Do Baptists appear to be intellectually challenged baboons...?

[Hog Red]

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

 

[phoenixdem]

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Absolutely. We have to be very careful these days about the false ideas to which we fall prey.

 

[MagusAlbertus]

what's important to note is you can argue against christianity, for evolution, but you cannot argue against things like homosexuality. Americans are more reverent towards homosexuals than God. they fear homosexuals more than they fear God, they are more concerned about hurting a homosexuals feelings, than hurting God's feelings, by denying he even exists.

Just curious, PrincessGuy, are you, by chance, an atheist homosexual?

Does loving God mean that you must insult people you disagree with?

The love of Christ is not clear at all in your post; only the most despicable of hate.

 

[PrincetonGuy]

The OP gave us right out of the gate the major reason for believing the literal story of evolution rather than the literal story of creation: so as not to appear as a baboon.

If you care at all what people think of you and what you think of yourself, if you have any intellectual pride, you will believe what scientists tell you and go by appearances, not what the Word of God says. How we are perceived by others is what matters.

Blessings,
H.

Young people listen to people whom they respect, and they ignore those whom they do not. It has been said that the greatest threat to the gospel today is the perception on the part of young people that Christians have been so severely brainwashed into believing religious propaganda that they have lost the ability to think! That was certainly my perception as a young person—and it was certainly the perception of the other young people whom I knew. We did not listen to Baptists and or other Christians like them because they were perceived by us as being non-cognizant fools. The Lutherans, Methodists, and Presbyterians did not want to be confused with the “non-cognizant” Baptists, so they seldom witnessed for Christ in public. When some of us favorably responded to the Gospel as presented by well-informed Christians, we were laughed at and ridiculed for believing what the Baptists believed.

I accepted Christ as my savior on a Sunday night in an Assembly of God Church where I had gotten to know the people and their genuine faith in a genuine Christ. I had been frequenting a Baptist coffee house where Bible studies were taught five night a week, but I was so ashamed of associating with Baptists that I refused to tell them even my first name, and they nicknamed me “Charlie Brown.”

For the next three weeks, I continued going to the Assembly of God church and the Baptist coffee house. Then one night at the coffee house, a young man asked me if I was a Christian. I did not want him to believe that I was a non-cognizant fool, so I told him that I was not a Christian. He took out of his pocket a “Four Spiritual Laws” tract and began to share it with me while I did not say a word; but all of a sudden, he stopped and looked at me and said, “I don’t know why you lied to me about not being a Christian, but I can tell that you are.” I was caught off guard, and I told him about what had happened three weeks earlier. Someone in the room overheard and shouted out, “Charlie Brown got saved!” I was absolutely shocked and more embarrassed than I had thought possible, and I got up and got out of that place!

A few nights later, I was walking down the main drag in downtown San Diego—Broadway—and as I stepped up onto the curb from 4th Avenue and began walking down the sidewalk along Horton Plaza, I noticed a young sailor standing near the corner. I had seen him there before, and sensed that he was propositioning himself to other men, but that was very common on Horton Plaza, so I had not given much thought to it. But that night, something was very different—not about him—but about me! I wanted to just keep on walking, and I even forced myself to do so for several steps, but I felt something inside of me forcing me to turn around. I tried to resist, but I couldn’t, and I walked right up to the young sailor and asked him if he was prostituting himself.

He told me that he was, and he began to cry; and then he took off like a rocket—running down Broadway toward the bay. And there I went—running after him. He ran right through the red traffic lights—dodging the cars, trucks, and buses; and I ran after him, right through the red traffic lights—dodging the traffic. After running several blocks, he finally took cover behind a large pillar on the front of a building. However, I saw where he went, and I ran up behind him and felt my right hand being lifted up onto his shoulder, and I heard Bible verses coming out of my mouth as he leaned up against the pillar with his face in his hands, crying.

After a few minutes, the young man turned around and told me that his name was Bob, that he was a Christian, that he was in the Navy, and that he was married and that his wife was expecting a baby, but that he was getting ready to go on a West Pacific cruise for several months and would be out to sea when the baby was born. He was extremely lonely, confused, and hurting inside—and he told me that he began to run because he was embarrassed, but that as he was running, he was hoping that I would care enough to pursue him and help him.

Up to that point in my life, servicemen had been little more than scum in my sight, but there I was—holding in my arms a serviceman, and loving him more than life itself. And then I knew,

”The hand of Jesus touched me,
and now I am no longer the same.”

