Answers Magazine issue April-June 2010
 

When discussing the great questions of life, such as the origin of the universe, Christians are often embarrassed and unsure of themselves.They are intimidated by the seeming complexity of the questions and the variety of viewpoints.But it doesn’t have to be that way.

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Every believer has a resource that far surpasses anything man could ever imagine – we know the Creator and have His Word in our hands.

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The Bible is the eyewitness testimony of the only One who knows everything, who has always been there, and who never lies.Every other viewpoint is based on the guesswork of humans, who don’t know everything, who weren’t there, and who don’t always tell the truth.

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The Bible addresses life’s basic questions in a way that no other book does.By diligently studying God’s Word, Christians can build their worldview with confidence, knowing they have a solid foundation.

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What could we possibly be ashamed of?The Bible is true and the ultimate authority in every area upon which it touches, making sense of our deepest questions.Ultimately, it points to Jesus Christ, our Creator who became our Savior.

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1. Creation in Six Literal Days – “So the evening and the morning were the sixth day” Genesis 1:31. God left us a clear eyewitness account of creation in Genesis 1-2, written in the Hebrew language, stating that He made everything in six days.Using language that even Hebrew children could understand, such as “evening and morning” and numbers like “sixth” day, the sentence structure plainly refers to six literal, 24-hour days.

2. Radiometric Dating – “Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work”Genesis 2:1-2.People were not around when rocks were first formed, so we can only guess about their content or how quickly radioactive elements decayed.But God was there, and His Word lets us know that the earth is young.The rocks we see today have all formed within the last six thousand years (many of them during Creation and the Flood).

3. Variety Within Created Kinds –“God made everything. . .according to its kind” Genesis 1:25 Genesis 1 repeats ten times that God created the plants and animals according to their “kinds.”Today we see a marvelous variety of species, which showcase the potential for variation that God designed into the original kinds.Yet this amazing variety remains limited –cats are still cats, dogs are dogs, and horses are horses.

4. Uniqueness of Man – “God created man in His own image” Genesis 1:27. God created the first human, Adam, uniquely in His image.Our similarity with other mammals shows that our common Designer gave us similar tools (coded in our DNA) to perform similar biological functions (like digesting food).Despite these similarities, it is easy to distinguish humans from apes and all other creatures.

5. Distant Starlight –“God made the stars. . .[on] the fourth day” Genesis 1:16, 19. God made the stars two days before man, and their light was available for signs. Several astrophysical models explain how this starlight could cross great distances in no time at all.

6. Global Flood –“The waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered” Genesis 7:19. God’s record is clear that the water covered the entire earth and killed all the land animals on earth.As we would expect from a global Flood, thousands of feet of fossil-bearing rock layers now cover the earth.Under the unique conditions of the Flood, these layers could form quickly, in contrast to the slow processes we see today.

7. Dinosaurs on the Ark – “Every beast after its kind. . .went into the ark to Noah, two by two” Genesis 7:14-15. Since God created every “kind” of land animal on the same day as Adam, He must have included dinosaurs.Scientists have discovered fossils of only about fifty “families” of dinosaurs (a modern scientific classification similar to the biblical “kind”).So when Noah needed two representatives of every kind of land animal on the Ark, about one hundred dinosaurs went on board.

8. One Race - “From [Babel]the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth” Genesis 11:9. All people descended from one family – Adam and Eve.Their descendants settled at Babel, until God confused their language.The families that scattered over the earth brought different combinations of genes with them.But their differences are trivial.We all have different amounts of the same basic pigment, brown, and belong to one race – the human race.

9. Suffering & Death –“Because you have eaten from the tree, cursed is the ground. . .and to the dust you shall return” Genesis 3:17-19. God originally created a perfect world without disease and death.But the first man, Adam, rebelled against God, bringing a curse and death into the world.As a result of sin, the whole creation now groans.The good news is that God promised a Savior to bear the penalty of our sins, making a way for us to join Him in a new, perfect world.

10. The Gospel – “In you [Abram] all the families of the earth shall be blessed” Genesis 12:3. Death entered the world because of Adam’s sin, but God did not leave mankind hopeless.He promised a Savior to all nations of the earth, through Abram.The Savior, Jesus Christ, is the only answer to mankind’s greatest need. He suffered death on behalf of sinners and offers life freely to those who trust Him. For many educational related resources visit www.answersingenesis.org.