Essential Elements of Young Earth Creationism and Their Importance to Christian Theology, Part 5
From DBSJ. This installment discusses the fourth of nine essentials of YEC. Read the series.
(4) Six-Day Duration
One of the most repeated and universal experiences of human existence is the passing of a day. It is natural that God would define what a day is in the portion of his self-disclosure that describes his creation; there would be no better place to do so, in fact.
Discussion
Theology Thursday - Why Does God Seem Unjust?
Job was “the greatest of all the people of the east” (Job 1:3). He was a righteous man who’d been blessed by God with incredible wealth: “he had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses, and very many servants” (Job 1:3). He’d also been blessed with 10 children.
He lost it all in one day, and God did it. Well, Satan did it, but only because God allowed him to. His wife eventually urged him to “curse God, and die” (Job 2:9). In this excerpt, Job cries out to his awful friends and wonders why God seems so unjust (Job 24:1):
Discussion
Theology Thursday - The Covenant of Grace
The following is the full text of Chapter 7, from the 1647 Westminster Confession of Faith.
Chapter VII: Of God’s Covenant with Man
I. The distance between God and the creature is so great that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.1
Discussion
Essential Elements of Young Earth Creationism and Their Importance to Christian Theology, Part 4
From DBSJ. This installment continues consideration of the first of 9 Essentials of YEC: the literal hermeneutic, then takes up Essential 2 and Essenetial 3. Read the series.
Discussion
Theology Thursday - Forgiveness from Sins? No!
If a Christian commits sin after his conversion, can he be forgiven for these sins? Many today assume he can and will. Doesn’t the Apostle John, for example, say that very thing (1 John 1:8-9)? However, John also wrote, “No one born of God commits sin; for God’s nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God,” (1 John 3:9). In fact, a curious reader will find long discussions of this issue, and the implications of sinless perfectionism, in any responsible commentary on 1 John.
Discussion
What is your opinion about Jesus being born around December 25?
Let me preclude the most obvious comment we might hear: “It doesn’t really matter what day of the year Jesus was born.” Okay, that is a given, at least theologically.
Yet the idea that Jesus’ birth is celebrated on December 25 to replace Saturnalia does, in some regards, cast dispersion on the church of that era. We certainly know paganism had its inroads, but we want to be fair in our assessments. So it has some bearing historically.
Discussion