1. The power of God - we have watered down the power of God. I have been participating in Beth Moore's study " Believing God" and I think she's onto something! We have let evolution and modern science convince us that God can't do what He says He can! If He can't create the world in 6 days with a word then how can we believe that Jesus is the son of God and has the power to cleanse us from our sin and raise from the dead? If God can't do what He says He can then what's the point? We have to give our kids the blessing of belief in an all knowing, all powerful God whose word is infallible and can change their lives! Nothing is too big for an all powerful creator! He created us and so He can save us from what we need saving from! Hebrews 11:3 says "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." We have to believe this by faith and Heb 11:6 says that we cannot please God with out this faith.
2. Is God everything to us? Does the love of God permeate our everyday lives? Duet 6 says to speak about God to our children in when we raise up and lie down and when we are walking on the road. In other words, we are to instruct our children in the ways of God all day long but to do that we must have Him present in our lives all day long. He must be an integral part of everything we do so that our children can't imagine life without him. Matt 22:37-40 tells us to "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.'38"This is the great and foremost commandment. 39"The second is like it, YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' 40"On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."
3. Bible Memorization - Psalm 119:11 says "I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you. " We must encourage them to hide the word of God in their hearts. Even 2 and 3 years olds can do this! Start with Gen 1:1 and start early to instill a Biblical Worldview. Check out the CD's Seeds of Faith, Seeds of Courage and Seeds of Worship - an easy way to memorize verse while singing in the car!
4. Pray, pray , pray! Pray for our children - those that are in your home and in your church and family! We must ASK!
5. Get involved! I saw this in a dramatic way during VBS. I was able to talk and discuss the love of God and his greatness with children that I never would have been able to otherwise. If we don't pass on a Godly heritage to those around us who will? I don't want to face God with just my own children but with a crowd of children.
Maybe you have some other ideas? I'd love to hear them!
Categories: parenting
Erm, if Ken Ham quotes such a high percentage of children turning away from the faith of their parents, then perhaps this is because of the tin-foil-hat wearing variety of Christian faith that Mr Ham espouses.
ReplyDeleteI see a direct correlation between well meaning but scientifically ignorant parents who teach their children that dinosaurs were on Noah's Ark, and teach this 'fact' as a bolster for their Christian faith (precisely the purpose of the Creation museum Ham has opened), and children who then go on to examine these beliefs intelligently and critically and conclude that, since a belief in dinosaur/human cohabitation is the worst kind of benighted nonsense, that maybe what their parents said about God aint too convincing either.
This correlation should be as obvious as anything. I work at a Christian School and am raising my own four year old boy to be a strong Christian. We reject young earth creationism outright as scientifically, factually wrong, and therefore, poisonous to Christian faith if served alongside the Gospel. Perhaps, one day you will see this and your kids will thank you for it.
Besides, Ham is an egomaniacal bully who has fraudulently ripped off a sister Creation ministry in Australia, now the subject of legal action that has Ham angrily hanging up on Christian publication journalists who dare to ask him about it: read some more at
http://duoquartuncia.blogspot.com/2007/06/answers-in-genesis-lawsuit.html
and
http://www.christianfaithandreason.com/june_creationmag.html
You are wrong to give Ham any credence or respect.
There seems to be primarily an attack on Ken Ham in your comments. The question is: Do you believe that God can do what he claims? Why believe in God at all, if you cannot accept his claims? Did he create the world in 6 literal days? It says so in the Bible, which has been accepted as the literal Word of God for the Christian faith. If you can't believe in the Bible literally, then what's the point? Why don't you go off and just say you are some kind of an altruistic "good person" and leave it at that. Don't call yourself a Christian, when you cannot hold to the tenets of the faith! You are deceiving others by claiming God could have used evolution to create the Earth. He didn't say anything about evolving in the Bible. In fact, the Theory of Evolution goes directly against the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics: Everything goes from order to disorder.
ReplyDeleteHow can you believe that Jesus is God and became man, performed miracles, and died to save us from our sins? That's a pretty big set of claims! Do you believe it? I do. How can he do all that, yet not create the world literally in 6 days?
You are welcome to your opinions and the free speech of those opinions, of course, but I'd start referring to yourself as something other than a Christian if you cannot take the Bible literally.
I thought I would respond to the previous comment here, notwithstanding the thoughtful reply I see has been made the subject of a new post (and thank you for engaging).
ReplyDeleteSir, the very question of whether the Bible states the world was created in six literal days is not a plain or undisputed matter at all. You are advancing an argument with the wrong premise, and so, all that follows is faulty.
