My brain started thinking tonight after reading a few more past posts on:
http://writersthoughts-brianna.blogspot.com/
It jogged a thinking process that sometimes, frankly I would rather not have. Why wouldn't I like to think? Well--There are many reasons, it's hard! ;) But this reason was something less ignoble.*sigh of relief* Because I have thought about it before and haven't been able to slay this dragon of thought and belief.
Do we attack the falseness in "science" that seems to
disprove God's own spoken word? Or do we bypass the speaking on science and address the heart issue, the real issue, showing the truth in
real science once someone is saved? Round and round my mind goes, there are indeed merits for both! Breaking down the false assumptive
physical walls in somebody's ideas about God, "realistic" or "scientific" reasons for a lack of their ideas/faith on God. This idea is used by many, many strong Christians! Those who have upheld the faith amid a time apostasy. Ken Ham being a hallmark example. I myself have used some of his excellent material! Just the other day I used his website(http://www.answersingenesis.org) For some research after a conversation with a geo-physicist about young earth stemming from his talk on natural satellites. It(the site) was extremely useful and wholly informative.
Unfortunately, how often to you hear about die hard, indoctrinated evolutionists, or for that matter, any other religious sect follower that is turned by hard facts? Well, my answer to this semi-rhetorical question is.....Few. I am not saying by any means it never happens! No, because people are convinced by facts, at least convinced their own ideas and ideas they have been fed are false! I am saying, when people are persuaded to believe in God and what he did for them is it is not based solly on facts. Facts can't prove God is exists. They
CAN'T. I once had a debate with a fellow that was out with his point he tried to push, the idea that you can prove God so you don't need faith. He tried. Hard. Unfortunately for him, the Bible itself speaks of faith being needed.....So, in the end he just gave up. It was very strange during the discourse to think that someone thought that it could all be proven logically, and faith was rendered unneeded in the belief of God. Almost shocking, but having been to a few American churches in my day, not too shocking :P
(Side note: God being not "proven to man" is one of the reasons I don't believe the Ark, or such religious pillars will ever be A: found, or B: Validated. But this is a post for another day)
I digress....Again. :(
I am fond of the phrase, "Don't try to skin the fish before you catch it!". Something that I, try hard not to be guilty of. Don't try to clean up the sinner before
God cleans up his
sin. You can't, they can't, and they have no reason to. See
, even as a saved believer I still stumble when I have ALL the reasons in the world to do right, and God' power to do it, the key ingredient. They have no reason to do right, and they haven't the power even if they do come up with a reason.
Now ye are asking, "How does this fit in with giving the gospel or destroying strongholds of ignorance? Or--Is he just going off on another tangent again" Well I think it does fit, are we trying to teach them the facts we see as obvious because of where we start our search? The Bible.(Or we should) While they are looking somewhere else for answers and finding them because they are starting at a different base? Does it make sense to try to teach a lil' ol' how to eat dry food when they don't have the teeth for it yet? Nope. (Just an example please do not read into it.) In the same way, does it make sense to try to get a non-Christian to accept something that is strongly based off of our faith. I don't think so. What do you think?
So rather than come to a cut and dried conclusion, I will leave you with this.
In Athens Acts 17
16While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.
17So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.
18A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.
19Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?
20You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean."
21(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
22Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.
23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
24"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
28'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
29"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill.
30In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
31For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."
32When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject."
33At that, Paul left the Council.
34A
few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.
My emphasis added.
Corinthians 2
1When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.
2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling.
4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power,
5so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.
6We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.
7No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.
8None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9However, as it is written:
"No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him"—
10but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
11For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
12We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.
13This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.
14The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:
16"For who has known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
Draw your own conclusions, but please, send me a note, let me know what you think :)
Millard
