Test Blog

26. The Image of God as Counterpart For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, "I dwell on a high and holy place, And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly...  —Isaiah 57:15 Humans as God's counterpart implies that we are the relational partner for God, created for fellowship. What does that even look like? Think of a big wig CEO, like Mark Zuckerberg, gaming with the man who empties his trashcan. Or the President of the United States having lunch with the guy who cleans the White House toilets. And I don't mean a "cares for all humanity" fist-bump in passing for publicity photo. I mean, after a long day of work, the only think Mark or Mr. President WANTS to do is hang out with his janitor because they are best friends. Humans were created for fellowship with God, but not as His peers. He's the CEO. We are the toilet cleaner...though out job is not to clean toilets. Except for

 25. Imago Dei: The Image of God as Similarity The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. —Exodus 33:11 The focus on the Image of God as Similarity is on the physical and emotional similarities people have with God. Ancient Jewish sources hold to this interpretation:  2 Enoch 44:1–3: The Lord with his own two hands created mankind; and in a facsimile of his own face. Small and great the Lord created. Whoever insults a person's face insults the face of the Lord; whoever treats a person's face with repugnance treats the face of the Lord with repugnance. Whoever treats with contempt the face of any person treats the face of the Lord with contempt. (There is) anger and judgement (for) whoever spits on a person's face. 2 Enoch 65:2: And however much time there was went by. Understand how, on account of this, he constituted man in his own form, in accordance with a similarity. And he gave him eyes to see, ears to hear, and heart to think, and reason to

24. Imago Dei Imago Dei,  Latin for "image of God." According to ReligionFacts.com , Christianity has been influenced by four definitions of how humans are the imago dei : (1) The Image of God as Similarity (We have emotions, intelligence, etc). (2) The Image of God as Counterpart (We are the relational partner for God, created for fellowship). (3) The Image of God as Dominion (We are like God in that we share in His dominion over the earth). (4) The Image of God as Representation (We are like God in that we are His representatives on earth). We will look at each of these definitions over the next four blog posts. Beyond Genesis 1:26-28, here are a few other verses describing humans as made in the image of God: Genesis 5:13, Genesis 9:5-6, Psalm 8, 1 Corinthians 11:7, and James 3:9. Photo Credit: Mud Man  CC2.0 / Hands CCO.

23. Breath of Life Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul.  — Genesis 2:7 The word soul in Hebrew is nephes h, meaning “an animated, breathing, conscious, and living being.” Man did not become a living soul until God breathed life into him. In Genesis 6:17, "breath" in the phrase "breath of life" is the Hebrew word ruwach, which means “wind, breath, air, spirit.” It is the word translated all throughout the Old Testament in the phrase the Spirit of God , and in the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) as well as the New Testament, it is the word translated in the phrase Holy Spirit . Photo Credit: Copyright © Bill Osborne . Used with Permission. / Video: Great Are You Lord by Casting Crowns.

From Mud "We're filth! We're filth! We come from filth, we're going to filth, we're filth!" "The LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground..." —Genesis 2:7a Infamous ASA evangelist Richard Dawkins purports: "Mud, in the form of clay, may have learned to replicate and eventually the process led to the creation of the famous DNA double helix and life itself." Dawkins arrives at this conclusion because clay has one of the essential requirements for life – reproduction. His proposition is based on the proposal by Scottish chemist Graham Cairns-Smith, who first proposed his theory in 1966 but further studies in 2007 and 2013 backed the principles. Most recently Biological Engineers from Cornell University's department for Nanoscale Science in New York state agreed clay 'might have been the birthplace of life on Earth'. Once again, we see the difference is in the interpretation of the science (time and first cause), not the sc

