The Immensity of the Universe

Christians worship the God who made the all things. From time to time it is helpful to think about the greatness of the phrase "all things."

Ed Decker (www.saintsalive.com) recently wrote the following piece that helps us put "all things" into proper perspective.

Have you even imagined what the magnitude of those heavens really is? The speed of light is a hundred and eighty-six thousand, two hundred and eighty-two miles per second. That means in the time it takes to blink your eye, light can travel around the Earth at the equator seven and a half times! Now that's moving!

If you go outside on a clear night, you can see a band going across the sky which appears as dense clouds across the center of the sky. Actually, that is the rim of what we earthlings call the Milky Way. What you are seeing is not clouds but stars, so many millions of stars that it appears to us to be clouds.

If you were traveling at a hundred and eighty six thousand, two hundred and eighty-two miles per second, at the speed of light, it would take you four and a half light years, to reach the nearest star you can see at night. A light year is how far light travels in one year. In one year, light will travel six trillion miles. Now the nearest star is Alpha Centauri, four and a half light years away, which means that the nearest star that you can see at night, is something like twenty-seven trillion miles away! And that is just the nearest star in our galaxy.

If we could get in a spaceship today and leave planet earth at that speed, it would take us only eight and a half minutes to pass the sun, which is ninety-three million miles away. And as we headed out through our solar system, past Mars and Jupiter and Saturn, Nepture and Uranus and Pluto, we would be heading out to the Milky Way galaxy, which is still part of the galaxy we live in, and there are over one hundred billion stars the size of our sun or bigger in the Milky Way galaxy.

As huge as this sounds, ours is one of the smallest galaxies in the universe! In fact, astronomers with the two hundred inch telescope at Mount Palomar in California estimate that in the cup of the Big Dipper constellation alone, there is over one million galaxies the size of our Milky Way or bigger! Just in the cup of the Big Dipper.

Now, at the speed of light, in our space ship, it would take us one hundred thousand light years to cross the Milky Way galaxy. That means our small galaxy is six hundred thousand trillion miles across. And astronomers can see over one million galaxies that size or bigger in the cup of the big dipper. Think of the magnitude of what we are saying.

Let our imaginary space ship leave the Milky Way galaxy and begin to head out into outer space. The farthest thing that astronomers can see or hear with their most sophisticated equipment is a quasar, which is fifteen billion light years away, which means it's ninety billion trillion miles away.

We have no idea what's beyond that, but that is a quasar, ninety billion trillion miles away emits more energy than one million galaxies do in one second! It emits enough energy in one second to supply all the electrical needs of the universe for one billion years. That's just one quasar and there are millions of quasars in the universe. Do you begin to get the picture? The Bible says that the God who created all of this holds it together by the power of His hands. And some people wonder of God is really big enough to solve their problems?

Albert Einstein said he became a firm believer in God because he realized when he looked at the universe that there had to be some intelligent being of unbelievable power who was holding it all together. He knew that it was held together by formulated mathematical laws and principles and it wasn't ever going to fly apart, as it should, unless that being changed the formula.

What overwhelmed him was that intelligence can only reside in a person, even though it may be a supernatural person Yet, he knew that the being who held all of this together by the power of His hand would have to be the Creator God, that His energy would have to transcend all the energy in the universe by infinity. The God Einstein found would have to be operating beyond infinity, beyond the scope of the formula of our existence. Meditate on that for awhile!

It's a Good Thing I Didn't Hold My Breath

In my last post, I mentioned my Jehovah's Witness friend who told me he would return the following Saturday to speak with me. It's a good thing I didn't hold my breath; he never came.

However, this last weekend two ladies knocked on my door. One had been a Jehovah's Witness for 28 years; the other had been involved for 32 years.

I asked one lady why she had joined the Jehovah's Witnesses. She told me that she had been a Baptist but learned that the pastor had a mistress. Not only that, pastor had fathered children with the mistress.

The lady told me that a man who was violating God's commands could not help her to know God better. Therefore, she left the organization. She didn't explain the details of what occurred next, but the end result is that she began to study the Bible with the Jehovah's Witnesses and came to believe that the Witnesses had the correct understanding of the Scriptures.

When a pastor lives an immoral life, there's no reason for someone to reject the Savior. A better option would be for the church to hire a new pastor.

Her decision is a bit like having a bad meal at a restaurant and deciding never to eat again. There are other options.