I was no longer the same at all, and I was no longer willing to keep my beliefs to myself even if I were thought to be a Baptist. I put much of my other business on hold and began going out every night and sharing Christ with the young people for whom Christ had placed in my heart a burning love. The greatest challenge was to tear down their perception that the Bible was not true because it contradicted science. I did not yet have an education in the literary genre of Genesis 1-11 (or anything else concerning the Bible), so the only way that I could defend the truth of the Bible was to yield to the Holy Spirit so that the love of Christ for them could be seen through me. Many listened and were saved; others had been so severely prejudiced toward the Bible by young-earth creationists that they were beyond reach.

I am a Baptist because my beliefs are Baptist, but more than that, I am a Christian who loves young people and therefore hurts inside when I see so very many young people reject the Bible because they associate the Bible with an archaic and academically indefensible interpretation of the Bible being aggressively preached and taught by young-earth creationists.

Yes, it matter how people perceive us! The Apostle Paul wrote that he became all things to all men that he might by all means save some. The teaching of young-earth creationism is having a devastating impact on the spreading of the Gospel because it is making the Bible appear to be just another irrelevant religious book written by superstitious people of the uninformed past. More and more Baptists are getting a good education, and today I can say that I am proud to be a Baptist, but there are sill too many Baptists aggressively preaching and teaching young-earth creationism to the detriment of the gospel.

 

[miamited]

Hi PG,

So, let me see if I've got this straight. You're afraid, yes your words that you didn't want to appear non-cognizant, whatever that is, to someone who questioned whether you were a believer based on the simple 'truth' that some believers hold to a young earth creation account of history. Is that about right?

Friend, while your story account of chasing 'bob' is very touching, I honestly can't see any reason for it's inclusion as a 'proof' of the discussion here. Tell me, what does your chasing 'bob' down the street have to do with how old one considers the creation to be?

You account that young people won't want to be a part of us because of our young earth creation views. Perhaps you might answer a question for me. What do you think it was that kept the young ruler from trusting in the Lord? Personally, friend, I think you're arguments sound a bit Don Quixotic. I imagine that if you were to take a piece of paper and go down to the most degrading place that you might find young people gathered and ask them without any leading as to why they won't accept Jesus as their Lord, you probably won't get a one to say that it's because there are some in the 'church' who hold to a young earth creation account. Be careful, friend, windmills can be pretty heavy if you tilt them too far.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[PrincetonGuy]

Hi PG,

So, let me see if I've got this straight. You're afraid, yes your words that you didn't want to appear non-cognizant, whatever that is, to someone who questioned whether you were a believer based on the simple 'truth' that some believers hold to a young earth creation account of history. Is that about right?

No, that is not about right, or even close to about right. I did not want the Baptists in the coffee house to believe that I had become one of them. I had become a Christian—but I had not become a young-earth creationist.

Friend, while your story account of chasing 'bob' is very touching, I honestly can't see any reason for it's inclusion as a 'proof' of the discussion here. Tell me, what does your chasing 'bob' down the street have to do with how old one considers the creation to be?

I shared the part of my testimony about Bob to explain why I was no longer willing to keep my faith in Christ to myself even if some people came to the incorrect conclusion that was a Baptist that believed in a doctrine that contradicts science.

You account that young people won't want to be a part of us because of our young earth creation views. Perhaps you might answer a question for me. What do you think it was that kept the young ruler from trusting in the Lord? Personally, friend, I think you're arguments sound a bit Don Quixotic. I imagine that if you were to take a piece of paper and go down to the most degrading place that you might find young people gathered and ask them without any leading as to why they won't accept Jesus as their Lord, you probably won't get a one to say that it's because there are some in the 'church' who hold to a young earth creation account. Be careful, friend, windmills can be pretty heavy if you tilt them too far.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

Throughout the history of the Church, the factors responsible for people rejecting the gospel message have been a function of the culture in which they lived. The number one reason given today in the industrialized western world for rejecting the gospel message is that “the Bible is not a credible source of truth.” The number one cause for that attitude toward the Bible is that “it contradicts what we know today from science.”

