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The presidential election

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With so many mediocre choices and such a long campaign season, I feel a bit overwhelmed this election. I’ll probably never find a candidate whom I agree with 100% of the time and is also electable. Nevertheless, I would be abrogating my Christian duty and American privilege to just sit on the sidelines.

So, how can I participate in this process as an informed citizen? The TV media seem far too concerned with polls and sound bites to be of any substantive help on the issues. However, I have found the following websites to be useful as I narrow down and prayerfully assess the candidates.

Project Vote Smart is a massive database with voting records, biographical and contact information, interest group ratings, public statements, and campaign finance records of each candidate. They provide information on both current officials and current candidates, and cover both national and local politics.

2008 Election ProCon.org researches the issues they feel are complicated and important, and works to present them in a balanced, comprehensive, straightforward, and primarily pro-con format. Be sure to check out their helpful Candidate Summary Chart.

FactCheck.org describes itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit, “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. They monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases. Their goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding. After a debate or new commercial is aired, this site will expose all the bogus claims and faulty statistics.

Just one other thought. In the midst of this election year, let’s not forget to pray diligently for our current President, George W. Bush. In 1 Timothy 2:1-2, Paul commands us “First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.” In 2008, Bush may be considered an irrelevant “lame duck” President, but let us remember he is a minister of God (Rom. 13:4) who needs incredible wisdom every day, and still has a quarter of his second term remaining.

Science

Our young earth

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If you want to study creationism, don’t bother visiting most Christian colleges. A recent Answers in Genesis article revealed that more than 90% of Christian colleges and their professors do not hold to young-earth creationism. With the exception of Seventh Day Adventist colleges, it’s hard to find any denominational colleges (Southern Baptist, Presbyterian, Nazarene, etc.) that teach young-earth creation. Some independent colleges like The Master’s College, Cedarville University, and Liberty University, hold to six-day creationism, but these schools are few and far between.

Many schools that historically identified as Christian are now opposed to creationism altogether. For example, World Magazine reported last September that Baylor University (Baptist) is hostile to professors who even advocate some form of Intelligent Design. It should not surprise us that many students who enter these colleges holding to young earth creationism are eventually persuaded to embrace some form of evolution.

In spite of these trends, the Bible is surprisingly clear on the age of the earth. In the creation account of Genesis 1, God says He created everything over the course of six days. Light was created on day one. Waters were divided on day two. Land and plants appeared on day three. Sun, moon, and stars were formed on day four. Birds and fish arrived on day five. Finally, all the animals, and God’s magnum opus – man and woman – were created on day six. A common-sense, non-biased reading of the biblical text would seem to indicate these were normal, 24-hour days.

Some, however, contend these “days” of Genesis 1 should be interpreted as “ages” lasting thousands or even millions of years, giving the earth ample time to evolve. Now, it is true that “day” has more than one meaning. For example, in Genesis 1:5, God calls the light “day.” This “day” speaks of the “daytime.” Genesis 2:4 speaks of the “day that the LORD made earth and heaven.” This “day” refers to the “period of time” when God created. And then, of course, there’s 2 Peter 3:18 which says, “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.” So how can we be sure the “days” of creation in Genesis 1 are 24-hour days? As always, context must determine meaning. Let’s look at the context of Genesis 1.

At the end of each day of creation is a short formula which teaches these are 24-hour days. In 1:5, for example, God says, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” The phrase “evening and morning” suggests one complete day, consisting of one full rotation of the earth. Any other interpretation of “day” would make nonsense out of this phrase. Furthermore, the numerical adjective “one” tips us off that God is chronicling an historical event in plain, journalistic language. These numerical adjectives appear throughout the chapter: “one day” (1:5); “second day” (1:8); “third day” (1:13); etc. As James Stambaugh points out, whenever the Hebrew word yom is used with a number in the Bible, it refers to a literal, 24-hour day.

Perhaps by now you’re wondering, “What’s the big deal, anyway? Isn’t this making a mountain out of a molehill? Couldn’t God have created gradually over millions of years if He wanted to?” Unfortunately, there are some major problems to holding any kind of gap theory or theistic evolution:

  • The problem of sin and death. The Bible says death was a curse after man’s fall in Genesis 3, but if the earth is millions or billions of years old before man arrives, then you have to conclude God’s creation wasn’t so good after all. “Evolutionary scientists claim the fossil layers over the earth’s surface date back hundreds of millions of years. As soon as one allows millions of years for the fossil layers – then one has accepted death, bloodshed, disease, thorns, and suffering before Adam’s sin” (Answers Book, p. 42). This attacks the very core of the gospel, which teaches that “as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).
  • The problem of sola Scriptura. Those who deny a young earth are attacking the authority of Scripture. They are looking at Scripture through the interpretive lens of science, rather than looking at science through the interpretive lens of Scripture. The Bible must always be our starting point. Only God was there, and we must let Him speak for Himself on how He created the universe. If God had the power to create, couldn’t He create the universe with the appearance of age (e.g. starlight)? Furthermore, when we factor in the global catastrophe of the flood in Genesis 6-9, we have both a biblical and scientific explanation for modern geology.
  • The problem of interpretation. If you abandon the literal-grammatical method of interpretation in Genesis 1, then what will prevent you from doing the same elsewhere in the Bible, whenever science, history, or archaeology seem to contradict the biblical record? Once the hermeneutical dam has one crack in it, the entire structure has been compromised, leading to disaster.
  • The problem of sequence. Looking at the fossil record, evolutionists posit that the sun came first, then the earth; dry land came first, then oceans; land animals came first, then birds. But in each of these cases, this evolutionary sequence directly contradicts the Bible.

Rather than trusting the faulty opinions of man, let us hold to the inerrant Word of God, and heed the warning of Charles Spurgeon:

“We are invited, brethren, most earnestly to go away from the old-fashioned belief of our forefathers because of the supposed discoveries of science. What is science? The method by which man tries to conceal his ignorance. It should not be so, but it is. You are not to be dogmatical in theology, my brethren, it is wicked; but for scientific men it is the correct thing. You are never to assert anything very strongly, but scientists may boldly assert what they cannot prove, and may demand a faith far more credulous than any we possess. Forsooth, you and I are to take our Bibles and shape and mould our belief according to the ever-shifting teachings of so-called scientific men. What folly is this! Why, the march of science, falsely so called, through the world may be traced by exploded fallacies and abandoned theories…” (The Sword and the Trowel, 1877)

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Augustine on God

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Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) was an early church father and one of the greatest theologians in church history. In his autobiographical work Confessions, he gives this beautiful glimpse into our mysterious and majestic God:

Most high, utterly good, utterly powerful, most omnipotent, most merciful and most just, deeply hidden yet most intimately present, perfection of both beauty and strength, stable and incomprehensible, immutable and yet changing all things, never new, never old, making everything new and ‘leading’ the proud ‘to be old without their knowledge’ (Job 9:5); always active, always in repose, gathering to yourself but not in need, supporting and filling and protecting, creating and nurturing and bringing to maturity, searching even though to you nothing is lacking: you love without burning, you are jealous in a way that is free of anxiety, you ‘repent’ (Gen. 6:6) without pain of regret, you are wrathful and remain tranquil. You will a change without any change in your design. You recover what you find, yet have never lost. Never in any need, you rejoice in your gains (Lk. 15:7); you are never avaricious, yet you require interest (Mt. 25:27). We pay you more than you require so as to make you our debtor, yet who has anything which does not belong to you? (1 Cor. 4:7). You pay off debts, though owing nothing to anyone; you cancel debts and incur no loss. But in these words what have I said, my God, my life, my holy sweetness? What has anyone achieved in words when he speaks of you? Yet woe to those who are silent about you because, though loquacious with verbosity, they have nothing to say. (Confessions, p. 5)

Leadership

A year of leadership development

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Shortly after becoming the pastor, I had several men in our church asking me if we could do some sort of Bible study or theology club together. Wow. There’s nothing a pastor loves more than a bunch of guys who are humble, teachable, and hungry for the Word.

Discipleship is one of the main priorities of a spiritual leader. In 2 Timothy 2:2, Paul instructs Timothy, “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” So, after prayer and some research, I put together a one-year leadership development program called “SaLT” (Servant Leadership Training). We started it in January 2007.

SaLT was fairly intense, requiring the men to read a book a month, memorize a passage of Scripture each month, and attend a 1.5 – 2 hour meeting each month for accountability and discussion. We just concluded the program, and I can testify God blessed every one of us through it. Here is an outline of what we did together over the past year:

  • Month 1: Introduction to biblical discipleship.
  • Month 2: Bible Study. Read Sproul’s Knowing Scripture and memorized Psalm 19:7-10
  • Month 3: Bible Application. Read Doriani’s Putting the Truth to Work and memorized 2 Timothy 3:14-17
  • Month 4: Personal Holiness. Read Bridge’s Pursuit of Holiness and memorized 1 Peter. 1:14-16
  • Month 5: Purity & Marriage. Read Alcorn’s The Purity Principle and Mahaney’s Sex and the Supremacy of God; memorized Romans 13:13-14 and Hebrews 13:4
  • Month 6: Basic Theology, pt. 1. Read Grudem’s Christian Beliefs and memorized 2 Timothy 2:15-16
  • Month 7: Basic Theology, pt. 2. Read Lutzer’s Doctrines that Divide and memorized 2 Timothy 2:24-26
  • Month 8: Prayer. Read Carson’s A Call to Spiritual Reformation and memorized Philippians 1:9-11
  • Month 9: Theological Orthodoxy. Read Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism and memorize dGalatians 1:8-9
  • Month 10: Love. Read Strauch’s Leading with Love and memorized 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
  • Month 11: Baptist Theology. Read Why I am a Baptist (ed. by Moore and Nettles) and reviewed all Scripture
  • Month 12: Evangelism. Read Driscoll’s Radical Reformission and reviewed all Scripture