The Alpha and Omega, The First and Last

Last Saturday, I heard a knock at the door.  Thinking it was one of my son's friends, I waited for him to open the door.  Another knock; no answer.  A third knock got me off my chair.  Peeking out the window, I saw a Jehovah's Witness approaching the neighbor's driveway.  I ran to the door.  By the time I opened it, the second Jehovah's Witness was half-way down my driveway.

"I'm home!" I yelled, hoping that he would come back.  

Hearing my call, he did an about face and returned to the door quoting a verse from Isaiah: "And no resident will say, 'I am sick;' the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity."   "Do you believe that will ever happen?" he asked.  He seemed surprised when I told him that I thought the verse would be fulfilled.

Then I asked him if he thought that Jesus is God.  That question launched us into a discussion of several points including Revelation 22:13 "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."  When I asked to whom that referred, he said it depends on the context.

Agreeing with him, I noted that the context indicates that Jesus is the one speaking.  Then I mentioned Revelation 1:8 "'I am the Alpha and the Omega,' says the Lord God, 'Who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.'"  In the New World Translation, the "Lord God" is translated "Jehovah."  How could there be two Alphas and two Omegas?  Jesus must be Jehovah.

Again, he said it depends upon the context, indicating that he had another appointment and had to leave.  However, he wanted to set up a time to meet again so we could explore the verse further.

I assume that he has heard this argument before, because he told me that he has been a Jehovah's Witness for 44 years. 

He is coming back in a couple of days with his Greek Interlinear.  What do you think he'll say?

The Wizard of Oz and the Bible – Part Three

As we come to the final post in this consideration of The Wizard of Oz and the Bible, let's refresh our thinking concerning Brian McLaren's statements In comparing the Bible to the Wizard of Oz Brian McLaren states:

“As in so many issues these days, the problem isn’t the Bible; it’s the assumptions we bring to the Bible about how it is supposed to be interpreted. We make demands of the Biblical writers that we don’t make of any other writers, and I’m not sure our demands are sensible or fair at all. As an analogy, I often refer to the Wizard of Oz in my teaching. Does this mean that I believe Dorothy was a historical figure? No. It means that I accept the story of Oz as being part of our culture, and that I can use it to illustrate truth or provide analogies to truth.” (http://www.apologeticsindex.org/301-emerging-church-versus-scripture)

Is McLaren on the right track? Are people reading their Bibles in the wrong way when they read with the understanding that the Bible contains historical, truthful statements that can be read in light of their plain meaning?

Most people believe that the Bible contains some historic truth. For example, when the Bible speaks of a city named Jerusalem in the land of Israel, people understand that the Bible is accurately stating historic fact. Likewise, references to Rome, Athens and Egypt refer to real places. There are many other examples ranging from people and events to social customs.

People seem to have more difficulty with other passages such as the account of Jonah. Should we read this account as history or should we view it as we would the Wizard of Oz?

The Bible gives us an indication of which way we should interpret it. When the scribes and Pharisees were challenging Jesus to give them a sign He said:

"An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was three days in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."

Jesus referred to the very account many people consider to be fiction, and indicated that it actually took place. He went on to say, "The men of Nineveh shall stand up with this generation at the judgment, and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here."

Jesus understood that there were actual men of Nineveh who repented. They existed in history and will stand up in the future to testify. These men repented on account of Jonah's preaching just after he had been released from his stay in the belly of the great sea monster.

McLaren suggests that we may be interpreting the Bible incorrectly because we view some passages as historic when they are really more like the Wizard of Oz. Perhaps McLaren is onto something here. However, the proper way to state it is that people are tending to read the Bible more like the Wizard of Oz when it is actually historic.

Jesus viewed the Bible as God's Word when he spoke of "invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down" (Mark 7:13). He also called God's Word "truth" (John 17:17), affirmed it as factually true (Matt 22:29) and taught the Scriptures cannot be broken (John 10:35).

The question of how to interpret the Bible is an important one. However, there is no indication that Jesus struggled with this issue at all. He viewed the Bible is historically accurate and as truth given to us by God. If he accepted it in that way, so should we.

The Wizard of Oz and the Bible – Part Two

Brian McLaren suggests that the mere fact that the men who wrote the Bible referred to people does not mean that they believed those people were actual historic figures: "Can the Bible writers similarly refer to stories or concepts from their times and not be expected to be affirming of their complete historicity?”

In part one of this post (The Wizard of Oz and the Bible - Part One) we looked at some instances in which the Bible writers referred to people who were not historical figures. We saw that the Bible contains accounts that include non-historical information.

This should not surprise us. In fact, we regularly use similar language in our daily lives. When the weatherman tells us that Old Man Winter is going to be here for several more weeks, we know that he is not referring to an octogenarian with a seasonal name.

