Is evolution a concept from Satan?

The original question asked was whether Evolution is from the pit of Hell.

But now I find myself working on a series about Satan – what the Bible tells us about him.

I was in the process of writing about how the serpent of Genesis and Satan came to be referenced as one and the same in this passage from Revelation –

Rev 20:1 And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. 2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. 3 He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.

Part of what was needed was a definition of the word “day” – as in when we read about creation in Genesis – which concludes with –

Ge 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

and it was all accomplished – according to the Bible – in six days plus a day of rest.

Is that really true?

So – here’s the original article, from October 6, 2012.

I’ll put updates in text like this, so you can tell what’s new – and what was added to blend it into the series on Satan.

Video shows “scientist” in Congress saying evolution is from “pit of Hell”

OK – just by the quotes in the title it seems that the author is against what was said.
But – is there any merit to it?
Let’s take a look and see.

If you’re a regular reader here –
you know that – at least to some extent – I’m going to agree with this.

But – in the interest of being fully open – let’s take a look at it it more detail.

This comes from an article on nbcnews.com in the cosmic log section.
There are two paragraphs taken out of the entire video of his speech – so let’s just look at them.
Just a reminder – as we go through this, the extracts from the article will look like this, so I don’t have to keep identifying them each time.

God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that.

OK – obviously no argument from me on that point.
While some will obviously disagree – rather than totally trash what he says just because of that one point, if you do happen to disagree with him (and me) on that point, I do invite you to please keep an open mind and at least go through the rest of what he has to say.

All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell.

Here’s where I may immediately surprise some of you.
To say that “all that stuff” – I believe – is an overstatement.

Saying “all” / “none” or “always” / “never” or “everyone” / “no one” or others words like that almost always leads to trouble. Rarely does everyone agree on much of anything. It’s inflammatory and likely to turn people off before they even get any further. Evidence of this can be seen just by reading the comments posted to this article.

So – having said that –
I also have to say that I disagree that “all that stuff taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory” is “lies straight from the pit of Hell”.
That may be shocking – but it’s true.
I’ll explain more later.

And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior.

It’s hard to address this one without first explaining why I don’t believe it’s all lies –
so I’m going to defer this also –
in the interest of keeping skeptics amenable to continuing to read this.

You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don’t believe that the earth’s but about 9,000 years old.

Remember in school when we used to have to do word problems in math?
At first – they were simple. There was just the information you needed to solve the problem and they weren’t that hard.
But – somewhere along the line – they got harder.
What I finally realized was the reason they got harder was there was all this useless information. The trick was to get rid of the useless stuff – and just get down to what is the actual question being asked.

For instance:

There was a school bus going on it’s morning route to pick up the kids to take them to school. At the first stop – 10 kids got on. At the next one – 5 kids got on. At the next one – 7 kids got on and one got off because he was sick and a mom at the bus stop said she’d take him home. At the last stop – 8 more kids got on.

At this point – I assume most of you are counting the number of kids on the bus – right?

Well – the question is actually – what color is the bus?

This question works in the U. S. – Because school busses are always yellow. Other countries – maybe some other color – or maybe no standard color at all.
The point was though – all that stuff about how many stops – how many kids were on the bus – etc. – is meaningless information.
The part about the one kid getting off and being driven home by another alleged parent may have gotten some people thrown off just by the thought of that happening. But still – the question was merely the color of the bus.

I believe that could be happening here with his statement that the earth is only 9,000 years old.

Does it really matter how old the earth is?

Is God any different if it’s 9,000 years old or billions of years old?

I submit to you that the actual age of the earth is a question we cannot definitively answer –
although there will be scientists on both side of the argument –
but ultimately –
does it matter?

I have to say –
I don’t believe it does.

It does however serve to divide people on a “fact” that isn’t relevant.

I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.

Uh Oh.

Have I put myself in a box here?

I’d say no.

As with most things –
there are two ways to look at this as well.

