A Deeply Concerned Plea

Several of my friends posted a blog that deeply troubled me. This blog stirred up such a deep concern in my heart that I felt it necessary respond in a pleading way. If you haven't read this blog, the rest of this won't make sense. My blog is directed to my fellow Evangelical Bible believing Christians. If you do not fit this category, you may find this helpful, but it is not necessarily for you. There will be some controversial statements made in this post. Please don't read this in an attacking tone from someone looking to pick a fight. Please read this in the tone of a concerned brother, because I am very concerned.

There are so many issues to address that I am only going to address the most important one. Really this whole thing boils down to the sufficiency of scripture and whether or not the Bible is what it says it is. But even this topic of the reliability of scripture, in all of its importance, is not the topic I am going to address. I am going to talk about Jesus.

This is why the blog is so troubling to me. As soon as people start to say things like, "The Jesus I worship" or "My Jesus" what they are in fact doing is saying they believe in a different Jesus than someone else. In this instance the author is making a distinction between the Jesus he believes in as opposed to the Jesus Ken Ham believes in. This is a giant red flag. I cannot stress how important this issue is! Here is why:

2 Corinthians 11:1-6 "I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge; indeed, in every way we have made this plain to you in all things." (emphasis mine)

Galatians 1:8 "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed."

Now, even though I could go into how Paul talks about Adam and Eve and the Serpent as historical fact (I do find it incredible how he mentions the beginning of the Bible as alongside people preaching a different Gospel and a different Jesus... hmmmm....) I will not expound on that, but talk about claims of who Jesus is. Just because people say they believe in Jesus does not mean they believe in the correct Jesus of the Bible. Mormans believe in a Jesus, Muslims believe in a Jesus, Jews believe in a Jesus, Jehovah's Witnesses believe in a Jesus, Christians believe in a Jesus, and the list goes on. But which one is the correct Jesus?

The key to understand here is that when we hear people talk about Jesus, we must look to scripture to see if this Jesus they are talking about is a Biblical Jesus. If we do not, then we may be deceived into believing a false Jesus and false Gospel.

This shows the importance of scripture and why I am so troubled with this blog. Scripture makes me look at the blog and see the author suggesting that he believes in a different Jesus than Ken Ham. The author actually admits he doesn't know the God that Ken Ham believes in. He states, "And so when Ken Ham and those of his ilk stand up and proclaim that Evolution and modern science is 'opposed to God', I am left to wonder which God he's talking about." He also states, "He is the God who I believe is behind all scientific discovery. But apparently, Ken's God is not."

This is a huge claim to make, because by scriptures standards, this is the difference between a true and false prophet. The author has just "accursed" (to use Biblical language) Ken Ham of preaching the wrong Gospel/Jesus. Let's look at the claims the author makes about who his Jesus is.

1. "The Jesus I worship doesn't offer me scientific explanations about the world around me." I am ok with this statement, but it comes with lots of assumptions about the other side. The Bible is not a science textbook (Ken Ham does not believe the Bible is a science textbook either) but the Bible does give explanations as to how things came to be. These two things are different. The Bible records the event, not the molecular formula's or chemistry behind creation.

2. "The Jesus I worship is the being which all things were created, seen and unseen." This is in agreement with Genesis 1 and 2 and also Colossians 1:16.

3. "He is the Lord of the sciences." Absolutely true! See verses above.

4. "He is the creator of the Evolutionary process." Well that's a big statement. I wish he used some sort of Biblical evidence for this. Here we come back to the sufficiency of scripture. Is the Bible what it says it is? This will be an extremely controversial statement. If evolution is true, then God is a liar, or at best He has deceived us. Why do I believe this? We have the Genesis account in Genesis 1 and 2. Genesis 5 talks about God creating man and gives a genealogy with lots of details about people lives. Is this truly history, or is God deceiving us? Then we have lots of scripture, and Paul and Jesus who cite back to the Genesis account as a historical happening (Matthew 19:4-6, 1 Corinthians 11:8-9 1 Corinthians 15:45, 2 Corinthians 11:1-6, 1 Timothy 2:13-14, Jude 1:14). We have the New Testament genealogy that goes back to Adam (Luke 3:23-38). We have lots of teachings about marriage from Jesus where he cites back to the creation account (Mark 10:6-8 is an example). The Holy Spirit through Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 "For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." Evolution says that death did not come through Adam, because for evolution to happen there needs to be death in the survival of the fittest and natural selection. This shows a fundamental understanding of the Gospel and Christ's work relating back to the creation account and the fall of mankind in Genesis 3. Belief in Evolution is to say that the Ten Commandments are wrong when they state in Exodus 20:11 that God created all things in six days. I could go on and list lots of scripture for all these points, but they are literally all over the Bible. I find it sad, and telling that the author never quotes a Bible verse to defend his points even though he apparently holds to the inspired view of scripture.

5. "My Jesus doesn't demand that I believe one theory or another about the origins of life." While this may be technically true, this is quite a loaded statement. This is basically saying, Jesus doesn't demand me to believe everything he says in order to be a Christian. Wouldn't we, as Bible believing Christians, want to believe everything the Bible says as trustworthy?

6. "My Jesus is more concerned with the content of our character and how we love each other than with our position on any scientific, political, or even theological issue." Well there we have it. This is the authors Gospel message. Jesus doesn't care about what you believe in, he just wants you to be a good person of character and love people. This is a gospel of works. Jesus is very concerned about what theological position people believe, in fact, it is the deciding factor between eternal life in Christ or eternal death apart from Christ. This statement the author makes is truly incredible. Jesus says in John 14:6 "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." This is Jesus caring about our theology.

If the Bible is truly the word of God, and God cannot lie (Titus 1:2), then the Bible is the highest authority. Science is not more authoritative than scripture! Science changes every day. Our understanding of lots of scientific things continually change, so it would be silly to put science in authority over scripture, especially if scripture is what it claims to be.

So hear my plea. Let us please be discerning about people saying things like "My God" and "My Jesus" when they talk. I am deeply concerned for this author's heart. I am deeply concerned about your heart, and my heart. In making this plea to you, I know I must also be on my guard to make sure the Jesus I believe in is the true Jesus of scripture. I love you and care for you.