Faith Comes By Hearing

This week's text is from a guest contributor.

Truth Will Stand

Joe Keirouz (San Jose)

I encountered a quotation by Oliver Wendell Holmes several years back. It's a simple yet very powerful illustration about truth: "Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."

Welcome to the Bible. It's a book that has been criticized, scrutinized, figuratively kicked all day like a football, a perfect example. As the holder of truth, it has withstood attacks so well we believers should be greatly encouraged. Consider  that "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1).

Not many scientists want to acknowledge God's part in creation. Yet the belief the universe had a beginning and has not always been as we see it today is widely accepted. This acceptance is partially due to the knowledge that the galaxies are not static, but rather are moving away from us. Edwin Hubble discovered this back in 1929.

So by playing time backward, we could observe celestial bodies moving closer to each other. Scientists have to grasp at explanations that don't include the Creator.

*      A self-creating universe out of nothing,

*      A universe that has always oscillated between an expansion and a contracting phase,

*      A world where our universe is one of multiple or infinite many universes

These explanations are all attempts to explain what is seen without the willful act of our Creator. Under a bit of scrutiny, these alternative theories create more questions than provide viable answers to the special creation as described in the first verse of the Bible: they don't hold their form when kicked around!

It is remarkable that Genesis was written some 3,500 years ago when there were no instruments to help them peek into distant parts of the universe to provide clues we have only discovered recently.  Yet its statement that this world had a beginning, in contrast to having always been, stands as a testament to how true it is despite the scrutiny it has been subjected to.

As Robert Jastrow, the first chairman of NASA's Lunar Exploration Committee, said: "Now we see how the astronomical evidence supports the Biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and Biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy."