Hebrews 1:1-4

Hebrews is different from most of the other New Testament letters in that there is no formal introduction. There are no greetings nor indications of who the letter is addressed to. In the opening section the writer quickly establishes what the letter is primarily about, namely the supremacy of Christ.

In the Old Testament there are all sorts of writings: history, prophecy, poetry, etc; and it covers a vast time scale. In all this God was speaking to His people. Now He has spoken through his very own Son. There is a different order of magnitude in the nature of the revelation given in Christ and all that went before. Christ is the heir of all things, and through Him all things were created (note that Paul says the same things in Colossians).

The prophets and other godly people in the Old Testament represented something of the character of God, but all were flawed. Jesus is the exact representation of God. When we see Jesus we see exactly what God is like. Moses reflected the glory of God, but Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory.

Jesus provided purification for sins and then sat down at the right hand of God. His work was completed. So He became as majestic as His name was majestic. There was a tendency in those days to venerate angels, hence the references to the supremacy of Christ over the angels. Indeed, false teachers today will sometimes talk a lot about angels. We should always beware of someone who talks more about what they have “seen” rather than about Christ Himself.

Hebrews - Introduction

From 400 to 1600 AD the letter was known as Paul’s letter to the Hebrews. However, there is actually very little evidence that the letter was written by Paul, and it certainly does not claim to be written by him. The content and style of the letter is very different from Paul’s letters, and 2:3 seems to indicate that Paul could not have written the letter. There have been theories that Paul originally wrote the letter in Hebrew, but then Luke translated it into Greek.
The earliest indication of authorship comes from Tertullian in 200 AD saying that Barnabas was the author. The letter does indicate that the author had authority and had good understanding of Hebrew Christianity, Barnabas would fit these criteria. Martin Luther later suggested that Apollos was the author, and he too would fit the criteria. The long and the short of it is that we do not know who wrote it.
Whoever the author might be, the key things is that he had a deep understanding of the relationship between the old and new covenants.
The letter was almost certainly written before AD70, for there is no mention of the destruction of the temple, and given the nature of the letter it is likely that the author would have mentioned this.
The primary themes in the letter are:

• The supremacy of Christ
• The relationship between the old and new covenants.

Genesis 11

This section explains the scattering of the peoples and the vast differences between peoples. They worked together, building and planning. There goal was to exalt themselves in the earth.
God thwarts man’s plans by throwing them into confusion by giving them different languages. Our initial reaction to this might be that it is rather a mean reaction on God’s part, so why did He do this? The reason is that sin resides in the heart of man, and sin will inevitably come to the fore. So if they had been allowed to continue then, whatever their intentions, the result would have been an evil kingdom.
We can see this same trait in many enterprises to day. Nuclear power was discovered and has great capacity to do good, but also to do evil, and so we try to constrain access to nuclear power. Institutions are set up, and they inevitably become corrupt.
After this we get the genealogy of Abraham. This is the setting of the scene for God’s plan of salvation for mankind, for all of mankind.

Genesis 10:1-32

The various nations that came from Japheth, Ham and Shem are listed. Japheth was possibly the oldest of Noah’s sons, though in some ways the least important. It is a common feature in the Old Testament that the younger brother ended up being the most important.

Ham gave rise to various kingdoms, several of them becoming enemies of Israel. Shem gave rise to a large number of peoples. In all this the command to multiply and fill the earth was being fulfilled.

The picture given is that all the nations were descended from Noah. Later God will promise to Abraham that all nations will be blessed through him. Jesus came to save all peoples and Revelation speaks of multitudes from every nation, tribe and tongue. The ultimate purpose of God is that all peoples should be saved.

Genesis 9:18-28

The sons of Noah produced the descendents who were scattered throughout the earth. Noah himself was a farmer and planted a vineyard. Having drunk some of the wine he became drunk, this is the first recorded incident of drunkenness. As a result he was naked (and presumably asleep or unconscious) in his tent. There is no hint of why he was naked. Ham found him and told his two brothers. The two brothers walked backwards into the tent and covered their father’s nakedness.

The common interpretation is that Seth and Japheth were guarding their father’s dignity, while Ham broadcast the news. Now this is a good lesson, and a good way to approach life, but it has to be said that this is reading things into the story. From the bare bones of the story it may be that Ham was just shocked and embarrassed and wanted help from his brothers, and it may be that they just did not want to see their father naked.

