Welcome to Science, Scripture, and Salvation, a radio ministry of the Institute for Creation Research. In this program, we want to encourage you in your Christian faith by showing how scientific evidence supports the Bible, particularly the Genesis account. The book of Genesis lays the foundation for all matters addressed in the rest of the Bible. The nature of God, His sovereignty in creation, man's purpose, sin, marriage, family, and why we need a Savior are all introduced and explained in Genesis. When we see that the first and most foundational book of the Bible can be trusted in all matters, including science, it builds confidence in the rest of the inspired word all the way to Revelation.
Joining us on today's show is Dr. Henry Morris III, CEO of the Institute for Creation Research. Here's Dr. Morris. We've been talking about the way the Bible's words and the facts of science sometimes seem to conflict with one another.
If anything, the Bible really emphasizes is that we must trust the words of Scripture.
Well, that begs the question. Why words? Why is Jesus making such an emphasis? Why does the Scripture so many, many times insist that we trust the written record of Scripture? You remember when the debate between the serpent in the Garden of Eden and that beautiful Lady Eve took place?
One of the things that Satan immediately tried to get her to do was to either forget or twist or misunderstand what God really said. And he basically asked the question, did God really say that? That's frequently in our kind of movie influenced culture we want to kind of cut to the chase. How much authority do the words of Bible really have? In conservative religious circles the terms that we most often use to describe that authority are the words inspiration and inerrancy.
Yet, when we look at some of the many systematic theology books that touch on these concepts, It's interesting to note there's a Pretty wide breadth of explanation used to qualify those terms.
Some talk about dynamic equivalence, by which they really appear to mean that the thoughts behind the words are really where the authority lies. Many of the popular modern Bible versions are product of that school of thought. Course, unless you're a knowledgeable student of the manuscripts, it's not possible to tell where the translation ends and the dynamics take over. Others speak of a literary framework. by which they mean the words of Scripture kind of viewed as a style of writing that's subject to literary criticism.
Often the Poetry of the Hebrew language is cited as an example of the non-historical picture of the creation account. There's all kinds of ways to get around the words.
sometimes even by well meaning Bible scholars, It's really interesting to see That most of these are just a fancy way of saying that those who hold to verbal inspiration. Really are kinda raising the ruckus against those scholars who want to modify the restrictions of God's authority. We who are in the conservative side of the evangelical world often talk about the grammatical, historical system of interpretation. Essentially what we mean is we have to understand the historical context and the special cultural context in which the original writers wrote the words down. But once again the subtle danger of this is that the human method puts humans in charge of deciding what is grammatically correct, which manuscript evidence or what historical cultural relevance is in the way of the context.
Surely God did not leave His Word to be as vulnerable as that? Does God depend upon man to protect His Word? Think with me just a minute. Does it make sense for God to supernaturally inspire the writings, and then throw them into the vortex of sinful humanity for preservation and protection? Is it credible that God would be so careful with the original manuscripts that every word was kept pure, and then abandon those manuscripts to the whims of copyists and theologians and literary critics?
How can logic support? inspiration that is protected by man or inerrancy that is preserved through man. Either God is Omnipotent All-powerful. Or he's not. omniscience either embraces perfect knowledge, Or it does not.
finite man is not and cannot be either one or the other. Faith has its foundational beginning point in the existence of God. That faith is is not provable or demonstrable. But it is assured that God will perform what he promises he will do. and is convicted.
Understood, knowledgeable, confident. that His eternal power and Godhead Faith believes what is revealed by God. Once we place theology over the Prophecy of God's word, we've done exactly that which the God of the universe says not to do. Faith begins with a belief in the existence of God. Faith is given to us from God as a gift.
Faith is transmitted to us by the hearing of God's Word. Faith is the means by which God causes salvation to occur. Faith is the power of God's power, and not on man's wisdom. It keeps us for an eternal reward. Faith is the base from which the Christian can grow.
Faith is all of that and much more. It would be utter folly for the believer to trust his eternal destiny to the God of the cross, and then to launch into a life of human wisdom and scepticism that disdains the words of the God of the cross? What is there about the human mind that seems to have to tweak something to make it fit what he would like to have it mean in the first place? We're going to take a short break. Dr.
Morris will have more on this important topic in a moment. What happened to the dinosaurs? Are monkeys and people the same? Why do we live on Earth and not some other planet? Kids have some great questions about God's creation, but do you have the answers for them?