Don Quixote was an irrational, delusional romantic. I am just the opposite—blessed by God with an excellent education in evolutionary biology, and subsequently in New Testament exegesis and translation theory with a smattering of Old and New Testament theology. The Book of Genesis is, by far, my favorite book in the Old Testament, and in my leisure time I enjoy studying it. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans has fascinated me from my earliest days as a Christian, and I have in my personal library 239 commentaries (representing an extremely wide spectrum of theological thought and opinion) on that epistle, eleven additional volumes treating subjects regarding Paul’s Epistle to the Romans that are usually not treated in depth in commentaries, and about 50 volumes on Paul’s theology. Therefore, I am very familiar with the fall of man as portrayed in Genesis, the theological implications of the fall, and Paul’s purpose in using the story of the fall of man in Genesis.

My Christian beliefs are not merely based upon what I was taught in Sunday school; they solidly based upon years of schooling and personal study and innumerable hours of prayer at the feet of God. They are also based upon my experiences as the senior pastor of an interdenominational church and my years of experience in teaching the Bible. They are also based upon my experience in ministering on the street to lost, the downtrodden, the rejected, the destitute, the sick, the hungry, the imprisoned, the insane, the feeble mined, the intellectually gifted, and Mr. and Mrs. Jones and their children. I have a burning passion for the salvation of souls and their growth in Christ, and I have seen firsthand the devastation being done today by the preaching and teaching of young-earth creationism in a modern, industrialized, and educated world.

Unlike Don Quixote and other irrational, delusional romantics, my beliefs and my interpretation of the Old and New Testaments are in complete harmony with the very finest contemporary Old and New Testament scholarship. I hold in very high regard the Sancho Panza’s of this world who are loyal and faithful to their friends, but I do not hold in very high regard Christians who are loyal and faithful to an interpretation of Genesis that has been proven to be incorrect.

 

[supersoldier71]

The number one reason throughout history for people rejecting the Gospel is the fallen nature of man. Fallen man rejects honesty, charity, mercy and marital fidelity,all Biblical truths, because fallen man can't help himself. If I look like an ignorant baboon to men, but I look like Jesus (so to speak) to God the Father, I'll take that into eternity.

Good night and God bless!

 

[miamited]

Hi PG,

Well, I'll certainly not stand in your way to believe whatever you'd like, but quite frankly I don't find your reasons credible. The gospel has been rejected since the very begining by thousands upon thousands because people, as a rule, in their human nature don't want to be held accountable to anyone telling them that there is a 'holy' way that God calls us to live.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[PrincetonGuy]

The number one reason throughout history for people rejecting the Gospel is the fallen nature of man. Fallen man rejects honesty, charity, mercy and marital fidelity,all Biblical truths, because fallen man can't help himself. If I look like an ignorant baboon to men, but I look like Jesus (so to speak) to God the Father, I'll take that into eternity.

Well, I'll certainly not stand in your way to believe whatever you'd like, but quite frankly I don't find your reasons credible. The gospel has been rejected since the very begining by thousands upon thousands because people, as a rule, in their human nature don't want to be held accountable to anyone telling them that there is a 'holy' way that God calls us to live.

The solution to the fallen nature of man is to preach and teach the gospel of Christ. However, when that gospel is commingled with archaic and academically indefensible interpretations of the Bible that destroy the credibility of the Bible, the gospel itself becomes unbelievable and the fallen man is left in his sins. That is the situation today, and it is not acceptable to me, and I do not believe that it is acceptable to God.

 

[supersoldier71]

So, Creation is crap, but the Virgin Birth, perfect life, Death and Resurrection, those are credible? If a person will reject Creation based on the physical evidence, then they'll reject the Bible in its entirety. We are called to walk by faith, not by sight. A twice born, rejuvenated mind can only sometimes, and with great meditation and much reading of Scripture understand the scope, magnitude and majesty of the living God, or understand His mind. If the person is still dead, they WON'T understand anyway. The indwelling power of the Holy Spirit is the only way any of it makes sense to any of us who are being saved.

Eloquence and scientific data will NOT prove the Gospel. And the constant backpedaling by so-called Believers who don't actually believe that the Bible is the Word of God, perfect, inerrant and complete "...God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness...."

Backpedaling saying that this is outdated or that's archaic, and this that or the other is probably "figurative".

Is Salvation figurative: was Jesus' death on the cross, bearing the weight of all the sins of His Elect, figurative?

Slippery, slippery slope.

So again, I may be an intellectually challenged baboon, but I know Christ and Him crucified, and if that is the ONLY thing I know to preach to the fallen world, I could do worse.