However, the traditional interpretation is consistent with Noah’s words on waking. He was certainly angry with Ham, but then these could be the angry ramblings of a man getting up with a hangover.

Now Ham was the father of the Canaanites, and Israel did descend from Seth. The incident does not really cover anyone in glory.

Genesis 9:8-17

God makes a covenant with Noah and all his descendants, and also with all the animals. There are two equally wrong views of the place of nature and animals in the scheme of things. One is to say that animals are exactly the same value as humans, and that we are just a different type of animal. Along with this can go a worship of nature. This is totally unbiblical. The other erroneous view is the one that says we can exploit nature and animals to our heart’s content. This is equally unbiblical.

God promises never again to destroy all the earth by such a flood. As a sign of the covenant God gives the rainbow. After rain the rainbow is the sign that the sun will shine again. Dark days do come, but they do not last forever. Again we have the emphasis on God remembering.

Genesis 9:1-7

Again the command to multiply and fill the earth is repeated. As Christians we too are meant to multiply and fill the earth. Not in a military or political way (as the church has sometimes been guilty of), but as members if His kingdom, living renewed lives. This is not to say that Christians should not be in involved in politics, but our weapons are not the weapons of the world.

At this point the animals too were given to man to eat. It is not clear why this happens at this point.

Human life is precious and anyone that takes human life is to be punished. Some see the death sentence as being un Christian, but this is a mistaken view. If someone is executed for murder it is not man taking revenge, it is God’s judgement being exercised. Now at the same time great care has to be taken, for all men are sinful and all are fallible. Moreover, it is clear from the life of Jesus that the letter of the law does not always need to be exercised. So there maybe good reasons for not having the death sentence, and certainly good ones for being very cautious in its implementation, but there is no absolute moral reason for not having the death penalty. Notice also that the reason given here for the death sentence is the sanctity of human life.

Genesis 8:1-22

God remembered both Noah and the animals. We often think that God has forgotten about us, but we can always be confident that this is not so. God remembers all the promises He has made to us, and He will keep those promises. This should be a source of great encouragement to us.

The waters started to recede, though very slowly. Noah sent out various birds to see if dry land had appeared yet. Eventually it did. We too can be like this, trying various tests to see if God has answered our prayers, and receiving gradual confirmation that the answer is on its way.

Noah did not come out until God told him to do so. Why is this? My natural inclination would have been to keep looking out and rush out the minute that I could see that the land was dry. Noah, however, waited until God commanded him. Perhaps he knew now that his life was utterly dependent upon God.

The command to multiply, originally given to Adam and Eve, is repeated. Likewise the blessing given to Abraham was repeated to his descendents.

Noah offered a sacrifice to the Lord. God promises never again to curse the ground in this way. The problem of man’s sin remains, but God promises never to bring a catastrophe of such a scale again. We are not at the mercy of chance.

Genesis 7:1-24

Having completed the building work Noah is instructed to take 7 pairs of every type of clean animal and bird. Noah does this, and he and his whole family enter the ark.

When they were all in the ark, God shut them in. Just as the Lord had said, the flood waters came. This was a flood like no other, for even high mountains were covered.

Everything that was not in the ark perished, and the flood lasted one hundred and fifty days. Likewise, at the final judgement only those who are in Christ will survive, and the old heaven and earth will be done away with.

Genesis 6:9-21

Judgement is what we deserve, but salvation is what we can have if we trust the Lord. Noah had to trust God and do what He said, otherwise he would not have been saved. Peter, in particular, was very impressed by the story of Noah.

Noah lived a faithful life, even though he lived amongst wicked people. No matter what out circumstances, we can live a godly life in the midst of them, and should do so. As evangelicals we tend to get hung up by anything that might seem to hint that someone, in this case Noah, earned their salvation. We should not do so, but just take the Bible as it stands and learn from it.

Many other civilisations have a story of a flood. There are two ways of taking this. One is to assume that the writers of the Bible were borrowing from these other “myths”. The other (and I believe to be the correct way) is to take this as backing for the truth of the Bible story. All the world of the time experienced the flood, but only Noah understood it.

