I have received some requests by e-mail and will try to get to them all promptly. Thank you for your interest and your input. Those currently “in the cue” are:
1) Please justify your definition of day in your post “In the Beginning” (this persons desire is that I use scripture, and no outside sources or opinions to justify saying that the days in the creation story do not have to be interpreted as 24-hour days – it’s kind of a long-standing Christian safeguard against misinterpretation, use the Bible to prove the Bible..…..challenge accepted ☺)
2) Please share your salvation story.
3) You said you would share a time when you felt like God used the Bible in your life, I would very much like to hear this.
Today I will briefly address the first. The word “day” in Genesis 1 is יוֹם, yowm, and it can be defined as a 24-hour period, but it can also be defined as an epoch of time. However, since the challenge was to use only the Bible to prove that it doesn’t have to be 24 hours I guess referring you to a Lexicon or Hebrew dictionary would be cheating. ☺ So, I’ll instead refer you to the very next chapter, Genesis 2:4 “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day (yohm) that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.” If we insist that yowm always be interpreted as a singular 24 hour period we have created a contradiction in scripture.
Beyond that, I would point you to 2 Peter 3:8 “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” The word yohm is not used here because this portion of the Bible is written in Greek not Hebrew. However, the definition is the same; it is essentially the same word. I know that there are those who interpret this in a literal way as well, whether working it into the creation story or using it to “predict” the time of Christ’s return, but I think that there is a bigger message here. I think that it is a reminder not just that God does not experience time the same way that we do, but that God is beyond time, above time, outside of time, BIGGER than time: In God’s time all of human history is but a blip in eternity. His enormity is what makes it so easy for me to believe that He could have taken billions of years from big bang/let there be light to life on this planet. I suppose He could have done it in 6 days, He’s God, He could have done it in 6 milliseconds; I just don’t believe that He did.
If you have any question you would like answered or topics you would like to see me address please leave a comment or send me an e-mail and I will answer as promptly as I can. Thanks for reading, thanks for engaging, thanks for thinking! Keep on climbing.