 

[Hupomone10]

Young people listen to people whom they respect, and they ignore those whom they do not. It has been said that the greatest threat to the gospel today is the perception on the part of young people that Christians have been so severely brainwashed into believing religious propaganda that they have lost the ability to think! That was certainly my perception as a young person—and it was certainly the perception of the other young people whom I knew. We did not listen to Baptists and or other Christians like them because they were perceived by us as being non-cognizant fools. The Lutherans, Methodists, and Presbyterians did not want to be confused with the “non-cognizant” Baptists, so they seldom witnessed for Christ in public. When some of us favorably responded to the Gospel as presented by well-informed Christians, we were laughed at and ridiculed for believing what the Baptists believed.

I accepted Christ as my savior on a Sunday night in an Assembly of God Church where I had gotten to know the people and their genuine faith in a genuine Christ. I had been frequenting a Baptist coffee house where Bible studies were taught five night a week, but I was so ashamed of associating with Baptists that I refused to tell them even my first name, and they nicknamed me “Charlie Brown.”

For the next three weeks, I continued going to the Assembly of God church and the Baptist coffee house. Then one night at the coffee house, a young man asked me if I was a Christian. I did not want him to believe that I was a non-cognizant fool, so I told him that I was not a Christian. He took out of his pocket a “Four Spiritual Laws” tract and began to share it with me while I did not say a word; but all of a sudden, he stopped and looked at me and said, “I don’t know why you lied to me about not being a Christian, but I can tell that you are.” I was caught off guard, and I told him about what had happened three weeks earlier. Someone in the room overheard and shouted out, “Charlie Brown got saved!” I was absolutely shocked and more embarrassed than I had thought possible, and I got up and got out of that place!

Yes, it matter how people perceive us! The Apostle Paul wrote that he became all things to all men that he might by all means save some. The teaching of young-earth creationism is having a devastating impact on the spreading of the Gospel because it is making the Bible appear to be just another irrelevant religious book written by superstitious people of the uninformed past. More and more Baptists are getting a good education, and today I can say that I am proud to be a Baptist, but there are sill too many Baptists aggressively preaching and teaching young-earth creationism to the detriment of the gospel.

Dear Princeton:

Thank you for sharing that post. It is helpful to understand where you’re coming from.

It is no surprise, at least to me, that you refer to yourself now as proud to be a Baptist. If anything has come across from your posts, it is that this is an issue in your life going back even before salvation. It is even more clear from this post.

When I first read the OP, I thought you were saying “are WE perceived as baboons.” It is very clear by now that you are not including yourself in this group, but rather you are stating your own perception of others who take Genesis literally. After all, the thread didn’t say “are we being a bad witness” but rather “do we appear as baboons.”

I like your zeal and concern for young people. I know that saying ignorant things and blind unintelligent faith turns young people off. However, I don’t think the answer is to tell them lies, even lies supported by a lot of supposed evidence. Like you, my early perceptions of Baptists (my own father & mother) was of being blindly ignorantly believing and unable to answer basic scientific questions. I went to my father with questions posed by a Ga. Tech student regarding evolution, and my father’s arguments amounted to nothing.

However, here I am, saved; and it had nothing to do with evolution/creation! That issue, and the evolutionist student’s ability to crush my father’s reasonings didn’t stop me from believing. That’s because I realized I was a sinner, and that Christ was real because I saw Him living through the life of the most wonderful powerful Christian I’ve ever met. For the first time in my life I knew for sure that Jesus was alive, because He was obviously living in her. And if He is living in her, then He rose from the dead and the rest of the story was true as well.

It seems from your testimony in that post that to you appearance and perception are powerfully important; and that central to this perception is for one to appear intelligent by the world by accepting the philosophy of the world; because if one doesn’t, then the message is discredited.

I must reject that completely. Not only because of my own testimony as mentioned; but also because this subject simply doesn’t come up that much in witnessing as you’ve tried to make it out to appear. Your entire testimony oozes of the importance of this issue, and that the lost will reject our message if they ask if we believe Genesis literally and we say “yes.” My first question would be why that discussion would even come up? And what kind of witness for Christ would I be if I couldn’t get past that question and on to the central issues of salvation anyway?

I don’t believe the sort of witnessing that tries to argue creationism as a means of evangelism is truly being led of the Spirit. I likewise don’t believe that trying to appear intelligent to the lost by arguing that science is correct and the scripture is a story as a means of witnessing is being led by the Spirit either. I doubt both approaches.

I am truly not embarrassed by Christians such as yourself who carry with them after salvation worldly opinions regarding scripture. We all have baggage that follows us. However, I can tell that the situation is different with you. You were embarrassed before salvation; you were embarrassed after salvation when with the Baptists in the coffee house, and you are embarrassed with Christians such as myself even now.

As I said, we all have baggage that follows us. It’s called the flesh. The wonderful thing about the cross is that it puts things to death. The eye of the needle referred to by Jesus, so I’ve been told, referred to a small gate into the city through which little more than a man could go through. He had to dismount from his camel to get through. In other words, he couldn’t carry any baggage through with him on his back. I think that’s a great picture of the work of the Cross IN THE CHRISTIAN’S life AFTER salvation. Christ’s work on the Cross doesn’t just save us from our sins, but also from ourselves. The Cross doesn’t allow me AND my opinions, me AND my biased beliefs; the Cross allows only me through it.

Totally apart from the discussion regarding evolution and creation and regardless of which side of this argument one comes down on, the Cross working in the life of the believer through faith is what matters. The Cross of Christ, putting to death every deed, every attitude, every thought, every opinion we carry with us that is unlike holy God, that is what Christ has for us. That is the riches in Christ that the Father has for us.

My concern is not that we become creationists, but that we allow the Cross to do its deeper work in us and take every opinion and thought to the Cross and leave them there. What He gives back to us, on the resurrection side of the Cross working in the life of the believer, those beliefs will never be detrimental to the furtherance of the gospel. And it will no longer be Self’s opinions or the perception of others that drives us, but the leading of the Spirit of Christ primarily through faith, not primarily through reasoning.

I have a long way to go in this, but one thing I know already; once our beliefs and opinions have been taken to the cross, we are no longer proud of them for they are no longer ours. Everything taken to the Cross and left at the Cross, if it is given back to us by Christ it comes from Christ and belongs to Christ.

If you take even your thoughts, reasonings, and opinions to the Cross, it will be as meaningful to you as your initial salvation. And you will never give the impression by either your posts or your attitude that you are embarrassed to be associated with fellow Christians who have a different interpretation of Genesis, or eschatology, or even Calvinism/Arminianism.

Remember, the God who inspired Moses to write about people living to the age of 900 years, didn’t have to inspire a story of a 7 day creation unless He had a reason for it. The real question to me is, can I trust Him in this just as I do for so many other things?

Self is our greatest enemy; Christ is our only hope.

Blessings,
H.

 

[sealacamp]

Self is our greatest enemy; Christ is our only hope.

That was beautiful and eloquent, thank you for that wonderful explanation of belief in Christ versus belief in the worldly. God bless you brother.

Sealacamp

 

[EdMa]

Hupomone10, what you said remind me of this quote “No one ever converted to Christianity because they lost the argument.” By Phillip Yancy

 

[phoenixdem]

Dear Princeton:

Thank you for sharing that post. It is helpful to understand where you’re coming from.

It is no surprise, at least to me, that you refer to yourself now as proud to be a Baptist. If anything has come across from your posts, it is that this is an issue in your life going back even before salvation. It is even more clear from this post.

When I first read the OP, I thought you were saying “are WE perceived as baboons.” It is very clear by now that you are not including yourself in this group, but rather you are stating your own perception of others who take Genesis literally. After all, the thread didn’t say “are we being a bad witness” but rather “do we appear as baboons.”

I like your zeal and concern for young people. I know that saying ignorant things and blind unintelligent faith turns young people off. However, I don’t think the answer is to tell them lies, even lies supported by a lot of supposed evidence. Like you, my early perceptions of Baptists (my own father & mother) was of being blindly ignorantly believing and unable to answer basic scientific questions. I went to my father with questions posed by a Ga. Tech student regarding evolution, and my father’s arguments amounted to nothing.

However, here I am, saved; and it had nothing to do with evolution/creation! That issue, and the evolutionist student’s ability to crush my father’s reasonings didn’t stop me from believing. That’s because I realized I was a sinner, and that Christ was real because I saw Him living through the life of the most wonderful powerful Christian I’ve ever met. For the first time in my life I knew for sure that Jesus was alive, because He was obviously living in her. And if He is living in her, then He rose from the dead and the rest of the story was true as well.