God told Noah what He was going to do, why He was going to do it, and what Noah had to do in response to this. God would establish a covenant with Noah. Note also that creation itself in the form of livestock is also saved with man.

Genesis 6:4-8

Now we get the next strange reference, namely to the Nephilim. There are several traditions amongst middle eastern peoples of an early race of giants, but archaeologists have found no hard evidence for their actual existence. The long and the short of it is that no one has a clue who they were. By the way, if you do a search in Google you will find all sorts of weird and wonderful explanations.

Verse 5 brings us back to more solid ground. God sees the wickedness of men’s hearts, and God regrets having made man. It also says His heart was deeply troubled. Now we do need to be careful with anthropomorphic description of God’s thoughts and emotions (i.e. expressing them in purely human terms), as there is bound to be a degree of approximation. However, verse 6 does sum up a lot of what the Bible is about. On the one hand justice demands that God condemn sinful men, on the other we are His creation and He loves us. Ultimately the cross was the answer to the dilemma.

So God decides to wipe out most of mankind and a lot of creation, except for Noah. The fate of creation is tied up with the moral state of man. This has relevance for environmental concerns. I believe we should manage resources wisely and with care, but the environment will only fully function as it should when we turn to God.

Genesis 6:1-3

This chapter begins by telling of the increase in wickedness in the world. Some aspects of this chapter are rather strange, starting with the “sons of God” marrying human daughters. Some take it as referring to angels, citing Job 1:6 & 2:1; Psalm 29:1; and Jude 6-7, along with extra-Biblical Jewish literature.

Others reject this on the grounds that angels cannot marry humans, and that the Bible sometimes refers to men as the sons of God (Deut 14:1; 32:5; Psalm 73:15, Isaiah 43:6; Hosea 1:10; 11:1, Luke 3:38; 1 John 3:1,2,10). Some argue that “sons of God” refers to the descendents of Seth, who were godly, and the daughters to the descendents of Cain who were not.

A further suggestion is that “sons of God” refers to royal figures.

God then declares that since men are wicked their lifespan shall be restricted to 120 years. This is of course still substantially longer than the current life expectancy, and perhaps adds weight to the view that the ages given in Chapter 5 are real. If so, then God’s judgement on man is introduced gradually. This ties in with the character of God who, despite the common picture of Him, is actually extremely reluctant to judge (“slow to anger”).

Genesis 5:1-32

The fact that God created all people is repeated here, along with the statement that we were all created in His image, male and female. Moreover, we were all blessed. Note that this is said after the fall. The fall has deadly serious consequences, but it is still the case that we are God’s creation, made in His image, and blessed by Him. While all of us are corrupted by sin, there is also still some good in all of us as well. Naturally, the balance between the good and evil varies considerably from one individual to another.

Adam’s son was created in his image. This means that he inherited the fallen aspects as well. In the early part of Genesis people seemed to live for an inordinately long time. Some see the figures as having symbolic meaning (eg one year for Enoch), others as being simply literal, and some a mixture of both.

All of them, apart from Enoch, died. As noted earlier, Enoch was the son of Cain, but he lived faithfully with God, and did not die, God just took him away. Enoch is perhaps a type, he was born of a sinful man, yet he chose to live by faith, and so he did not die. We were all born in sin, but if we believe in Christ we will live forever.

Genesis 4:17-26

There is no mention of where Cain’s wife came from, which should serve as a warning against interpreting Genesis as if it tells us absolutely everything.

They had a son called Enoch. We will later read that Enoch never actually died, and this is an example where a bad father does not necessarily give birth to a bad son. We are all influenced by our ancestors, but none of us are predestined by our ancestors. Each one of us has to make a choice of whether or not to follow the Lord.

Various other people were born and the human race expanded. Lamech took it upon himself to announce himself even more protected than Cain. He really did not have any right to claim this, as it was God who declared the protection over Cain.

Adam and Eve were still alive and gave birth to another son. People also started to call upon the name of the Lord. Humans are a confused mixture of disobeying God and wanting to find Him.

Genesis 4:8-16

The first murder now takes place. Cain deliberately sets out to murder his brother, and succeeds. How he hoped this would improve the situation is a mystery, for God would still not be pleased with him, even more so. Yet this is how we all too often think as humans. Instead of dealing with the root of the problem, usually ourselves, we lash out at someone else.

