediately. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name (John 1:12) redleghunter posted on 2014-11-15 23:41:56 ET Reply Trace Private Reply Edit #3. To: redleghunter (#2) I concur with all of your litmus test (but conditionally on one): Ask the pastor if he supports church members divorcing and remarriage and remaining in the assembly. Sometimes "Condition: RED" can't be helped. Condoning divorce is one thing; however what's done is done in some cases. I don't know if shunning in that case makes sense to me for a hungry, repentant believer. Liberator posted on 2014-11-16 10:23:03 ET Reply Trace Private Reply Edit #4. To: CZ82 (#0) In our life’s entire journey it is important to seek the Lord and His will for our lives. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” James 1:5 Like it. Liberator posted on 2014-11-16 10:24:13 ET Reply Trace Private Reply Edit #5. To: A K A Stone (#1) If you don't believe Genesis. Then what exactly would be the reason for Jesus? To redeem us from what? There is an answer to your question, and I am willing to answer it for you. There is a completely different way to read the Bible. The traditional way, which came out of traditional Catholic and Orthodox thinking, itself came out of traditional Jewish thinking. After all, all 12 Apostles and Paul were Middle Eastern Jews, from the land of Israel and its environs, by birth and culture. Jesus was too, of course, but he is different because of who his Father was and the special knowledge and power he had. The traditional way of seeing it saw the Christian Church as the continuation of the Jewish revelation. While this is certainly true, the key features of it where that the Apostles and the traditionalists did not simply valorize the revelations of God, but also the particular historical and cultural achievements of Israel. They understood God's plan of salvation in a certain way. To follow the traditional thread of thinking, God made man, man fell, and this fall, this original sin, left an imprint of sin on the character of each man. Because of this sin, man could not attain heaven after death. In order to save man, eventually, God chose one people, the Hebrews, and gave them The Law. The Jews waxed and waned, and did not follow the law perfectly. So God sent Jesus to bring the whole world into salvation. Under the Jewish law, the blood of animals released sin, but could not completely release a man of all of his sins. But with Jesus, baptism wipes away original sin, and the blood of Christ's sacrifice is the final, perfect lamb of the Jewish sacrificial cycle, which takes away the sins of the whole world (and not just the Jews). So, through adoption, the world are all Messianic Jews. The reason for Jesus, under the traditional view, is to redeem us from our sins as laid out under the Jewish law. The assumption is that a perfect adherence to the Jewish Law would have led to salvation, but nobody could do it, and so Jesus was sent to do it for everybody. That's the traditional view, and that view depends on the existence of Adam and Eve as literally described in order to establish the Original Sin that needs to be wiped away. That's the traditional read and understanding. It's what Paul understood he was doing. There is a very different way to read the same text. I was looking for something else but came across this. According to what you wrote here and what you said today about the Bible being a lie or however you phrased it. So according to this you are not even a Catholic. A K A Stone  posted on  2018-03-22   16:59:38 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #209. To: Liberator, vxh (#208) That was for you also. A K A Stone  posted on  2018-03-22   17:00:11 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #210. To: A K A Stone (#208) You don’t understand what the word “if” means, do you? You are not able to process a hypothetical argument and understand its purpose, are you? As far as me not being a Catholic, you’re in no position to judge such a thing. You don’t understand Catholicism, and you’re unable to step out of your rigid literalism to understand anything from a different perspective. All you do is be a blundering battering ram, beating at the same point over and over, and you don’t see or comprehend when it has been addressed. You and VxH just keep right in hammering away at some point that’s already been asked and answered a dozen times, like a woodpecker smashing it’s beak again and again on an iron door Vicomte13  posted on  2018-03-22   21:52:14 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #211. To: Vicomte13 (#210) You don't answer things 100 times. You Dodge and run. Why is it not hypocritical to say God doesn't heal nada doesn't happen. Then you say he heals you. Oh now I'm being mean again asking a question you will not answer. Yes I am in a position to say you are not a Catholic. Because you said you don't have what you refer to as the traditional view. You said that is the Catholic view. A K A Stone  posted on  2018-03-22   23:25:20 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #212. To: A K A Stone (#211) Why is it not hypocritical to say God doesn't heal nada doesn't happen. Then you say he heals you. It is not hypocritical at all. What I am