If creation in six days is true – the earth – according to calculations I’ve seen from Biblical events would be more like 5,000 to 6,000 years old. Based on the ages that people lived (living longer earlier – and not so long later) and taking into account the flood in Noah’s time – and the number of generations until Jesus’ time –
if we took the six days literally – as he suggests – the age of the earth is probably less than 9,000 years.
Unfortunately, none of us was around 9,000 years ago to verify that.
Also unfortunately, it’s too easy to build a model to explain something –
and then use that same model to prove your assumption.
In any field – that would be called circular logic.

So – let’s take the flip side –
let’s say the earth is old –
millions – or even billions – of years old.

How can that be if the earth was created in six days as we know them?

Remember that part about information that isn’t relevant?
In this case – we may have information that isn’t accurate –
that the earth was created in six days “as we know them”.

Let’s look at the text on creation in Genesis

The Beginning

Ge 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Ge 1:3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
Ge 1:6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
Ge 1:9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
Ge 1:11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
Ge 1:14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
Ge 1:20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
Ge 1:24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Ge 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
Ge 1:27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
Ge 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Remember – the actual question here is whether the earth was created in six days as we know them.

We start off this the first “day“ –

Ge 1:3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

So – we have light and dark – day and night.
But – is this “our” day and night that we refer to today – or was this something else?

That may seem like a weird – or maybe stupid question.
But – let’s look at verses 14- 19 –

Ge 1:14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

The sun and the moon don’t come until the 4th day!
This leads to the obvious question –

what’s the difference between the light of the 3rd verse and the light(s) in verses 14- 19?

Let’s take a look.

First of all, some background on the word “light”, as it’s used in the Old Testament. (The following segment on light is also new, as of March 2017.)

Light

In the Old Testament. Light is a many-sided concept in the OT. The term is often used of ordinary, sensible light, but also as a way of communicating spiritual truth. Light was the first thing God created after the heavens and earth (Gn 1:3). God also made individual lights such as the sun, moon, and stars (Gn 1:16). Sometimes light is personified, as when its inaccessibility is indicated by saying that it is impossible to reach the place where it lives (Jb 38:19; cf. Jb 38:24). There are also manufactured light sources such as those used in the tabernacle (Ex 25:37).
Light is a natural symbol for what is pleasant, good, or uplifting, or what is associated with important people and more especially with God. “Light is pleasant,” says the preacher (Eccl 11:7). During one of the plagues in Egypt the Egyptians were in thick darkness while the Israelites had light (Ex 10:23). When the Israelites left Egypt, they were led in the wilderness by a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night (Ex 13:21). The pillar gave them light when their enemies were in darkness (Ex 14:20). In later days Israel remembered that God did not abandon his people even when they sinned; the pillar of fire was always there to show them the right way (Neh 9:19; cf. Neh 9:12; Pss 78:14; 105:39). ¹

Just given that opening sentence, I’d be more than a little concerned about saying that “light” is what we think it is. We’ll soon see even more reason to be concerned about thinking “light”, as used in verse 3, has anything at all to do with day and night. –

In the verse 3 – the Hebrew word used for light means illumination (in every sense, including lighting, happiness, etc.) ²

To go with that – the Hebrew word for darkness in that same verse meant the dark; hence (literally) darkness; figuratively, misery, destruction, death, ignorance, sorrow, wickedness: ³

Wow.
That certainly doesn’t seem to be day and night as we know it.
Sounds more like the separation of good and evil – no?

So let’s look at the lights in verses 14- 19 –

The two great lights are assumed to be the sun and the moon.
In those verses, the Hebrew word used for light means properly, a luminous body or luminary. As for greater and lesser – the meanings of those words in Hebrew are, respectively – great (in any sense) and diminutive, literally (in quantity, size or number).
This would indicate that the sun and moon – the dividers of day and night – weren’t created until the 4th day.

