From Gary.... Sheep, goats, ants and a choice!

The caption says it all: "We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone".  For those of us who are Christians it becomes more a mandate than a saying. Listen to the words of Jesus...

Matthew, Chapter 25 (WEB)

 31  “But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.   32  Before him all the nations will be gathered, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.   33 He will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.   34 Then the King will tell those on his right hand, ‘Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;   35  for I was hungry, and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in.  36  I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me.’ 

  37  “Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry, and feed you; or thirsty, and give you a drink?   38 When did we see you as a stranger, and take you in; or naked, and clothe you?   39  When did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to you?’ 

  40  “The King will answer them, ‘Most certainly I tell you, because you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’   41  Then he will say also to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels;   42  for I was hungry, and you didn’t give me food to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink;   43  I was a stranger, and you didn’t take me in; naked, and you didn’t clothe me; sick, and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’ 

  44  “Then they will also answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and didn’t help you?’ 

  45  “Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Most certainly I tell you, because you didn’t do it to one of the least of these, you didn’t do it to me.’   46  These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” 

It seems to me that Jesus is mainly addressing his fellow Jews, but the implications for Christians seem obvious: help not only your brothers and sisters in Christ, but others as well!!!

One question remains.....

Do I do the right thing or be left out of the kingdom?

From Gary.... Bible Reading May 1

Bible Reading  

May 1

The World English Bible

May 1

Deuteronomy 17, 18

Deu 17:1 You shall not sacrifice to Yahweh your God an ox, or a sheep, in which is a blemish, or anything evil; for that is an abomination to Yahweh your God.

Deu 17:2 If there be found in the midst of you, within any of your gates which Yahweh your God gives you, man or woman, who does that which is evil in the sight of Yahweh your God, in transgressing his covenant,

Deu 17:3 and has gone and served other gods, and worshiped them, or the sun, or the moon, or any of the army of the sky, which I have not commanded;

Deu 17:4 and it be told you, and you have heard of it, then you shall inquire diligently; and behold, if it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is done in Israel,

Deu 17:5 then you shall bring forth that man or that woman, who has done this evil thing, to your gates, even the man or the woman; and you shall stone them to death with stones.

Deu 17:6 At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he who is to die be put to death; at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.

Deu 17:7 The hand of the witnesses shall be first on him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall put away the evil from the midst of you.

Deu 17:8 If there arises a matter too hard for you in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within your gates; then you shall arise, and go up to the place which Yahweh your God shall choose;

Deu 17:9 and you shall come to the priests the Levites, and to the judge who shall be in those days: and you shall inquire; and they shall show you the sentence of judgment.

Deu 17:10 You shall do according to the tenor of the sentence which they shall show you from that place which Yahweh shall choose; and you shall observe to do according to all that they shall teach you:

Deu 17:11 according to the tenor of the law which they shall teach you, and according to the judgment which they shall tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside from the sentence which they shall show you, to the right hand, nor to the left.

Deu 17:12 The man who does presumptuously, in not listening to the priest who stands to minister there before Yahweh your God, or to the judge, even that man shall die: and you shall put away the evil from Israel.

Deu 17:13 All the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously.

Deu 17:14 When you are come to the land which Yahweh your God gives you, and shall possess it, and shall dwell therein, and shall say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me;

Deu 17:15 you shall surely set him king over yourselves, whom Yahweh your God shall choose: one from among your brothers you shall set king over you; you may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

Deu 17:16 Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he may multiply horses; because Yahweh has said to you, You shall henceforth return no more that way.

Deu 17:17 Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart not turn away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.

Deu 17:18 It shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the priests the Levites:

Deu 17:19 and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear Yahweh his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them;

Deu 17:20 that his heart not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he not turn aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children, in the midst of Israel.

Deu 18:1 The priests the Levites, even all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion nor inheritance with Israel: they shall eat the offerings of Yahweh made by fire, and his inheritance.

Deu 18:2 They shall have no inheritance among their brothers: Yahweh is their inheritance, as he has spoken to them.

Deu 18:3 This shall be the priests' due from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep, that they shall give to the priest the shoulder, and the two cheeks, and the maw.

Deu 18:4 The first fruits of your grain, of your new wine, and of your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep, you shall give him.

Deu 18:5 For Yahweh your God has chosen him out of all your tribes, to stand to minister in the name of Yahweh, him and his sons for ever.

