Thank you to Bill Koenig, Koenig’s Eye view, (subscribe link at bottom) for publishing this article on the importance of the book of Genesis. This matter is very close to my heart, as I struggle with my apparent “evolution” – the struggle being why do I have only a partial download of humanity? It just doesn’t add up. Surely confusion about your origins is at the very root of all your human troubles, I seem not to be my keeper’s brother after all?

Gibber! Gibber!

Chugley

Apostasy in the Church

The Importance (and Controversy) of Genesis

By Jim Fletcher

I write often about the foundational aspects of the Genesis accounts of origins. Frankly, I don’t write about it often enough. For it is this issue that explains so much of the apostate climate now engulfing the American Church. I think it is critical to explore these things. I firmly believe that men with sinister worldviews a century ago have brought us to where we are now. All this explains why Relevant magazine, Christianity Today magazine—really all of mainstream evangelical media—engage in sinister agendas to alter our world.

This is not hyperbole. If one gets Genesis wrong, then all the Bible that follows is open to attack. Specifically (to cite one example), conceding Genesis to some level of myth opens up the possibility (in an individual’s mind) that Jesus either did not really exist, or that He was not in fact divine. So this week we will examine a few current leaders that compromise on Genesis. People that think Adam and Eve might not have been historical characters.

As an aside, another example of the harm done is the relegating of myth for Jewish history. If Abraham, David, and Moses were not historical characters, how can we trust that the rest of Scripture is historical? Critical components to our faith such as the Resurrection of Christ depend on Genesis being true history.

Adam Hamilton has been for about 20 years something of a rock star among the church set. Hamilton is the senior pastor of the 25,000-member United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, the largest United Methodist congregation in the world. This last piece of information courtesy of Wikipedia.

Two decades ago, I was intrigued by Hamilton, because he seemed to do some good things, especially within the mainline churches. Keep in mind that the UMC is one of the most liberal denominations in the country. A pastor that professes biblical fidelity is important.

But of course, I was wrong about Hamilton.

Karl Barth, theologian, believed that Adam was not an historical person. In his book, Making Sense of the Bible: Rediscovering the Power of Scripture Today:

“It is interesting that the elements of the story [Genesis 1-3] clearly point in the direction of an archetypal understanding of the story. The names Adam and Eve, not mentioned in the Creation story in Genesis 1, are representational. In Hebrew, Adam simply means “man” or “human” (though it appears to have originated from a word meaning “of the ground,” thus pointing to God creating Adam from the dust of the earth). Eve means “life” or “bearer of life.” Both names are symbolic. . . . “

Whuuuuut?

In other words, Hamilton does not believe Adam was a real person. He was simply a representation of mankind. Myth.

That is dangerous. Now consider the wildly popular New York City pastor, Tim Keller”

“If Adam and Eve were historical figures, could they have been the product of evolutionary biological processes? An older, evangelical commentary on Genesis by Derek Kidner provides a model for how that could have been the case. First, he notes that in Job 10:8-9 God is said to have fashioned Job with his ‘hands’, like a potter shaping clay out of the dust of the ground, even though God obviously did this through the natural process of formation in the womb. Kidner asks why the same potter terminology in Genesis 2:7 could not denote a natural process like evolution.”

If they were historical figures. You see here how Keller gets it wrong literally at the beginning.

By contrast, read what John MacArthur believes. This champion of biblical thought wrote in his book, The Battle for the Beginning:

“Adam, as we see from the text [Genesis 1:26-31], was specially and personally created by God. There is no way to do justice to the text and maintain the notion that Adam evolved from some already-existing form of animal life.”

Bingo! Thank you, Pastor.

Unfortunately, nearly peerless Dr. MacArthur is in the minority today, among well-known clergy and ministry leaders.

Among those that say “no” to an historical Adam and Eve: Alister McGrath, Scot McKnight, Peter Enns (popular with such popular false teachers as Jen Hatmaker), pictured below.

I cannot emphasize enough how important this is. Getting Genesis wrong explains so much, including modern attacks on the validity of Bible prophecy, the importance of Jewish history, including the Jews’ future history, and as I stated earlier, belief in the core principles of Christianity.

I hope this brief examination helps you to begin to understand why we are where we are. Bad theology and doctrine leads to all sorts of evil in the Church.

Steel yourself.

Published in Koenig’s Eye View join here:

https://watch.org/

About Jim Fletcher

Jim Fletcher is an author, speaker, and activist, specializing in Bible prophecy, Christian apologetics, and support for Israel. He is a member of the executive committee for the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel (NCLCI), director of Prophecy Matters, and he blogs weekly for WorldNetDaily (“Writer’s Bloc”); Beliefnet (“Is it the End of the World?”); and RaptureReady (“Israel Watch”). He lives with his family in the beautiful Ozark Mountains of Arkansas.