How about taking a poll in Jersey so as to find the answer to two major questions: “Why are things as they are? What is the matter with our world?”
Do you have any ideas about the answers that would be given?
From all that is at present bombarding us in the media, in the books that are promoted and in “scientific” writing, it seems that the most popular answer would go something like this. “Mankind has evolved from apes and from dogs and from fish and from a primeval slime. Mankind is making progress. We haven’t arrived but things are better than they were and will get better yet as mankind learns that he depends on others.”
Next in popularity in Jersey might be the answer put forward in the Bible (see bold above). “Mankind was created perfect by a holy LORD God and placed in an earth and a universe that, when completed, could be called “paradise”. But mankind chose its own way rather than fellowship with its creator. And the rest is history....”
Let’s call these T (for theory) 1 and T2. For centuries T2 was the most popular. Things have changed.
But T2 actually contains two pictures of reality. The first is a picture of perfection – no evil, no death, no illness, beauty, fruitfulness – and the second a picture of misery – self-seeking competition leading to harm, argument, stress, sickness, war, and death.
Looking at Jersey folk today, can you see both of these pictures of reality?
Can you see the original fantastic abilities of every person – like sight, hearing, verbal comprehension, quantitative ability, spatial awareness, awareness of the passing of time (not seen in any animal), care for others, a moral compass within, a desire for justice and righteousness.
And the question comes back, T1 or T2? Are these wonderful things of evolutionary origin – T1? Or are they the residue of a creation completed by the breathing of God’s life into human beings – a creation of which the Bible says that the Creator God “saw that it was very good”?
The second picture within T2 is of mankind after his decision to do himself good above all else. This is a decision, the Bible says, that is endorsed by every new born babe. Perhaps the historic climax of the “me first” T2 decisions has been the Second World War – a war to gain total global authority. But is worse to follow?
Maybe the closest individual expression of that T2 decision in Jersey today is the number of people who love Frank Sinatra’s song, “I did it MY way.”
The T2 paradigm is illustrated in the words in bold above. Are these ancient words verifiable in Jersey today? (They date back to 1300 BC at the very least and preserved in the national archives of the Jews since then and are now reprinted in every Christian Bible.)
Take a careful look.
Do you want fellowship with the LORD God?
If there is a garden on earth that is approximately “paradise” Jersey must come close. But do you want fellowship?
The man and his wife were hiding from the garden maker and their maker.
Where did they hide? Well, amongst the trees of course. They hid amongst the things that the LORD God had made (like nature, science, communications, energy, steel, cars), including the living things (like pets and gardens and friends of like mind). Many hiding places....
What do you think? T1 or T2. Give reasons. |