Deu 18:6 If a Levite comes from any of your gates out of all Israel, where he lives as a foreigner, and comes with all the desire of his soul to the place which Yahweh shall choose;

Deu 18:7 then he shall minister in the name of Yahweh his God, as all his brothers the Levites do, who stand there before Yahweh.

Deu 18:8 They shall have like portions to eat, besides that which comes of the sale of his patrimony.

Deu 18:9 When you are come into the land which Yahweh your God gives you, you shall not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.

Deu 18:10 There shall not be found with you anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices sorcery, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer,

Deu 18:11 or a charmer, or a consulter with a familiar spirit, or a wizard, or a necromancer.

Deu 18:12 For whoever does these things is an abomination to Yahweh: and because of these abominations Yahweh your God does drive them out from before you.

Deu 18:13 You shall be perfect with Yahweh your God.

Deu 18:14 For these nations, that you shall dispossess, listen to those who practice sorcery, and to diviners; but as for you, Yahweh your God has not allowed you so to do.

Deu 18:15 Yahweh your God will raise up to you a prophet from the midst of you, of your brothers, like me. You shall listen to him.

Deu 18:16 This is according to all that you desired of Yahweh your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of Yahweh my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I not die.

Deu 18:17 Yahweh said to me, They have well said that which they have spoken.

Deu 18:18 I will raise them up a prophet from among their brothers, like you; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him.

Deu 18:19 It shall happen, that whoever will not listen to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.

Deu 18:20 But the prophet, who shall speak a word presumptuously in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who shall speak in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.

Deu 18:21 If you say in your heart, How shall we know the word which Yahweh has not spoken?

Deu 18:22 when a prophet speaks in the name of Yahweh, if the thing doesn't follow, nor happen, that is the thing which Yahweh has not spoken: the prophet has spoken it presumptuously, you shall not be afraid of him.

 Apr. 30, May 1

Luke 17

Luk 17:1 He said to the disciples, "It is impossible that no occasions of stumbling should come, but woe to him through whom they come!

Luk 17:2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.

Luk 17:3 Be careful. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him.

Luk 17:4 If he sins against you seven times in the day, and seven times returns, saying, 'I repent,' you shall forgive him."

Luk 17:5 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith."

Luk 17:6 The Lord said, "If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you would tell this sycamore tree, 'Be uprooted, and be planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.

Luk 17:7 But who is there among you, having a servant plowing or keeping sheep, that will say, when he comes in from the field, 'Come immediately and sit down at the table,'

Luk 17:8 and will not rather tell him, 'Prepare my supper, clothe yourself properly, and serve me, while I eat and drink. Afterward you shall eat and drink'?

Luk 17:9 Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded? I think not.

Luk 17:10 Even so you also, when you have done all the things that are commanded you, say, 'We are unworthy servants. We have done our duty.' "

Luk 17:11 It happened as he was on his way to Jerusalem, that he was passing along the borders of Samaria and Galilee.

Luk 17:12 As he entered into a certain village, ten men who were lepers met him, who stood at a distance.

Luk 17:13 They lifted up their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"

Luk 17:14 When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." It happened that as they went, they were cleansed.

Luk 17:15 One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice.

Luk 17:16 He fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks; and he was a Samaritan.

Luk 17:17 Jesus answered, "Weren't the ten cleansed? But where are the nine?

Luk 17:18 Were there none found who returned to give glory to God, except this stranger?"

Luk 17:19 Then he said to him, "Get up, and go your way. Your faith has healed you."

Luk 17:20 Being asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, he answered them, "The Kingdom of God doesn't come with observation;

Luk 17:21 neither will they say, 'Look, here!' or, 'Look, there!' for behold, the Kingdom of God is within you."

Luk 17:22 He said to the disciples, "The days will come, when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.

Luk 17:23 They will tell you, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Don't go away, nor follow after them,

Luk 17:24 for as the lightning, when it flashes out of the one part under the sky, shines to the other part under the sky; so will the Son of Man be in his day.

Luk 17:25 But first, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

Luk 17:26 As it happened in the days of Noah, even so will it be also in the days of the Son of Man.

Luk 17:27 They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ship, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.

Luk 17:28 Likewise, even as it happened in the days of Lot: they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built;

Luk 17:29 but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from the sky, and destroyed them all.

Luk 17:30 It will be the same way in the day that the Son of Man is revealed.

