What I Have Been Doing Lately

Posted on by October 18, 2011
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If you regularly read my blog then you know I haven’t been adding new posts on a weekly basis over the past few months. While I’d like to post something at least once a week, I have been too busy with so many other writing and editing projects. So let me share with you some of the things I’ve been working on.

Last month, my son started playing in his first basketball league (Upwards). He’s in the third-fourth grade level and I am coaching his team. I’ve coached high school players before and really enjoyed it because they can do most of the things required to play basketball. I was nervous about coaching little kids, but I’m having a great time with it. I’m trying very hard not to be a coach who favors my own kid, and I don’t want to be harder on him than the other kids either (I will probably need to be harder since he’s inherited my bragging). We have played two games so far and picked up our first win this morning. They played hard and are having a great time.

I’ve also made a little bit of progress on book four of The Truth Chronicles series. I’m excited to see the next three books in the series, since I believe we have a fun story to tell covering several important issues, but I’m having trouble finding enough time and energy to work on them.

I have made arrangements for a couple of speaking opportunities in the coming months. From November 11–13 I’ll be speaking five times at a church in the Greenville, South Carolina area. Click here for more details. I’ll share details about the other event in a later post, but it is scheduled to take place in Cincinnati next spring.

At work, I have been busy writing and editing several projects. We recently finished up a devotional series covering an entire year’s worth of daily readings. I believe these will soon be published in a book. I had the privilege of writing about 25–30 of the devotionals and editing the last 3/4 of them. They have all been posted on the Answers in Genesis website, so here are links to a few of the ones I have written: It Is Well, Should We Suffer for the Gospel?, and Who Will Inherit the Kingdom of God?

Another book project at work has recently consumed most of my time each day. Last year Answers in Genesis released a popular book entitled Demolishing Supposed Bible Contradictions. We have just finished the second volume in this series, and I served as the primary editor and theological content “checker.” I also wrote many of the chapters, some of which have already been posted on the website. Here are the chapters that have already been posted on the website: When Did Jesus Cleanse the Temple? (with response to negative feedback), Generational Gaffe, and When Was the Temple Veil Torn in Two?

My other chapters that will be in the book cover the following issues: How could all of the events of Day Six take place within 24 hours?, Do Genesis 1 & 2 contradict each other regarding the creation of plants?, Did God condone child sacrifice in the case of Jephthah’s daughter in Judges 11?, Was Jesus mistaken about Zechariah’s father?, and Did Jesus go up or down the mountain before preaching the Sermon on the Mount? I’m not sure about the publication date for this book, but I believe it will be out before Christmas. I’ll keep you posted.

I will be featured in two articles in the upcoming issue of Answers magazine, which will be mailed out right around the end of the year. I was interviewed about The Truth Chronicles series to discuss what they are about and how they can be used to teach the biblical worldview to “tweens” and teens. Also, I was asked to write an article about the sons of God and the Nephilim from Genesis 6:1–4. Although I wrote my thesis on the subject and have written much about it on this blog, this was a lot trickier than it sounds since Answers in Genesis does not take a position on the subject. So we put it through numerous reviews, including three Hebrew scholars, to make sure it isn’t slanted one way or another. The article should serve as a great introduction to the subject, discussing the three major views on the sons of God and explaining the meaning of the word “Nephilim.” I’ve already seen some of the artwork and it’s very cool and I’m really looking forward to seeing the final product.

We recently started working on the second volume of How Do We Know the Bible Is True? I will be writing three or four chapters in this volume. Last month I wrote one of the chapters, which is a critique of biblical critic Bart Ehrman’s book Forged. He alleges that most of the books of the New Testament were not written by the people that are often associated with them. Ehrman is a good writer and is well-spoken, but he uses the same tired old arguments that have been soundly refuted for years. However, he is very effective in convincing uninformed readers because he has the ability to make interesting a subject that bores most people (and because there are a lot of people who are looking for excuses to reject God’s Word).

