Creation, Faith and Facts ...

Thursday, Sept 5, 2013. What is the role of the bible with respect to creation? How do you read and use the first chapters of the biblical books? How do you read and use the rest of it - the prophetic books, the books of wisdom, the gospels and the letters in the New Testament?

The role of the creation stories …

The biblical books are not primarily scientific books. Their goal is it to teach us about God and about ourselves. Their goal is to guide us to see that faith, truth, purity and love are key things for our life, for you and for me!

But that does not mean that the books would be completely non-scientific, that they would ignore the facts of this world. They do not ignore them, but they even take them very serious. They want to communicate a realistic picture of our world, how it became what it is, and about its main steps of development.

We have seen how realistically the creation days describe the evolution of this world. They describe the physical and the biological world, they describe the “lamps” in the sky in a time, where whole nations worshipped the sun and the moon. The biblical books, including the book of Genesis, have a deep realism. They describe our world as it is - with all its brilliance (“God saw, that it was good”) and all the terrible characteristics (“the longing of their heart was evil”). The biblical books point us to see the whole reality, including the physical world, the cultural human world, and the spiritual world, which all its forces and beings.

Faith and My Life …

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The biblical books guide us to the living Lord, the creator, the beginning and the end. They want us to turn to him. That is a key goal they have. It is a goal far beyond the pure description of reality. It is a goal which takes humans serious, which takes every single individual serious. You cannot continue to read the bible, and not start to care for others, close to you or far away from you. God always cares. For now, and for eternity!

Faith is the main topic of the bible. We have seen the consequences of faith, already in the beginning. First, there was missing faith when Adam and Eve took their important decisions not to trust the Lord. Then, we hear about the faith which Abel had, and which was missing with Cain. Then, we hear about the faith of Noah and his family, and about the salvation which came through the waters of the great flood.

Faith is important. And it is not an abstract faith, not some faith of the whole community. But the faith which the bible talks about is always an individual faith. It is YOUR faith and MY faith, or it is not faith. It is your decision, your personality, your truthfulness, your love, your actions, your words. YOU are important, since the Lord loves you and wants you, and cares about what you do, but more than that what you believe and love. Talk to him! Come to him. Believe in him and trust your life to him. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts