Controversies

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/08/truth-seekers-2

When I was a young Christian growing up, one of the questions I came across was that were there already people (humans or pre-humans?) out there when Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden? This is because when Cain murdered Abel, both Adam and Eve’s first offsprings, and Cain was punished to roam the earth; God gave a warning that whoever kills Cain will be avenged for 7 times by God. How could there be anyone out there when Cain and Abel were the first offspring of Adam and Eve? This could be because it was a literary style of the ancient world to highlight only certain significant aspects of the creation story rather than corroborate the factual accuracy of the story. Or God could be speaking to animals or pre-humans?

Just ten years past, I attended a talk at a local seminary and came across for the first time the debate about young earth during the Q&A time. I asked the speaker what that was all about, and he somewhat condenscendingly answered, “Where have I been all this while that I wasn’t acquinted with this topic?”. I have to admit that I do not make it a point to follow the various debates and controversies explored by the Christian world, most of which, in my view, are academic discourses. I later found out that the young earth theory probably came about to answer the discovery of fossil remains of dinosaurs when the latter was not explicitly mentioned in the bible.

Recently, there have been conspiracy theories on Covid-19 vaccinations as taking the mark of the beast and, as mentioned in today’s ODB, the issue of whether the earth is actually flat. A few years back. I also came across discussions on the Nephilim as being offsiring of the union between fallen angels and humans, perhaps as a way to answer the presence of giants like Goliath of the Philistines. However, I recently watched a video of Chinese basketball star Yao Ming, arriving at KLIA, and his 7 1/2 feet frame indeed made him look like Goliath of the Bible! With advances in medical science, we now know the reasons for these exceptionally tall humans.

While all these discourses may be useful to develop our spiritual outlook and worldview, I think we should not spend too much time dwelling on such things. Ultimately, what really matters, in my view, is our own spiritual journey and walk with God. Are we fulfilling the plans and purposes of God for our lives? Are we being transformed to become more Christlike in our character? Are we serving the Lord in the church and ministry? Are we doing anything meaningful for Jesus in the Kingdom of God? A lot of these questions do not have clear-cut answers in the present time, and some of them may probably be answered only on the day of Jesus Christ!