It seems from your testimony in that post that to you appearance and perception are powerfully important; and that central to this perception is for one to appear intelligent by the world by accepting the philosophy of the world; because if one doesn’t, then the message is discredited.

I must reject that completely. Not only because of my own testimony as mentioned; but also because this subject simply doesn’t come up that much in witnessing as you’ve tried to make it out to appear. Your entire testimony oozes of the importance of this issue, and that the lost will reject our message if they ask if we believe Genesis literally and we say “yes.” My first question would be why that discussion would even come up? And what kind of witness for Christ would I be if I couldn’t get past that question and on to the central issues of salvation anyway?

I don’t believe the sort of witnessing that tries to argue creationism as a means of evangelism is truly being led of the Spirit. I likewise don’t believe that trying to appear intelligent to the lost by arguing that science is correct and the scripture is a story as a means of witnessing is being led by the Spirit either. I doubt both approaches.

I am truly not embarrassed by Christians such as yourself who carry with them after salvation worldly opinions regarding scripture. We all have baggage that follows us. However, I can tell that the situation is different with you. You were embarrassed before salvation; you were embarrassed after salvation when with the Baptists in the coffee house, and you are embarrassed with Christians such as myself even now.

As I said, we all have baggage that follows us. It’s called the flesh. The wonderful thing about the cross is that it puts things to death. The eye of the needle referred to by Jesus, so I’ve been told, referred to a small gate into the city through which little more than a man could go through. He had to dismount from his camel to get through. In other words, he couldn’t carry any baggage through with him on his back. I think that’s a great picture of the work of the Cross IN THE CHRISTIAN’S life AFTER salvation. Christ’s work on the Cross doesn’t just save us from our sins, but also from ourselves. The Cross doesn’t allow me AND my opinions, me AND my biased beliefs; the Cross allows only me through it.

Totally apart from the discussion regarding evolution and creation and regardless of which side of this argument one comes down on, the Cross working in the life of the believer through faith is what matters. The Cross of Christ, putting to death every deed, every attitude, every thought, every opinion we carry with us that is unlike holy God, that is what Christ has for us. That is the riches in Christ that the Father has for us.

My concern is not that we become creationists, but that we allow the Cross to do its deeper work in us and take every opinion and thought to the Cross and leave them there. What He gives back to us, on the resurrection side of the Cross working in the life of the believer, those beliefs will never be detrimental to the furtherance of the gospel. And it will no longer be Self’s opinions or the perception of others that drives us, but the leading of the Spirit of Christ primarily through faith, not primarily through reasoning.

I have a long way to go in this, but one thing I know already; once our beliefs and opinions have been taken to the cross, we are no longer proud of them for they are no longer ours. Everything taken to the Cross and left at the Cross, if it is given back to us by Christ it comes from Christ and belongs to Christ.

If you take even your thoughts, reasonings, and opinions to the Cross, it will be as meaningful to you as your initial salvation. And you will never give the impression by either your posts or your attitude that you are embarrassed to be associated with fellow Christians who have a different interpretation of Genesis, or eschatology, or even Calvinism/Arminianism.

Remember, the God who inspired Moses to write about people living to the age of 900 years, didn’t have to inspire a story of a 7 day creation unless He had a reason for it. The real question to me is, can I trust Him in this just as I do for so many other things?

Self is our greatest enemy; Christ is our only hope.

Blessings,
H.

Great post. There are many who want to be accepted by the world, even those who should know better. We can use all of the excuses we wish, but God knows the truth.

 

[supersoldier71]

Awesome post. Thank you both for sharing where you're coming from.

Good night and God Bless.

 

[PrincetonGuy]

If a person will reject Creation based on the physical evidence, then they'll reject the Bible in its entirety.

We have today tens of millions of Christians who know the difference between an epic tale and a historic narrative, and who have a rock-solid, unwavering faith in Christ.

Eloquence and scientific data will NOT prove the Gospel. And the constant backpedaling by so-called Believers who don't actually believe that the Bible is the Word of God, perfect, inerrant and complete "...God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness...."

Falsely accusing tens of millions of faithful Christians of being “so-called Believers” does not prove what accused are—it proves what the accuser is.

Slippery, slippery slope.

The slope is slippery only when the “believer’s” hope is in archaic doctrines that are academically indefensible instead of a rock-solid, unwavering faith in Christ.

