How learning about creation can help us deal with the pandemic
We are in the middle of the 2020 Pandemic. Are we to fear this? Fear will come, but the fear of things like this is not of God. We need to deal with this kind of fear. 2 Timothy 1:7 Tells us we have the power to deal with this fear. God, by His Holy Spirit, gives us the strength and the authority to overcome. Second, God has taught us how to love, and love will help us overcome fear by taking our minds off of ourselves and thinking of others. Thirdly is a sound mind. A sound mind comes from wisdom. The wisdom that that Bible can give.
How old are the universe and creation?
So let us learn a little more about God’s word so that we can have a sound mind. We are going to discuss the creation of the universe. There is a belief in a gap. The gap means that between Genesis verses one and two. This theory holds that there was a past creation that was destroyed, and the earth became chaotic. I believe this theory was formed out of a desire to make Genesis fit into an old-earth view.
There are the young creationists who reject the gap theory because they hold to the view that the earth is between 10,000 and 6,000 years old. I want to confess that there are many things about our world, of which I have questions. I do not believe that every scientist who thinks the earth is old has an agenda to prove the bible wrong. Creation scientists will often make this case when someone has a view that does not fit theirs. You have both groups of scientists downplaying each other’s credibility.
I have questions about the age of things
There are things like the ice cores taken from the Antarctic that show it is very old. What I have always had a problem with is starlight. How could light reach the earth when it is source is tens of thousands of light-years away? I used to believe, but it has been shown to be false, that God created things with age. However, this is no longer a view held because it means that God is falsifying information. God did create things with age that needed to be there, not age that something appeared to happen, but never did. https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/starlight/distant-starlight-thesis/
So I see things that appear very old and things that appear relatively young and in the past that used to bother me because all things had to fit into a certain interpretation. Now I see Genesis differently. I don’t view Genesis as trying to explain all this. I do want to be transparent here by saying I do believe there is a gap between Genesis verses two and three.
In the beginning, God created. The Hebrew word for “create” is “bara”, and it is different than words for making things. I think the universe may be very old and the creation that is on the earth is young. I do not believe in a previous creation of life on earth.
We make God’s story all about us.
A huge reason for liking this view is I think we are too man-centric when it comes to our understanding of God. What I mean, it seems we think that God did nothing in eternity pass other than twiddling his anthropomorphic thumbs. God is much older than this creation, and certainly, He was busy about being God. This creation is just a speck on the timeline of eternity, and we are a small speck on the earth.
3When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
Psalms 8:3-4
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
So I think God took this earth that had existed for who knows how long and created a living environment on it. I think that Exodus 20:11 speaks to this.
11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
Exodus 20:11
The forming and then filling
We notice there is no mention of the universe,—sun, moon, and stars. I embrace the view that Moses was teaching us God forming and then filling. The first three days God form and the second set of three God filled them. Young-earth creationists resist this view because it makes the Genesis story more theological and less historical. Here it tells us God made the earth, seas, and heaven. The ground was for land animals, the seas are for the fish, and the sky for the birds. Then God filled them—that is the “all that is in them.”
So we need to forget about trying to match up an old or young creation with the Genesis account because that is not the point of the story. The point of the story is that God made all the environments. God is the creator of it all. That is what we are to understand, and that is the truth. If we try to force science into the text, and then we find things that do not line up with that belief, our faith is shaken. I am afraid this has happened to many people who have walked away from believing the Bible. It is our interpretation of what is in question, not the Bible.
This world is not here by accident, and therefore you are not either. There is a designer and a purpose for all of this. We need to believe that as Genesis teaches. The same God who keeps this all working is there for you too.