Peace and Evolution

A conversation with a friend recently struck up some thoughts for me. He seemed to be receptive to an invitation to church, but something was holding him back. You see, the problem was this: my friend has been caught up in a relationship with a woman who is an atheist. Leaving someone who you've become attached to like this is not easy to do. So, young Christian brothers, be warned: one of the most difficult things for men to overcome to follow Jesus is that of sexual attraction. One of the greatest lies out there is the lie that says that we cannot be happy without having sex. I'm telling you that it's a blatant lie. I am a man with testosterone and a man's desires, tendencies and creative imagination. I have never had sex. And I can tell you that you can still be happy without these things. I don't say this to boast, but I can tell you that it's only because God has rescued me again and again fromdoing things that would keep me from obeying His will for my life. The world tells us this lie because it does not know any better. The problem is that the world does not understand the peace that comes through Jesus Christ.
Jesus said "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives."(John 14:27) In other words, Jesus gives the peace that that the world does not give. This word "peace" has a fuller meaning in Biblical texts than our modern day english word of peace. When Jesus says this, He means that He gives us peace with God, peace with ourselves, peace with each other, peace with our past, peace with our finances, peace with our families, peace with our future, peace in our present (whatever the suffering you're going through), peace with the powers above us, peace with those who we're in authority over, peace with the circumstances that guide our lives, peace in our bodies, peace in our minds, peace in our homes, peace in our jobs, peace with our spouses, peace with our children, peace with our parents, peace with our lovers, peace with our detractors, and peace with our friends. And more than simply the absence of conflict, the peace that Jesus Christ brings to our lives is a peace that means completion, or wholeness. So in all those areas listed above, whereas the world does not offer us anything, Jesus Christ gives us completion. Jesus, you complete us!

These are just some of the things I'm learning on my journey.

Another thing I was reminded of this week was the intense inner turmoil I went through in the second semester of my second year of college when I was taking a course on evolution. The teachers for this course rejected faith in God and did not see people or the universe as the works of a Creator God. Their basis for teaching from these theological perspectives were not explained, but they were assumed as valid starting points for scientific discovery. Soaking up the teaching of these brilliant minds, I ended up believing falsely for a time that I had to either choose God and ignore the scientific discoveries with the theory of evolution, or reject this foundational scientific theory to retain my faith in God. Night and day I read through every different perspective I could, trying to grasp the meanings and intricacies of Genesis 1 while at the same time attempting to insert God somewhere into the evolution framework. Prayer, the study of scripture, and being honest with God and others helped me to overcome this crisis of faith. In the process, I discovered several things that have helped me to have shalom with the matter.
1. Genesis 1 does not try to explain all of creation. Reading scholars like Meredith Kline, Rikk Watts, and others, and I am lead to conclude from their compelling explanations of the "framework-hypothesis" that the creation account addresses concerns other than an exact explanation of how the whole universe came to be in the state we currently witness it. God, I believe, has left that for man to discover. http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF3-96Kline.html
2. There are many Bible-believing Christians who do not reject the theory of evolution. Check out Carl Drew on his website: www.theistic-evolution.com/index.html
3. There are other mysteries we don't understand even with the help of scripture for which we do rely on science to help us understand. For instance, we are able to understand that God metaphorically knit us together and formed us in our mothers' wombs (Psalm 139:13) while at the same time we understand the whole sperm and egg thing that happen within a woman's body. Why, then, can't we simultanteously understand both God being Creator of the universe and that the universe and life on earth have been formed over billions of years through complex processes?