In the Beginning, God...

In the Beginning…Genesis One Verse One 

Some people today claim that the Biblical account of creation is a myth, in an otherwise true book. Is this consistent with the rest of Scripture? In other words, can you believe in evolution, even in a limited way, and also believe in the God of the Bible? 

Read through and consider carefully what the Bible teaches. None of these verses have been chosen to fit a preconceived idea; they are chosen simply because they refer to how and why the universe came to be. It is left to you to ponder and consider if and how it matters: 

References to creation are sprinkled throughout the Bible. In Job 38-39, in poetic style, God identifies Himself and speaks:  
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said… Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me: …Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.Who determined its measurements—surely you know? Or who stretched the line upon it?On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone? …Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb… and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed' …Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew? 

 In reference to the lunar/solar cycles:  
Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth?

Regarding man: Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind?  
Regarding idols such as the wild ox worshipped for its fierceness: Do you have faith in him that he will return your grain and gather it to your threshing floor?

Throughout these chapters, God speaks and clearly claims full responsibility for creation in all its intricacy. This is in poetic form, though, could it be mere imagery? Are there further non-poetic claims in the Bible?  
For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought, who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth— the LORD, the God of hosts, is his name! (Amos 4:13)  

He who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the morning and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the LORD is his name; who makes destruction flash forth against the strong, so that destruction comes upon the fortress. They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth. (Amos 5:8-10) 

In Isaiah 42:5, God, identified specifically as the Creator, speaks again and does not refute Who He is: Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it:  

In Isaiah 44:24, God Himself claims to be the only one who created and sustains His creation: Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: "I am the LORD, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself, 

In Isaiah 45:12, God (verse 1 reveals who is speaking) specifically and unequivocally claims: I made the earth and created man on it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host. 

Again in Isaiah 45:18, which specifically claims that the earth was not created to sit empty, but formed for a specific purpose: For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it;he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!):"I am the LORD, and there is no other. 

In Jeremiah 5:22, in a stern warning from God (against those who turn against Him), God identifies Himself as Creator of the sea: Do you not fear me? declares the LORD. Do you not tremble before me? I placed the sand as the boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass; though the waves toss, they cannot prevail; though they roar, they cannot pass over it. But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and gone away. They do not say in their hearts,' Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rain in its season, the autumn rain and the spring rain, and keeps for us the weeks appointed for the harvest.' 

David, described by God as a man after His own heart, indicating that God approves of him, in Psalm 33:6, also testifies that God spoke creation into existence, just as claimed in Genesis: By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.  

While many of David’s songs of praise are written in poetic style, the claims to God’s authourship of creation are clear: The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech,and night to night reveals knowledge.There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. 

Again in Psalm 136:5 and 104:8, among many others: …to him who by understanding made the heavens, for his steadfast love endures forever …The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them. 

Psalm 104:9 references the flood, and God’s promise to Noah to never again destroy the earth with a flood: You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.  

The New Testament also speaks of creation and its Creator, never disproving what Genesis clearly says. John 1:1-3 clearly says that nothing happened by chance in creation, nothing was made without a Creator: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 

In Acts 14, Paul and Barnabas preach that man’s understanding is without value or life (vain), that only God is to receive worship. …we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. 

In Paul’s famous speech at the Aereopagus (the place in Greece for philosophical discussion), when he had the opportunity to speak to learned people, this is what he unhesitatingly claimed: The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man…  

Hebrews 11:3 recognized that it takes faith to believe what we were not there to see. It also confirms that what is was made out of what is not (something made from nothing). By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.  

In 2 Peter 3, the writer speaks of a time coming (now) when people would refuse to believe that God did create the universe, just as recorded in the Scripture. It also explains why those people would refuse to believe: …I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation." For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.