So again, I may be an intellectually challenged baboon, but I know Christ and Him crucified, and if that is the ONLY thing I know to preach to the fallen world, I could do worse.

Yes, you could, you could do very much worse—you could commingle young-earth creationism with the gospel and destroy your witness for Christ.

 

[Andrew12]

Do Baptists appear to be intellectually challenged baboons suffering from the late stages of dementia when they argue against the theory of evolution?

This is not intended to be a thread about the merits of the theory of evolution; it is intended to be a thread about the quality of the typical arguments Baptists use when arguing against the theory of evolution, and the consequence of the use of those arguments. The wording of the question posed is not to be understood as insulting of anyone or anyone’s beliefs, but as light-hearted Baptist humor. The arguments used by Baptists to defend their core Baptists beliefs are excellent, solid arguments, but are the arguments typically used by the Baptists when arguing against the theory of evolution excellent, solid arguments?

well, on evolution, many consider darwin an Expert, so for the sake of this argument, lets stick with old charlie boy here:

“The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic” -Darwin

-Clearly here Darwin acknowledges that we humans cannot fathom the beginnings of our world, let alone our very universe. He also mentions that while not affirming and supporting the existance of God, he leaves open the possibility of God. Thus by showing a doubt in even his theories and those others about the true origin of species.


“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” - Darwin

-Natural selection, although relevant in some animal behaviors and adaptive features cannot generate the specific and perfectly working organs and such as necessary to continue the existance of a species over several thousand years.

“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed”- Darwin

-In this statement we see part of my previous argument, that altthough mankind & animal kind can adapt and pass those mostly behavioral adaptaions on to the following generations leaves little room for macro-evolution.


"I was a young man with uninformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.” -Darwin

- In this statement darwin actually states that as a younger man, He had some ininformed ideas, and on those ideas threw out uninformed questions and answers that really had no merit.




This here will conclude the sampling of my argument. Each person must judge for His or her self if I am a blubbering baboon.


~God Bless!~


Sincerely Yours In Christ,
Brother Andrew
[one of those Born Again, KJV Bible Believing, Christ Following, God Fearing, Hellfire & Brimstone, Independant Baptist ( see J. Newton Brown's Baptist Church Manual, Original Version) kind of Guys.]

 

[DanuckInUSA]

I love monkeys.

 

[PrincetonGuy]

Dear Princeton:

Thank you for sharing that post. It is helpful to understand where you’re coming from.

It is no surprise, at least to me, that you refer to yourself now as proud to be a Baptist. If anything has come across from your posts, it is that this is an issue in your life going back even before salvation. It is even more clear from this post.

When I first read the OP, I thought you were saying “are WE perceived as baboons.” It is very clear by now that you are not including yourself in this group, but rather you are stating your own perception of others who take Genesis literally. After all, the thread didn’t say “are we being a bad witness” but rather “do we appear as baboons.”

I like your zeal and concern for young people. I know that saying ignorant things and blind unintelligent faith turns young people off. However, I don’t think the answer is to tell them lies, even lies supported by a lot of supposed evidence. Like you, my early perceptions of Baptists (my own father & mother) was of being blindly ignorantly believing and unable to answer basic scientific questions. I went to my father with questions posed by a Ga. Tech student regarding evolution, and my father’s arguments amounted to nothing.

However, here I am, saved; and it had nothing to do with evolution/creation! That issue, and the evolutionist student’s ability to crush my father’s reasonings didn’t stop me from believing. That’s because I realized I was a sinner, and that Christ was real because I saw Him living through the life of the most wonderful powerful Christian I’ve ever met. For the first time in my life I knew for sure that Jesus was alive, because He was obviously living in her. And if He is living in her, then He rose from the dead and the rest of the story was true as well.

It seems from your testimony in that post that to you appearance and perception are powerfully important; and that central to this perception is for one to appear intelligent by the world by accepting the philosophy of the world; because if one doesn’t, then the message is discredited.

I must reject that completely. Not only because of my own testimony as mentioned; but also because this subject simply doesn’t come up that much in witnessing as you’ve tried to make it out to appear. Your entire testimony oozes of the importance of this issue, and that the lost will reject our message if they ask if we believe Genesis literally and we say “yes.” My first question would be why that discussion would even come up? And what kind of witness for Christ would I be if I couldn’t get past that question and on to the central issues of salvation anyway?

I don’t believe the sort of witnessing that tries to argue creationism as a means of evangelism is truly being led of the Spirit. I likewise don’t believe that trying to appear intelligent to the lost by arguing that science is correct and the scripture is a story as a means of witnessing is being led by the Spirit either. I doubt both approaches.

I am truly not embarrassed by Christians such as yourself who carry with them after salvation worldly opinions regarding scripture. We all have baggage that follows us. However, I can tell that the situation is different with you. You were embarrassed before salvation; you were embarrassed after salvation when with the Baptists in the coffee house, and you are embarrassed with Christians such as myself even now.

As I said, we all have baggage that follows us. It’s called the flesh. The wonderful thing about the cross is that it puts things to death. The eye of the needle referred to by Jesus, so I’ve been told, referred to a small gate into the city through which little more than a man could go through. He had to dismount from his camel to get through. In other words, he couldn’t carry any baggage through with him on his back. I think that’s a great picture of the work of the Cross IN THE CHRISTIAN’S life AFTER salvation. Christ’s work on the Cross doesn’t just save us from our sins, but also from ourselves. The Cross doesn’t allow me AND my opinions, me AND my biased beliefs; the Cross allows only me through it.

Totally apart from the discussion regarding evolution and creation and regardless of which side of this argument one comes down on, the Cross working in the life of the believer through faith is what matters. The Cross of Christ, putting to death every deed, every attitude, every thought, every opinion we carry with us that is unlike holy God, that is what Christ has for us. That is the riches in Christ that the Father has for us.

My concern is not that we become creationists, but that we allow the Cross to do its deeper work in us and take every opinion and thought to the Cross and leave them there. What He gives back to us, on the resurrection side of the Cross working in the life of the believer, those beliefs will never be detrimental to the furtherance of the gospel. And it will no longer be Self’s opinions or the perception of others that drives us, but the leading of the Spirit of Christ primarily through faith, not primarily through reasoning.

I have a long way to go in this, but one thing I know already; once our beliefs and opinions have been taken to the cross, we are no longer proud of them for they are no longer ours. Everything taken to the Cross and left at the Cross, if it is given back to us by Christ it comes from Christ and belongs to Christ.

If you take even your thoughts, reasonings, and opinions to the Cross, it will be as meaningful to you as your initial salvation. And you will never give the impression by either your posts or your attitude that you are embarrassed to be associated with fellow Christians who have a different interpretation of Genesis, or eschatology, or even Calvinism/Arminianism.

Remember, the God who inspired Moses to write about people living to the age of 900 years, didn’t have to inspire a story of a 7 day creation unless He had a reason for it. The real question to me is, can I trust Him in this just as I do for so many other things?

Self is our greatest enemy; Christ is our only hope.

Blessings,
H.

I see that your post appears to some of your readers to make sense, that it is a “wonderful explanation of belief in Christ versus belief in the worldly.” However, what they failed to see in your post is that your explanation hinges upon the false premise that a secular education is a “worldly” education, and that even an education in sacred matters is “worldly” if it disagrees with an archaic, academically indefensible interpretation of the Bible.

God did not bless me or any other Christian with an excellent secular education so that we could “take every opinion and thought to the Cross and leave them there.” God blessed us with an excellent secular education so that we could use it effectively to take His message to the world, and so that we could make this present world a better place in which to live. God did not bless me or any other Christian with an excellent sacred education so that we could “take every opinion and thought to the Cross and leave them there.” God blessed us with an excellent sacred education so that we could use it to better understand His word and more effectively take His message to the world.

When God does a deep work in the heart of a man, that man does not falsely accuse his brother’s education of being worldly—he rejoices with his brother that God blessed him with a good education and he encourages his brother to use it effectively. When God does a deep work in the heart of a man, that man does not sit back and do nothing when he sees the credibility of the Bible being destroyed by the preaching and teaching of an archaic, academically indefensible interpretation of the Bible—he admonishes his brothers to lay aside that which is destroying the credibility of the Bible and its message of salvation from sin.

As I said, we all have baggage that follows us. It’s called the flesh.

You can call that “baggage” whatever you want to call it, but the Bible NEVER calls it the “flesh.” The flesh is that part of every man, including the incarnate Christ (Rom. 8:3), that makes him susceptible to temptation, and therefore the word is used in the Bible especially of the bodily appetites.

 

[PrincetonGuy]

well, on evolution, many consider darwin an Expert....

That may be true of many independent Baptists, but is certainly not true of the scientific community.