Delano Herald Journal

Serving the communities of Delano, Loretto, Montrose, MN, and the surrounding area

Pastor’s Column, 8/4/2003



John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Did you know that the ancient Greeks already theorized
that life came about by evolution? There are a number of Greek philosophers
who taught a form of evolution as the means by which all things come into
existence.

For example, Anaximander (c. 610-546 B.C.) taught that
living beings evolve in a gradual development, from moisture under the influence
of warmth, and suggested the view that men originated from animals.

There continues after him a long line of philosophers who
picked up his theory and continued its “evolution” as a theory
(even yet today).

Even the noted philosophers: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle,
wrote much on the subject of “arche” a Greek word which means
origin, principle, beginning.

It is not by chance that the Gospel writer John chooses
the word arche to describe how Jesus, the Word of God, was there at the
very beginning, for through him all things were made.

As a side-note the theory of evolution attributed to Charles
Darwin (1809-1882) was not new to him, nor to his age. He was taught evolution
at Cambridge while learning to be a minister of the Gospel.

Instead of becoming a minister, he was influenced by a
pair of professors into becoming a naturalist/biologist and wrote on the
subject of natural selection and the origin of species throughout his life.

The world movement towards humanism and rationalism ate
it up like candy.

But what does the scripture say about origin, beginnings,
and principle? The ancient Israelites were contemporaries of Anaximander
and had been a community for a 1,000 years even prior.

They believed something quite different. They believed
there was one God who created all things (see Genesis 1-2). They believed
this God was active in the shaping of our world not only geologically, but
also universally (meaning God’s fingerprint is on everything, without him
nothing was made that has been made).

The Jews, as they dispersed into the Roman world, held
on to their belief in a Creator and did not “give it up” in order
to fit in with Greco-Roman culture around them.

Neither did Christianity.

The New Testament written in the context of a Roman world
nevertheless teaches and confesses Creation. In the face of opposition,
persecution, and intolerance they remained faithful to the doctrines of
the Bible, even if it meant martyrdom.

Some knowledgeable on Church history may say that some
church scholars introduced various theories as how God made all things,
some even dismissed the first 11 chapters of the Bible as mythology.

Notice though the Holy Christian Church never accepted
these foreign theories of the minority, and even in the creeds of the church
the very first thing we confess in worship as we speak the creed is that
God the Father Almighty is the maker of heaven and earth.

John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, teaches us not only
about who Jesus is in his gospel, but also what Jesus taught.

Jesus taught that He was the Messiah, that He would be
crucified, die and be buried, and on the third day rise again. Jesus taught
that there was one God, and that this God was his father.

Jesus taught that his father in heaven has placed all things
in his hands (see John 5:16-47). And just as Jesus redeems us with his blood
shed at Calvary, so too He sends forth the Spirit to sanctify us by making
his dwelling within our heart and mind.

And Jesus even participates in our creation, just as the
father and the spirit also participate.

The conundrum is that no person today has actually seen
the genesis of this world. We have to rely on faith. Faith in the “theory”
that we hold, whether it be creation or evolution.

Creation is constant and provides a universally viable
answer to our desire to know (science).

The belief that God creates all things by his word in a
matter of six days is unchanging and solid, while the theory of evolution
by its own admittance is continually changing its presumptions and assumptions.

Jesus says, (Rev 22:13) I am the alpha and the omega, the
first and the last, the beginning and the end.

I find Jesus to be a pretty trustworthy fellow. If he claims
to be there at the beginning (creation) and will be there at the end (judgement
day), I trust he knows.

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