EVAN’S ENDORSEMENT OF EVOLUTION IS ECCENTRIC*

Raymond Elliott 

(*”irregular, foolish, crazed, capricious”, New Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus, page 744).  Since no one living was present when life began on the earth, the acceptance of evolution and/or the creationist story is a matter of faith.  Which one is more reasonable: that life began by mere chance and evolved; or, that a Supreme Being began life as taught in the book of Genesis. Contrary to what Evans wrote, “Evolution, faith need not conflict” (Montgomery Advertiser, February 22, 2009, page 2C), there is a conflict of belief from the very offset based on the two premises stated previously. However we must understand that true science and the truth of the Bible do not conflict one another.  Rather it is the theories of science (Evans admits that evolution is a theory) and the misunderstandings of the Bible that are in conflict. Why would a reader of Genesis chapters one not understand the six days of creation as being literal twenty-four hour days? In the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai to the children of Israel, God commanded that the seventh (Sabbath) day to be kept holy. God gave the reason, namely that in six days He created the heavens and the earth and then He rested (from His work of creation) on the seventh day (Exodus 20:8-11).  How could the people relate to these facts and commands if the days in Genesis were millions of years?  Common sense demands that the people understood that they were to work six literal days and rest on the seventh (Sabbath) day.  What about the making of man from the dust of the ground and the forming of woman from the side of Adam? Are we to understand this story to be literal? If not, what about the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites and all the miracles mentioned in the Old Testament?  If the miracles in the O.T. can be explained away by the natural, then why believe that Jesus was born of a virgin and that He arose from the dead on the third day.   Evans infers that we can have faith in Jesus without knowledge of the story of creation as recorded in the book of Genesis. The fact is, if we believe in Jesus we will also believe in the story of creation. Jesus gave credence to the creation story when he said, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ “and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? “So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:4-6; Compare with Genesis 1:26, 27; 2:21-25).  

Evans needs to reroll in a freshman class, Bible 101 when he writes, “And we can take the Bible seriously without always taking it literally. After all, when Jesus said “I am the door,” do we look for hinges?”  One of the basic rules of biblical interpretation is that a passage of scripture is to be understood as being literal unless the context would determine otherwise. For example, Jesus referred to Herod as being “that fox” (Luke 13:32). Now, a Bible student would understand that being a figure of speech. And so it is when Jesus said “I am the door”. Finally, we should all be concerned whether we will be among the “sheep” or the “goats” on the judgment day (Matthew 25:32). 

NOTE:  James L. Evans is the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Auburn, Alabama.  He has a weekly article in the Montgomery Advertiser that appears on Saturday