In the original, I let it stand light this – assuming the point would be made. However, I now feel it’s important to offer further proof regarding the original intent of the Hebrew writer when the English translations use “light” for both – as though they were interchangeable. It’s not necessary to actually know Hebrew for what follows – just to recognize that the two “light”s are different.

Here are verses 3-5. with both English and Hebrew lined up –

Each instance of the word “light”, in English, is highlighted, and you can see the Hebrew word as well as the number 216 under it (which is something called the Strong’s Number – a reference to words in the Bible to do things like look up every occurrence, get a definition, Etc.) The point here is simply that, in each case, the English word light comes from Strong’s #216.

Now – let’s do the same for verses 14-19 –

Rather long, especially if you’re on a cell phone. Sorry.

We still have the English word “light” highlighted. But now, we see something different.

In some cases, the word “light” was added where there was no Hebrew word. Rather, it was implied by the context. But that means it’s the word “light”, as it was used at the time of the translation, fitted into the context of the translated Hebrew words. In all other cases, except one, the original Hebrew word is Strong’s # 3974 – not #216. As we saw earlier – that’s the difference between “light” as something good – and “light” as in light from the sun.

So – what about the exception? You may have heard the saying about the exception proving the rule. Maybe that’s the case here as well? Why is it that “the day and the night” are differentiated from separating “light from darkness”? If they were the same, would they be repeated? After all, in Hebrew, repeating something was often a means of letting people know this was a new concept. Given that the words have already been used so many times, that doesn’t seem to be the case here. More likely – it’s really two different things.

Two different things – like –

Warnings and Encouragements

Lk 12:1 Meanwhile, when a crowd of many thousands had gathered, so that they were trampling on one another, Jesus began to speak first to his disciples, saying: “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. 2 There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 3 What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.”

Where Jesus talks about things said in the “dark” – in secret – things we wouldn’t want everyone to hear — will be shouted out to all.
This is a reference to “light” being what is good – and “dark” although only implied, being what is not good.

Jn 12:35 Then Jesus told them, “You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. The man who walks in the dark does not know where he is going. 36 Put your trust in the light while you have it, so that you may become sons of light.” When he had finished speaking, Jesus left and hid himself from them.

where Jesus talks about Himself being the “light” – darkness being the prince of this world, Satan – and the possibility for us to be “sons of light“, rather than the implied alternative of sons of darkness.

One could say this is all supposition on my part. However – it fits, It’s difficult to show you the Greek words of the New Testament and, without a doubt, prove they are essentially the same as the Hebrew words from the Old Testament. However, the words Jesus speaks in John 12:35 are part of Isaiah’s prophecies – from the Old Testament. Specifically, they are from the beginning of Isaiah 9 –

To Us a Child Is Born

Isa 9:1 Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan—
Isa 9:2 The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.

Notice these words in verse 2 –

darkness, (great) light, light (has dawned).

If this is the exception that proves the rule, then we should see the Hebrew words from Isaiah line up with the Hebrew words from the very beginning of Genesis – where light and dark would be read as good and not good – as opposed to the presence or absence of light from the sun.

A couple things to note here:

The Hebrew word translated as “light”, is in fact Strong’s #216 – the same as we saw at the beginning of Genesis.
The Hebrew word translated as “darkness (as in people walking in darkness) is # 2822. While we didn’t point out the word darkness in the verses from Genesis, if you look, they also match.

Further evidence that these words – translated as light and darkness – are to show not light from the sun, but the light from God. Darkness, on the other hand, would be the absence of God.

Now, you may have noticed that “darkness”, from “in the land of deep darkness“, does not have a corresponding Hebrew word. That’s because, as indicated by the left pointing arrow below the word, comes from the word underneath “deep” – the one marked as Strong’s #6757. The meaning behind that Hebrew word is –

6757 צַלְמָוֶת [tsalmaveth /tsal·maw·veth/] n m. From 6738 and 4194; TWOT 1921b; GK 7516; 18 occurrences; AV translates as “shadow of death” 18 times. 1 death-shadow, deep shadow, deep darkness, shadow of death. 1A death-shadow. 1B death-shadow, deep shadow, darkness. 1C death-shadow (of distress, extreme danger) (fig). 1D death-shadow (of place of the dead) (fig). ⁴

That’s very dark. Shadow of Death dark. As in

Ps 23:4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. ⁵

And yes – it is, again, the same Hebrew word.