Joseph Girzone's A Portrait of Jesus Review

Joseph F. Girzone A Portrait of Jesus (Note: while I’ve read more of this book, for the sake of keeping this short, only 3 chapters have been chosen randomly for the review. For the sake of reading ease, I've chosen to use 'Jesus' throughout, though I generally prefer to use a variant of His Hebrew name.) Joseph Girzone is a retired Roman Catholic priest who has written several popular books. Reading the comments found on the back cover of A Portrait of Jesus, he is praised as someone who ‘draws on the wisdom of the centuries’, ‘writes with humanity and spirit’, ‘guides readers toward a more satisfying religious experience’ and who defines ‘just what intimacy with God actually looks like.’ Foreword: There is a real longing expressed here for ‘ecumenism’ or unity between different religious perspectives. There is an example described of this kind of hoped for unity between the authour’s Roman Catholic congregation and an Orthodox Jewish congregation. This is confusing because the belief system of the Roman Catholic church (who are seen by Orthodox Jews as idol worshippers) is completely against the belief system of the Orthodox Jewish religion. How can such complete opposites in belief have ‘unity’? He mentions that many pastors and priests were surprised to hear his talks about Jesus, that they had been taught theology and Scripture in Seminary, but not Jesus. He writes, “People have a hunger for Jesus and for a genuine understanding of what His Good News really is, whether they are Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, or even those who cannot identify with any faith. Jesus’ Good News responds to the deepest needs of the human soul, no matter what the person’s belief or lack of belief, and is intimately tied up with our understanding of who Jesus really is and how He thinks and feels.’ He doesn’t explain how a Hindu or a Buddhist or one with no faith can know their hunger is for Jesus. It seems to describe the belief that ‘all paths lead to God’, but that some of the people who are currently Hindus, Buddhist or atheists just don’t know that yet. There is an interesting comment that ‘We are in the process of reevaluating all our previously accepted values, the very pillars of our civilization.’ This is true, but bear in mind that it is the same message that Rick Warren presents. ‘Emergent church’ pastors such as Brian MacLaren have been saying for years that ‘everything must change.’ This statement sets the tone for the book, that it will present information which will challenge our previous assumptions of who Jesus is and what He came for. Bear in mind that Jesus is first of all obedient to God (even to what was a cursed and shameful death) and also that He fully upheld Scripture (the Old Testament) as accurately describing Who He is and what He came for. Anything anyone else says should challenge our unscriptural assumptions and point us clearly to the Bible as the written Word of the One who is the Word made flesh. Chapter 1: The people of Jesus day were definitely burdened with laws that regulated every detail of their life. Not only under Roman oppression, they had the good Law of God (read Psalm 119) twisted and distorted by the hundreds of added traditions of the elders, which had often over-ruled God’s simple commands. He writes that there are 613 commandments in Scripture and 365 prohibitions, but this is wrong. There are 613 laws, divided into 248 positive ones (you shall love the Lord your God) and 365 prohibitions (do not commit adultery). Of the 613, some are for men only, some for women only, some only at particular times of life (marriage, birth, death), and many for priests only. This is one of many instances where you should be able to expect, as someone who teaches and studies the Bible, that he be aware of what is and isn’t correct. Throughout the book, he often gets small details (and sometimes not so small) of the Bible just plain wrong. He is also inaccurate in implying that these 613 laws were the main cause of the people’s burden. The ‘law’ that he says Paul described as the ‘unbearable burden that no human being could carry’ was what was commonly called ‘the law of Moses’ and included the enormous burden of these man-made additions to God’s Law. This is important to note, because the claim follows that Jesus came to set people free from ‘the law’ implying that it was God’s Law that was the burden. Jesus did not come to set people ‘free’ from God’s Law. Also, at no time did He ever disobey any part of God’s Law. There is evidence that at times He ignored the added laws of the elders, especially where they conflicted with the original intent of God’s own instruction. If Jesus had disobeyed even the smallest of God’s laws, He would have been disqualified from being the sinless sacrifice for our own sins. Sin is defined as disobedience to God’s Law (1 John 3:4-5). There are a number of other odd claims in the book, that do not have any Scriptural backing, such as ‘Jesus…definition of a holy person (is) an individual who allowed all their God-given uniqueness to grow within to full maturity and in the process becoming a beautiful human being’ and, referring to Jesus, ‘He (did not) wear special clothes like the scribes and the Pharisees’ and the claim that while Mary was on time, Jesus was three days late to the wedding in Cana. That particular example has all kinds of other assumptions in the story! Very odd and more concerning, they are imaginative additions to the real facts we are given, and are used to paint a picture that we are then supposed to believe as truth. That is not a good basis for discovering Who Jesus actually is, as is the premise of the book. Chapter 6: This chapter opens with a favourable quote from Thomas Merton, the new age Catholic-Buddhist mystic. In it, he laments that he does not necessarily know if he is following God’s will. This chapter deals with what to do after first deciding to follow God. How does one know what to do? Joseph Girzone likens it to starting out ‘on an untraveled road in the dark.’ He describes how when he was a child, it seemed simple. He felt ‘deep down that it was really Jesus’ when he took the wafer and wine of the Eucharist, and went to Mass each day in order to be ‘close to Jesus in the Eucharist’. When troubles came, he crumbled, and ‘that beautiful sense of Jesus presence left me, never to come back’. He began to search the scriptures and the writings of the mystics as well as ‘the directories of spirituality for a way to holiness that made sense’. He could not figure out how God expected us to be perfect, yet ‘He made us all so flawed.’ Contrast that with Genesis 1:28-31, where God calls His creation ‘very good.’ There is discussion on ‘spiritual growth’ where he likens it to natural physical growth. Peter is described as spiritually immature because he could not ‘control his impulsive outbursts’. ‘Jesus…knew it (spiritual maturity) would happen in time, when he had grown to the point where it would happen naturally as an outflow of his inner spirituality.’ In contrast, the Bible describes Peter as changing completely and instantaneously when he was baptized by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This was after he had been completely humbled by the realization of his three time rejection of Christ. There was no ‘spiritual growth’ but an enabling by the power of the Holy Spirit, in a repentant and humbled heart, to be completely changed. The fact is, we do not ‘grow spiritually’ as a result of OUR spirituality. We ‘grow’ as we yield to the truth of the Word, and live in humble obedience to it. God grows us, we don’t. We yield and obey, and receive what we are given. That is our part. Joseph Girzone carefully and accurately describes the need for humility before God, and the need to curb actions that are harmful to ourselves or others. Yet he goes on to claim that Jesus ‘did not spell out everything in detail’. That isn’t quite true, and demonstrates a legalistic mindset. The commandments God gave, that Christ expected us to follow, and taught simply and clearly (without all the extra baggage added on by the traditions of the elders) are not too hard to follow! Our problem is we want our own way; when we are enslaved by our sin nature, it naturally wants to rule in God’s place. We constantly, even without consciously realizing it, look for loopholes...if it isn't spelled out in detail, we find a way around it. We re-interpret and obey our version.