The Lord knew what had happened and confronted Cain about it. Adam and Eve had made excuses when they were confronted, Cain now resorts to lying, for he knew full well where Abel was.

Cain had brought himself under judgement, he would no longer find peace upon the earth. Even in this the Lord shows mercy, for although Cain himself had committed murder, the Lord promises to defend Cain from murder. People are always objecting about how a God of love can send people to hell. When the final judgement comes no one will be appalled at the judgement that God executes, but rather will be amazed that God was so patient and did not do things sooner.

Genesis 4:5-7

Whatever the precise reason for the rejection and acceptance of the two gifts, the reaction of Cain is clear. Cain was angry and downcast. God speaks to him.

The reaction of Cain is so typical of our human reaction, and failure to realise the heart of God. God says that if Cain learns to do what is right he will be accepted, but instead of following this road Cain decides to sulk.

Sin is waiting to devour us. Sin is an enemy, and we need to master it, otherwise it will devour us. We need to guard our reactions and attitudes, and to repent of the ungodly ones we have, otherwise they will ruin our lives.

Genesis 4:1-4

Eve gave birth to Cain, acknowledging that it was only with the Lord’s help that she was able to give birth. Even though she and Adam were under judgement, the purposes of God were starting to be fulfilled.

Then she gave birth to Abel. In Hebrew his name means “breath” or “temporary” or “meaningless”, indicating the brief life he was to have.

Cain and Abel brought gifts. It appears that Cain brought his gift as something of an afterthought, whereas Abel brought the best of his crops to give to God. This does make sense of the different reactions of God to the gifts, though I must admit I am not wholly satisfied with this explanation, as it does give me the feeling of reading a bit too much into the text.

Genesis 3:20-24

Adam now named the woman Eve. Maybe this is linked to man being master over woman because naming someone or something signified having authority over the person.

The name Eve sounds like the Hebrew for “to give life”. Eve was the mother of all people.

God Himself made clothes for Adam and Eve, despite the fact that it was their own fault they were in this state.

Adam and Eve could no longer be allowed to eat from the tree of life, so they were banished from the garden. Why were they not allowed to do this? Because they had disobeyed God, they had assumed authority for themselves, and so were no longer fit to be allowed to have such knowledge. And God made sure that they could not get back.

Genesis 3:17-19

None of the excuses from Adam and Eve held any water. Adam is judged fro listening to his wife when she told him to do the opposite of what God said. Because of his sin a curse was placed upon the ground, ie the ground suffered judgement because of man’s sin. In Romans 8 Paul sees the redemption of the whole of creation in Christ.

Before sin came the garden yielded its fruit easily. Now that sin had come the ground would yield fruit, but reluctantly. Man would have to work hard to get the harvest.

Man would also die. This is not just physical death, but spiritual death as well. We were meant to be eternal, but man would die.

Genesis 3:16

The judgement on Eve then follows. She will experience pain in childbirth, and though she will desire her husband, he would be her master. So far there is no record of them having children, so we cannot say that she had had painless childbirth up to this point. However, prior to this point she had been an equal partner with her husband.

We can see these two features are definitely true in life today. Childbirth is painful, and men have dominated women in most societies. An interesting  question is to what extent these things should be undone when we come to Christ. The latter one is perhaps the easier. Paul teaches that in Christ there is neither male nor female (Galations 3:28) (in the sense of one being better than the other), and Peter says we are are co-heirs in Christ (1 Peter 3:7). This does not mean that men and women are not different, and may have different roles, but men are definitely not to dominate women (nor the other way around!).

In childbirth is still painful, but we should not have a fatalistic attitude, and should expect the best, not the worst.

The NLT has a footnote translation as saying “though you may desire to control your husband…”. I do not know how much credence can be given to this alternative, but it certainly describes a trait seen in real life.

Genesis 3:13-15

God then speaks to the woman. Adam blamed the woman, the woman now blames the serpent, claiming she was deceived. In fact the dialogue shows that she was not really deceived, for she knew what God had actually said, but she chose to follow the serpent’s advice. When we do wrong we may claim that we did not know it was wrong, this is usually nonsense. We knew full well it was wrong, but we chose to do it anyway.

