Stuff Michael Meeks is doing

Up early, breakfast, bid 'bye to the parents, off to NCC. Met Rich & Bethany & Manelle 2 wizzo's and g/f from the base, out for lunch with them & Mario and Teresa at Weatherspoons in town.
Home, prayed & surfed the web for information about India, E-mailed various people. Listened to a Gordon sermon on Science, creation and the Trinity from his conference notes.
- The Trinity: 17 texts mentioning the Father, Son & Holy Spirit in the same breath - baptising in the name of all 3; co-equality. All Christian churches agree on the doctrine, E. Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, etc.
- The translation of the sacred name of God (Yahweh) to Greek rendered 'Lord' used in the NT applied to Jesus. cf. Acts 2 quotation of Joel 2 Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
- Stephen - as he was stoned to death [NB. fell asleep] said, Lord Jesus recieve my spirit. Remarkably parallel to Jesus's words from the cross, but to God.
- He is the image of the invisible God, the first born over all Creation ... [things] visible and invisible. EM radition yes of course, but really a grand theory of everything.
- How about Creation. With a Ptolemaic vision - the Earth the center it makes transparent sense that God was incarnate here. vs. Carl Sagan's - the pale blue dot - a thin film of life on an obscure lump of rock and metal, a lonely spec in an eveloping cosmic dark.
- several major misunderstandings:
- Facts do not speak for themselves: By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command. When we see them we think: The heavens declare the glory of God. I can't even convince you you're awake - only with your eyes open can you see the evidence that you are.
- ~200bn stars in the milky way, ~100bn galaxies. Oh Lord our Lord how majestic is your name in all the earth - When I consider the heavens the work of your fingers, the heavens that you set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him.
- Bible doesn't require a young earth, some suggest creation in 4004BC, based on genaeology in scriptures. Genaeologies are almost always selective, Matthew: Jesus is the son of David, son of Abraham. David ~1k BC, Abraham ~2k BC, Matthew knows that. Later more comprehensive: 14+14 generations mentioned, but the OT mentions at least 3 names he omits; that's standard proceedure; typical in the ancient world.
- Bible doesn't prohibit plant/animal death before the fall. More than 700 distinct species in the fossil record, when did they exist ? the dinosaur question, 2 options:
  - No death before Adam/Eve sinned, they continued to inhabit the planet with us until they were wiped out.
  - Is that likely ? Jurrassic park: in the wisdom of God, why have Tyrannosaurus Rex in the garden of Eden ?
  - God in his wisdom got rid of the dinosaurs long before we arrived - 65million years ago. Assumes death arrived before the fall.
- Every time death is mentioned with respect to the fall, the bible stresses it's human death. The animals didn't sin, humans sinned. Death enters through that act, but only to men.
- Psalm 104, talks about creation, walks through Genesis 1 verse by verse. The 4th day, darkness - The beasts of the field prowel - what are they prowling for - carrots ? the lions roar for their prey - God gave them sharp teath, excellent steroscopic vision, fleetness of foot etc.
- God clothes the man/women with animal skins - but just glosses over this - of course animals die.
- Genesis not an exhaustive or exclusive account of creation. Not exhaustive: no account of creation of air, fire, water, or angels. Not exclusive, the doctrine of concurrence:
  - Why does it rain ? a christian view of meterology ? We should have a Christian meterological society so we don't have to have pagan meterologist on TV !
  - The Lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth ... he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth, he sends lighting with the rain, and brings out the wind from his storehouses. (Psalm 135).
  - Jesus said it was true too: He makes his rain fall on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5)
  - No more of these 'cold fronts' and 'isobars' - it's all God isn't it ?
  - Jeremiah goes so far as: Do any of the worthless idols of the nations bring rain ? Do the skies themselves send down showers ? No, it is you, O Lord our God. Therefore our hope is in you, for you are the one who does all this. - the sky can't do it unless God does it.
  - The laws of nature are just the customary ways in which God provides his providential care of the universe. They're his laws.
  - Elijah having prayed for rain after a prolongued drought - sends his servant to look for a cloud - God does it all, yet uses a cloud. God normally uses secondary causes - yet he does it all.
- The 7 days in Genesis 1 - need not be literal; or are literal 'heaven' days; not a new view caused by embarassment by evolution. Held by St. Augustine in 7 AD. The first fundamentalists held this view. God created the Sun for the marking of days, sun created day 4. The 7th day is still going on. God's 7th day rest is still going on Hebrews 4. Genesis 1: 'evening/morning' every day, but not on the 7th.
- What is a 'heavenly day' ? no idea. What is a doorpost and threshold in heaven ? - no idea; a useful anthropomorphism.
- A week, an unnatural measure of time; all man's 7 day cycles plaguerised from scripture. Natural: day, month, seasons, year. We get a lot of weeks; God has one. We're looking forward to the ultimate Sabbath - entering into God's rest.
- Empirical evidence - encourage us to apply what the bible says about creation. All human beings have a common ancestor - we go back to 1 ancestral pair. The Eve hypothesis - mitocondrial DNA, 100k years ago, same for Y chromosomes. A very 'fortuitous' mutation happened 100k years ago, no burial before then, not long thereafter art.
- Universality of the fall, everywhere you go - everyone is sinning. The !Kung San of the Kalahari desert - wonderfully peaceful hunter-gatherers, don't even spank their children - an anthropologists dream come true: all loving and peaceful. Problem is in further studies it was discovered they have a murder rate greater than NYC.
- Design: requires a couple of things; improbability is not enough. Throw a cork - draw a bull's eye exactly under it - not amazing. Have to design the bull's-eye first.
- You have to know God to know the evidence of his design; unity & diversity How many are your works Lord. You can't predict the Emu, you can't predict the gravitational constant - it reflects his soverign will not some necessity.
- The beauty of nature; it's just like him to make things like that. The Spirit's effort in creation - spirit breath - seen anyone die ? - an astonishing thing; all of a sudden the life goes out - and what you most notice - the stopping of breath; no more breath.
- God formed man from the dust and breathed into him life, Jesus breathed into his disciples the Holy Spirit. The world is not just a rock, but covered in life everywhere.
- How is it possible for such an enormous squandering of time: 10bn years of supernovae - millions of years of carboniferous plant growth to make the gas so you could drive to Church. Millions of species / stars dying that we might live.
- The cruciform theory of the universe: Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies it stays a single seed. All kinds of natural analogies preparing you to live a life of indebtedness.
- It's all as nothing prepared to what God was prepared to do 2000 years ago sending his Son to die for us. It was not with perishable gold/silver that you were bought - but with the precious blood of Christ. Who is worthy of these things ?
Interesting indeed, stimulates me to do more reading around the subject.

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In case it's not painfully obvious: the reflections reflected here are my own; mine, all mine ! and don't reflect the views of Collabora, SUSE, Novell, The Document Foundation, Spaghetti Hurlers (International), or anyone else. It's also important to realise that I'm not in on the Swedish Conspiracy. Occasionally people ask for formal photos for conferences or fun.

Stuff Michael Meeks is doing

2003-11-02: Sunday