Luk 17:31 In that day, he who will be on the housetop, and his goods in the house, let him not go down to take them away. Let him who is in the field likewise not turn back.

Luk 17:32 Remember Lot's wife!

Luk 17:33 Whoever seeks to save his life loses it, but whoever loses his life preserves it.

Luk 17:34 I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed. The one will be taken, and the other will be left.

Luk 17:35 There will be two grinding grain together. One will be taken, and the other will be left."

Luk 17:36 Two will be in the field: the one taken, and the other left."

Luk 17:37 They, answering, asked him, "Where, Lord?" He said to them, "Where the body is, there will the vultures also be gathered together." 

From Jim McGuiggan... Musings on Leadership (2)

Musings on Leadership (2)

 ‘Authority’ in Science and Art

6. What is true in the world of economics, government, schools, factories and elsewhere is true in science and the arts. We don’t believe all that scientists theorize but we’re more than willing to receive the truth they do uncover since we benefit so much from it. We call these people ‘authorities’ because they have earned the right to teach us the truths they’ve uncovered. While we can’t personally carry out the experiments, we’re content to believe that if we could we would see what they saw. In these matters and to that degree we allow them to have authority over us. In a very few areas, it is not so much that we ‘allow’ them to have authority over us,  we have no choice but to receive their witness if we want to make sense of our lives as we experience them. 

  

7. The field of art has a vagueness about it that natural science doesn’t. It is more difficult to dispute a scientific demonstration than it is to dispute: “That painting is utterly beautiful.” Because our internal worlds are different we like and dislike different things, think different things are beautiful and disagree more in assessments. But even two people who disagree whether some piece of sculpture is beautiful are claiming there is such a thing as ‘beauty’. He who says it isn’t ‘beautiful’ admits a standard and says, on his assessment, the sculpture falls short of that standard. I suppose everyone capable of any kind of judgement would recognize the splendour in the work of Pheidias and Michelangelo. In literature there is the ‘authority’ of Shakespeare and in music the ‘authority’ of Bach, Beethoven or Mozart. These men set standards to which all who come after them seek to attain or surpass. When we speak of the ‘authority’ of great literature we are saying that great literature ‘makes demands’ of us, calls us from mediocrity and calls us to greater efforts to write better. We aren’t precisely sure what it is that people like these have done but their ‘power over us’ we recognize. Josipovici, speaking of great books says: “We are drawn to them because they seem to speak to our condition, and we seek to make them more our own; but we are also drawn to them because they seem to be other than us, because they guide us out of ourselves into what we feel to be a truer, more real world.” If we wrote, painted, composed or sculpted as well as these men or women we would find ourselves as inspiring and uplifting as they are. We recognize that such people have more nearly approached an ‘ideal’ than the rest of us and their accomplishments (their reflection of that ‘truth’ or ‘ideal’) are what give them their power (authority) over us.

‘Authority’ in Life and Living

8. We observe this, too, in the ‘authority’ of a remarkable life (even a remarkable incident in an otherwise non-remarkable life). Such a life inspires us and makes us glad we are humans. Mark Rutherford said it like this: “I would like to add a beatitude: ‘Blessed is the person who gives us back our self-respect’.” Such a life sets a standard for us and as William Wordsworth noted: “What a great man accomplishes for us is this: “He does something that was never done before but which once it is done, becomes a standard for the rest of us, below which we can no longer be content.” We’ve all heard of or come into contact with such lives and even if we had difficulty in saying precisely what it is that such a person is or has that leads us to “recognize our betters” we have absolutely no doubt about the fact of it.

9. In all of life, those who have authority over us are those who bring to us the truth of things, the ‘reality’ and ‘beauty’ we esteem. Their power over us exists because they have something we don't have or don’t have enough of. If we regard justice as of paramount importance she who embodies and promotes a glad-hearted justice (often at great cost to her) gains power over us. We esteem Truth as essential to full-bodied and honourable living and he who reveals that to us and encourages in us a love of Truth becomes our leader. The fact is, it is Truth that is ultimately authoritative and attractive to us and the individual who brings it to us becomes its representative and we regard him/her as an ‘authority’. (Whether that Truth relates to life, science or the arts doesn’t seem to make any difference.) The authority of a good man is the goodness he embodies, the authority of a wise man is his wisdom, the authority of a scientist is the truth he tells, the authority of a great teacher is his great teaching. To submit to such people is to submit to what they represent (Truth, Justice or whatever); it is to submit to what we have come to think highly of. This implies, of course, that both leader and follower esteem the same ultimate authority.

10. Biblical theists would insist that God is the ultimate authority. Christians would accept Jesus Christ (as revealed to us by both Old and New Testaments) as the centre of God’s self-revelation and authority. Then, in the light of Christ, they would make sense of the life they experience. 

11. But though we and the “authorities” both have a mutually received ultimate authority, we regard the people with authority over us as better representatives of that mutually received ultimate authority. We feel they do it more consistently or more faithfully. They are, perhaps, more articulate or more conscientious; they live it out better than we do, so we acknowledge them as our leaders, as above or over us.

©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.

Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, theabidingword.com.

Abortion and the Twin Towers by Dave Miller, Ph.D.

http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=7&article=1228

Abortion and the Twin Towers

by	Dave Miller, Ph.D.

Undoubtedly, every American who was old enough to be aware of life’s circumstances, will forever remember where he or she was when news spread that first one, and then a second, airliner had crashed into the World Trade Center, followed by a third collision into the Pentagon. The images and the scenes that followed for days, weeks, and months are forever imprinted into our thoughts and seared into our memories. So are the feelings and the impressions: disbelief, fear, uncertainty, anger, disgust, sadness, and sympathy.

The spectrum of emotions, thoughts, and attitudes that most Americans felt are so diverse and complex that putting them into words may not be easy or adequate. The average American surely felt a great sense of outrage at the injustice of what had been perpetrated upon large numbers of innocent people. The American sense of patriotism was offended, which elicited a corresponding desire for vengeance and due retribution. One of the most heart-rending features of the collapse of the twin towers was the original estimate of anticipated dead: 5,000. However, in time, the final tallies—though terribly tragic—were much lower: 266 died in the ill-fated hijacked airliners while 2,823 died in the twin towers—a total death toll of 3,089 (Feldner, 2002).

Many other horrifying spectacles riddle human history in which thousands, even millions, of people have been slaughtered by their fellowman. The human mind has difficulty in grasping the Jewish holocaust of Hitler’s Nazi regime, which resulted in the extermination of a staggering estimated six million men, women, and children. Reflect upon the torture and killing of multiplied thousands by dictators like Stalin or Saddam Hussein, not to mention the killing fields of Cambodia. How can man’s inhumanity to man possibly be so extensive in its magnitude?

Is the repulsion and revulsion that is evoked by these travesties due simply to the loss of life? Or is humanity’s outrage due to the fact that lives were snuffed out unjustly and unfairly—that those lives were “innocent” of any wrongdoing that their persecutors alleged as justification to terminate their lives? If the former is true, why is no great issue made of the death toll that takes place in the United States everyday? That figure stands at 6,674 (Sutton, 2003)—more than two and a half times as many people as those who died on 9-11. That’s how many people die every day in America—not to mention the thousands who die every day around the world. Why do we feel no great heartache for these multitudes—akin to that which we felt on the occasion of 9-11?

If the latter is true, i.e., that we are outraged, not at the mere loss of life, but at the fact that innocent human beings had their lives taken from them unfairly, and that they had done nothing to deserve such, then where is the outrage concerning the termination of innocent babies by means of abortion? We view with great indignation those “terrorists” who dared to attack and destroy the unsuspecting objects of their callous brutality. Yet, since 1973, abortion clinics and doctors have been slaughtering the unborn population of the United States to an extent that makes the perpetration of previous atrocities in all of human history seem trivial. In the United States alone, more than 43 million babies have been aborted! In 2000 alone, more children died from abortion than Americans who died in the American Revolution, the Civil War, World Wars 1 and II, the Korean War, Vietnam, and the Gulf Wars combined (“Abortion,” 2003). In fact, one American baby was killed by abortion every 24 seconds.

The number of adults who died on 9-11 is surely tragic. But the number of innocent, unsuspecting children who never are permitted to complete their development, to proceed with their lives, to make their own choices, and to pursue their potential as human beings created in the image of God, is more than tragic. At least the terrorists thought they were pleasing their god and achieving his will against what were perceived to be Western degradation and spiritual corruption. But to snuff out the lives of innocent children for the economic and social convenience of mothers is despicable and inexcusable. Those who extinguish these innocent lives are without justification.

The mind has difficulty even comprehending 43,000,000 murdered babies—let alone envisioning the lost potential for good for the entire human race. Make no mistake, the “hands that shed innocent blood” (Proverbs 6:17) will one day face the consequences of their actions (Ecclesiastes 12:14; Hebrew 9:27).

REFERENCES

“Abortion in the United States: Statistics and Trends” (2003), [On-line], URL: http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/facts/abortionstats.html.

Feldner, Emmitt (2002), “9/11: Search For Survivors Began Almost Immediately,” [On-line], URL: http://www.wisinfo.com/sheboyganpress/news/911/911_5775905.shtml.

Sutton, Paul (2003), “Births, Marriages, Divorces, and Deaths: Provisional Data for October-December, 2002,” [On-line], URL: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr51/nvsr51_10.pdf.

“How Come Earth Got All the Good Stuff?” by Eric Lyons, M.Min.

http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=2624

“How Come Earth Got All the Good Stuff?”

by	Eric Lyons, M.Min.

Stuart Clark, of New Scientist magazine, recently asked the question, “How come Earth got all the good stuff?” Of all the planets in our solar system that allegedly formed naturalistically “from the same cloud of gas and dust that surrounded the sun more than 4.5 billion years ago,” why is “Earth...so suitable for life” (Clark, 2008, 199[2675]:29)? Stuart acknowledged:

We know that its distance from the sun provides the right amount of heat and light to make the planet habitable, but that alone is not enough. Without the unique mix of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulphur that makes up living things, and without liquid water on the planet’s surface, life as we know it could not have evolved. Chemically speaking, Earth is simply better set up for life than its neighbours. So how come we got all the good stuff? (p. 29).

How did Earth get to be just the right distance from the Sun so that it receives “the right amount of heat and light to make the planet habitable” (emp. added)? How did Earth get such a “unique mix” of all the elements that make up living things? How did Earth “acquire its life-giving water supply?” (p. 29). Did Earth become the “just-right” planet by happenstance?

Clark said that our best hope to find clues about Earth’s origin is from meteorites, since “they formed at the same time as the planets” (p. 29). However, he admitted: “[T]here are subtle differences that are proving tough to explain. For example, the mix of oxygen isotopes in chondritic meteorites does not match those found on Earth. So far no one knows why, but since oxygen is the most abundant element in the Earth’s crust...it is a mystery that cannot be ignored” (p. 29, emp. added). Regarding Earth’s “life-giving water supply,” Clarke suggested that “[t]he most popular explanation is that the water arrived later, in the form of icy comets from the outer solar system that rained down in the period known as the ‘Late Heavy Bombardment.’ As yet, though, there is no firm evidence to confirm this as the source of Earth’s water” (p. 30).

Though atheistic scientists have attempted to answer these and similar questions for many years, still no one has a legitimate naturalistic explanation for what New Scientist calls our planet’s “biggest mysteries” (p. 28). To conclude that Earth received just the right amount of “carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulphur” by time, chance, and non-intelligence is irrational. When does time, chance, and non-intelligence ever produce such wonderful effects? To conclude that the estimated 326 million cubic miles of water on Earth (“How Much Water...?,” 2008) are the result of “icy comets from the outer solar system” raining down on Earth millions of years ago is equally absurd.

The fact is, adequate non-intelligent, random, naturalistic causes for the “just-right” Earth do not exist. The only rational explanation for the precise design of Earth, the cosmos as a whole, and life on Earth is an intelligent supernatural Creator.

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork (Psalm 19:1).

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools (Romans 1:20-22).

The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God” (Psalm 14:1).

REFERENCES

Clark, Stuart (2008), “How Come Earth Got All the Good Stuff?,” New Scientist, 199[2675]: 29-30, September 27.

“How Much Water is on Earth?” (2008), Livescience.com, [On-line], URL:http://www.livescience.com/mysteries/070621_llm_water.html.

Did Moses Make a Scientific Mistake? by Wayne Jackson, M.A.

http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=10&article=113

Did Moses Make a Scientific Mistake?

by	Wayne Jackson, M.A.

Q.

The Bible speaks of two animals, the coney and the hare, as “chewing the cud.” Isn't the Bible mistaken on this point? These animals do not actually chew the cud, do they?

A.

