Listening today to some lectures concerning creation versus evolution; have been actually for several days.
Excellent lectures given by a good scientist who is a good Christian.
I would say a friend but although we have been acquainted for a number of years, I don’t know if friend would be accurate.
But my “friend” the scientist as careful as he is, sometimes does what we all do when examining the Bible, and that is to say more than the text or focus on something other than the plain meaning of Scripture.
We want to make a point and so we give Scripture just a little bit of help, nothing malicious, no harm intended.
But it is a mistake.
Just think about it. God has his prophets write down his words to get his point across but in our Christian zeal we sometimes are more concerned with getting our point across.
I’ve done it. If you speak very much, you will do it.
The discussion was concerning Adam and Eve and their discovery that they were naked after they rebelled against God and ate what God said not to eat.
(Genesis 3:7 NKJV) Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.
“and they knew that they were naked”
My “friend” then went on to make a comment that “we usually take this as physical nakedness and it may have that in mind but. . . (this is not verbatim but very accurately communicates his point).
He then directed the discussion to nakedness as far as their psychological openness to each other. He wanted to make the point that they went from being very transparent and open, communicating well with each other to a more closed approach in their relationship.
That probably is true. It is not really my point to agree or disagree with what he said after he took the detour.
My problem is the detour itself: That this nakedness may have been physical nakedness.
There is no room in this text for this “may have.” God made clothes for them and dressed them because they were physically naked. Their stuff was showing. Now why this mattered that much at that time, and what are all the inferences we can draw from this (probably volumes), I don’t know.
(Genesis 3:21 NCV) The LORD God made clothes from animal skins for the man and his wife and dressed them.
The plain meaning is they were naked.
Sometimes our detours are harmless but often these seemingly innocuous missteps are building a theology that falls prey to our broken hearts, not broken as in love-sick, but broken as in sinful and fatally flawed.
Dave – This is a great point. I know I’ve done this at times, and I’ve hears lots of well-meaning people (including pastors) do this. Your last point about the “seemingly innocuous missteps” building a “theology that falls prey to our broken hearts” really struck me. I had to re-read and re-read that last phrase over and over – “theology that falls prey to our broken hearts”.
Our sinful hearts are still “deceitful above all and desperately wicked”. So many times we don’t even realize the gravity of our situation when we’re tempted to augment/modify God’s Word. We try to make it easier to understand/swallow/accept, either for ourselves or others – and then, often times, it’s not God’s Word anymore – it’s ours. We’re “expositing” with the best of intentions, and our deceitful sin-sick broken hearts convince us that we must be doing the right thing, because the Bible is getting easier to understand.
And I sincerely hope that I am actually pointing fingers back at me, and not just at others.
Thanks so much for this post, Dave – and for all the others recently. It’s good to see your posts appearing here again. 🙂
– Mike
Mike, the broken heart came out as I wrote. That is one thing I encourage in my book. Sit down with pen and paper, or computer and keyboard, and write. Read the words of God, reflect and then write down your thoughts. So often my thoughts jell as I write. Many times my best thought pops out in my last sentence, and then I know why I just went to all that effort of trying to express myself. Back to our broken hearts – We have to realize that we are working with damaged equipment. We shouldn’t think that we can take the liberties we do with the text and expect to stay on the path. But we do, all too often.