What is a “day”?

So – if day and night as we know them weren’t defined until the “ 4th day” –
what does that mean for the earth being created in six days as we know them?

Doesn’t seem like a foregone conclusion.
Not that it actually matters –
it’s another of those word problem type questions.
Could God have done it in 6 days? Of course.
Could He have done it in a time that amounts to 6 days for Him but is billions of years for us? Of course.
Does it really matter? No.

What matters is whether or not we believe that God created the earth.

In the original, I left it there – that it doesn’t matter. Realizing that may be difficult to grasp, and at the risk of alienating some Christians who are absolutely set on God having created the earth in six days as we know them – I’m going to add more here.

Here is the problem.

A Hebrew day

Here’s the definition of a “day” in the Hebrew culture –

Day

Most literally, a period of time delimited by the earth’s rotation around its axis, such as the period between two consecutive sunrises; also, the portion of that period in which the sun is visible, the other portion being called “night.” The word “day” occurs over 2,000 times in the OT, over 350 times in the NT. The Hebrew word for day is used in a variety of ways, not merely in the literal sense. The Hebrew day began in the evening and continued until the following evening, a reckoning presumably based on the Torah (cf. Gn 1:14, 19). That kind of literal solar (24-hour) day is known as a civil day. Among other ancient Near Eastern nations the civil day began at different times. Greek custom agreed with that of the Hebrews; the Babylonians started their day at sunrise; the Egyptian and Roman day stretched from one midnight to the next. ⁶

That looks like reason enough to believe in the 24 hour days for the six days of creation.

However – there is also another definition for the days of creation –

Days of Creation

Many people believe that the days mentioned in the Genesis creation narrative were 24-hour periods. The phrase “there was evening, there was morning” is used to support that idea. That expression, however, is actually a Sumerian literary figure that pairs opposites together to describe totality. Thus “evening-morning” means a complete phase of time within the total creative cycle; it emphasizes the completeness or comprehensiveness of the process, not the specific period of time in which that process was accomplished. The totality of creation, phase by phase, may have been thus depicted without any necessary reference to a defined time period.
Since the Sumerian civil day included only the visible (12-hour) period, a legal day of other nations was actually a “double day” (24 hours). If the early Genesis material reflects Sumerian culture, the use of “evening-morning” would preclude current concepts of a civil day and point instead to a phase or general time period. ⁷

This is definitely a problem for the six-day creation people.

However – it’s a great leap towards showing, as I have often done, that science is proving the Bible to be true. What we now have is a definition of a creation day that could be something like this –

a particular period of time marked by distinctive features, events, etc.:
the beginning of a distinctive period in the history of anything:
a point of time distinguished by a particular event or state of affairs; a memorable date:

Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?

That – like it or not, is also the dictionary.com definition for the word “epoch”.
And “epoch” is a word often used by science to describe how the universe and the earth specifically, came to exist.

Huh.

End of the first paragraph

Where does that leave us at the end of the first paragraph from the article then?

We started with –

God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior. You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don’t believe that the earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.

We are now down to –

God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that.

That’s the part I agree with.
Of course – there’s still that sentence about whether everything from evolution is from the pit of Hell. – Which we will return to.

The second paragraph

So – let’s continue –

And what I’ve come to learn is that it’s the manufacturer’s handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society. And that’s the reason as your congressman I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll continue to do that.

I put the whole paragraph up here – rather than go through sentence by sentence.
I think there are a couple of points to make.