An infidel once wrote: “Something that has long perplexed me is the way that inerrancy proponents can so easily find ‘scientific foreknowledge’ in obscurely worded Bible passages but seem completely unable to see scientific error in statements that were rather plainly written.” This skeptic then cited Leviticus 11:5-6, where the coney and the hare are said to chew the cud, and boasted that since these animals do not have compartmentalized stomachs like those in ruminants (e.g., the cow), Moses clearly made a mistake. What shall we say to this charge?

First, no scientific mistake can be attributed to the Bible unless all of the facts are fully known. In such an alleged case, the biblical assertion must be unambiguous. The scientific information must be factual. And an indisputable conflict must prevent any harmonization of the two. Do these criteria obtain in this matter? They do not.

Second, we must note that the words “coney” (Hebrew shaphan) and “hare” (arnebeth) are rare and difficult words in the Old Testament. The former is found but four times, and the latter only twice. The etymology of the terms is obscure. In the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament), shaphan is rendered by dasupoda, meaning “rough foot,” and arnebeth becomeschoirogrullion, literally, “swine-pig.” Hence, identification becomes a factor. It is commonly believed, however, that the arnebeth is some species of hare, and that shaphan denotes the Syrian hyrax.

But, so it is claimed, neither of these chews the cud. A number of scholars have noted that both of these animals, even when at rest, masticate, much like the cow or sheep, and that Moses thus employed phenomenal language (i.e., describing something as it appears), for the purpose of ready identification, inasmuch as these creatures were ceremonially unclean and thus prohibited for use as food (Archer, 1982, p. 126).

That is not an impossible solution. Bats, for example, are listed along with birds in Leviticus 11, not because both are mammals, but simply because both fly. The Scriptures do not necessarily follow the arbitrary classification systems of man. When Christ said that the mustard seed is “less than all seeds,” (Matthew 13:33), He was speaking from the vantage point of the Palestinian citizen—not that of a modern botanist. We today employ phenomenal jargon when we speak of the Sun “rising and setting.” Technically, it is not correct to refer to a woman’s amniotic fluid as “water,” and yet doctors employ this language frequently. Why do we not allow the biblical writers as much literary license as we ourselves employ? The bias of agnosticism is utterly incredible.

There is, however, another factor that must be taken into consideration. Rumination does not necessarily involve a compartmentalized stomach system. One definition of “ruminate” is simply “to chew again that which has been swallowed” (Webster’s Dictionary). And oddly enough, that is precisely what the hare does. Though the hare does not have a multi-chambered stomach—which is characteristic of most ruminants—it does chew its food a second time. It has been learned rather recently that hares pass two types of fecal material.

In addition to normal waste, they pass a second type of pellet known as a caecotroph. The very instant the caecotroph is passed, it is grabbed and chewed again.... As soon as the caecotroph is chewed thoroughly and swallowed, it aggregates in the cardiac region of the stomach where it undergoes a second digestion (Morton, 1978, pp. 179-181).

This complicated process provides the rabbit with 100% more riboflavin, 80% more niacin, 160% more pantothenic acid, and a little in excess of 40% more vitamin B₁₂ (Harrison, 1980, p. 121). In a comparative study of cows and rabbits, Jules Carles concluded that rumination should not be defined from an anatomical point of view (e.g., the presence of a four-part stomach); rather, it should be viewed from the standpoint of a mechanism for breeding bacteria to improve food. Cows and rabbits are similar in that both possess a fermentation chamber with microorganisms that digest otherwise indigestible plant material, converting it into nutrients. Some of the microorganisms in these two animals are the same, or very similar. Carles has stated that on this basis “it is difficult to deny that rabbits are ruminants” (as quoted in Brand, 1977, p. 104). Dr. Bernard Grzimek, Director of the Frankfurt Zoological Gardens in Germany, likewise has classified the hare as a ruminant (1975, pp. 421-422).

On the other hand, the hyrax also is considered by some to be a ruminant, based upon the fact that it has a multiple digestive process.

The hyrax has a very long protrusion, a caecum, and two additional caeca near the colon. At least one of these protrusions participates in decomposition of cellulose. It contributes certain enzymes necessary for breakdown of the cellulose (Morton, 1978, p. 184).

Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia (1975) considers the hyrax as a ruminant. Professor Joseph Fischel of the University of California has suggested that the biblical allusion to the coney as a cud-chewer probably was due “to the structure of its digestive system, the protuberances in its large stomach together with its appendix and maw possibly being regarded as analogous to a ruminant’s four stomachs” (1971, p. 1144). In his significant study of the intestinal microflora in herbivores, scientist Richard McBee observed that the hyrax has a fermentation chamber for the digestion of grass by microorganisms (as quoted in Brand, 1977, p. 103).

Finally, the precise meaning of gerah, rendered “chewing the cud” in most versions, is uncertain. Many orthodox Jews consider it simply to mean a second mastication, or the semblance of chewing. Samuel Clark stated that the meaning of gerah “became expanded, and the rodents and pachyderms, which have a habit of grinding with their jaws, were familiarly spoken of as ruminating animals” (1981, 1:546).

In view of the foregoing facts, it is extremely presumptuous to suggest that the Mosaic account contains an error relative to these creatures. A sensible interpretive procedure and/or an acquaintance with accurate information would have eliminated such a rash and unwarranted conclusion.

REFERENCES

Archer, Gleason (1982), Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).

Brand, Leonard R. (1977), “Do Rabbits Chew the Cud?,” Origins, 4(2):102-104.

Clark, Samuel (1981), “Leviticus,” The Bible Commentary, ed. F.C. Cook (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).

Fischel, Joseph W. (1971), “Hyrax,” Encyclopedia Judaica (New York: Macmillan).

Grzimek, Bernard, ed. (1975), Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold).

Harrison, R.K. (1980), Leviticus (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press).

Morton, Jean Sloat (1978), Science in the Bible (Chicago, IL: Moody).

American Astronauts: From Belief to Unbelief by Dave Miller, Ph.D.

http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=2490

American Astronauts: From Belief to Unbelief

by	Dave Miller, Ph.D.

The “space race” between the Soviet Union and the United States was in full swing. I was four years old when my father took me outside on a dark Arizona night in October 1957, to peer upward in hopes of catching a glimpse of the first manmade object to orbit the Earth—Russia’s Sputnik 1. Sure enough, it streaked across the heavens as a pinpoint of light. By April of 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space aboard Vostok 1. Peering through the window of his spacecraft, Gagarin was reported to have made the comment, “I don’t see any God up here” (“Yuri Gagarin...,” n.d.). [NOTE: Yuri’s colleague and good friend, Colonel Valentin Petrov, later insisted that Yuri never made such a statement, though it came to be attributed to him, but was actually the result of a comment by Russian Premiere Nikita Khrushchev in an anti-religious propaganda speech before the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party: “At that time Khrushchev gave all the Party and Komsomol organizations the task to promote this propaganda and said: ‘Why should you clutch at God? Look, Gagarin flew in space and saw no God’” (“Gagarin Never Said...,” 2006).] Russian astronaut Valery Bykovsky told newsmen in 1963 that no Soviet cosmonaut believed in God and none of them had seen anything to change their minds during their space flights (“Soviet Cosmonauts...,” 1963, p. D7, emp. added). At the time, the spiritual and religious sensibilities of most Americans were shocked by such blatant, unmitigated unbelief.

Indeed, a sharp contrast may be drawn between the Russians and their American counterparts. For example, it was Christmas Eve,

Apollo 8 crew just after splashdown Photo Credit: NASA

December 24, 1968 when Apollo 8 entered lunar orbit on the first manned mission to the Moon. Before retiring that evening, the astronauts did a live television broadcast to Earth, showing pictures of the Earth and Moon seen from their space capsule. They concluded the broadcast in the following fashion. Lunar Module Pilot William Anders said: “For all the people on Earth the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send you.” He then began reading from the Bible, specifically Genesis 1:1-4. Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell then continued the reading with Genesis 1:5-8. Finally, Commander Frank Borman completed the reading with Genesis 1:9-10, and then closed the broadcast with the words, “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you—all of you on the good Earth” (Williams, 2007).

Seven months later, on July 20, 1969, with the largest worldwide television audience in history watching, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first two humans to visit another world when they stepped onto the Moon from their Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle. Since the infamous atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair had filed suit against NASA (a suit eventually rejected by the courts) due to the Apollo 8 crew reading from Genesis, Aldrin was asked to forego his plan to read publicly from the Bible while on the Moon’s surface. Nevertheless, while still on the Moon, he radioed to Earth the following: “Houston. This is Eagle, the LM Pilot speaking. I would like to request a few moments of silence. Over. I would like to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his own individual way” (“Apollo 11 Astronaut...,” 2007). While still on the Moon, Aldrin read John 15:5 to himself and then observed the Lord’s Supper (2007). During a television broadcast by the astronauts the evening before splashdown, Aldrin quoted Psalm 8:3-4—“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou has ordained; What is man that thou art mindful of him? And the Son of Man, that thou visitest Him?” (2007).

