Eutychus and His Kin: October 26, 1962

Good Morning

You have one experience in common with everyone you will meet today. He had to get up this morning, too. For sheer trauma, waking up is a close second to being born, and it occurs more often. It is not unusual for me to wake up a dozen times in one day: at my desk, in a bus, driving my car, or in a pew. But usually I wake up at home, in the midst of the dawn crisis.

Fear of reprisals keeps me from reporting on our awakening household in detail. I could describe A, groaning, kicking the wall, and pulling the blanket over his head, or B, who rises quickly, dresses with expressionless face in whatever garments happen to be lying about, then collapses insensible across the bed. One member uses a two-alarm system, another a clock radio and a cheery news announcer. The best all-family rouser was the rooster that grew from an Easter chick, but the neighbors deplored his efficiency; he was deported. By all these means we move from bed to bedlam in the space of half an hour.

This morning I missed the weather report, and was about to dial WE 7–1212 for a recorded briefing, when the thought struck me that I might go outside and see the morning myself.

It was unforgettable. The quiet. Only the whine of trucks in the distance and an occasional subdued crash or shout from the house. The color. An autumn morning watches color being born. The rising sun touches the trees and the misty charcoal tones burst into flames. The dew. My shoes were soaked from the wet grass. Frost was on the fallen leaves. A spider web on the garage window had become a sparkling necklace.

It became clear to me why a poet sees the morning differently from a commuter. He stands out-of-doors. Here I was in that morning freshness that poets now describe for cigarette ads.

The Bible pictures dew as a blessing, and blessing as a dew (Psalm 133). The Messiah’s people will be like the dew: an army of young men rising up in the beauty of holiness out of the womb of the morning (Psalm 110:3). Indeed, God himself will be as the dew to his people (Hosea 14:5).

The rising Sun of Righteousness gives a new day, a new birth of the Spirit. In the light of the Gospel it is morning. The hope of the Church’s reformation is the renewal of the Holy Ghost with the dew of the morning.

Man: Evolution, Antiquity

In your September 14 issue on Christianity and Science you have done us all and the kingdom of God a real service.…

First Baptist Church

Ashton, Md.

Reading the two articles by Walter E. Lammerts and Albert Hyma was like reading an eighteenth-century report on evolution, or perhaps even a throwback to the sixteenth. However, they were wonderful and timely examples of a traditional religious prejudice against natural science.…

Examples of this war between religion and science could go on ad infinitum; suffice to say that the Church is not infallible. We dare not take a supercilious attitude, assuming that Christianity has a monopoly on correct answers. When the Church ceases to be objective, it ceases to have the truth.

Evolution is yet a sensitive subject … and indeed the scientists have many problems which require prolonged research. However, this is not to be taken as some kind of aerial signal flare by the Church to commence a blind unintelligible attack upon evolution by calling it “pure fiction” (Hyma, p. 8).

I do not mean to infer that natural science is infallible, or that it dictate to the Church how Scripture should be interpreted. However, surely we must examine natural science objectively—before we storm off “halfcocked”—and then re-examine our own exegesis of the passage in question. There has been more than one inaccurate exegesis. Perhaps it is the task of natural science to keep theology alert.…

Rochester, Pa.

We are grateful to you for this timely discussion of the important question of evolution and its implications.

There seems to be a resurgence of the teaching of creation by evolution clear down to the first grades in our schools. We need truth, not hypothesis. Most scientists admit that evolution is not a proved fact.… However, they present it to the children as if it were fact.

Evidence of design in the world is marvelous indeed. I regret that the doctors’ textbooks in medical school are so inclined to the evolutionary view.

Brookfield, Mo.

One of the unfortunate, but probably necessary characteristics of our present state of learning is specialization. In Christian thinking we see this often graphically illustrated in articles dealing with the general subject of science and Scripture. All too frequently we see this in the case of the theologian unversed in science, or the well-meaning scientist ignorant of biblical theology who tries to “prove the Bible by science” or otherwise relate the two areas of knowledge. Occasionally specialization becomes evident when the scientist who is expert in one field attempts to relate some other field of his mild acquaintance with the Word of God. Such, I believe, is true in the instance of the article “Is Evolutionary Theory Valid?” by Walter E. Lammerts. One could not doubt that Dr. Lammerts is a leading authority in certain aspects of botany. It is to my thinking doubtful whether “careful field study during many vacations since 1936” qualifies a botanist to upset the basic foundations of modern geology any more than many summers growing roses qualifies a geologist to upset the foundations of modern genetics, should he feel disposed to do so. The Christian lay public does well to heed the scientist who is a Christian in the interpretation of the field in which he is expert, and proceed from that point to relate the particular area of science to the Word of God.

Science Dept.

Delaware County Christian School

Newtown Square, Pa.

I share the protest of Professor Hyma about the way evolutionary doctrines are taught in much textbook literature, especially in the social science fields. I am not sure that he has grasped the basic problem because he seems to imply that contemporary thought can be put on the basis of a pure Genesis literalism.

