When it comes to Genesis 1, Christians tend to divide into two major camps: old earth and young earth creationists. The former sees the days as long periods of time (e.g. Hugh Ross) while the latter insists on literal twenty-four hour periods (e.g. Ken Ham). Professor John Walton of Wheaton College advocates for a different reading of the bible’s first chapter. By carefully comparing Genesis to other ancient near eastern creation texts, he proposes that it’s talking about God providing functionality to the already-existing cosmos rather than creating structures ex nihilo.

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Do you ever stop and marvel at God’s creation?  Are you in wonder at what he has made?  Too often we take God’s masterful creations for granted, instead of seeing them as pointers back to God’s ingenuity, generosity, and artistry.  Although we can’t always take time out to praise God for plums, palm trees, and panthers, when we can it’s helpful to meditate on his handiwork.

Here’s the video from this message that shows the relative sizes of our solar system’s planets and sun with other much bigger stars:

Here are a couple of praise songs that tap into the proper sense of wonder we should experience because of God’s works:

Notes

Psalm 19.1-6 The heavens declare God’s glory

Psalm 104.1-35 The psalmist works through creation, marveling at God’s manifold artistry and brilliance.

Psalm 8.1-9 Even though God is so powerful, so transcendent, so majestic, he still cares about us puny humans.

C. S. Lewis’ attention to God’s every-day marvels:

Lewis’s keen, penetrating sense of his own heart’s aching for Joy, combined with his utter amazement at the sheer, objective realness of things other than himself, has over and over awakened me from the slumbers of self-absorption to see and savor the world and through the world, the Maker of the world…

Lewis gave me, and continues to give me, an intense sense of the astonishing “realness” of things. He had the ability to see and feel what most of us see and do not see. He had what Alan Jacobs called “omnivorous attentiveness” (Alan Jacobs, The Narnian, p. xxi.) I love that phrase. What this has done for me is hard to communicate. To wake up in the morning and to be aware of the firmness of the mattress, the warmth of the sun’s rays, the sound of the clock ticking, the coldness of the wooden floor, the wetness of the water in the sink, the sheer being of things (quiddity as he called it). And not just to be aware but to wonder. To be amazed that the water is wet. It did not have to be wet. If there were no such thing as water, and one day someone showed it to you, you would simply be astonished.

He helped me become alive to life. To look at the sunrise and say with an amazed smile, “God did it again!” He helped me to see what is there in the world — things which if we didn’t have them, we would pay a million dollars to have, but having them, ignore. He convicts me of my callous inability to enjoy God’s daily gifts. He helps me to awaken my dazed soul so that the realities of life and of God and heaven and hell are seen and felt. I could go on about the good effect of this on preaching and the power of communication. But it has been precious mainly just for living.

John Piper, “Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul,” Feb. 2, 2010, Desiring God Conference for Pastors

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Kenneth LaPrade lives in El Paso, Texas, on the border between the United States and Mexico.  His wife is Mexican and many of the folks in his house church are from Mexico.  In such a context, immigration is always a touchy subject, but lately some Christians have baptized certain political rhetoric and presented it as “the” Christian position on this complicated issue.  LaPrade sees this as merely one aspect of the much larger problem of Christians trying to take power in America as if establishing God’s kingdom here, now.  In this interview, he urges us to retain the bible’s teaching about the future kingdom and see ourselves as Christians first and Americans (or Mexicans) second.

Here’s the text of Ken LaPrade’s statement on how Christians should orient themselves politically that inspired this interview:

I honestly feel a bit frustrated concerning the following situation (which I will briefly describe), and I believe its persistence is related to Satan’s tricks to promote biblical unawareness concerning the priority of the future kingdom. I know that my attempted reminders, in certain cases, keep falling on deaf ears. Please, pray concerning this highly distracting issue.

I am earnestly still prayerfully concerned about so-called Christian efforts at erroneous “kingdom NOW” thinking – such as an obsession with American politics, either defending or demonizing “Trump” or current social or political trends.

I personally work with several immigrants who have been quite hurt by very strange, insensitive comments (even bullying remarks) posted quite publicly as if representing a “Christian” perspective!

In my estimation, ALL such misguided trends (either to justify or condemn pagan leaders in a pagan nation) are a failure (among so-called Christians) to really grasp the Kingdom of God as FUTURE!

Present hurtful rhetoric is tantamount (in my assessment) to the hypothetical absurdity of retroactively getting 1st century Christians to hotly debate whether Tiberius, Nero, or Domitian were better or worse for the Roman Empire! As is obvious, 1st century Christians were far too future Kingdom focused to be so distracted!

We, as 21st century Christians, do not help anyone by being seduced into speaking for one side or another of two (or more) warring camps of Gentile hate-mongers who are ruled in typically corrupt Gentile fashion!

“Christian” pop-culture labels pasted on political & social movements do not “Christianize” blatant disregard for Jesus himself. Neither do they “COVER” for outright demonic evil – whether from “the left” or from “the right.”

We’d be better off suffering NOW for obeying him, rather than getting bamboozled by a pseudo-Christian ( with NO Future Kingdom focus) bandwagon to get our way now – as if entitled …. by an “American idol.”