Two years later, astronaut James B. Irwin walked on the moon during the Apollo 15 mission in July 1971. Concerning that lunar mission, Irwin declared, “I felt the power of God as I’d never felt it before” (Wilford, 1991). At the end of the first day of exploring the rugged lunar highlands, Irwin said he was reminded of “my favorite Biblical passage from Psalms,” which he then quoted by radio to Mission Control in Houston: “I’ll look unto the hills from whence cometh my help” (Wilford).

Of course, America’s brave astronauts merely reflected the religious convictions shared by the bulk of American culture at the time—extending all the way back to the beginning of the country. Tragically, that spiritual conviction, so characteristic of American civilization then, has since experienced extensive erosion. Contrast the astronauts in the early days of America’s space program with more recent ones. Returning from a 16-day mission in March 2008, crew members of Endeavor stated that as space exploration forges ahead, they believed the human race will find life elsewhere in the Universe (“Astronauts Say...,” 2008).

Buzz Aldrin on the Moon Photo Credit: NASA

Mike Foreman, a mission specialist on the Endeavor, said, “If we push back boundaries far enough, I’m sure eventually we’ll find something out there” (“Astronauts Say...”). Such thinking is typical of evolutionists who must look elsewhere for their faltering theory of evolution (cf. Richard Dawkins in Expelled; Stein and Miller, 2008). Foreman continued: “Maybe not as evolved as we are, but it’s hard to believe that there is not life somewhere else in this great universe” (“Astronauts Say...”).

Another astronaut, Gregory Johnson, asserted: “I personally believe that we are going to find something that we can’t explain.... There is probably something out there but I’ve never seen it” (“Astronauts Say...”). The crew commander, Dominic Gorie, compared their space adventure to explorers in past eras who knew not what they would encounter when they sailed the uncharted seas of the Earth. “As we travel in the space, we don’t know what we’ll find. That’s the beauty of what we do. I hope that someday we’ll find what we don’t understand” (“Astronauts Say...”). Richard Linnehan, a fellow mission specialist, admitted that it could take a while before human beings come into contact with extraterrestrial life (“Astronauts Say...”). Here is yet another indication of America’s drift from God in exchange for fanciful theory and meaningless pursuits. Rather than being dazzled by the marvels of the Universe and acknowledging God as the great Creator, some of our astronauts now are filled with thoughts of little green men. Paul’s words form a sad commentary on the transition that has transpired:

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because,although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools (Romans 1:20-22, emp. added).

REFERENCES

“Apollo 11 Astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s Notes on Handwritten Card Offered by Auction House” (2007),International Herald Tribune, September 19, [On-line], URL:http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/19/america/NA-GEN-US-Astronaut -Auction.php.

“Astronauts Say There Must Be Life in Space” (2008), Space Daily, May 12, [On-line], URL:http://www.spacedaily.com/2006/080512063010.m60tu6xh.html.

“Gagarin Never Said He Did Not See God in Space—His Friend, An Air Force Colonel” (2006),Interfax, April 12, [On-line], URL: http://www.interfax-religion.ru/orthodoxy/?act=interview&div=73 &domain=1.

“Soviet Cosmonauts Called Unbelievers” (1963), The Washington Post, p. D7, December 11, [On-line], URL: http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/179980282 .html?dids=179980282:179980282&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date= DEC+11%2C+1963&author=&pub=The+Washington+Post&desc=Soviet +Cosmonauts+Called+Unbelievers&pqatl=google.

Stein, Ben and Kevin Miller (2008), Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (Premise Media).

Wilford, John N. (1991), “James B. Irwin, 61, Ex-Astronaut; Founded Religious Organization,” The New York Times, August 10, [On-line], URL: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE3DD173DF933A2575B C0A967958260.

Williams, David (2007), “The Apollo Christmas Eve Broadcast,” NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, [On-line], URL: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo8_xmas.html.

“Yuri Gagarin Biography” (no date), Biography Base, [On-line], URL:http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Gagarin_Yuri.html.