Tag Archives: Creation

Posted on

Reading Genesis

A Website Dedicated To Helping You Build A Biblical Worldview

The creation account in Genesis has always been a favorite passage for me. So much so that I have spent a significant amount of time studying it over the years on my own.

Reading Genesis

What really sparked my interest in the early chapters of Genesis was a seminar I went to very early in my ministry career. It was held in an old VFW building, which wasn’t very large, and the group presenting was brought in by several area churches working together. And they had some incredible dinosaur fossils, including a T-Rex skull!

That presentation was by the Creation Truth Foundation, and little did I know how closely they would become intertwined in my life.

Over the years, I attended seminars and presentations of other creation ministries, such as Answers In Genesis, and Creation Ministries International. We even scheduled Creation Truth Foundation to come to our church, more than once. And the response has been incredible.

It seems like people have a longing to understand our origins, and Genesis holds the answers to that question.

Posted on

Book Review – Dinosaurs: Marvels Of God’s Design by Dr. Tim Clarey

Dinosaurs: Marvels Of God's DesignI love dinosaurs. And I have since I was a kid. One of the hardest things for a lot of people to reconcile with the Bible is just how these creatures fit into a biblical perspective of history. I know this was a major question for me for a long time.

Fortunately, there are several great resources out there now that explain how dinosaurs fit, and one of the best is a new book by Dr. Tim Clarey, called Dinosaurs: Marvels Of God’s Design, published by Master Books.

Clarey’s book is very comprehensive is scope and contains a ton of information about these animals, both from a biblical perspective as well as a geological and archaeological point of view. In this book, he covers numerous topics, including an overview of the beginning of creation and Noah’s Flood, and how this impacted the dinosaurs. He discusses the age of dinosaurs, and examines the evidence in the rock record and fossils. He looks at the extinction of dinosaurs and their end.

But what may be the most impressive part of this book is the detailed look at several varieties of dinosaurs, including the variations of theropods, sauropods, ornithopods, and more. The level of details he gives is extraordinary, and he does it in a way that almost anyone can comprehend. My eleven year old son absolutely loves this book!

Posted on

Book Review – Confound The Critics by Bodie Hodge

Confound The CriticsOne of my favorite topics to read about is apologetics, especially as it pertains to biblical truth found in the early chapters of Genesis. As a minister, I frequently hear arguments and disagreements about what the Bible says about our origins.

So I was very interested to read Bodie Hodge’s book, Confound The Critics: Answers For Attacks On Biblical Truths. However, I was not all that impressed with this book.

Don’t get me wrong. The material presented here is good material, and provides some great information for debates on the topic of creation and our origins. However, I was expecting a book that presented such information in a logical and precise manner.

Instead, Confound The Critics is a series of emails and replies that Answers In Genesis has received and responded to from people who object to the truth found in Genesis, and people who need help defending their faith in God’s Word.

There are more than forty different emails presented, as written, from people who visited the AIG website. Bodie Hodge has included his replies to these emails, and that is what the book consists of. It’s not what I was expecting, and was somewhat disappointing.

Overall, the information is useful, but the format wasn’t. And while I found several pieces of this to be enlightening and potentially useful, this isn’t a book that will see much use in my personal library. That’s unfortunate, because it had the potential to be an extremely beneficial resource.

Unless you enjoy reading correspondence, I would not suggest that you read Confound The Critics. There are better ways to gather the information to answer such critics, in a more organized manner.

Question: Have you held discussions about origins with skeptics or critics? If so, how do you prepare? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

If you are interested in reading the Confound The Critics, by Bodie Hodge, you can purchase it at Amazon.com in either print or for Kindle.

I received this book free from New Leaf Press/Master Books as part of their Blogger Review Program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Posted on

Why A Biblical Worldview Is Critical

One of my strongest passions is studying and understanding the book of Genesis. In this first book of the Bible, we are given the foundations for almost every single fundamental doctrine in the rest of the Bible. Understanding Genesis is crucial to understand the other 65 book of the Bible.

Worldview: Glass Globe

How you and I view the world is perhaps one of the most important aspects of who we are. How we view the world is called our worldview. I’ve written before about the necessity and the battle for a biblical worldview.

However, it is worth taking a look at again.

You and I each have a worldview. It is impossible to live without one. But just what is that worldview? And how to we go about strengthening it on the foundation of God’s Word? Those are good questions to ask.