God then goes to the serpent. Notice that God does not actually question anything that the man or woman have said.

Now the serpent does not get the chance to explain himself, but is immediately faced with judgement. God knew full well who had done what. The snake is cursed. Now remember that a curse is “God’s judgement on sin”, it is not in anyway like a magic spell. There will be continual antagonism between the snake and mankind, and in the end man will crush the serpent. This took place when Jesus won the victory on the cross, and all mankind who believe in Jesus will gain victory over the devil.

It is useful to think about what this means for interpretation of Genesis 1-3. As far as I am aware all Bible believing interpreters take this as referring to the Satan (and rightly so), rather than a direct judgement on snakes as such. However, we can also see some realisation of it in snakes, as they are not the most popular beasts in the world. Perhaps this should tell us to be on our guard about taking Genesis 1-3 too literally, but equally we should not dismiss it out of hand.

Genesis 3:8-12

The next effect was their relationship with God. We were created to live in fellowship with God, to be in harmony with Him, but sin has ruined that relationship. Now, instead of wanting to meet with God they hid from Him. Most people do exactly the same today, part of them is afraid of God because they know that they have sinned against Him. As Jesus said in John 3:19, men loved the darkness instead of light, because of their evil deeds.

Despite man hiding from God, God still called out to man. We want to hide from God because of our sin, but God wants to seeks us out because of our sin, not so that He can judge us, but so that He can rescue us. This is what Jesus taught in the parable of the good shepherd.

Having been found by God, Adam reacted in the wrong way. He was afraid of God and knew he had done wrong. Most people, despite what they might say, actually know that they have sinned against God. Adam's next reaction is to blame the woman. Or maybe to blame God, for he says "the woman you put here with me". We do exactly the same today. If only things had been different I would not have sinned. In fact the circumstances probably made no difference, and even if we had not committed oneparticular sin, we would just have committed another one.

Genesis 3:6,7

Some have commented on the fact that the apple was pleasing to the eye. However, this is not justified, as in Genesis 2:9 it says that all the trees were pleasing to the eye and good for food. The point was that God had told them not to eat of that particular tree. She also gave some to Adam and he ate it.

On doing this it did indeed have an effect on them. They suddenly realised that they were naked, and sought to cover up their nakedness. At the end of chapter 2 it says they were naked and not ashamed, now they were ashamed.

We see here a model of how sin can come about. Adam and Eve had not set out that day with the intention of sinning, but the serpent did set out with the intention of tempting them. This is why Jesus taught us to pray "lead us not unto temptation, but deliver us from evil". When they ate the fruit they had no intention of discovering they were naked, but they did discover this, along with the consequences. When we sin there are always unintended consequences, usually unpleasant.

Having set out on a road, they took steps to deal with the problems,namely sewing fig leaves together.

Genesis 3:1-5

We see here Satan seeking, and succeeding, in tempting man. See how he starts with an absolute lie. He tries to make out that God said they could not eat from any tree in the garden, when in fact God had only prohibited one tree, and given Adam and Eve complete freedom over every other tree. Satan uses exactly the same tactics today. He tries to make God's rules way more restrictive than they actually are, and from time to time the church goes along with him and helps satan in his quest. Paul had to warn against such things in 1 Timothy 4:3-5.

Eve replied by saying what God did actually say. Perhaps we should learn from this that we should never bother getting involved in argument with the devil. Just ignoring his arguments is the best policy. A good place to start this is with anxiety and worry. Worry produces all sorts of thoughts in our head, and we can argue with them f we wish, but it is better just to refuse to engage with the anxieties.

Satan then tries to impugn God's motives, saying that God was lying and was trying to prevent them from receiving something good. Again he does exactly the same today. Sex is one of his favourite areas. He tries to tell us that God wants to deny us sexual fun by prohibiting all sex outside marriage. The truth is that you will actually have a far better sex life if you observe God's rules, following world's ways will only lead to all sorts of problems.

Genesis 2:15-25

Man was given a task, and clear instructions, this included one limit on what he could not do, he was not allowed to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Ever since man has been trying to work out good and evil for himself, instead of relying on God's knowledge. People always complain that God wants to restrict man's freedom, but the truth is that God gives man great freedom. Adam was free to eat from any tree, except one. As an aside, the nature of the writing here seems to be more consistent with an allegorical tale.