You say "If you can't believe in the Bible literally, then what's the point?" and "I'd start referring to yourself as something other than a Christian if you cannot take the Bible literally"
This logic is wrong. Biblical Literalism is not the default position of Christianity. You seem unable to distinguish between "Biblical Literalism" and "Bibliolatry", which the New Testament authors cautioned against.
The good Lord gave us wonderful faculties with which we can explore the natural world around us. As Carl Sagan said, "Science, properly practiced is a kind of informed worship".
Now it is true that one's approach to the use of these faculties is guided by one's worldview. I see that you choose to believe the Bible even when your senses and scientific inquiries contradict it, because yours is a Bible-first-and-only approach.
Well, you would have been right at home in the dark ages, when the "obviousness" of the Bible's teachings caused the Cardinals to refuse to look through Galileo's telescopes to look at the moons of Jupiter because it was "obvious" the Bible taught that Everything rotated around the Earth. Similarly, the Bible "obviously" taught biological vitalism, and Calvinists "obviously" saw support for their "Biblical" view in the deterministic Newtonian description of the Universe.
Guess what? These things that were branded as "obvious" Biblical truths were wrong, wrong and wrong.
As a Christian, I respect the Bible, so you must understand that the fault I find here is NOT with the Scriptures, but with those who (like you now) choose to flatly proclaim that the Bible says something without any need for thought or interpretation when in fact the Bible says no such thing.
Sir, the Bible says nothing of Evolution, but Genesis proclaims that God Himself is the Author of Creation. We agree. The Bible does NOT say that this happened in six days, six thousand years ago. Yes, a simplistic and juvenile interpretation of the Bible could mislead you into thinking it does. You take our dispute on this matter and base your attack on the idea that I simply could not be a Christian if I take an opposing view. I feel no need to defend my Christian faith, or my employment at a Christian school or at my Church of many years. Your personal attack reveals how threadbare your argument really is. If you can't respond except by branding an opponent as "not a Christian" (your clear accusation) then your ignorance puts your Christian faith to shame.
Lastly, your argument about Evolution being in defiance of the Second Law of Thermodynamics is laughably out of date. It sounds just like what you've heard from some shill Creationist and spout right back without understanding what it means. The Earth is not a closed system. There is a net influx of energy from the Sun that drives ALL biological processes. If you're going to mount an argument, do some basic research first.
Nathan, to respond to your comment:
ReplyDeleteProverbs 3:5 says, "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding." Your comment about fitting in the dark ages is ludicrous. Those you describe used their own interpretations, and being human, were wrong. That is why you have to be careful about your "thoughts and interpretations" as you put it.
You seem to want to serve both God and Darwin (and Sagan for that matter), but what is your basis for trying to merge these two incompatible belief systems into some sort of Evolutionary Christianity? Does it not say in Genesis 1:27, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." How can we be made in the image of God if we "evolved" from a millions of happenstance genetic mutations? Is God some sort of primordial ooze or ameoba? I think not. We are complex creatures created by a complex God.
Consider the complexities of the human body: the skeletal/muscular complexities to even be able to move properly, the bio/chemical complexities to keep our bodies regulated and systems communicating and functioning properly, and then there's the brain! Scientists still don't understand all of the complex processing and storage structures and inner workings of the brain! You think that all happened by chance? It seems to require much more faith for evolution to happen than to believe in an all-powerful Creator who designed us specially. Does it not also say in Psalms 139:13-14, "For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb.I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well."
The Bible DOES in fact say that creation happened in six days: "For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day;" (Exodus 20:11), "By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done." (Genesis 2:2)
Now, as to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, it applies to both closed AND open systems. "… there are no known violations of the second law of thermodynamics. Ordinarily the second law is stated for isolated systems, but the second law applies equally well to open systems. … There is somehow associated with the field of far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics the notion that the second law of thermodynamics fails for such systems. It is important to make sure that this error does not perpetuate itself." - Dr. John Ross of Harvard University
You seem to think that simple organisms, such as algae, can spontaneously mutate to something more complex, and in that spontaneity, generate both male and female counterparts to perpetuate that mutation, on and on until you get humans? Where's the proof? Scientists have NOT been able to recreate evolutionary processes, which is an important part of the Scientific Method. Observation, Hypothesis, Evaluation/Test are all critical parts of the method, but in order to PROVE a hypothesis or theory, you have to be able to reliably reproduce the results of the test. "Crucially, experimental and theoretical results must be reproduced by others within the science community." - wikipedia That is why it's still called Darwin's THEORY of evolution.
