Peter Witkowski Apologetics

Why The Story of the Ark Matters

flood-1.pngIn a somewhat surprising turn of events, sectors of the Christian world are teaching that the great Flood of Genesis is a poetic story. Because the story does not coincide with Darwinian evolution, theologians have found the historicity of the story to be problematic. Now modern thinkers are calling on all Christians to embrace their viewpoint. Because, “The exact nature or date of this historical flood is not important to the meaning of the Genesis account” the creators of the website Biologos believe Christians should move on and claim the academic high-ground of science.

By writing off Noah as a fantasy, theologians believe they are strengthening the Christian faith.  The co-producer and director of the Russel’ Crowe’s Noah, Darren Aronofsky said, “If you look at it as poetry and myth and legend, then you can actually use it to understand your world and who you are.”  Doctor Joel S. Baden agreed writing that, “The power of the Flood story…is in what it tells us about humanity’s relationship with God.”

The beauty of Noah is not found in the historical story but in modern man’s interpretation of the story. By leaving the history of the story behind, theologians, producers, and academics are not strengthening the Bible, they undermining its very foundation. The theologian that can freely deny the flood can and will freely deny the power of the cross. The salvation depicted in Genesis parallels the salvation depicted in Matthew. If one has to be jettisoned for moderns to find the Bible useful, then the other will quickly follow.

When the history of the Bible sinks beneath the surface, people can draw any and ever conclusion from the Noah narrative. They are free to paint happy pictures of salvation complete with cute giraffes poking their heads out of the Ark. They are also free to create storylines from the narrative that demonize humanity complete with images of Noah doing drugs.

Instead of casting off the historicity of the Bible, Christians should embrace the Genesis account as historical fact. Ken Ham has recently demonstrated with the creation of the Ark Encounter that Noah cold have built and survived a worldwide flood on an ark built according to the dimensions of Genesis. Moreover, Christ pointed to Genesis as historical fact in Matthew 24:37-39. Christians must follow their savior. They must embrace the Ark narrative as true because it proclaims the gospel.

The Bad News

Creation-Museum-Joel-KramerWe must affirm the story of the Ark because the story proclaims that all men and women are evil sinners worthy of judgement. The story of Noah begins with a great sense of foreboding.

After Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden,  humanity devolved into chaos. Men and women went from lying to murdering and then to boasting of their murders. The great grandson of Cain boasts , “I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me” (Gen 4:23). Not surprisingly God looks down and declares,

“I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and bird of the heavens for I am sorry that I have made them.” And a little later on God tells Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them.” (Gen 6:5-13).

Humanity divorced from God is not evolving. Society is devolving into a violent chaos and deserves death. The story clearly proclaims that the wages of sin is death. Men and women are not autonomous. They are not self-sufficient. The people in Noah’s day perished for their sins.

But modern men and women should not suppose that they have evolved past the evils of Noah. Jesus tells his audience in Mathew 24:37-39

 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark,  and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

The hard hearts that were present in Noah’s day are present now and will be present when Christ returns. According to 2 Peter 2:5, Noah preached the gospel just as Jesus did and as thousands of faithful men and women continue to do. People reject God not because they lacked access to truth. They rejected God because they did not want to follow him.

Modern people find the doctrine of sin and judgement troubling. Commenting on the story of Noah and on the Ark Encounter, blogger Alexis Misra wrote,

I do not believe that the story of Noah’s ark happened as depicted in the Bible, but even so, the story makes me almost nauseous. The staggering death toll that occurred according to the Bible was enough to make me, a certified skeptic, ill.

She finds the Ark troubling because she cannot imagine why God would subject the world to this holocaust like event. Consequently, she must deny the Ark because she wishes to affirm the goodness of humanity. To admit that God was a righteous judge would be to admit that humanity is sinful and in need of saving. She denies the flood as fact because she denies the gospel.

As redeemed sinners, Christians must affirm the truthfulness of the Flood account because the Gospel is true. Jesus has come, died, and risen. Noah built an Ark, the flood came, and Noah walked out on dry land. If we deny the Flood, we justify sinfulness.

The Good News

c0a361a96c4cbbd694dd6b8ebd76ef193b5370c25b58574185d4c0fe.jpg.404x268_q85Thankfully, Christians do not have to do this. They do not have to be ashamed of the story of Noah’s Flood. The narrative does not begin with sin and end with death. The story is not defined by images of “desperation and horror.” The great news of the Noah account is that God made a way of escape for his people. God created a covenant with Noah. God told Noah to build an Ark (Gen 6:14-18). He provided Noah with the dimensions and with the animals necessary to preserve life on earth. God saved humanity.

The specifics of the plan reveal that God did not view the Ark to be metaphorical. God judged real men and women and saved real men and women and animals on a real boat. God saved Noah faults and all because his son would one day perish for Noah.

Although Noah was a righteous man who faithfully followed God even when the whole world was quite literally against him, Noah was not the perfect savior that humanity needed.

Shortly after God sets the rainbow in the sky, Noah gets drunk (Gen 9:13-23). Noah fell into sin. He is not alone; his children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and so one continue to make a mess of things. Sin once again begins to dominate the world. Although humanity is perilously undependable, God is faithful. He never reneges on his promise to flood the world again. Rather, he does an even greater thing. He sends his son.

Jesus comes as the perfect savior to rescue us from our sins. Though we deserve to die in the floodwaters of eternal judgement, Jesus dies in our place. He goes to the cross; he jumps out of the Ark and takes our place in the waters of death so that we might have life in the kingdom of God. This is the great news of the gospel and of Noah: God saves. The salvation that was available to Noah is available to all of us because God has paid for our sin.