Only when we submit to dying to our sin nature (daily, see Luke 9:23) and are spiritually dead to sin and raised with Christ (Romans 6) are we given a new heart and are born again, this time to follow in obedience, no longer enslaved to sin. Time and again, Jesus taught that it was what came from the heart that mattered. And a heart that was enslaved to sin could never please God. Only a new heart and a new spirit could do that, and only He could give that. We have no need for legalistic 'details' to be 'spelled out' in the Law, our Father promises to guide us in how to please Him. The remainder of the chapter describes how we are to ‘fulfil our role in a mystical body…Each day we add our little colored fibers to the threads that are being woven into the tapestry of God’s plan, not just for our little parish, not even just for the Church at large, but for the perfecting of the human family.’ The descriptions paint a picture of humans bringing true peace to the world through their right spiritual growth. Yet Scripture paints a different picture. True peace will only come to the world when the Prince of Peace rules it.

Chapter 14: Peter is described as wanting ‘to construct a shrine to commemorate the event’ of the transfiguration (Matthew 17) yet Matthew 17, Mark 9 or Luke 9 do not say that at all. “Three tents” are not a shrine! The parable of the workers in the vineyard from Matthew 20 is explained as Jesus hinting ‘at things that will happen in His Kingdom after He leaves.’ Yet it is actually describing what will happen in His Kingdom after he returns! He claims that ‘In these examples…(Jesus) is also brutally realistic in warning His followers that the Kingdom of heaven on earth is a family of spiritually weak, crippled people who need redemption, so don’t expect it to be the perfect society.’ He goes on to describe the example in Matthew 13:47-50, saying ‘He compares the Kingdom of heaven to a fisherman who went out fishing. When he finished, he hauled the net ashore and began sorting the fish. Some were good, others stank to high heaven. So, also, the kingdom on earth, the Church.’ Yet this isn’t at all what this parable is speaking of. It is speaking of those who are God’s and those who are not. Matthew 13:49-50 actually reads that ‘the angels will separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is a very different picture than the book describes, and it is an important difference. In Matthew 7, Jesus warns that not all who call Him Lord are actually His. The warning is given that ‘His Kingdom on earth…will always be filled with sinners exhibiting all kinds of offensive behavior. Do not expect the kingdom to be filled with all nice people. It never will be, neither at the top or at the bottom or at any other level.’ This contrasts enormously with the example of the true believing community in Acts 2:37-47, and with the descriptions of the ones who will not be included in the kingdom that are given in 1 Corinthians 5:10-12, 6:9 and Ephesians 5:5. There is a quote which implies it is from Jesus (but has no reference) which says ‘If you want to have peace within yourself, and with your neighbors, learn to forgive.’ He claims that Jesus intends us to ‘try to understand the pain and tortured spirit that gave rise to such person’s offensive behavior. Then, when you see their pain, or their oddness, you pity them, and do not take on the anguish they are trying to pass on to you. It makes such good sense. It is not easy, and Jesus realized it is not easy, but it is the only way to preserve peace and serenity.’ This might sound good at first read, but it isn’t so. Yes, we are to forgive, as He has forgiven us. This is critical. But our forgiveness does not bring peace to the earth; neither did He come for that reason. Jesus Himself clearly said “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34) Conclusion: Much of his writing is quite beautiful and poetic, it sometimes takes effort to go beyond the illusion and carefully examine what is actually being said. Yet it is so important to do that, because though there is some truth here (as defined by the Word) much of what he says is not scripturally sound. There is glaring inconsistency and a great deal of inaccuracy, sometimes in details, but often in very important matters. This continues from beginning to end. Even in the last chapter, words are attributed to Jesus that are completely out of context, misapplied, or fabricated. In a book that claims to be a ‘Portrait of Jesus’ those details are critically important. A picture is given of Jesus that is inaccurate and manipulated.

Do you want to know Who He is? Then open the Bible, beginning at Genesis, and pray for the Holy Spirit to open your mind as the minds of the disciples were opened by Jesus (Luke 24:32) so they could understand the Scriptures written about Him. The Good News begins in creation. The Scriptures Jesus so often referred to are only what we today call the Old Testament. That section of the Bible is where you will find the Good News of Who He is. That is a much better thing to do than to spend the time reading A Portrait of Jesus.