At the Institute for Creation Research, our scientists and Bible scholars have produced The Guide to Creation Basics. This book contains full-colored images and fascinating commentary from experts in biology, geology, astronomy, and biblical study. Guide to Creation Basics can help teach your children how the animals could fit on Noah's Ark, how dinosaurs and humans could live at the same time, and how God's power and wisdom can be seen in something as small as a single cell. Find basic answers to your child's biggest creation questions. Order your copy of Guide to Creation Basics from the Institute for Creation Research by calling 800-628-7640 or visiting www.icr.org.
Welcome back to Science, Scripture, and Salvation, a radio ministry of the Institute for Creation Research. Here's Dr. Morris. You know, unique to all of the religious writings is the opening line of the Bible. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
In every other religious book, the event of creation is either not directly discussed or described in a way that is anthropomorphic, big fancy $1.95 word that just means man-centered and evolutionary. The Bible is the only one of the religious books that cites a specific beginning And makes a major case out of an eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, transcendent, personal God creating the entire universe. Oh, there are gods of plenty in ancient writings and creative act describes in various stories. They talk plenty about these ancient writings. Bring order out of chaos.
But the gods are either barely intelligent like the titans or lustful and conscious beings that can hardly be trusted, very different than the god of the Bible. The Ten Commandments are written down twice by God Himself on tables of stone, and in them of course is the fourth commandment, which references the work of God during the Creation Week. We give honor to the writings of God for His inspiration, but these instructions we must know that they were inscribed a level of inspiration beyond any human involvement at all. The same must be noted for the record of the Creation Week. The first record concludes using the following words These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. That same verbal formula. the generations of seems to act like a signature throughout Genesis. The Hebrew word is used to identify 11 different birth records that were the source documents that Moses used to compile the book of Genesis. Adam writes a book recording his personal experiences during the sixth day.
Moses concludes that the Historical record has the same editorial comment. The preceding information contains the generations of Adam. Noah makes a record, and so does Shem, and Terah, and Ishmael, and so on. Why mention that? The creation account is so critical as to be the prime example of what faith is all about, and so important that God would use his own finger to cite it in the fourth commandment.
then it's valid to assume that God would record those events which only He had knowledge. God would be bound to preserve the accurate information in such a way that Moses would get it right. when he compiled the book of beginnings, the book of Genesis. Jesus certainly accepted the historicity of the creation account. In the beginning.
Means In the beginning. Only the Bible says. In the beginning, God created. Given that every word of God is pure, let's not miss the significance of this foundational statement from the writings. In the beginning.
Every time that phrase is used in the rest of Scripture, it always Always means Guess what? In the beginning. At the start, before something else happens, originally, at the first, initially, at the outset. In every one of the seventeen times that phrase is used, whether it's talking about the creation, or the harvest, or the reign of a king, or the New Testament Gospel, in every passage it always means the same thing. Why, in heaven's name And that is the name you are invoking when you quote the scripture.
Would you want to make it mean anything else? In John's Gospel and in the opening chapter of the book of Hebrews, The phrase is obviously used to talk about the time when the Lord Jesus created. In the beginning was the word. And the word was with God. And the word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God. all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. Interesting. In the beginning, there was a start. There is a point where time began.
And God intervened to create something that was not there before. Time itself is a created thing. There will come a day when there will be time no longer. Just like there was beginning there will be an end. And just like Elohim created the heavens and the earth, so he will cause the heavens to explode, and the very elements of earth to melt with intense heat.
There was a beginning. Why would we want to suggest otherwise? The answer to that question lies with one's belief Not with the linguistics. Thank you for joining us on Science, Scripture, and Salvation, a radio ministry of the Institute for Creation Research. That's all the time we have for our program today, but we would love to connect with you through our website at icr.org.
For over 45 years, ICR has equipped believers with evidence of the Bible's accuracy and authority by showing how science supports the Genesis creation account. Our scientists research the evidence for creation and communicate their findings through books, articles, DVD series, and conferences. Please visit our website at icr.org for more information about the latest scientific discoveries, to subscribe to our free magazine and devotional, and to locate our next creation conference at a venue near you. All of this and more at icr.org. If you've enjoyed this podcast, subscribe to Science, Scripture, and Salvation on iTunes.
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