First – to compare the Bible to the manufacturer’s handbook is an oversimplification of what it’s about. It’s not like when we have a problem in life it’s even remotely comparable to looking up in the car manual how to change a tail light when it burns out. It’s tempting to think it might be nice if it was that simple – but it also may be quite boring. Life is a journey for us to go through – hopefully learning and getting better along the way – for Christians meaning becoming more like Jesus. That’s not like popping out a burned out bulb and putting in a new one – like popping out a sinful activity – replacing it with a new non-sinful activity – and we’re good to go.

There’s also the issue of the government.
I have a number of other examples of things like this in the category called Why the government can’t save you.
Just for a very brief example though –
I suspect that people who are looking for the government to save them are looking in the wrong place. Did Jesus say that He was here to tell us how to run the government?
Let’s look at Matthew 22:15- 22 –

Paying Taxes to Caesar

Mt 22:15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. 16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. 17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

Mt 22:18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, “Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?”

Mt 22:21 “Caesar’s,” they replied.

Then he said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Mt 22:22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

Jesus was on the earth during one of the most repressive governments ever.
But – He did not support overthrowing the government –
He didn’t look to the government to save him –
He said Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.

So – while it may be an admirable goal to want to try to run the government according to the principles in the Bible – it’s not really something that Jesus appears to have advocated.

You may ask – what about Jesus being a “King”.
I thought about this – and searched for the word “kingdom” in the New Testament.
In the NIV – it appears 114 times.
In every instance where Jesus is talking about His kingdom – it says either the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God.

In one instance – where Pilate as asked to judge Jesus by the Jewish leaders – Pilate asks about whether Jesus is a King. We see the sequence in John 18:28- 40 –

Jesus Before Pilate

Jn 18:28 Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. 29 So Pilate came out to them and asked, “What charges are you bringing against this man?”
Jn 18:30 “If he were not a criminal,” they replied, “we would not have handed him over to you.”
Jn 18:31 Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.”
“But we have no right to execute anyone,” the Jews objected. 32 This happened so that the words Jesus had spoken indicating the kind of death he was going to die would be fulfilled.
Jn 18:33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
Jn 18:34 “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”
Jn 18:35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”
Jn 18:36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
Jn 18:37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
Jn 18:38 “What is truth?” Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. 39 But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”
Jn 18:40 They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in a rebellion.

My kingdom is not of this world.

Jesus Kingdom isn’t here / now.
That’s all He said.
Nothing in there about how the Roman government should be.
Just a simple statement – My kingdom is not of this world.

So – let’s look at part of that 2nd paragraph again –

It teaches us how to run our lives individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society. And that’s the reason as your congressman I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll continue to do that.

If we remove the part about government – we now have

It teaches us how to run our lives individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society.

As for the phrase “how to run” –
again –
seems an oversimplification of things.

Here is what Jesus said when asked about the greatest commandment –
from Matthew 22:34- 40 –

The Greatest Commandment

Mt 22:34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Mt 22:37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

This is what the Bible is about – not how to run all of public policy and everything in society.

We are now down to –

God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that.
It teaches us

And that’s about it from what was said.

From what I’ve written – I’d add to it to say –

God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that.
It teaches us to love God and to love others as ourselves.

Quite simple –
nothing added –
nothing removed from what The Bible says.

So – let’s go back to that part we set aside earlier

All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell.

Let’s start by looking at some of the words here – with definitions and other information from Dictionary.com

Evolution –
1. any process of formation or growth; development: the evolution of a language; the evolution of the airplane.

2. a product of such development; something evolved: The exploration of space is the evolution of decades of research.

3. Biology . change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift.

Word Origin & History
evolution

1640s, “an opening of what was rolled up,” from L. evolutionem “unrolling of a book,” noun of action from evolvere (see evolve). Used in various senses in medicine, mathematics, and general use, including “growth to maturity and development of an individual living thing”

(1660s). Modern use in biology, of species, first attested 1832 by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell. Charles Darwin used the word only once, in the closing paragraph of “The Origin of Species” (1859), and preferred descent with modification, in part because evolution already had been used in the 18c. homunculus theory of embryological development (first proposed under this name by Bonnet, 1762), in part because it carried a sense of “progress” not found in Darwin’s idea. But Victorian belief in progress prevailed (along with brevity), and Herbert Spencer and other biologists popularized evolution.

