An Interview with Dr. Hugh Ross on the Days of Creation; and More on the Contemporary Gospel

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Dr. Brown interviews astronomer Hugh Ross, founder of Reasons to Believe, about the new edition of his book on the days of creation, then looks at more problems created by the contemporary American gospel message and comments on some of the latest news. Listen live here 2-4 pm EST, and call into the show at (866) 348 7884 with your questions and comments.

 

Hour 1:

Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: The God we serve is an awesome, awe-inspiring, incredible creator. We read His witness in Scripture and in nature.

Hour 2:

Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: Do not drag God and His Word down to make them acceptable to lost sinners. Lift sinners up into the grace of God through preaching the truth and bringing them to repentance.

SPECIAL OFFER! THIS WEEK ONLY

This week, Dr. Brown is offering Hugh Ross’ newly released (2nd Extended Edition of) A Matter of Days: Resolving A Creation Controversy, along with the Line of Fire Radio CD interview with Dr. Ross, for only $30 postage paid! Order Online Here!

Other Resources:

Dr. Brown Interviews Young Earth Creation Scholar Dr. Jonathan Sarfati

The New Genesis Movie; and Why Pastor Mark Driscoll Was Wrong About Noah

Dr. Brown Interviews Dr. Hugh Ross and Dr. Fuz Rana on Hidden Treasures in Job, Why the Universe Is the Way It Is, Creating Life in the Lab, and the Cell’s Design

13 Comments
  1. One of the best sites on the Internet is Answers in Genesis. I believe Ken Ham’s position is biblical.

    “The teachings of Dr Ross seemingly allowed Christians to use the term “creationist,” but still give them supposed academic respectability in the eyes of the world, by rejecting six literal days of creation and maintaining acceptance of billions of years.
    However, AiG speakers and writers have spent considerable time alerting Christians to the fact that in reality, Ross’s position still has the same basic compromise of evolutionary theory with Scripture as does Theistic Evolution, and ultimately undermines the authority of the Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

    Ham and Ross were on the John Ankerberg Show. You can find it on YouTube and other sites to watch (free) but Reasons to Believe charges $40 for the DVD. That’s a rip off.

    https://answersingenesis.org/creationism/old-earth/special-feature-hugh-ross-expose/

  2. One of the problems with the contemporary gospel is that it reinterprets Genesis to agree with an atheistic view of the universe and thus undermines the obvious intent of Genesis and allows for not accepting YHWH’s word as infallible. Or maybe the contemporary gospel is a product of this compromise or at least necessitated by it.

    A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

    Shalom

  3. When the servants of the wedding of John 2 drew out of what was in the waterpots, they did not wait for science.

    In the beginning was the Word. Science may have come around later, but in the beginning was the Word.

  4. With great respect to Dr Ross, I think that both his theology and biblical understanding and his science are confused.
    There are so many big holes in all of what he is saying.
    For example,the argument that there is no ‘and there was evening and there was morning’ formula at the seventh day does not mean what he wants it to mean. It is clear there was a seventh day like the other six days but nothing created that day.
    Another big problem with his views is that he believes that there were hominid-type of beings before God created Adam and Eve. I think that is disputable scientifically. But the other problem I see is that on the sixth day that God created Adam and Eve -and yes, He created them the same day Dr Ross Gen 1:27 ‘Male and female he created them’- God had created the animals and other living beings on the same day. So the idea that there was billions of years with animals and eventually hominids/apes evolving until God created man is does not fit the Biblical picture.
    Likewise the idea that it took billions of years for God to finally create earth and man and all the right conditions for us to be able to appreciate His creation also sounds like special pleading for creation.
    I’m sorry, but Dr Ross’s arguments do not sound convincing. They do not make the Bible any more understandable, and they confuse the science.

  5. Ill add to Kostya’s comments and concerns. I found Dr. Ross’s comments in regards to their being a “significant time between the creation and Adam and Eve” to be… well “significant”. Especially in light of Dr. Ross’ view of elapsed time, I need clarification in regards to how much time he means. His website says “evidence instills some confidence that Adam and Eve lived somewhere between 50,000 and 150,000 years ago.” Really?? Not surprisingly his website doesnt refer to Scripture as one of lines of evidence used for coming to this time frame. Gen. 5:3 says Adam was 130 years old when Eve had Seth (their 3rd child), how far back was Seth’s birth and how do you fit this into the clear geneologies given in scripture? These are the same people who think God was describing a Hippo or Elephant when He spoke of Behemoth!?!?! I dont see how we can trust these sorts of “observations”. I appreciate Dr. Ross’ meekness and spirit but I for one am dubious.

