Frustrating is certainly a way to describe this. My hand was shown at the beginning, for reasons I don't know nor at this point care to know, you've decided to hold back yours. I've only asked the question what seems like a dozen times and yet I've still yet to receive a direct answer, but instead I keep getting questions posed to me. At this point I'm no longer interested in participating in whatever game you are playing.
Have you ever taught anyone math before? When you want someone to learn a new technique, you don't give them the answer beforehand. You walk them through the method that should be used to derive the correct answer, and
then tell them the answer. The conclusion isn't half as important as the journey sometimes.
And no, I think you've only asked me about four times, not a dozen. Five maybe.
The short answer is that
the overall meaning of the
passage does not change;
the particular meaning of the
verse, however,
does change.
That much is obvious. I wanted you to see it for yourself.
What concerns me more is how flippantly you dismiss the particular meaning of the verse when it doesn't jive with your preconceived notions of physical reality. After all, a "passage" is really just a collection of verses, and its meaning only comes out of the combined meaning of all the verses that make it.
Take this verse:
[Elisha] went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!
(2 Kings 2:23, ESV)
Now the point of this passage isn't about Elisha's walking; it's about how God dealt with the youth who were mocking him. And yet one meaning doesn't invalidate the other. The author of this passage was trying to communicate that God punished the youth who were threatening Elisha
and that Elisha was walking from Jericho to Bethel.
Or this verse:
And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
(Luke 15:20, ESV)
The point of this passage isn't that the father ran to his son; it's the unfailing love of the father for his son. And yet you know that Jesus was trying to communicate
both that the father's love for his son was undying
and that the father ran to greet the son.
So, when you come to verses like Psalm 19:4-5, why do you so naturally and easily conclude that the psalmist is trying to proclaim God's glory
but not that the sun moves around the earth? Why is it so natural for you to incorporate one meaning but not another?
Because if that is overextending the meaning of Biblical verses, I could as easily say that creationists' use of proof-texts like:
Exodus 20:11 (how does a six-day creation change the meaning of the Ten Commandments?)
Mark 10:6 (how does the geological recentness of man change God's abhorrence for divorce?)
Romans 5:12 (how does man's evolvedness change the fact that sin and holiness cannot be mixed?)
are equally irresponsible. And if YECism isn't Biblical, what reason does it have to exist?
In the final analysis, I would agree exactly with your reasoning (except that you don't take it far enough ;P), and so would Graeme Goldsworthy, an eminent conservative Australian theologian and author who said:
... when we face such ambiguities, that is, when more than one possible way exists of understanding something in the Bible, the gospel must instruct us since it is God's final and fullest word to man. It is clear from the gospel that God created all things for a purpose, and that He exercises His rule over creation by His word. It is not at all clear from the gospel that the creation took place in six twenty-four hour periods. Nor is it clear from the gospel that it did not happen in that way. The question is not whether the Bible tells the truth, but how it tells it.