Biblically speaking, the USA, and all current nations (Gentiles by nature) await JUST dismantling when our true theocratic King (Jesus) comes to reign. I still pray that King Jesus’ perspective NOW have the priority that it should have, at least among those who try to faithfully await his much needed intervention.

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Last week we examined what the bible teaches about heaven. This week we’ll see what it says about hell. John Cortright explains there are three meanings of hell in scripture, including tartarus where fallen angels are temporarily imprisoned, hades/sheol where the dead remain until resurrection, and gehenna where the wicked are destroyed in the final judgment.

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What is heaven? Throughout the bible we find different layers of meaning, including (1) heaven as sky, (2) heaven as God’s throne, and (3) heaven as God’s realm or dimension. Although heaven is a reality, it is not where we go when we die. Rather the bible teaches that the dead are asleep until the resurrection when they inherit the earth, renewed and restored.

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Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald famously sang about heaven:

Heaven, I’m in heaven

2 Samuel 18.9

he was between heaven and earth

Heaven as Sky (Realm of the Birds)

Genesis 1.14-20

Genesis 1.28

Matthew 6.26

Heaven as God’s Throne

Isaiah 66.1-2

N. T. Wright:

“What then do the New Testament writers mean when they speak of an inheritance waiting for us in heaven? This has been much misunderstood…The point of such passages, as in 1 Peter 1.4, 2 Corinthians 5.1, Philippians 3.20, and so forth, is not that one must ‘go to heaven’, as in much-popular imagination, in o

Robin Todd has faithfully served as the director of the Worldwide Scattered Brethren Network for the last 10 years.  He helps biblical unitarians find each other all over the United States as well as some other countries.  In this interview, we talk about how he got started, what it takes to get on his list, and how he sees the future of the network.

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In this concluding teaching of our apologetics conference, John Truitt gleans from Christ’s example key ways that we can imitate him in our own evangelistic efforts today.  He begins by looking how Jesus was completely obedient to God and how he prepared himself (both in knowledge and experience).  Next Truitt urges us to get moving, expecting God to direct us as we are obedient.  Lastly, he emphasizes the importance of radical love to our neighbors and the need for community.

Here now is podcast 148 Evangelism, Jesus’ Way with John Truitt

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Have you ever been in a corn maze?  The reason they work is because you can only see right in front of you.  If you had a live drone feed, you could easily orient yourself and find the way out.  This is the benefit of history.  We live in a postmodern culture, but it’s hard to see or understand what that means since we’re surrounded with it.  In this exceptional presentation, Kegan Chandler guides us through the history of premodernism, modernism, and postmodernism so that we can orient ourselves to how many people in our world think and approach life.  Not only will this give you a drones-eye perspective of our current situation, but it also will help you understand how to better share your faith with postmodern people.

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Metanarratives and Postmodernism (Kegan Chandler)

Postmodernism is a worldview based on French philosophers, Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard w/ these four characteristics:

meta-narrative: overarching account that provides a pattern or structure for ppls beliefs and experiences

postmodernist mission: deconstruction

if everything is deconstructed, what do we fill it with?

First Star Wars w/ Luke vs. last star wars w/ Luke, deconstructs everything

premodernism

premodernism crumbles

modernism

postmodernism

pomo is good for Christianity b/c

problems w/ postmodernism

a post-postmodernism worldview

How should we think through the different major religions of our time? Are they all the same? What are their differences? In this presentation, philosopher of religion, Dale Tuggy, works through key questions that can help us differentiate and distinguish religions from each other. In the second half of his talk, he invites the audience to diagnose various quasi-religious perspectives popular in our culture, before offering comments on each.

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aspects of religion

religious diversity vs. religious pluralism

on moral questions, major religions have a lot of common-sense overlap

four core claims

Christianity is more focused on truth than any other religion

there’s one theology/teaching per religion

Christianity on the four core claims

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How do you know the difference between what's right and wrong?  Do morals have an absolute source or does society determine them?  In this talk, Kenny Willenburg explains the classic moral argument as well as how we can use this approach to "turn the tables" when people object to Christianity on moral grounds.  I've also left in a fair amount of discussion following Willenburg's presentation.

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1. if morals are objective then they are obligatory
2. there must be a source for morals
3. the most reasonable source is God

if there is no God, there couldn't be objective morality

Richard Dawkins (God Delusion)- God of the OT is jealous, petty, control freak, etc.

three problems

1. saying God is immoral doesn't disprove God's existence○ Hitler didn't exist b/c the things he did were too bad
2. saying the creator is evil is arrogant○ if there is a creator then he would have the right to interact w/ creation however he wanted
3. can't claim God is immoral b/c w/o God's existence there's no standard by which to judge God

relativism is taught in our culture as the only absolute truth

• tolerant of anything but intolerance
• can't push religious ideas on others, but that is pushing secularism on us
• no one is allowed to criticize anyone's actions

sources for morality

• morality can't be individually determined
• morality can't be socially constructed○ actually, our culture got its ideas from a Judea-Christian background○ thus, this proves what the non-theist is trying to disprove
• morality comes from nature (i.e. Darwinian evolution)○ how is self-sacrificial care of the weak/unproductive helpful to the herd?○ morals are simply evolutionary hold overs○ not clear how this is obligatory

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• Check out the other talks in this Apologetics Conference
• For more, here’s an entire Apologetics Class
• Intro music: Jazzy Frenchy by bensound.com. Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.