  6. I was surprised when Dr. Ross talked about the Bible supporting the big bang. From what I have heard recently scientists have been going away from the big bang. Also, when he talked about fossils coming from billions of years of animals dying Dr. Brown should’ve asked him about the flood. I don’t know about him personally, but most old earth “creationists” don’t believe a global flood happened.

  7. I don’t know much at all about fossils so I made a very quick internet search. I usually don’t find such things interesting reading, and was only willing to spend a few minutes looking into a few questions I had, such as “How are fossils formed?” and then “How long does it take bones to decompose?”

    I found that after a quick burial with sediment, dinosaur remains decay and are infused with minerals that seep into the bones, replacing them with rock like minerals, and that bones may decay in 8-80 years.

    However, I believe bones may last longer than that.

  8. Can some of you older people help me out here?

    I was born in the mid ’50’s, and when I think back on when I was young, (pertaining to the age of the earth according to the Church) what was “orthodox” was that the earth was about 6000 years old, and that it was created in 6 days, and on the 7th day God rested from all his work.

    And we never questioned or even asked how long of a time period the days were.

    Yet, I found out at a quite young age, that scientists believed the earth was much, much older, even billions (or at least, millions and millions) of years old, and I considered all this scientific theory, theory being something that was thought about but has not bee proven.

    So my question is two fold, Was it that way when you were young? (and when was that?) Was that what your church taught? (young earth)

    And what are children being taught today in the church about the age of the earth? And for that matter, what is orthodox today about that matter?

    When I was young, I assumed it was orthodox that the earth was about 6000 years old. (in the church)

  9. Ray,

    I Corinthians 13:11

    “When I was a child I thought like a child, I spoke like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man I gave up childish ways.”

    I was born in ’47. My church taught that God created the world. There was no mention of young or old earth methods/timescales. When I grew up enough to understand the concept of time (or rather to try to comprehend it) I realized that there was much more to my faith than I had understood as a child.

    I’m not involved in what children are taught in my church in regards to that matter, or if the subject even comes up, but pretty much all of the members whose belief in this matter I know are old earth.

    When I was young I never even heard of one or the other but as a child I had no idea of things like the immense distances or timescales of the cosmos. I never heard about a 6000 year old earth until I was an adult and had moved to another town and attended a different church. I was rather surprised to hear it and some research revealed that there’s no mention of 6000 years in the Bible, it had been calculated by Bishop Usher and also that when missionaries arrived in China with that belief they had a difficult time spreading the faith because the Chinese had a recorded history that went back farther than that.

    Matt, scientists have been trying to disprove the big bang ever since it was first proposed because of its theological implications. If the universe isn’t infinite, if it’s had beginning then it must have a cause, ie a creator. It was the most tested theory in the history of science and many, if not most atheist scientists were dragged kicking and screaming into acceptance of it. That they’re still trying to get away from it is hardly surprising.

  10. I haven’t listened to this whole podcast, but I have heard Dr. Ross speak at my church and have read some of his writings.

    This is what I came away with. Dr. Ross is brilliant. After hearing him speak, it would take me a week to process what he said in five minutes. It was also very obvious to me that he is very sincere and loves Jesus.

    However, you can be very smart and still be very wrong. Richard Dawkins is also very brilliant, and he says there is no God.

    They didn’t get into the timeline of Creation when he was at my church, but one thing he said was, “You have to look at what the Bible *said*.”

    Yes you do.

    He followed that by saying, “Yom doesn’t only mean day, it can also meaning a period of time.”

    Which is true; however, the word “day” is paired with qualifiers in the first chapter of Genesis, “and the evening and the morning were the first day.”

    The Bible was meant to be understood. If we can’t take “evening and morning” as a 24 hour period . . . how can we understand anything else in the Bible. You have to then start going through gynmnastics when reading it.

    As much as he knows, he doesn’t know it all, and I think the evolutionary-like time frame he promotes is an attempt to make the Bible fit what he knows and the perception he already has rather than accepting what the Bible says and trying to see why what he knows doesn’t fit.

    I don’t believe there were huge gaps of time between the rest of creation and when God made Adam and Eve. Although I wonder how long of a period of time there was between their creation and the fall.

    I think Genesis 1:3-31 are six literal days. The time span of versus 1-2 is uncertain, time isn’t mentioned until verse 3.

    Someone asked about his view on the flood. I’ve read articles on his site, yes, they believe the flood was local. Although, if the continents weren’t as they were today, I don’t know why a flood that “covers all earth” is such a stumbling block.

  11. I’ve also heard that when God repeats something it’s often important. Evening and morning, and day so often repeat, in the beginning of our Bibles.

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