When Dick Clark sits high above Times Square on New Years Eve and announces that Father Time is marching on, we know what he means.

When Clark then mentions that he will shortly be joined by the mayor of New York City, we know what Clark means. We do not have to think twice to determine what is meant.

For some strange reason, People who dislike the Bible are unwilling to allow for similar language usage in the Scripture.

McLaren would have us to believe that because of the fact that some of the language in the Bible may refer to fictional characters or non-historic concepts, that we can apparently without limitation quite properly call into question the historicity of a wider range of people, events and concepts mentioned by the Bible writers.

From this notion, the Emergent Church writers wander into the darkness calling into question all kinds of Biblical truths proclaimed by the Biblical writers. For example, they wonder whether homosexuality is really a sin, or whether the atonement is necessary, or whether Jesus is the only way to heaven.

This approach by the Emerging Church writers brought forward the notion that we should call a moratorium on preaching against homosexuality for several years until we can study it further. In other words, in spite of two thousand years of theological reflection and teaching on this topic, we come to find that we are lost at sea in regard to the clear teachings from Romans 1 and several other passages.

The hermeneutical shift is unwarranted and goes like this: Since writer A has in the past made a reference to a non-historic person or to a fictional concept A, then one can rightly bring into question whether writer A meant that concepts B, C and D are historical too. Further, because concept A is non-historical one can not only question the historicity of concepts B, C and D but can also leave the historicity of those concepts open for continuous, ongoing discussion as long as one wishes, based merely on the fictional nature of concept A.

Most people learn how to make the proper distinctions at an early age. That is why children know the difference between the Grinch and Jesus. They don't confuse the notion of which one is real and which one is imaginary.

For adults who have difficulty along those lines, a good hermeneutics course would help. In the meantime, if they continue to struggle with the difference between fact and fiction, perhaps they should do something other than shepherd God's people.

The Wizard of Oz and the Bible – Part One

The Wizard of Oz and the Bible – Part One

Emergent/Emerging writer Brian McLaren compares the Bible to the Wizard of Oz:

“As in so many issues these days, the problem isn’t the Bible; it’s the assumptions we bring to the Bible about how it is supposed to be interpreted. We make demands of the Biblical writers that we don’t make of any other writers, and I’m not sure our demands are sensible or fair at all. As an analogy, I often refer to the Wizard of Oz in my teaching. Does this mean that I believe Dorothy was a historical figure? No. It means that I accept the story of Oz as being part of our culture, and that I can use it to illustrate truth or provide analogies to truth.” (http://www.apologeticsindex.org/301-emerging-church-versus-scripture)

He makes a similar statement elsewhere:
As an analogy…I have an oft-quoted article that talks about Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz. This doesn’t imply that I believe they are real historical people, right? Can the Bible writers similarly refer to stories or concepts from their times and not be expected to be affirming of their complete historicity?” (http://desertpastor.typepad.com/paradoxology/2005/05/the_last_word_a.html)

McLaren’s Statement Has An Element of Truth

When McLaren quotes refers to the Wizard of Oz, it doesn’t mean that he believes that Dorothy is an historic person. In the same way, on occasion the biblical writers refer to a fictional concept or element of their culture. If we misinterpret these allusions we may fail to understand the truth of a passage.

For example, James says, “Even the demons believe.” Many people use this verse to argue that mere belief in Christ is not enough. However, on closer examination, we see that James is merely quoting an argument that someone in that culture might have made. In James 2:18 he introduces the quote with, “But someone will say.“

A second example comes from 1 Corinthians 15:35. Paul introduces that verse with the same words James uses, “But someone will say.” That phrase tips alerts the reader to the fact that Paul is stating the argument of an unknown or hypothetical objector. The Bible contains the objection but does not affirm the truth of it.

Third, there are a few verses in which it appears that the writer might be alluding to a contemporary poem or saying. In Titus 1:12 Paul quotes Epimenides: “All Cretans are liars.” The original quote had to do with the lie that Zeus was buried in Crete. This lie offended people of that day who thought that Zeus was still alive.

Paul’s use of that phrase does not mean that he held that Zeus was still alive. He was merely using a commonly known phrase to refer to the false teachers who tend to not tell the truth.

Easy Believism

What must I do to be saved? The Philippian Jailer asked Paul and Silas this question several centuries ago. They answered "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved" (Acts 16:30-31).

The answer is the same today; or is it?

In upcoming posts we will look at a couple of different viewpoints on this important issue.