Nonconformity

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will." ~ Romans 12:1-2

This is a very challenging verse. Paul never fails to remind God's people that we are to keep our eyes on the goal of heaven. As he says in 2 Corinthians 4:18, "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." Romans 12:2 has a very similar message to 2 Corinthians 4:18: leave behind the ways of the world and follow Jesus so that you can gain eternal life through Him.

When we first turn to Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins, He sends His Holy Spirit to us to fill us and teach us His will. The Spirit guides us—guides our thinking and reasoning—so that we can do what God has set before us to do. And more often than not, His ways are not the ways of the world. As we grow in our faith, the Spirit urges us more and more to rely on God and allow Him to work in us and through us. In doing so, we set aside our earthly desires in favor of a godly life.

I apologize if it seems like I'm talking in circles; it seems that way to me, so I'll move on.

In Romans 12:1, we are told to give our bodies as "living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God." This does not mean that we should go commit suicide for the sake of sacrificing ourselves to God. That is not what Paul is saying here at all. What he means is that we should, as Jesus put it, deny ourselves and follow Him. We are to give ourselves wholly to the work of God.

Verse 2 expands on this. Not only are we to serve God with our entire being, we are also told to put aside the ways of the world: the ways many of our friends follow.

So where am I headed with all of this? To tell the truth, I don't exactly know. I had originally planned to only have one point to make in this message. Now it seems that I am still only making one point (not the one I had intended), but expanding on it more and more. Maybe I'm rambling because it's so late. So I guess I'd better hurry and wrap things up.

A couple days ago, I had the privilege of going to the Creation Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio. The speaker while I was there, Bodie Hodge, did a brief (one hour) presentation on the creation of the world and the conflict between evolution and the Bible. Although I felt like he was being a little imposing, forcing his ideas, he did have a point when he said this: "We so often try to force-fit evolution into the Bible. But which one always gets compromised when we do that: evolution or the Bible? The Bible." Sadly, he's right. When presented with the idea that the earth is billions of years old, rather than going to the Bible and calculating the earth's age to be about 6000 years, we accept the proposal that the earth is, in fact, billions of years old, and then we look for ways to fit those extra years into the Bible. Instead of accepting the Bible as fact and adjusting our scientific beliefs to fit the Bible, we accept science as fact and adjust the Bible to fit science.

Bodie commented on this tendency to force-fit evolution into the Bible, saying, "We take the Bible and say, 'God, I know what You've told me in Your word, but here's what I know.' (Speaking about evolution.) We take the word of God and try to force-fit evolution into it. We're telling God He's wrong and that science has proven it. Who are we to tell God He's wrong?"

Who are we...?

As a Christian who was unsure about what I believed when it came to the age of the earth, this struck me hard. For a while, I had been willing to accept that the world may be billions of years old if you can find a way to fit those billions of years into the Bible. But Bodie made several convincing points that disprove the theory that the earth is billions of years old. To give an example, scientists have found rocks (volcanic rocks, I think) that they have dated back millions of years through the method of carbon dating. One problem: inside the rocks is contained helium gas, which leaks out of the rocks at a rate that would have depleted the helium supply in the rocks several million years ago if the earth really was billions of years old. So the world couldn't be more than a few thousand years old, as shown in the Bible by adding up genealogies.

Science is not infallible. That's why scientists use variables and multiple trials when conducting experiments. And everyone knows that nobody's perfect. So could it be possible that radio-carbon dating is inaccurate? To a certain point, I believe carbon dating is very useful and accurate. But when you get past that point, I think it is more than likely that the accuracy of radio-carbon dating decays along with its mass.

So when faced with the decision between evolution and the Bible, what should we do? To sum up Bodie's message in just a few words, rather than trying to change the Bible to fit science, change science to fit the Bible. If a scientific conclusion doesn't fit the Bible, it doesn't belong there and needs to be rethought. And the same goes for anything in life. If it doesn't fit the Bible, it needs to be changed.

So to get back on track, the whole section about nonconformity at the beginning of this post has to do with the acceptance of evolutionary theories. We should not conform to the ideas of the world, but should stay true to God's word. When we do that, all things will fall into place.

Until next time, God bless!

Michael

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"I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing." ~ 1 Timothy 2:8

"I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to live is Christ and to die is gain." ~ Philippians 1:20-21