The basic difficulty, as it appears to me after many years of dealing directly with this problem in classes which embraced all current religious cultures, is a confusion of “scientific fact” with metaphysical implications. Evolution is not a fact, but a working hypothesis, and furthermore it is not even a hypothesis about causes or values. But to say, “It actually is still pure fiction,” is a semantic error also.

I am in doubt that Professor Hyma sees this distinction and its implications. Once this analysis is established the ground is cleared for theology, for theology is not based on a time claim, but on the revelation of a divine act. I am not saying that the evolutionary hypothesis furnishes no problems, but they are not insuperable, even from the point of view of a Calvinist doctrine of original sin, which, incidentally, is not literally stated in Genesis.

I deplore, with Dr. Hyma, the contemporary relativism in ethical values, but the problem is much too complicated to be assessed against the doctrine of evolution.

Dept. of Philosophy

Cornell College

Mount Vernon, Iowa

If a local inundation, what need for animals, and especially birds, in the ark?… [Also] does evolution from the animal make man an animal any more than growth from a baby makes one a baby?

Los Angeles, Calif.

The articles … on Christianity and science are very timely. I teach world history, and will present parts of Dr. Lammerts’ article to my students in connection with our study of the beginnings of history. No doubt I will take some parts of Hyma’s article also.…

Canton, Ohio

It is my strong conviction that thirty years of progressive education, and thirty years of teaching youngsters that they are descended from apes, has brought America to the point where self-respect and respect for one’s fellow man and reverence for God have almost entirely disappeared from our social order.…

Vidor, Tex.

May I place an order for a dozen copies of [the] issue. In my tattered book it is the best you’ve produced.…

Menlo Park, Calif.

The very excellent articles entitled “How Early is Man?” and “A Great Unfinished Task” … represent truly first-rate thinking about setting up a dialogue between science and religion, whereas the articles by Drs. Lammerts and Hyma … are obscurantist and completely irrelevant to anyone who is interested in relating scientific to religious truth.

First Presbyterian Church and Westminister Foundation

Annapolis, Md.

Thank you for printing Professor Wilson’s very provocative article, “How Early is Man?” Orthodoxy hinders the cause of the Gospel whenever it gives the impression that the infallibility of Scripture implies a specific answer to the question of human antiquity.

Prof. of Ethics and

Philosophy of Religion

Fuller Theological Seminary

Pasadena, Calif.

I am somewhat disturbed by the article.… He contends that the Bible is not chronologically correct and that the age of man is probably older than we have always thought. I am only a layman, but I looked up the references and I certainly cannot see it his way.…

Westphalia, Kan.

Whether Adam was created instantly, or whether his development took millions of years, is not really important. The blueprint of his creation is not given in the book of Genesis. It may be written in the rocks and fossils of the earth. Time is nothing to Jehovah. The image of God is spirit, for God is spirit. We are spiritual beings. Our duty is to serve Him, not to engage in endless disputes over personal opinions.…

Harlingen, Tex.

Why are we so anxious to include the Zinjanthropus animal and his friends into our human family?…

Clearly a definition of man must be related to the image of God, particularly in the area of man’s spiritual relationship to God. The evidence of this fact appears most dramatically in three ways.

1. Man has an awareness of life after death in his heart.…

2. Man has a subconscious or conscious uneasiness about his sins.…

3. Man must worship God. He may argue unconvincingly with himself, as the atheist today and the fool of the Scriptures (“there is no God”), but this only proves his created relationship to God.…

If the above is true, an early fossil may definitely be called man only [with] evidence of one of these three conditions.… All other fossils must be placed in the animal kingdom because of lack of positive evidence of God’s image within them.…

Alameda, Calif.

Genes of apes cannot ever yield man. Zinjanthropus is … ape.

Canterbury, Conn.

Marilyn Monroe

L. Nelson Bell’s “Sinning—and Sinned Against” re Marilyn Monroe (Aug. 31 issue) contained much truth, but some of it was of the trite variety such as the secular press has been gurgling and slobbering out. No Christian would question that it was a pity this woman lived the kind of life that she did, nor that she had many handicaps, nor that she was exploited. But to imply that she never had a chance is going too far. Sorrowful as we must be in Christian love to so state, the fact remains that she was an evil woman who did have a million chances.… If she was exploited, she did some exploiting too—I understand she left half a million dollars out of her exploitation of carnality. I don’t think there was ever a moment when she could not have broken a legal contract for sin and turned to decency and, if necessary, obscurity.…

This is not to minimize Christian love, nor is it to imply that society is not sinful and evil or that commercial exploiters are not hideously rotten. But sin and all evil goes back to the individual.

Memphis, Tenn.

A national magazine carried an article about her, in which she stated that she was not free to talk with anyone she wished.

After reading [L. Nelson Bell’s] article, I was reminded of the Apostle Paul, in Acts 16:16–19: “And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying: The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour. And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers”.…

I feel we fail as Christians to pray for those who are being held in bondage today.… May God help us as Christians to move over into the book of Acts.

Alexandria, Minn.