We now come to the creation of woman. Interestingly, this is the only account of the creating of woman in ancient Near Eastern literature. God's intention was to give man a suitable helper. God brought all the animals to Adam to name, implying that he was to have authority over them. So Adam named all the animals and birds.

None of these proved to be a suitable helper for Adam. So God created woman. She was made out of the same "stuff" as Adam, so is equal, but different. Adam found a true soul mate. Men and women are meant to live together in harmony. They are meant to form a new "unit" independent from their parents. Moreover, they were naked but not ashamed, ie they were completely comfortable in each other's presence. The fall has led to the potential loss of all these things.

Genesis 2:4-14

The first chapter has dealt with the whole of creation, now this chapter focuses on the creation of man. This again emphasises that man is the centrepiece of creation. We are different from animals.

Again we see a process of creation being described. There are two key features to the creation of man. He both created from the dust of the earth and God breathed life into him. So there is a natural side to his creation, made from the basic building blocks of the earth, but without God breathing life into the man he would not be alive. This is what I meant in part of my preamble when I said evolution cannot ever fully explain man (even if it was ever shown to be largely true, which is by no means certain). For we are much more than just the basing building blocks of the earth.

The Lord placed man in the Garden of Eden. Man was created with a purpose. Note also that everything was pleasing to the eye and good for food.

The final few verses of this section give some details of the geographic location. The location of Pishon and Gihon are unknown, but Ashur is known to be an ancient capital city of Assyria.

Genesis 1:20-2:3

Now life starts to be created, first of all living creatures in the water and birds in the air. The creatures were commanded to be fruitful and multiply, and to fill the earth.

The next day God made the land creatures. Again it is emphasised that every kind of living creature was made by God.

Mankind was also created on the same day. The key feature of mankind is that he was created in God's image. We were created to rule over all the other living creatures. Man is distinct from all the other animals. All talk about us just being another animal, or that other animals are equal with us and have equal "rights" is nonsense. Now this does not give us the right to mistreat animals, and we are to use this authority to take good care of the earth, not to exploit it. But we are worth more than animals.

We were created in the image of God, male and female. So we also see that right from the beginning male and female are of equal value. We too were blessed by God and given the command to multiply, we were also told to subdue the earth. It also appears that originally everything was vegetarian.

On the seventh day God rested from His creation. This signifies completeness. Some use this as an argument against evolution, but this seems rather dubious. For in one sense Christ completed His work of salvation on the cross, yet we also see that salvation work extending across space and time.

Genesis 1:3-19

Each of the days is introduced with the words "And God said ...". The word of God is powerful and creative. There are a number of key points that can be learnt from these days:

• God was the source and initiator of creation.
• Everything that was created was good.
• There was a process to creation.

Every day also includes God calling things a name. A king naming something indicated the king had authority over the person named. So Genesis is declaring that God has authority over all creation, this was demonstrated most graphically through Jesus when He calmed the storm. We need to know that God has authority over the natural world.

All the descriptions are showing that once there was nothing, but God created the things that we see.

While some take each day to be a 24 hour day, others see each day as a period. Some seek to see the sequence of events as a description of the order in which things happened. Yet others see the days as events rather than a linear progression. In the West we think very much in terms of linear time, while Hebrew thought was often more focused on events. To understand the difference consider the difference between Match of the Day and Football Focus. Match of the Day shows highlights of a football match. While it does not show everything, the things it does show did occur in the order they are shown. Now Football Focus might have an item looking at a particular player, or a particular aspect of play. In this case there is no guarantee that the order in which things are shown signifies anything about the chronology. In some cases it might, in others it might not. It is possible that something of this applies to Genesis 1, though by no means certain.

Some thought (and some still think) that the stars and planets govern our lives. Genesis makes it clear that they do not. And all are under God's authority. Moreover, He is Lord of the day and of the night.

Genesis 1:1-2

In its day Genesis provided a real challenge to the prevailing myths of creation. Most cultures and religions had stories of the world arising out of a conflict between the "gods". In contrast, Genesis declares that the one true God created the whole world. He did not have to overcome anyone or anything in order to do this, it was His decision alone. By a series of declarations the world and everything associated with it was created.