A worldview is a set of presuppositional belies that govern how we view everything in life. It is the filter through which we view everything.

And we either view the world through the lens of Scripture, or we view it through something else.

There are four fundamental questions that form the basis of a worldview:

Posted on

Book Review – Grappling With The Chronology Of The Genesis Flood

Grappling With The Chronology Of The Genesis FloodPerhaps my favorite topics to study are the worldview issues developed in the first few chapters of Genesis. I typically devour every new book I can find that deals with Creation, the Fall, Noah’s Flood, and the Tower of Babel and more found in the first chapters of Genesis.

When I discovered that a new book was to be released examining the chronology of Noah’s Flood in detail, I got pretty excited. Specifically, this new book looks closely at the grammatical construct of the Hebrew text to determine the chronology of the Flood.

Grappling With The Chronology Of The Genesis Flood is not an easy book to read. I studied New Testament Greek for several years while in Bible college, but only had a smattering of studies in Old Testament Hebrew, so for me to follow the lines of thought in this volume was a challenge. In order to grasp the meaning of what the authors were communicating, I often had to go back and read again several parts, or grab a Bible and examine the text in detail, in English, to help me understand just what was being conveyed.

However, that is not a negative critique of this book. I was fascinated by what I learned about the timeline of the Genesis Flood. I was captivated with the examination of the geology and geography studied to determine just when the Flood started, when it peaked, when it started to decline, and when it was finished.

And even though I found the geology and geography interesting, I was even more intrigued by the very structure of the Hebrew grammar and how much it contributes to our understanding of the Genesis Flood.

Posted on

Book Review – Biblical Portraits Of Creation

Biblical Portraits Of CreationI love the first few chapters of Genesis, which give the history of Creation, and the Fall, and several other key worldview events. I grab and read anything I can find that deals with creation and forming a biblical worldview based on the authority and reliability of Genesis and the Bible.

When I saw Biblical Portraits Of Creation, I decided to read it, even though I was unfamiliar with either of the authors. This book will not be on my go-to list of books dealing with creation and Genesis, however it did offer a few interesting insights.

This book examines several different biblical passages that are creation focused. Each passage is examined and reviewed in a very brief fashion, not going into detail very deeply. I was slightly disappointed by this. I would have enjoyed examining each passage in light of creation, seeing how the rest of the Bible supports and refers back to the early chapters of Genesis.

This book does not do that. Instead, it examines each of these passages in a more devotional manner, outlining them for a lighter study, lending these passages more to a preaching outline than a detailed study. Some of these outlines are intriguing enough to consider adapting for future lessons or sermons. Most are not developed that well, and would require a lot of further study in order to make them work well.

Posted on

Book Review – Don’t Miss The Boat by Paul Taylor

Don't Miss The Boat by Paul TaylorPerhaps the most fiercely contested event from early Genesis is Noah’s Flood. Even more than the creation account, the Flood described in Genesis 6-9 has been rejected by mainstream thought. But understanding Noah’s Flood is critical to understanding the world we live in today.

The biggest problem lies in the fact that there is very little material that available that helps people to understand what happened during and because of Noah’s Flood.

Until now.

Paul Taylor has written a very helpful book, called Don’t Miss The Boat, that describes in a very easy to understand fashion the events surrounding and the effects caused by a global flood.

Without getting into too many technical details, Taylor examines such topics as how the flood started, what happened during the flood, where the waters came from, the design of the ark, the following ice age, and much more. One of the most interesting chapters dealt with his estimation of why people stopped believing in the flood.

At times, Don’t Miss The Boat seems overly simplistic, especially if one is well read on the subject already. However, if the topic is a new one, the material is presented in a way that is simple for anyone to grasp and see the significance of Noah’s Flood.

This is a great volume to recommend to someone who doesn’t know much about the Flood or early Genesis history.

I enjoyed reading Don’t Miss The Boat, and spent only a short amount of time in reading and digesting the information presented. If you are interested in finding out more about this portion of the earth’s history, I recommend that you pick up a copy and read it. I think you’ll find it very fascinating.

What are your biggest questions surrounding the story of Noah’s Flood? You can leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

I highly recommend that you read Don’t Miss The Boat, by Paul Taylor. You can purchase it at Amazon.com in print or for Kindle, or directly from Master Books.

Disclosure of Material Connection:
I received this book free from New Leaf Press/Master Books as part of their Blogger Review Program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Also, some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links”. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.“