Issue 1490 – Cracking Rocks – July 4, 2024
Heads up this morning! I am going to say some things that some may not agree with.
Some years ago, when we still lived in Alberta, we visited the Lower Mainland. Our eldest son Kris was working for an inner-city ministry in Vancouver, and our youngest son Kyle was off to college.
On our way home, we traveled through the copper canyons of Canada’s Cariboo country in the interior of British Columbia. We stopped overnight in the town of Cache Creek. In our hotel room, there were a variety of tourist brochures, and one in particular caught my eye.
The next morning, we headed out to the McAbee Fossil Beds for a dig. At that time, the beds were open for fossil collecting. They have now been deemed a provincial historic site.
Kathy wasn’t particularly interested in climbing onto a desert mountaintop and cracking rocks in the hot sun—come to think of it, it does sound like a chain gang activity. She took the opportunity to relax at the base and spend time in the Word. I climbed the hill and cracked rocks for a few hours.
I came down the hill with three small bags of fossils. None of them are scientifically significant (there is a resident paleontologist on site to watch for that), but they were hard-earned treasures for me. My “best” find was a small fossil fish, an Eohiodon Rosei (mooneye)—and I didn’t even find that one myself—the guide on site gave it to me. Nonetheless, it was a fun few hours.
As I stood and sat in the rock piles, I pondered the differences between the site director’s account of the place’s history and the biblical account. Our guide, John, told us that the fossils were from the Eocene era, some 50.2 million years ago.
Our guide was very sincere and imparted to us what he had been taught and what he believed to be the most current science. It was not the time or place to discuss creation vs. evolutionary origins. Yet, I believe the fossils were more likely 5,500 hundred years old and had been deposited after the great flood from the time of Noah.
The war about the validity of the macroevolutionary meta-narrative (or lack thereof) still rages within the Christian church.
Although I grew up outside the church with macroevolution as my perspective, I no longer see it as being compatible with the biblical account.
My thoughts wandered from there to what many decry as a lack of unity in the church. While I can love and respect those who reject the Genesis account, I cannot agree with them. The creation account and the fall of humanity are foundational to our understanding of God and humanity.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17
I embrace the Bible as truth and do my best to interpret the world through that lens. When I encounter something that seems to contradict the Bible, I adjust my perspective to align with what the Bible teaches and reject the other view. Do I get it wrong at times? Of course.
Some non-believers laugh at that idea, but whether they realize it or not, it is what we all do with our worldview. When we encounter something that does not align with our perspective, we either reject it or reform it to match our viewpoint. This is something we all do without even realizing it.
Our worldview influences everything. It is the lens through which we see things. I make no apology for seeking a biblical worldview. Our worldview defines our theology (view of God), our morality, our anthropology (view of mankind), and much more. It represents a significant part of who we are.
We can learn much from people with differing worldviews, but we can never be spiritually in sync with them. Our views of origin, life, and what happens after death are totally different. Our unity is in the Spirit, and non-believers cannot have Him as a resident.
That means our value systems and priorities are different (or should be if we live our lives in accordance with our beliefs).
True unity is not simply getting along. I got along fine with John at the McAbee dig. He was a pleasant fellow, and I immensely enjoyed his company. That doesn’t mean we were united as brothers in Christ. I have no idea what he believes about Jesus, although I could draw some inferences from our conversation. I have met many non-believers whose company I prefer to that of some believers I know. That still does not make me spiritually united with the non-believer or remove me from the responsibility of being a brother to the Christian I disagree with.
True unity does not compromise everything so that there is a superficial level of “peace,” which really is neither peace nor unity. It is simply polite social nicety and much hypocrisy. Spiritual unity can only occur when there are compatible worldviews.
Yes, the church needs to be united. Yet we must never compromise biblical truth for what the world sees as unity. We must join together and earnestly contend for the faith once and for all. When we do that together as believers, then we will be united despite our differences in theology or practice.
Until next time, may you find yourself well rooted in the truth of God’s Word, and may that root give you a true biblical worldview.
Be blessed
Hallelu Yah / Praise God
Kevin
Gleanings From The Word
Experience an extraordinary God in ordinary life.
Soli Deo Gloria (For the glory of God alone)
Never let the enemy tell you that you are worthless or insignificant. Your value in God’s eyes is so great that it was worth dying for. You are a blessing to the world. You are so precious to God that his plan for heaven will not be complete without you.
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Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are from the English Standard Version (ESV)