Finally, I just finished editing a young lady’s first novel. This involved much more than simply proofreading the book, but included a full line edit and copy edit. She is currently looking for a publisher and already has the rough drafts for two more books finished in the series. If the book is published, I’ll post some more details on the blog.

So that explains why I haven’t made much progress on my own books and updated the blog much. Are they good excuses? I think so. I’ve had fun working on most of the projects and am looking forward to seeing the articles, chapters, and books in print.

Thanks for reading!

Commonly Misused Bible Verses: 2 Peter 3:8

Posted on by October 6, 2011
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Both Christians and unbelievers are guilty of misusing Bible verses by ripping them from their original context.

It’s been a while since I’ve added to the commonly misused Bible verses series, so it’s time to get back to it. There are many reasons why people misuse verses. Oftentimes, they are well-intentioned and simply repeat what they’ve heard many times before, and they have never taken the time to make sure the Bible really teaches what they are claiming. Others are not so well-intentioned, and simply try to rip a verse from its context to justify their beliefs or behavior.

The goal of this series is to help you avoid making these types of mistakes when using God’s Word. It’s a serious matter to argue that God supports your position, so you need to make sure that Scripture really does line up with what you think it says.

Commonly Misused Bible Verse #5: 2 Peter 3:8

It would be difficult to count how often I have heard this verse misused. I have been involved in creation research and teaching for more than a decade, and those who seek to deny the plain meaning of the first chapter of Genesis often cite 2 Peter 3:8.

But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (2 Peter 3:8, NKJV)

Obviously, the person misusing this verse is attempting to make the days of the Creation Week to be something other than normal-length days. Why do they do this? Because they have a desire to add millions and billions of years to the Bible. Not only is this unnecessary from a scientific perspective, it fails on biblical grounds.

The days of the Creation Week were clearly normal-length days. They are marked by the phrase “evening and morning.” They are listed in a series with ordinal and cardinal numbers (literally the text for days 1–6 would be “one day,” “a second day,” “a third day,” “a fourth day,” “a fifth day,” and “the sixth day”). Since “the sixth day” uses the definite article (“the”), it forces the other days in the series to be literal days as well—otherwise it would not have been “the” sixth day. Also, in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) God revealed that the Israelites were commanded to work for six days and rest for one because that’s what He did. There are many other biblical and theological reasons why the days of Genesis 1 were normal-length days that I won’t go into here.

So why is it wrong to quote 2 Peter 3:8 when discussing this issue? If you haven’t learned anything else in this series, you should have learned that we need to take a look at the context. As you’ll see in the verses below, this passage is not about the time it took God to create the world.

…knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:3–9)

Peter did mention Creation in this passage, but the point of this passage is the return of Christ. He stated that scoffers will come in the last days and they will mock three specific events: the Creation, the Flood, and the Second Coming. Then he told his readers that they shouldn’t lose heart over the fact that Christ had not yet returned. Even though it seems like a long time to us, God is not bound by time so the period between the first and second comings of Christ isn’t a long time to Him.

But doesn’t this passage say that God’s day is a thousand years long? Not at all! Remember, it also says that a thousand years are as one day. So if this is supposed to be a mathematical formula, you’re right back where you started from (1=1000 and 1000=1). The fact is, this passage is using these terms in a simile (a figure of speech that makes an analogy, thus showing that we aren’t supposed to interpret these words literally).

Furthermore, even if this passage could be used to say each day of the Creation Week was a thousand years, it doesn’t really help much if you’re trying to squeeze millions or billions of years into the Bible. At most, it would just add another six (or seven if you include God’s day of rest) thousand years. So that leaves you with an earth and universe that is 12,000–13,000 years old. That’s nowhere near the 4.5 billion years that is commonly (and mistakenly) cited as the age of the earth.

The Bible is very clear on this issue. God made everything in six normal-length days about 6,000 years ago and then rested from His work on the seventh day. There is no other way to interpret the clear words of Scripture without forcing numerous contradictions into the text. I’ve written about these problems in much greater detail in my book Old-Earth Creationism on Trial: The Verdict Is In (co-authored by Dr. Jason Lisle).