Revelation

Re “Karl Barth” (Eutychus, Aug. 3 issue): the orthodox view of revelation does not eliminate personal encounter with God as a vital factor in revelation. It simply affirms that this is only half the truth. In the Bible we encounter the person, and also learn facts about Him. John says, “And hereby we know that we know him” (1 John 2:3). Again, the same writer addresses believers as “all those who know the truth” (2 John 1). Divine truth is revelation. To John revealed truth and personal encounter are inseparably wed. Paul … could say, “which (thing) in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit” (Eph. 3:5; 1 Cor. 2:10). Revelation is both personal encounter with the living God and the means to that end, the body of truth found in the Scriptures.

Does not the author of Hebrews ignore the human instrument and attribute to Scripture the quality of being directly spoken by the Holy Spirit—“even as says the Holy Spirit” (Heb. 3:7; 10:15)? Certainly, whatever the Spirit speaks is truth and revelation. What better way, I should like to ask, is there for persons to reveal themselves than through words. Could words spoken by the Holy Spirit not be revelatory words? Could they be fallible words?

The record of revelatory events alone is insufficient to guide depraved minds into the truth. Event must have interpretation. Did not our Lord reveal himself to man by both his word and his person? Why did Christ spend forty days teaching (inspired teaching) after his resurrection if event was sufficient alone? We must have the means of revelation (the event) but also the meaning. With this concept in hand, our attention is directed to the exegesis of the text, wherein alone is there deliverance from hopeless subjectivity.

Dallas, Tex.

Lord, Teach Us

Needed, bold and clear is Prof. Roark’s article (“Lord, Teach Us To Pray!”, July 6 issue). Addressed to laymen it is, but needed by many an evangelical minister. Lecturing our students on real substance in suitable form for public prayer I find most difficult, but rewarding.

Central Baptist Seminary

Dean Toronto, Canada

Versions And Aversions

For some time I have sensed a conviction that there are being imposed upon present-day readers of the Bible too many versions.

There seems to be no end of these new offerings with their much paraded benefits and values. As a result, listeners of sermons from many pulpits are compelled to hear quotations read from an increasing number of recommended versions of the Scriptures.

One sometimes finds himself wondering about the motives which are prompting this quite unusual list of Bible versions, with their “Helps” of various kinds. Are the motives those of genuine helpfulness, or of varied doctrinal promotion, assertion of leadership, etc.? Or are the motives purely mercenary? In some instances, it is not a “new version,” but a well-known and generally-accepted version with notes and interpretations with very definite bias and slants.

There is a very subtle psychology about notes printed in Bible editions. The uneducated and less thoughtful person fails to distinguish between what is printed in the Bible itself, and what is printed in the notes on the same page. Thus the average reader is unconsciously influenced by notes printed on the pages of the Bible which he reads. It has been my practice to advise against the use of Bibles with notes. This advice has been based upon general principles, even though many good things have been printed as “Helps” in Bible versions. References are, of course, useful.

One of the most recent, and even most subtle of offerings in Bible versions is under the caption of “Amplified New Testament,” “Amplified Old Testament,” or some such catchy title. It is surprising how gullible people are, and how many otherwise capable advisers and popular leaders fall for almost any new thing, and allow their names to be attached to enthusiastic commendations of new offerings.

What is done in the “Amplified” publications which I have examined is this: In the instance of the New Testament, the authors have sought to explain or “amplify” the passages by lining up the various possible synonyms of the particular Greek word employed from which the reader may take his choice. Here is an illustration:

As recorded in John 17:17 in our Lord’s upper-room prayer for his immediate apostles and all future believers, he prays, according to the King James Version, the American Standard Version and even the Revised Standard Version, “sanctify them.” The authors here also translate “sanctify them,” and then follow with the words and phrases: “purify, consecrate, separate them for Yourself, make them holy.”

This leaves the reader to choose for himself the word or the phrase he prefers, or thinks the best translation. Instead of helping the reader who does not know the Greek, and cannot go for himself to the Greek text for information, it confuses him or drives him to a guess or a prejudiced choice.

This is exactly what a helpful Bible version should not do—drive a reader to a choice for which he is not prepared. A Bible version should do for the reader what he cannot do—provide for him a trusted, accurate translation of what the original really says.

The instance just cited could be repeated hundreds of times. It is readily seen that so-called helps become hindrances—instead of help there is left confusion.

Dr. A. W. Tozer has recently illustrated such Bible amplification by taking the little poem “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” and practicing amplification on the poem by doing the same thing which has been done in the so-called New Testament “amplification.” The results on the poem are ridiculous, but no more so than when such amplification is practiced on the Bible, and with much less serious results.

What a Bible reader should do is to adopt a dependable, accurate version of the Bible, in which the best of reverent scholarship has placed at his fingertips a trustworthy text which he need have no fear of following.

This writer has employed the King James Version from his childhood and from which he has committed to memory a number of whole chapters and Psalms, and still loves it. Despite its imperfections, which all translations have, and its archaism of expression, it is still a great version. The most accurate English version of the Bible ever made, in the judgment of this writer who has taught Greek New Testament and English Bible for almost fifty years, is the American Standard Version (ASV).

Winona Lake, Ind.

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