Assumptions

Gen 6:13-22   And God said to Noah, "I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it . . . Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up. It shall serve as food for you and for them." Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.

We can, if we aren't careful, make inaccurate assumptions that will influence our thoughts and choices down the road. Take, for instance, the tree Adam and Eve ate from that they were told not to. I wonder how many people think it was an apple tree, because they've been told that or seen pictures of Eve about to bite into a shiny, red apple. As far as I know, the Bible doesn't say what kind of tree it was. In fact, I've read a pretty convincing argument that it was probably a fig tree—after all, when they realized they were naked they covered themselves in fig leaves (possibly the closest tree), and it is a fig tree Jesus will wither as He ushers in the New Covenant that ends the old Covenant of the law. Whatever type of tree it is, it is possible we have all made assumptions about it that aren't founded in the Bible—and possibly we are missing imagery or lessons because of our assumptions.

Likewise, I've wondered for years how Noah and his sons, with maybe their wives help, built that ark. Then, the other day, I saw a painting advertising the Ark Encounter (the lifesize ark being built in Kentucky by Answers in Genesis). In the painting they have many, many people working on the ark and suddenly it struck me, "Does the Bible actually say only Noah and his family worked on it?" I started looking and I can't find a verse that says that (if you know of one, please let me know!). The more I thought of it the more I thought it was very likely that Noah hired a large crew to help. People are more than ready to take another's money, even if they think the person is a kook. Imagine how many non-Christians have poured slabs, done drywall, supplied sound systems, painted walls, and roofed churches for a paycheck. They might have mocked the believers the whole time, but took their laughter to the bank with their wages.

We know from Genesis that civilization prior to the flood was advanced with cities, metal working, etc. They could have had very advanced tools and there was certainly a large workforce to draw from. Be willing to pay enough money and you can probably find someone for about any job! Besides that, we know from genealogy that Methusela and others were alive until right up to the flood. Who knows how much help Noah could have had!

At any rate, the point isn't whether or not Noah had more than his family or not, it is more about the assumptions we make because of pictures, flannel graphs, etc. that we have been raised on or exposed to. I remember a couple years back when we took the girls and measured off 450 feet, the length of the ark. It was mind-boggling! I had seen so many cute little ark models as toys and nursery decor that I'd allowed myself to lose the reality of the size of that boat.

It is easy to allow our mind to have certain pictures, and to make assumptions, that later we can realize are not founded on Scripture. It is something we have to be careful about, and, as always, keep God's written Word in a place of supremacy in our lives and hearts, taking everything back to it.

God bless you. Have a wonderful day! Thanks for reading and sharing in my life.   —Erick

Where's the Fall?

I have been reading the book Already Gone by Ken Ham of "Answers in Genesis." In it he talks about how doubt over the Genesis accounts is undermining faith in the entire Word of God, and how people (especially youth) are "checking out" of the church because, in the wake of such doubt, they are losing confidence in the relevancy of church and Scripture to their life. It becomes a "good story," and in this world of pain and uncertainty "good stories" may be fun but they don't pay the bills, heal the hurt, or give hope amidst hopelessness.

In the book Ken made a comment that started my mind down a path of thought that I wanted to share. In a nutshell, it is this: Evolution stands as the absolute opposite of Creation in more ways than just the obvious (how life and we began). If we believe in Creation as it is recorded in the Bible then man started off in God's image, we started off good, and then we fell and became separated from God, in need of a Savior, and cut off from the life and source of goodness. If we believe evolution (either accident or God initiated), man started out as a cell in some primitive pool billions of years ago and we have just been improving ever since! Truly, in evolution's natural conclusion, we just keep getting better.

Are you starting to see where this is headed? Evolution, which in its truest implications says man is just improving more and more, stands in stark contrast to Creation which says man is getting farther and farther from God, hence more and more lost and astray. The gap between the two end points of these two explanations just gets wider and wider as they both continue down their logical paths—one saying man is rising, the other saying man is falling.

Evolution promotes, inherently, the idea that in man we will eventually find man's solutions. It promotes the idea that the key is to just keep getting better, trying harder, etc. The natural implications of evolution, when we take them to their natural conclusions, draw man farther and farther from God and the realization of our need for God.

We see this ever-widening separation in the vast gap between politics and candidates and policies that exists today—one side feels man can fix man's problems, the other says that only God can and that we will only find our solutions in a deep reliance and dependence on God.

For the atheist, this all poses no seeming problem. They don't believe in God or the fall or heaven or hell so they don't see any other option than man fixing man. But, for the Christian who has embraced evolution, there becomes a very big problem—when was the fall? (I speak from experience here, having tried to reconcile evolution and Creation as a young Christian, and eventually finding out it just can't work if we allow it to take its natural course to its natural conclusion. I explain this below.)

Think about it with me for a moment if you will. If God started the whole thing and then let evolution bring us to today, when did we fall? When did we become advanced enough to understand good and bad and the law of God and to become accountable to a decision to disobey? When did that happen? Was man still hunched over in ape-like form when he first understood what God wanted and chose to disobey? When was the point of accountability and separation from God? Really, it boils down to this: When was the fall?

You see, the problem is that in evolution there is no room for a fall. We are just improving, not falling. We are going up, not down. There was never a defined point in which man fell. Evolution is the epitome of the results of rebellion in which God decreases in our eyes and man increases because in its teaching man continues to improve. Inherent in that is the assumption that technology and knowledge mark improvement, whereas inherent in God's Word is that the fear of the Lord marks the beginning of knowledge and growth, and that the fool in his heart says there is no God.

In evolution's natural conclusion we don't need a Savior because there never was a fall, and we are just getting better and better—we will become our own Savior. In Creation, and the Word that provides authority for Creation, we fell from God and until that separation is bridged we are lost and hopeless and separated from goodness and our Creator until we are saved . . . and Jesus alone is that Savior.

Of course, start to doubt the Bible's account of Creation or the Flood and you (or, if not you, then your children) may soon start to doubt the Jesus that the same Bible talks about, and Whom the Bible gives His lineage back to Adam, and Whom talked Himself about Noah and the flood and the ark as a literal person and event and boat. Be careful, it is a slippery, untenable slope to begin down the path of "Christian evolution." I know, I tried it out when I first became a Christian. Trust me, it doesn't work if we think it all the way through. The nice thing is that "Christian evolution" doesn't need to work—Creation, as described in the Bible, stands alone, scientifically supported, easily defended, and authoritative. Yes, there will always be faith required, but the faith required to embrace Creation is reasonable, not blind, and does not require at all the amount of faith it requires to believe in evolution in the face of all of the honest science that stands against it. Whatever your stand on this, I love ya. Just, please, think it through, because it is a serious, unsupported, dangerous slope we start down to embrace any evolution across kinds.