Category Archives: Scriptures Evidence

Equipping Message from Hugh Ross

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To our WindowView.org readers we’d like you to think about science and Scripture both.  If you are strong on science and kind of ‘iffy’ on Scripture, then the following e-mail/listserve message will be of interest.

First, let me introduce you to the source, this following message comes from Dr. Hugh Ross, a Ph.D. astronomer and someone who has proven very interested in examining the Scriptures from a scientific perspective.  We also make an effort at WindowView to identify the Messiah by the name Yeshua, but the manner in which Dr. Ross makes his reference to Messiah is essentially of little consequence to Jews and Gentiles who examine the whole of Scripture.

If you are interested in what Dr. Ross has to offer here, then we encourage you to visit the Reasons to Believe web site.  This site is filled with resources that we trust many will find intriguing and well documented.

Here is what we received from Dr. Ross:

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August 3, 2010

An apologetics professor at a major Christian university commented to me recently. “I always get myself into trouble when my students bring up Genesis 1. Can I ask you how you deal with the disputes over creation days 1 and 4?”

First I acknowledged that few subjects generate as much controversy and hostility as the interpretation of Genesis 1. But, I added, this hullabaloo can provide a wonderful opportunity! It allows us to demonstrate the power of integration to transform dispute and rancor to harmonious, even exhilarating resolution.

The professor listened intently as I pointed out how other biblical creation accounts, including Job 38-39, Psalm 104, and Proverbs 8, amplify the Genesis story of God’s activities on the six creation days. Since God inspired all of these accounts, the best interpretation of Genesis 1 will be one that yields an appropriately literal and consistent reading of all these relevant Scripture passages.

This integrative approach reveals that God created light when He created the physical universe before rather than on day 1. He also formed the Sun, Moon, and stars before rather than on day 4 (even before day 1). His work on day 1 involved transforming Earth’s atmosphere from opaque to translucent, allowing light to penetrate Earth’s initially thick, dark cloud cover. His work on day 4 brought about transformation of this translucent (permanently overcast) atmosphere to a frequently transparent one, allowing the Sun, Moon, and stars to become clearly visible objects for the first time.

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The Bible stands apart
from all other “holy books”
in both the quantity and
quality of its information
about creation.

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Not only does this approach to the Bible’s creation accounts resolve textual incongruities but it also removes the apparent contradiction between what Genesis 1 teaches about cosmic history and what the “book of nature” and God’s other “book” of Revelation tells us about the universe, Earth, and Earth’s life.

The Bible stands apart from all other “holy books” in both the quantity and quality of its information about creation. You will find more than two dozen lengthy creation passages in Scripture. In fact, our website provides a list of every creation-related verse I’ve found in the Bible. If you haven’t already done so, you may want to take time this summer to read all these creation verses in one sitting. This exercise will equip you to be a peacemaker among Christian friends who struggle with creation issues. It may even equip you to help a nonbeliever make peace with God.

Take some time today, if you can, to look over the list of the creation passages in the Bible. I think you’ll find this list a great help in preparing to discuss the Genesis creation account with others.

A friend once asked my wife for a one-word theme to describe what’s unique about Reasons To Believe. Her answer: “Integration.” I agree. Over the past 24 years our unique strength and focus has been showing the world how a thorough integration of truth found in all 66 books of the Bible and across all the disciplines of science reveals the unified whole of God’s revelation. And this revelation continually yields new reasons to believe in Jesus Christ as Creator and Savior.

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As always, at WindowView, we encourage our visitors to build the larger view by using multiple perspectives.  Assumptions that get in the way hold us back from appreciating truth. Â And if this life gives us anything, it’s an opportunity to discern truth and the purpose to being alive.

Director, WindowView

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Never the Twain Shall Meet?

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Revealing the Jewish Messiah
In preparing a message on science and theology to give to a Messianic congregation, I started to reach back to memories of things that fit a Messianic theme. Jewish evangelism is the topic of finding evidence for the Jewish Messiah in the Tanach (the Hebrew Scriptures, aka old covenant). Finding clues, as scientists and detectives do is important so maybe the better term in place of evangelism is “making connections.”
What needs to be made absolutely certain is one thing, a Jewish person who can ascertain the identity of Messiah, has found the Jewish Messiah. Bible readers know … “to the Jew first and then the Greek” reveals an order of awareness but not a difference in relationship to Messiah, to all this is personal.
Have I ever seen a casual witness to this identity?
Then it struck me, that there is a strong witness in one particular passage. In fact, many Jewish persons I know cite Isaiah 53 as one of the most significant pieces of the text … because this passage (actually starting back in Isaiah 52 around verse 12) presents the Messiah. Rabbis say this is about Israel, but the pronouns are masculine and the profile of this figure in the passage fits one person uniquely.
The Billiards Room Witness
What might the famous writer Samuel Clements have to do with all this? Anything?
We know the name Mark Twain and some of us visit historical sites that present the humanity of this man. Many of us may never visit his home site in Hartford, Connecticut, but it’s there to explore.
On an upper floor is a study with desk and shelves and books. There is also a billiards table. Perhaps the writing mind needs a diversion to free up one’s thinking. In that room in a Hartford home, Mr. Twain had a rather large Bible. And for the open nature of this historical site, one of the curators appears to have decided to open this large tomb to a particular page.
Mark Twain’s Bible was open to Isaiah 53.
I recognized the potential impact of this for the passive Jewish visitor and to the Gentile who knows of whom the passage speaks. How many Jewish minds ponder that text? How many visit the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem to see a full representation of the original Hebrew scroll with all of Isaiah’s writings fully exposed?
How many in Hartford and and how many in Jerusalem meet their Messiah by reading this text?
Have you?
Have you shared this with someone who needs to ponder the fact that we can see Him in that text?
Perhaps Samuel Clements himself left his Bible open to that page … which is still true to this day.
Director, WindowView

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Excuse Me – But Why Am I Here?