saying is this: God saved me by a miracle. He does that for people. Jesus did it with Lazarus. But he's not going to save us from eventual death. Sooner or later our time comes. Lazarus was raised by Jesus, but he's not still walking the earth. Eventually God kills us all. He decides the where, when and how. He also decides when he will extend the grace of a miracle. It's all in his hands. That's not hard to understand. Vicomte13  posted on  2018-03-23   9:00:06 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #213. To: A K A Stone (#211) Yes I am in a position to say you are not a Catholic. Because you said you don't have what you refer to as the traditional view. You said that is the Catholic view. You're not. You're just petty and bitchy. I never run, I get tired of saying the same things and being misunderstood - my English is pretty plain. And I get tired of your and VxH's efforts at bad lawyering. You don't know what Catholicism is or what we believe. You throw a lot of shit out there which is what your little brand of Protestantism believes that Catholics believe, but what you are saying is ignorant nonsense, and you're unteachable. You're CONVICTED in your ignorant nonsense, and always nasty about it, in post after post. Catholicism is not like some little pastpr-centered Church, where everybody has to believe the same narrow set of doctrines. Catholicism spans the world, and has lots of different local practices, focuses, saints feast days, different things emphasized. The real core beliefs are contained in the Creed, but you won't listen to that. You burrow into some doily design on the Pope's hat on some day and really think that this is of significance to Catholics. The Pope is nothing like your local pastor. You hang on your guy's every word, and if he puts you out of his church, you're out. You pay his salary. To Catholics, the Pope is a very distant administrative leader who tries to set a tone. Some Catholics probably do focus in on the Pope and what he has to say. To most Catholics, the Pope is as distant as the Secretary General of the UN. It is not for YOU to say who is a Catholic and who is not, or who is a good Catholic and who is a bad. It's not really for ANYBODY to say that. The Catholic Church is a much broader thing than the narrow, everybody-watching- everybody-else doctrinally focused Protestant church you are used to. A key difference: I am completely uninterested in your church and its doctrines. I don't care what you believe, how you practice your faith, what you do. It doesn't offend me that you do it differently, believe differently, think different things about the Bible or Jesus or God. It is truly irrelevant to me and my life. There is literally nothing more useless in this world than another man's religious beliefs and doctrines. The reverse is not true. You people are obsessed with what we Catholics are doing. It's all you talk about when you attack me. You have weird, warped ideas about it all, and you present a very mangled view of Catholicism when you speak about it, but speak about it you do, constantly. If it's not Mary, it's about some doily on one of the Pope's hats. You care a whole lot more about what the Pope happens to be wearing on some day than any Catholic in the world besides his personal valet. It's evidence of a deeply superstitious mindset on your part. "Look! The Pope is wearing a symbol that looks vaguely like some symbol from ancient Somewhere-istan - clearly this is demonic and paganism creeping in. It's just such utter nonsense, like a Jack Chick cartoon. But there you people are, out there obsessing about strange little irrelevant details. You're straining out the gnat and swallowing the camel. And you're just so very nasty about it, all the time. Your religion is hateful and repugnant, and you act like illiterates. Your brains don't seem to be able to follow obvious logic such as "God saves somebody's like a miracle today...but someday God's going to take that person's life." You actually have to have everything spelled out for you, letter by letter, and you pretend that the Bible does that, but it doesn't. This causes you to go berserk and attack other people who have not lapsed into the strange errors you have. You and VxH are really peas in a pod in this regard. Talking to either of you is like talking to a mule. I don't run. I just realize that it's futile. It's like arguing with drunks. You could stop it. You could just ask questions and hear the answers, and if there's something you don't understand, ask for clarification. You never do that, though. You ask, I answer, and you viciously attack as you act your next question. Essentially, to converse with you or VxH about religion is to have to accept getting spat upon every single time you respond. In other words, you talk like 13 year old boys. I don't ask you about your religion, because I really don't care what you believe, what you practice, what you do. I only attack yours BECAUSE you attack mine and me so continuously. Why do you do this? It's a giant waste of time. If you're attempting to evangelize, you're considerably less effective than the Jehovah's Witnesses. They at least try to be nice when they knock on the door. You and VxH make no pretense of being nice. It's