Mission: Imperative!
Well, it all depends on whose definition of “impossible” we are talking about. To be a Christian, you have to believe many things that, to known scientific laws, are impossible.
For example, it is impossible for someone to be born of a woman, but not also of a man. According to biological laws, there can be no such thing as a “virgin birth”. Yet the Bible teaches that there was! And furthermore, it is an essential element that identifies the one and only Messiah, the Anointed One, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God. Do you believe this?
Likewise, it is also impossible to die (verifiably so!) and then come back to life. Yet the Bible teaches that this is exactly what happened to Jesus, and through God’s power, it also happened to Lazarus. Do you believe this?
What about Jesus’ ability to heal the sick–instantaneously! And what of His ability to walk on water, and pay His taxes from money He took out of the mouth of a fish. Feeding thousands of people with virtually nothing is equally impossible. The direct implication of this story is that He was able to keep immediately multiplying the food. Impossible, too. Equally so was His ability to walk through a wall, or to instantly calm the raging seas. Do you believe that these things were all true of Jesus?
These absolutely impossible scenarios are not limited to Jesus, though. The Old Testament documents many events that simply “could not happen”. On the day Moses was introduced to God’s amazing power, he saw a bush that was on fire, yet it didn’t burn up. Later on, through His power, sticks turned into snakes, Red Sea water was pushed aside, allowing the entire nation of Israel to cross on dry land! People bitten by snakes simply had to look at a special pole and be healed. Water came pouring out of various places in the dry desert —enough for everyone and their livestock. Manna appeared every morning in the desert –that special food that provided all of the essential nutrients for humans to live by (remember that there are no fruits and vegetables available in the desert!). Then there was a pillar of fire in the sky at night, and a special cloud by day that would lead them. All impossible.
What about later on? What about the impossibility of a fleece wet with dew while the surrounding ground was dry? How about the impossibility of the opposite the next night? Furthermore, the laws of physics prevent an old man from being able to run faster than a chariot. Similarly, the act of throwing a man overboard into the sea cannot possibly calm a storm raging in it. By laws of biology, a man cannot be swallowed by a large fish and stay alive for three days. It is not possible for a human to lift the gates of a city off their foundation and carry them off on his shoulders. Besides, the length of a person’s hair cannot possibly have anything to do with his strength.
Shall we mention Peter coming out of a heavily-guarded prison -unnoticed?! Impossible. Or water being turned into wine? Surely that breaks some law of chemistry! Do we believe these things?
I could go on and on. Many other events like these have been recorded in the Bible. And most Christians I know do believe these things. But, why? Why would Christians believe this? It is not because they’ve seen these events with their own eyes or tested the events in the science laboratory. No, Christians believe because we accept the Bible as the God-inspired, infallible Word of God.
Why then, do many Christians struggle with the origins issues found in Genesis? Why do many of them believe that God did not create everything in just six, literal days, or that the earth’s age could not possibly be only six to ten thousand years, or that the flood could not have been a global event, etc.?
The reason is simple. There are two or three areas of the Bible that are mocked the most, especially by the current education establishment (our schools and colleges). Those areas are 1) the creation itself, and 2) original sin, and 3) the global flood. Of all the “ridiculous & impossible” things that Christians believe, these are the worst, so they think. Why? Again, a simple answer. Those issues lie squarely in the path of the accepted norm of naturalism, the theory of evolution.
Therefore, Christians who are educated in the world’s schools will receive the world’s education. That education won’t spend unnecessary time ridiculing a donkey that spoke, or an axe head that floated, or a lone hand that wrote on a wall. But it will invest time and energy into the core issues relating to the origins and purpose for life. That education will, in fact, include a random, purposeless origin for everything that exists, and billions of years of time for the earth’s existence.
So, we have many Christians in the nation today who will believe all of the many, awesome, amazing, “impossible” facts found in the Bible, but will stumble on the simple, straight-forward ones found in Genesis. I wonder —who or what is their source of authority?
