In human history great technological discoveries brought about revolutions in how we live our lives. Examples are many: The wheel, printing press, electricity, automobile, radio, telephone, television, the computer (silicon chips), smart phone, and the internet. Many believe the advent of AI may be the most revolutionary of all. AI will likely influence every area in which we live, and is doing so as I write. A free version of AI (ChatGPT) was first introduced to the public in 2023 and had one million users in five days!

Until the 19th Century Adam was universally seen as the originator of the human race from whom every human descended. There are now those who self-identify as evangelicals who are currently calling upon Christians to abandon this historic teaching because it conflicts with the settled science of human evolution, and that Genesis simply mimics ancient Near Eastern creation myths. There are several variations of this new teaching:

Every continent and every people group has legends of dragons dating from antiquity. What makes this of interest, is the descriptions are strangely similar. In the KJV version of the Bible (1611), the word dragon or dragons occurs 35 times (22 in the OT and 13 in the NT). The English word dragon comes from the Greek word drakon. In almost all dictionaries and encyclopedias dragon is defined as an imaginary or mythological creature. The question then becomes: what exactly is this creature? Is the KJV Version of the Bible referring to dragons as real animals? Is it mythical, reflecting pagan Near Eastern literature, or is it symbolic?

Eschatology is the branch of theology that has to do with future things such as the second coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the final judgement, and the eternal state. The affirmation of these events has been part of the great creeds of the church for 2000 years. To deny these events is to be less than orthodox. The problem: there has never been a consensus about the exact order of these events. There are no charts in the Bible giving us the details. In reality, this state is similar to the prophecies concerning Christ’s first coming. The scribes correctly discerned that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Mt.2:5), but the timing of His coming, and the nature of His career were greatly misunderstood.

Many passages in Scripture proclaim God’s complete knowledge, otherwise known as the attribute of omniscience, which simply means all knowledge. This means: He knows everything actual and everything possible. God never has to learn anything, and He never forgets anything; He knows everything all at once in their totality, that includes past, present, and future. His knowledge also includes complete and perfect knowledge of Himself. God literally knows everything there is to know! I Sam. 2:3: ...for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. Ps 147:5: ...his understanding is beyond measure.

Many Old Testament departments in formerly conservative seminaries now teach that Genesis 1-11 is not real history, but rather consists of a wholly different genre of literature. For over 3000 years this important passage was interpreted in a normal way to yield a young earth created by God in 6 days! Things began to change in the 19th Century with the uniformitarian theories of Lyell and Hutton who believed that the formation of sedimentary rock took long ages to form, and then in 19th Century, Darwin theorized that life forms took millions of years to evolve.

The contemporary and prevailing view in the majority of institutions of higher learning today and in the culture generally, is that mankind is only material. He is made out of dust and when he dies he will return to dust. Death means cessation. He differs only from the animals in that he is more complicated and has more brain cells. Consciousness is generated by the brain which is only a complex computer made out of meat. This view is also called materialistic monism (MM), identity theory, and physicalism.

The Grand Assumption: When Darwin wrote The Descent of Man he had no evidence of human evolution though some hominin fossils (the word hominin means apelike) were being discovered around the time of publication(1871). Darwin just assumed that if other life forms evolved, humans did also. After a century and a half that grand assumption is still in effect even though the fossil evidence has not produced any definitive evidence.

The force of the Postmodern Worldview first began to be felt at the street level during the turbulent 60's. It was areaction against the worldview of the Enlightenment which believed that through logic and science a universalexplanation could be achieved which would explain all of existence. Modernism, another name for theEnlightenment, made great advances in science and technology for which we all benefit, but was doomed to failurein its quest for a metanarrative (a worldview that would explain all of life) because you can never arrive at aninfinite by starting with the finite (in contrast, the Christian worldview starts with the Infinite God). The essenceof postmodernism is that there is no true truth!

All orthodox (Bible-believing) Christians believe that Christ (Messiah) first came as a Lamb (to be sacrificedfor sin) and that He will return to earth again as the victorious Lion of Judah (Rev. 5:5). The consensus on thedetails of His second coming over 2000 years of church history, however, is non-existent. The great Creeds ofChristendom only mention that Christ is coming again to judge the living and the dead. For all other cardinaldoctrines of the Christian faith such as: the triune God, substitutionary atonement, the authority of Scripture,the resurrection, etc. it is a safe interpretative principle to refer to what the Holy Spirit has taught the churchover 2000 years of its history.