I have done research, thank you very much.
I do hope you will read the Bible more closely and consider how incompatible Biblical creationism and Darwinian evolution really are.
Believing in the "old earth" view of creation is not the same thing as believing that men evolved from monkeys. PLEASE don't make the mistake of lumping good people like Nathan in with Darwinian evolutionists. And please don't try to "play God" by questioning his faith and accusing him of unbelief just because he interprets Genesis 1 differently than you.
ReplyDeleteHere are just a couple of notes concerning the "days" of creation in Genesis. Please note that these are based not on the theories of Darwin or Sagan or Dr. Suess, but on other passages of God's infallible and inspired Word.
1) The Hebrew word for "day" in Genesis 1 is "yom." This does NOT always mean a literal 24-hour period. See Genesis 2:4, for example.
2) Here's a lengthy quote from an excellent book called The Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, which argues against a literal six-day creation, based not on modern scientific theory, but on other passages of Scripture and their accurate interpretation. I share this not to change your mind, but hopefully to point out that sincere believers (such as Nathan and myself) can have differing interpretations of the Genesis account. To do so is not to be "something other than a Christian," as you charge. The quote:
"Is the true purpose of Genesis 1 to teach that all creation began just six twenty-four hour days before Adam was "born"? Or is this just a mistaken inference that overlooks other biblical data having a direct bearing on this passage? To answer this question we must take careful note of what is said in Genesis 1:27 concerning the creation of man as the closing act of the sixth creative day. There it is stated that on that sixth day (apparently toward the end of the day, after all the animals had been fashioned and placed on the earth - therefore not long before sundown at the end of that same day), "God created man in his own image; He created them male AND FEMALE." This can only mean that Eve was created in the closing hour of Day Six, along with Adam.
As we turn to Genesis 2, however, we find that a considerable interval of time must have intervened between the creation of Adam and the creation of Eve. In 2:15 we are told that Yahweh Elohim put Adam in the Garden of Eden as the ideal environment for his development, and there he was to cultivate and keep the enormous park, with all its goodly trees, abundant fruit crop, and four mighty rivers that flowed from Eden to the other regions of the Near East. Then in 2:18 we read, "Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good for man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.'" This statement clearly implies that Adam had been diligently occupied in his responsible task of pruning, harvesting fruit, and keeping the ground free of brush and undergrowth for a long enough period to lose his initial excitement and sense of thrill at this wonderful occupation in the beautiful paradise of Eden. He had begun to feel a certain lonesomeness and inward dissatisfaction.
In order to compensate for this lonesomeness, God then gave Adam a major assignment in natural history. He was to classify every species of animal and bird found in the preserve. With its five mighty rivers and broad expanse, the garden must have had hundreds of species of mammal, reptile, insect and bird, to say nothing of the flying insects that are also indicated by the basic Hebrew term "op" (2:19). It took the Swedish scientist Linnaeus several decades to classify all the species known to European scientists in the eighteenth century... It must have taken a great deal of study for Adam to examine each specimen and decide on an appropriate name for it, especially in view of the fact that he had absolutely no human tradition behind him, so far as nomenclature was concerned. It must have required some years or, at the very least, a considerable number of months for him to complete this comprehensive inventory of all the birds, beasts, and insects that populate the Garden of Eden.
Finally, after this assignment with all its absorbing interest had been completed, Adam felt a renewed sense of emptiness. Genesis 2:20 ends with the words "but for Adam no suitable helper was found." After this long and unsatisfying experience as a lonely bachelor, God saw that Adam was emotionally prepared for a wife... As we have compared Scripture with Scripture (Gen. 1:27 with 2:15-22), it has become very apparent that Genesis was never intended to teach that the sixth creative day, when Adam and Eve were BOTH created, lasted a mere twenty-four hours. In view of the long interval of time between these two, it would seem to border on sheer irrationality to insist that all of Adam's experiences in Genesis 2:15-22 could have been crowded into the last hour or two of a literal twenty-four-hour day."
Believe it or not, this is just a small portion of a much larger passage addressing the opening chapters of Genesis. By using proper methods of Scriptural interpretation and by comparing the Genesis account with other passages of Scripture, the author convincingly argues against a literal six-day creation. His argument is in NO WAY based on modern scientific theory. It is 100 percent biblically based.
To believe that creation occurred over a span of many years is not to doubt or discredit God in any way. Certainly He COULD have created the Earth in six 24-hour days, or even six seconds, if He so wished. But "with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." The point is not how quickly or slowly He created the earth, the point is that He created it!