Embryology –
1. the science dealing with the formation, development, structure, and functional activities of embryos.

2. the origin, growth, and development of an embryo: the embryology of the chick.

The Big Bang Theory –
a theory that deduces a cataclysmic birth of the universe (big bang) from the observed expansion of the universe, cosmic background radiation, abundance of the elements, and the laws of physics.

Let’s go backwards through these words –

The Big Bang Theory – If you go back to the very beginning of Genesis – there’s actually no problem with the Big Bang Theory. God said these things – and they happened. In reality – the only real difference is that the Bible says God is responsible for creation – and the Big Bang Theory folks claim to know everything – except who / what started the Big Bang.

Embryology – I wrote something a couple years ago on Which came first – the chicken or the egg? The conclusion – the Biblical answer would appear to be the chicken – since God created the animals and then said Be fruitful and increase in number. And God created man – then said Be fruitful and increase in number. Nothing in there about embryos – so there can be no real debate on whether there’s any technical differences between science and the Bible on this one. The one topic that causes the issues is based on the final word –

Evolution – interestingly enough – if you go through the order of events proposed in evolutionary science and compare them to the order in which the Bible says God created things – they are identical. Like the Big Bang Theory – the only real difference is in who’s responsible for “evolution”. It is random – or is it under God’s control?

So – it basically comes down to a question of who gets the credit?

Essentially – what it comes down to in so many issues is that question of who gets the credit for something.

And that – who gets the credit – is the key to the one remaining sentence from the nbc.com article –

And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior.

I believe the implied – or should have been implied – reason for what he alleges is happening, is all about who gets the credit.

Once we are taught not to give God the credit for the things He’s done – even if we maintain that we need a savior – that savior won’t be Jesus, the Son of God. More likely it will be another person – or maybe science – or maybe just a life doomed to have no expectations other than to die and nothing more.

What we have now is –

God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that.
It teaches us to love God and to love others as ourselves.
Lies I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory that take credit away from God are straight from the pit of Hell. They are lies to try to keep us from understanding that we need a savior.

And so – there it is.

Science can’t save us.

Government can’t save us.

Other people can’t save us.

But – any lie that will convince us that God isn’t who He said He is –
and any lie that says Jesus isn’t our path to salvation –
that will lead us to only one place –
to the source of that lie –
to Hell.

New Conclusion

Remember, I changed the name of this one. It’s now about Satan, rather the the “pit of hell“, as used in the quote we looked at.

Given what was said about “who get’s the credit” – this seems reasonable.
Given that it’s now part of a series on Satan – it was inevitable.

I encourage you to check out the series.

It may require some patience. As of right now, I’m still writing that one. I’ve put a note on my to-do-list to update this page when it’s complete.
If you’d like to get email notification as other pages are added to this site, please sign up for them by using the subscribe button at the top right of the page.

Footnotes

1
Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). Light. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 2, p. 1342). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
4
Strong, J. (1995). Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship.
5
The New King James Version. (1982). (Ps 23:4). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
6
Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). Day. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 1, p. 587). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
7
Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). Day. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 1, pp. 587–588). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.

Is evolution a concept from Satan?

what’s the difference between the light of the 3rd verse and the light(s) in verses 14- 19?

What is a “day”?

A Hebrew day

End of the first paragraph

The second paragraph

New Conclusion

Footnotes

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what’s the difference between the light of the 3rd verse and the light(s) in verses 14- 19?

What is a “day”?

A Hebrew day

End of the first paragraph

The second paragraph

New Conclusion

Footnotes

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Please leave a comment or ask a question - it's nice to hear from you.Cancel reply