Genesis is equally valid and equally challenging to us today. This is one of the reasons why there is such a hot debate over evolution. The prevailing myth today is that it all happened by chance and without purpose. In contrast, Genesis states clearly that we were created on purpose, with a purpose and for a purpose. We are the result of deliberate creative acts by God, indeed the whole of creation is a result of deliberate creative acts.

The Holy Spirit was intimately involved in creation. Without God the earth was formless and empty. Indeed, without God there would be nothing at all.

Genesis - Evolution Part 3

I think this will be the last rambling on evolution before starting on the actual text itself. I will look at where all this leaves us.

Evolution can be split into two broad categories: micro and macro evolution. Micro-evolution is to do with the development within species and occasionally of new species. This can be observed in nature, and some creationists are perfectly happy to accept this, it really isn't a problem. Macro-evolution is about how radical changes took place, and this is where the problems lie.

I do not believe that evolution as a scientific attempt to try and explain the process of how lifeforms developed (in a physical and biochemical sense) is against the Bible. In fact it is perfectly reasonable thing to do. In Genesis God gave Adam the task of naming the animals, I take this as God giving man permission to seek to explore and explain the world in a scientific sense. In doing this, we need to recognise the enormity of what we are trying to do, which is to explain the development of every lifeform. Therefore a little humility and caution is in order. If you think you have explained the whole of life then just remember we have enough problems explaining a dripping tap (an example of turbulence, and turbulence is a nightmare, but a very interesting one), so you might just have got some things not quite right, or there may be a few gaps.

This last point also cuts both ways. Sometimes creationists take great delight in finding a hole in some aspect of evolutionary theory, or a gap/error in the fossil record. Well what a surprise! The theory doesn't quite work perfectly, it still has much work to be done, and may even be wrong. But some imperfections do not prove that it is complete nonsense.

A believe that Christians should work in the field of evolution, and help to ensure that the science is done properly. Equally, if there is proper evidence that fits better with a creationist point of view, then it should be allowed to be presented fairly.

Let me close by saying this. Science does NOT disprove the Bible, it does NOT disprove God. Anyone who says this is being completely unscientific. We need to focus on the right battle ground, and the 6-day v billions of years is not the right one, nor is he one over whether God uses evolution as part of the process of creation (maybe He did, meybe He didn't). We should engage in battle when evolution becomes a religion, like that espoused by Richard Dawkins.

Postscript

One further example of "punk science" that you regularly hear on the news. About two or three times a year you will hear reports on the news that scientists have found evidence for life on other planets., and it will be said that "since there are so many billions of starts, galaxies, solar systems and planets some of them are bound to support life". This is utterly unscientific. We have absolutely no idea what the probability of life forming is (even accepting that this is a sensible way to look at it), except that it is extremely small, and until we know this probability, or have a lower bound on its value, then we have no idea how many planets there need to be in order for it to be more likely than not that life exists elsewhere.

Genesis - Evolution Part 2

Evolution is extremely important because evolution theory has become much more than a scientific theory, but a religion. They would call it a philosophy, but the way some people treat it is as an explanation of the whole of life.

One thing that can be said with absolute certainty is that evolution most definitely does notexplain the creation of man. It may possibly explain something of the physical development of man, but that is as far as it can go (and even over that there are questions). This is because we are much more than just a physical and biochemical entity. God breathed life into man, we are unique amongst all other lifeforms. Even on apure observational level we are radically different from other lifeforms. Evolutionary theory relies on lifeforms adapting to their environment. Mankind is radically different in that he seeks to adapt the environment to himself. We are different, we are not just animals. In Biblical terms, we were told to look after the earth and have dominion over it, we were made in the image of God.

The thing that puts me off evolutionists is that some of them are so unscientific. They have a habit of claiming way too much from the evidence (so do some creationists, by the way), but most importantly is when they go off into the realms of philosophy/religion. One "evolutionary theory" is that religious or altruistic motives arose as a result of evolution, and therefore have no intrinsic value. However, one then has to apply the same logic to the idea of evolution and so evolutionary theory has not intrinsic value either.

Evolution is also becoming very intolerant. Recently someone was forced to resign from the Royal Society for merely suggesting that creationism should be looked at. The Royal Society should be ashamed of itself over this and was acting in an utterly unscientific manner.