Saturday, March 31, 2007

Amatuer Theology

I want to start off by writing that I am NOT a theologian. I am just a Christian believer like so many of you. So, if you have any criticism of what you about to read, just remember to come back to this disclaimer.
I have wondered a lot lately about the way that many Christians and non-Christians get worked up over the story of our beginning in Genesis.
Some believe that all the miracles of our beginning God did in six, 24-hour days and rested on the seventh day. Some say that it could not have happened in any of the way that the Genesis story happened because of science disproving that and finding out about such things as dinosaurs and the like. Some use the story to say we are only 6,000 years old at most. Some go back to science to say that we are billions and billions of years old.
My question is simple. Is the time frame that important? I do not think so.
Here is my unqualified take on it.
It is not how long it took God to create the world but what is important is the way that he did it. That is what I believe is important about the first 31 verses of the first story of the Holy Bible. It is the story about how God took the emptiness that was the world and had a plan to make something beautiful. It is about the light and the dark. Water and land. Food and plants. Animals and those in his image, human beings.
So, why is it so important to worry about the time frame?
To some, particularly fundamentalist and some evangelical Christians, because the word day is used and every word is literal, then it must have been six, 24-hour days and the seventh day is for rest. To the very liberal, it is just a fable, not to even be taken but with even a grain of salt. So, that leaves where I am, right in the middle of this.
I do not feel it is important to worry about the exact time details. It is the how the world began by God. And that I can believe.
Some would ask what about the cavemen and dinosaurs and all of that. It is not important. It is important to understand this about God. He had a plan and always has a plan. The story of our creation is the explanation that God thinks we should know for now. When he wants to reveal more, he will.
So, all of this is meant to have another position between two very extreme points of view on the creation story. It is not meant to be a final word, just something to think about.

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