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Recently I was communicating with an old friend from way back in the high school era.  The joy of finding a long lost person gave way to telling each other our stories … where we’ve been, who we ended up with, and lots about what we’d done along the way.

But Who Are WE?

Invariably the stories run to some kind of end point.  Ah, this is where I am in life.  And when I described how I’d found disappointment in the way some or many persons had treated me in my life’s trek … I relayed the news that I’d started to ask the big questions in life.  I found myself in a way that began to differentiate who I was compared to the large majority of people.  Does that separation somehow make me the “odd man out?”  Or did I find something right and everyone else is on the outside?

A Night’s Realization

Well here is a test for you.  Have you thought about who you are and about others, only to find yourself putting your head down on a pillow at night, in the silence of the darkness, to realize something kind of freaky.  Like we know we are conscious and that means we are alive. Alive. What is that? And then the big question: “Why is there a me?”

Of all possible things … there is a universe, there is a planet called Earth, and I am here.  But why?  Out of all the thoughts I have each day … why does it strike me as strange that I am alive!

But then, why are we here?  It really didn’t need to be so.

The Big Story I Told

In telling my personal story, I noted that at one point in my career I started to ask both scientific and theistic questions.  The answers to the merging issues put an answer to the “Why Am I Here?”  The answers came over time and as new information from biblical archaeology, from a hard core examination of evolution and how Darwinism has its major issues unaddressed by the majority, how the Bible agrees with a universe that has an origin before which there was no space or time,  new discussions on life revealing evidence for design and thus opening the door to a designer, and studies of Israel and historical events that lead to a forward looking of chronological events that have been and will come according to the biblical text.  Science data revealed another side of the coin of truth.  Remarkable!  The Bible describes what was to come, what came, and what will come in the future ahead.  And we live on that time line, right now!

So maybe you don’t believe it.  But did you look at any of this?  Did you have that freaky moment late at night that pierces one’s being to ask why you are here?  And what if the scientific data and biblical information really do answer the question?

WindowView is a product of merging thoughts that go to answer why you are here.  It’s not a mistake, you are meant to be a stranger in a place where you are traveling here, in this space and time, to discover that there is a future … an eternal future.  Yeah, that seems strange doesn’t it?  But if it’s true, then why not embrace it and learn more and then be joyed by the fact that there is more to life than the mess we face here!  In this way, the future gets better, not worse.  A look around Earth today we see a lot of confusion.  Why not get beyond the confusion and clear up the view!  If science and theism bring you to a whole truth … you may not be in the majority, but at least you’ll know where YOU are headed!  And that answers the question: “Why Am I Here!”

Science can really tell us how special life is.  The Bible can tell us more about why we are here.  Together, these two perspectives give us a really wonderful big picture!

Director, WindowView.org

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Origin of Life: The Greatest Fear Realized Now

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WindowView is about taking a look. Look at different perspectives, sides, views, and gaining a wonderful vantage point to get past all the junk information. The window may be viewed with a critical eye, that’s actually a good thing. But so too, it’s good to be objective! So, what about the origin of life? Too often we hear opposing views bringing us to a polarized view on religion and at the other end science.

The Great Fear Within

Sometimes we hear people slip and say “worldview” in place of “window view.” Interesting slip because once you start looking out the window you see a lot of different views of the world we live in.

The greatest fear comes with the notion that science information and biblical information actually together provide an OVERview. That view includes information on origins of life and specifically something about the reason, purpose, and origin of human life.

The FEAR is that both spheres of information are relevant. An even greater fear is that once we get rid of junk science and the junk brought into religious dialogs, we end up with something that approximates a good working model of who we are and what life is. Science data tell us a lot of really wonderful things about life and how it works. The biblical information adds to perspectives that tell the story in other dimensions, including something about morality, spirituality, state of mind, and topics that science really does not concern itself with. So, rather than a polarization to opposite extremes, the FEAR is that the evolution versus creation debate is missing the point entirely.

Science Data Lead the Way: Start with the Right Definitions

Darwin was not all wrong. Intelligent Design was not at all non-science. Digging into the background data and looking at the arguments aside from any particular world view leads to enlarging a constructive and objective window view.

The media spent lots of time criticizing intelligent design and if you are confused, you might want to get some terms and definitions in order. The larger proponent to disseminating information on intelligent design has provided a PDF file that you can download here to your computer. The 24 page file is entitled: “The Theory of Intelligent Design: A Briefing Package For Educators.” And since you are responsible for educating yourself, better than anyone else can, you’ll want to see what is stated in this booklet. You might be surprised on how objective the information is. If you disagree, then you’ll have more reasons to disagree, but only after taking a look (it’s part of creating that window view!).

The Real Paradigm

Call it properly evaluated science and add to that properly evaluated biblical information and then merge the spheres to the point that they in fact overlap. Yes, they only overlap — just to a point and no more. That is why sound science and good biblical interpretation actually do very well to inform – INFORM you!

The bigger working model – a paradigm – that reveals how “life works” can actually be gleaned by “emerging the spheres.”

The greatest fear that some face is that the ultimate paradigm for life includes science and biblical information. That together these two spheres give us the entire paradigm.

The ones that fear this most are only comfortable at one or other end of the extreme view – polarized. Where the spheres merge is not some compromise or middle ground – it’s reality.

At Windowview we encourage our visitors and viewers to read more and to explore the depths of the issues.

Director 120107

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