21. From Apes "All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men (humans), another flesh of beasts (primates), another of fishes, and another of birds."  — 1 Corinthians 15:39 Since bananas share about 50% of their DNA with humans, does that mean bananas are half human? Do similarities between the skeletal features of  Australopithecus (Lucy) to chimpanzees and humans point to a common ancestor or a common Designer? With no way scientifically answer that question (we can't observe species-to-species evolution and we can't observe God creating a species), we must resort to our belief system or world view. ASA Scientists believe that primates and humans evolved/descended from a common primate ancestor (primate-kind). Creation Scientists believe that primates evolved/descended from a common primate ancestor (primate-kind), and humans evolved/descended from a common human ancestor (human-kind). In this picture, different types of primates are lined up

20. Who is Us? Part 1 "The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old;  I was formed long ages ago, at the very beginning, when the world came to be."  —Proverbs 8:22-23 Wisdom / Logos view: held by 2nd Temple Judaism and most Christians It is generally agreed that Proverbs was written by Solomon, son of King David, nearly 1000 years before Jesus was born. Philo of Alexandria (who predated the Apostle John’s use of Logos and begotten by over 50 years) identifies the Logos with wisdom in Proverbs 8:22 (De Ebrietate, 31), and calls the Logos “the eldest son,” and “the first-begotten of God.” See Philo’s On the Confusion of Tongues, 63 and 146 respectively. Some 50 years later, the Apostle John identifies Jesus as this logos and God's begotten, and confirms his role in Creation. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." —John 1:3 The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Colossians, written even befor

19. Who is Us? Part 1 "Let us make mankind in our image, after our likeness."    — Genesis 1:26 The Majestic View: held to be false by both Jews and Christians Some claim the "us" in Gen 1:26 is the royal "us" or majestic plural, which is when a plural (we, us, our) is used to refer to a single person who is a monarch. (This is similar to the editorial "we," such as when a small business run by one person says, "You can reach us at..." or "Our hours of operation are....") Yet the royal "us" is not used in ancient times, as both Jewish and Christians scholars note: "Such a pluralis excellentiae was, however, a thing unknown to Moses and the prophets. Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, David, and all the other kings, throughout TeNaKh (the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa) speak in the singular, and not as modern kings in the plural." —Rabbi Tzvi Nassi, Lecturer in Hebrew at Oxford University1 1 "This fir

18. Animal Kinds and Common Descent And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. —Genesis 1:24-25 According to the ASA*, "methodological naturalism is a 'ground rule' of science today" that " requires  scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe , test, replicate, and verify." (emphasis mine) So the ASA requires that science (specifically naturalism) be observable. Do we observe evolution? Yup! Take the dog "kind" for example. We observe evolution all the time with both natural selection (nature's breeding) and man-made selection (intentional breeding, such as all the new "designer dogs"). A chi

17. Sea Monsters and the Chaos Myth God created the great sea monsters... —Genesis 1:21  On day five, the writer of the toledoth (or Moses) specifies that God created the sea monsters. Why is this important...because it is specifically named. In others words, God says, Let there be lamps and there were lamps...let there be birds and there were birds...let there be creeping crawly animals and there were creeping crawly animals. But when God says let there be swarms of sea creatures, there were swarms of sea creatures and sea monsters.  And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind.   Why is this so relevant? Because in ancient times, the sea monster was the personification of chaos, a co-eternal primordial force of wrath and destruction, which the

16. Darwin's Finches And God said..."Let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” So God created...every winged bird according to its kind. —Genesis 1:20-21 Yes, Creationist scientists believe in Darwin's Finches. They also believe in speciation, adaptation, mutation, and yes, even evolution (i.e. slow changes over long periods of time within species —more on this in the next post ). Many even believe an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs (more on this on another post). As I said before, the biggest difference between the Bible and evolution is time and first cause. The science is the same...it's the interpretation of the scientific evidence that varies. What may really surprise you is that it's NOT a religious argument. There are many ASA scientists that believe in a first cause (an unknown, intelligent designer*), and many ASA scientists that believe in catastrophism (example: grand canyon carved by catastrophe, rather than by uniformitariani