a waste of time to try to convert me anyway. The seal of baptism was put on me as a baby, and it was under that seal that God saved my life, and speaks to me. I'm always going to dance with the one who brung me. I don't mind talking about religion, and I'm not a scold. But when folks like you and VxH presume to scold me all the time, and say mean things to me personally and then say things that are just ignorant, my patience wears out. You're blind to how very obnoxious you are. Why don't you and VxH form a new denomination. You can call yourself the "JERKS FOR JESUS". Vicomte13  posted on  2018-03-23   9:34:16 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #214. To: Vicomte13 (#213) (Edited) Catholicism is not like some little pastpr-centered Church, where everybody has to believe the same narrow set of doctrines. Awesome. You idiots can all believe something different, contradict each other and you're all right. You don't follow Christ you follow the traditions of the church that helped the Nazis. Was you pios pope perfect and infallible when they took the Jews from Vatican hill and murdered them. Believe what you want you are full of contradictions. You didnt raise anything from the dead thru gods power. You were tripping on acid or you're just a liar. Does your daughter believe you raised lizards and bugs from the dead? You're self deluded. Also you lied in an earlier post when you didn't answer about your blatant hypocritical lie. A K A Stone  posted on  2018-03-23   10:13:21 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #215. To: Vicomte13 (#213) You're blind to how very obnoxious you are. Why don't you and VxH form a new denomination. You can call yourself the "JERKS FOR JESUS". Why don't you follow Christ instead of the antichrist faggot loving pope sinner. A K A Stone  posted on  2018-03-23   10:15:55 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #216. To: Vicomte13 (#213) You don't believe the Bible so you will never know the truth. Lizards and bugs lol. Frickin idiot. A K A Stone  posted on  2018-03-23   10:17:32 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #217. To: Vicomte13 (#213) don't ask you about your religion, because I really don't care what you believe, what you practice, what you do. I only attack yours BECAUSE you attack mine and me so continuously. Why do you do this? It's a giant waste of time. Because I want you to get it right and not believe some man made Catholic bullshit. Also you don't believe only the words in red in the Bible. Because it never says anything about a pope or praying to a non virgin dead oerson A K A Stone  posted on  2018-03-23   10:29:02 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #218. To: A K A Stone (#216) You don't believe the Bible so you will never know the truth. Lizards and bugs lol. Frickin idiot. And here you deny a fact that I experienced directly - and you expect me to follow you? It was a baby mouse and an anole lizard. Vicomte13  posted on  2018-03-23   14:51:41 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #219. To: A K A Stone (#217) Also you don't believe only the words in red in the Bible. Because it never says anything about a pope or praying to a non virgin dead oerson It does: Peter was the first Pope. And it does: we are asked to pray for each other, and the dead are not really dead at all. Vicomte13  posted on  2018-03-23   14:52:45 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #220. To: A K A Stone (#215) Why don't you follow Christ instead of the antichrist faggot loving pope sinner. I do. Why don't you follow Christ and stop bearing false witness? Vicomte13  posted on  2018-03-23   14:53:23 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #221. To: A K A Stone (#217) Because I want you to get it right and not believe some man made Catholic bullshit. And you think that telling a man that his experiences dealing directly with God make him a "frikkin' idiot", and that the religion he was born into, which God apparently didn't mind when he talked to me, is bullshit, is the way to do that? Truth is, your religion is false, because it cannot accept things that happened to be directly. Truth is, as a spokesman for your religion, you fail at persuading me of anything, because you're calling me an idiot and demanding that I deny the evidence of my own eyes. What you do is utterly ineffective. You sound to me exactly like a Muslim, or a Jehovah's Witness, or a Southern Baptist. You firmly believe something, and that means that you know everything, so you tell me white is black and black is white, and I am supposed to see you as a teacher? Trouble is, God DID raise two dead animals in my hands, and has talked to me, and did heal my broken neck in that lake. No mere words of some other man are ever going to be persuasive, and when that man mocks what God has wrought TO ME and WITH ME, what that man shows me is that he doesn't know the truth, and that his religion is false. I know my God, up front and personal, and I can show a great deal of him to anybody. You ridicule things I have seen and done directly, and ridicule me for being so completely unconcerned about the ravings and insults of ignorant men like you, that I freely and openly talk about God raising a dead mouse