Sunday, September 23, 2007

A Lesson From this Sunday

It's very rare that our pastor touches upon "hot button" topics during his sermons. He certainly applies his message to real life, and they are always based on scripture, but he rarely does he get into super-emotionally-and-perhaps-politically-charged issues.


This week, though, he began his series on common beginnings, and part of it centered on the topic of creation - more specifically when the Earth was created. If you are not familiar with this issue, there are 2 main camps: the Earth is around 6000 years old, or the Earth is 13+ billion years old. As with most hot-button-issues, each camp is convinced that they (and they alone) are right, and that the handbasket is coming for the other group. (Yes, I know that is extreme. So are many folks when they are in the throes of hot-button-ness.)


The age of the earth is something that interests me, but I admit to having no passionate drive to making my own clear-cut interpretation. I have read compelling evidence from both camps.


Yet, it's always kind of bothered me that I don't have an opinion either way. What's even more odd is that it doesn't even bother me that I don't have an opinion. Not even a smidgen. Believe me, this is not normal - I have opinons about everything. (Which is certainly a detriment at times.)


My pastor's point, though, was that if you look at the original Hebrew, the author uses a word that could mean 12 hours, 24 hours, or a long-but-unspecified length of time. (apparently they had to double or quadruple up on a LOT on their words!!)


So he felt compelled to further examine the purpose of the author of the book of Genesis. What was the point? The point was that God created the universe & everything in it. It even tells the order of things created. (And apparently, this is almost entirely the same order you will find in most science textbooks as they discuss evolution. But we're not going there today.) HOW he did it.... is left to your interpretation.


His final words.... CS Lewis believed in a "old world"; Billy Graham believes in a "young world."


Suddenly, not having an opinion doesn't seem so bad.

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