I highly recommend a program like this for those who are willing to stick with it. The main drawback was that it was too intense for some of our church members, so we did not have the broad participation I would have hoped for. There were only about 7 of us who stuck with it the whole year. It allowed me to pour more time and instruction into those who are most eager to learn, but we need to also find ways to pursue and train those who stay quietly on the fringes. We are looking at possibly doing some mentoring small groups for next year – essentially now asking the men I have trained to take what they’ve learned and go disciple one or two others.

If you have other ideas for leadership development, I encourage you to leave a comment below.

Fridays are often dedicated to practical church ministry issues. If you have a question or suggested topic for the future, please email me.

Teaching

The importance of creation

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In our evangelism Sunday School class, we’ve been studying through the Two Ways to Live curriculum. It’s an excellent presentation that breaks the gospel down into six basic points. Interestingly, rather than starting with sin, or God’s “wonderful plan” for our lives, The Two Ways to Live outline begins with creation. The first point says “God is the loving ruler of the world. He made the world. He made us rulers of the world under Him.”

Creation is a vital doctrine that we often sell short. In an age of enlightenment, creationism is usually portrayed as primitive, superstitious, and unscientific. Richard Dawkins, for example, calls creationism a “preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood.” The Bible, on the other hand, actually begins with creation. It’s the first building block of an accurate worldview. Without creation, the rest of the gospel is absurd.

The first verse in the Bible says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). There is a remarkable amount of theology and scientific data wrapped up in this verse.

  • The phrase “in the beginning” confirms that all matter did have a beginning. It had a first cause. And there was a pre-existent, intelligent Being who initiated the “beginning” of the world.
  • The statement “God created” is a declarative, matter-of-fact statement. Elohim, the all-powerful God of the Bible, created without using any tools or supplies. He created ex nihlo, “out of nothing,” by the power of His word (Gen. 1:3).
  • The last phrase tells us precisely what God created: “the heavens and the earth.” This is a Hebrew figure of speech called a “merism.” By mentioning the two extremes, it captures everything in between (cf. “morning and evening”). It’s a poetic way of saying “God created everything,” and it summarizes what the rest of chapter one will describe in closer detail.

Now, the question is, are you willing to accept this bold claim in Genesis 1:1? “But it requires a leap of faith,” you say. Yes, I agree. Hebrews 11:3 even states, “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.” But faith does not contradict reason. We don’t need to jettison our heads in order to believe with our hearts. In fact, I would contend the leap of faith in creationism is far more reasonable than the leap of faith in evolution. When we look at the universe through the interpretive lens of Scripture, we find that every scientific detail makes perfect sense from a creationist worldview. And there are three implications that result:

  • Because God created the universe, it was very good. Genesis 1:31 says, “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good…” Since God is holy and morally perfect, all the work of His hands must have been good. It is comforting to know that all the sickness, pain, injustice, and disappointment in this world were not part of God’s original design, but a result of man’s fall (Gen. 3). But as God continues His work of redemption through Jesus Christ, He is reversing the curse of the Fall, first in our hearts, and ultimately upon the earth itself.
  • Because God created the universe, it is very sophisticated. The Bible depicts this world as the handiwork of a highly skilled and powerful God. In Psalm 8:3, David writes, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; What is man?” The heavens are just one aspect of God’s creation, but they provide ample proof for an intelligent Creator. Take our sun for example. Jonathan Sarfati explains that our sun is an extremely powerful object, often throwing out flares, and occasionally belching out coronal mass ejections (CME). These CMEs cause huge electric currents in the earth’s upper atmosphere and disrupt power grids and satellites. But compared to other stars, the sun turns out to be ‘exceptionally stable.’ If the sun were to erupt as frequently or intensely as most other stars, the ‘superflares’ would destroy the earth’s ozone layer with catastrophic results for life. It is no coincidence that we are located at just the right distance from such an exceptionally stable star. This is the handiwork of our Master Architect.
  • Because God created the universe, we are answerable to Him. He made us, and thus He has the authority to tell us how to live, what to do, and what not to do. God had the prerogative to command Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28), then later to stipulate, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” (Gen. 2:16-17). Likewise, as our Creator, God has the right to command us to “be holy, as He is holy” (1 Pet. 1:16), and to judge us when we rebel against Him. As His creatures, we are answerable to Him, and deserving of His punishment when we fail. And this, of course, explains why so many reject creation today: because creation involves accountability to a Creator.

Next Wednesday, I will continue this study on creation, considering how God created the world, and whether or not He did it in six literal days.

Thoughts on Life and Leadership