in my hands. YOUR God would never do such a thing. But mine DID. Which means that YOUR God does not really exist - he's a figment of your imagination. By my God is real. Which is why I'm so completely uninterested in your worthless religion. It's false. You don't even know what I know, and you insult it, and YOU expect to teach ME? You keep coming at it, as though you have something to teach. You know nothing. You've seen nothing. And you've spoken, as THOUGH you had authority, to deny things that I have directly experienced. Know who sounds like an idiot to me? You. Know what makes you more of an idiot? You persist In these futile and ignorant attacks. See, I keep saying "This is dumb, let's stop", but you keep ringing the doorbell like a Jehovah's Witness, and spouting the same absurd nonsense because YOU believe it, and think I should too. But what you believe is obviously false, because it cannot contain those things that I KNOW DIRECTLY AND HAVE DIRECTLY EXPERIENCED. If your religion cannot handle my truths, it's bullshit. I don't generally insult people's religions UNLESS those religions get aggressive. The problem with Islam is that it's aggressive. The problem with your religion is that it is aggressive, mean spirited, and cannot handle the truth. Why, then, would I ever think to look into it? Do you read the book of Mormon because the Mormons ring your doorbell? Of course not! Do you go read the Koran because the Muslims scream threats and "Dirka! Dirka! Jihad!" No. It would be absurd. But you tell me that I'm a freakin' idiot and that I should follow your book and your God? Why would I do that? By what you've already said, I ALREADY KNOW that your religion is false. YOU don't, but I do, because YOUR God can't raise a mouse and a lizard, but mine already did before my own eyes. So, I'm supposed to deny God because of your little Christian Koran and your little Talibani style? I would be a fucking idiot to do so. And I'm not. You can't teach me anything about God. Which is why these conversations, which are always abusive, are precisely the waste of time that I correctly called them at the beginning of this latest bile-fest. Notice what I don't do? I don't say: "God healed my neck and raised some animals, so follow me!" I say, rather, you should keep on searching for God in the way that you can accept, and if you want help in seeing him concretely, look at the Shroud of Turin, the Lanciano Eucharistic Miracles, the Incorrupt Bodies of the Saints, and the Lourdes Healings. There, you will see the direct power of God manifested before the eyes of the world in a concrete way that YOU can see yourself, if you want to look. That's the extent of what I say: go look there. God will show himself to you there. Then, when you pick up your Bible, you know that it's worthwhile to do so because you already know that God really IS, and that Christ is Lord. And THEN you'll understand why the red letters matter, but Ezekiel and Genesis really don't. If you want to know what God WANTS you ro DO, Jesus is the source of that. And that's all that matters. You think that what you believe in your head is what matters. You think that because somebody told you that. God never did. God told you that what matters is what you DO - he said that it's no good to say you follow him if you don't do what he said to do. And the way God said that was through Jesus. For some reason, people like you do everything possible to IGNORE the red letter words that Jesus spoke, in order to elevate what Paul said, or Moses, or Ezekiel, or even YHWH himself - but the Father said to listen to Jesus, so start there. You've never done that. You blow right past Jesus to what you WANT to read. And then you misinterpret it - taking, for example, "He who will not work, shall not eat" - a mere opinion of a mere man expressed with regards to abuses at ancient soup kitchens - as a commandment on a par with, and of even greater authority than, what Jesus himself, the Son of God, said with regards to the poor. It's preposterous. You're not teachable by me, and I already know that - so I say it's a waste of time to try - AND DON'T TRY ANYMORE. You can't teach me anything for the reasons I've already stated. So, why do you persist? Because you like insulting me and like playing gotcha - but you never really do "get me" because you're really bad at it, and have reading comprehension problems - and there's no court to give you the win. This is all a waste of time. All it serves as is a vent for you to be insulting to me. And for me to respond in kind. Not what Jesus said to do, is it? So why don't we stop? I don't care whether or not you are a Catholic, and I'm certainly not joining you in the Jerks for Jesus. Vicomte13  posted on  2018-03-23   15:17:40 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #222. To: A K A Stone (#214) You were tripping on acid or you're just a liar. I've never done drugs in my life. I am not a liar. You are an ignorant fool. Vicomte13  posted on  2018-03-23   15:19:14 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #223. To: CZ82, watchman (#0) Revived A K A Stone  posted on  2019-08-20   17:21:41 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest

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