Final Thoughts

If Christians write off the Ark as a fanciful tale for children, they will essentially write of the gospel. They will deny the reality of humankind’s sinfulness and of God’s free offer of salvation based on Jesus’s work on the cross. A humankind that did not perish in the flood is a humankind that is still self-sufficient, that is still able to work their way to heaven, and that is still free from submission to their creator. But this is not the message of the gospel. To maintain the integrity of the Bible, we must believe that Genesis is a true historical book. There is no other way forward.

Are you ready to stand by the Ark revealed in scripture?

Peter Witkowski Apologetics

Should I Talk To JW’s And Mormons?

mormonsThe doorbell rings. As the last chimes echo off our living room walls, our heart begins to flutter, because we have caught a glimpse of our soon-to-be guest. If we open the door, we will be face to face with a Mormon, a Jehovah Witness, or another cult member intent on spreading ‘another gospel.’ With just seconds to go, we must make a decision. We know our God is a God of truth and that the truth will set us free. But, we also know that the missionary on our doorstep is probably much more knowledgeable about religion than we are. Thus, we feel a very real tension. We fear that we could do damage to the Gospel by either ducking into the back bedroom or by inviting the cult member into our home.

Thankfully as with all topics, the Scriptures speak to this issue with clarity. We do not have to worry about what we should do or should have done. The Bible tells us explicitly what to do when false teachers ring our doorbell. We lock our door. In 2 John 10-11, we read,

“If anyone comes to your and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.”

There is a line of demarcation when it comes to cults and churches. We are to embrace those embrace Jesus as their savior and to reject all who reject God. John labels the person who denies the deity of Christ and Jesus’ saving work on the cross as “the deceiver and the Antichrist.” The images of Left Behind aside, I do not think any of us would want THE Antichrist in our homes. We would not invite him in to eat a cookie and to share some lemonade. And, we should not welcome little anti-Christs into our home. Jehovah witnesses are not just confused; they are deadly. To associate with them is to risk are very spiritual well-being.

We will gain nothing from arguing with false teachers and prophets except perhaps an inflated since ego. Most likely, our reasoning will not convince them because the Holy Spirit has darkened the eyes and minds of the false teachers standing on our door step. We can do nothing to win them to true faith. And we are not called to be their savior. Jesus is. And the false teachers have already rejected the one true God. For this reason, Paul echoes John writing,

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.

We have nothing in our biblical message that appeals to the false prophets, but they have plenty of errors that appeal to our fallen nature. We share their sinful appetites. Instead of feeding our appetites, wisdom demands that we flee from sin. As Paul writes again in 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Do not be deceived: ‘“Bad company ruins good morals.”’

Instead of welcoming false teachers into our home, the Gospel demands that we give false missionaries the cold shoulder. In so doing, we proclaim that Jesus is the way the truth and the life. We proclaim that they are in error. We proclaim through our actions that we value the one true Gospel above all else. Our rejection of is not harsh or unloving. Remember Paul’s words from Galatians 1:9:

As we have said before, so I now say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to one you received, let him be accursed.

According to the ancient writer and theologian, Irenaeus, the apostle John once encountered a famous heretic in a Roman bathhouse. Instead of greeting the man and reasoning with him over the Gospel, John turned around and ran out of the building, exclaiming, “Let us fly, lest even the bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of truth, is within.”

If the apostle John fled from false teachers, who are we to invite them in to our homes?

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

We Are Not The Heroes Of This Spiritual Battle

arogorn.pngWhen young men and women ponder the Christian life, images of Aragorn leading his army of men and elves to destroy the evil kingdom of orcs and trolls comes to mind. Others drift towards ideas of Luke Skywalker nibbling handling his Starfighter as he destroys the Death Stat. Still others think of the brave allied soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy overcoming tough weather conditions and deadly German gun fire. Others imagine Joan of Arc boldly riding in front of the French lines as they prepared to fight the British Knights. And some dream of when Constantine lead his army to victory after embracing the symbol of the cross.

joan-of-arc-1 (1)There will be a day when this Christian desire will be our reality. When Christ returns, we will march behind the king who is seated upon his white stead. We will watch him as he vanquishes all evil in the last battle of history. But that future reality is not our current reality.

Christ has not called young men and women to change the world by leading armies and fighting grand battles. The Christian life is not one of personal aggrandizement. No one is called to be a metaphorical general for God. We are called to be servants.
To be a follower of Christ is not to march boldly in front of colorful banners snapping in the wind. To be a follower of Christ is to walk to the back of the line to care for the homeless, to change a baby’s diaper, and to hold the hand of the grieving senior adult. The gospel does not go forward through great human accomplishment but through great human sacrifice. The gospel triumphs when we come to an end of ourselves and our desire to be known by all. The gospel triumphs when we are willing to sacrifice all for our spouse, our children, and our neighbor so that they might encounter Jesus while no one else watches.

As we think back to Jim Elliot and to the many other martyrs who died expanding the gospel, we see men and women far away from the imaginary front lines of the Christian fight sacrificing everything for their murders. They are famous not because they sought fame. They are famous because they died alone, forsaken, and abused so that you and I and millions of others might know Christ. This is the crux of being a Christian. This is how we lively boldly for Christ. We die for others having only an audience of one, the Christ child who died for us.

Jesus put it this way:

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great one exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among. But whoever would be great among you must be the servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. – Matt 20:25-28

Admittedly, this goes against our nature. We young millennials and generation Z (which is coming up quickly) long to be known and made much of. We would happily do something heroic for Christ such as climb mount Everest or win a national championship or create a fortune five hundred company. We would happily be known in the world for our faith. But, we are not the heroes of this battle. Jesus is

And the pastor, theologian, and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoefferr said,

The Church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servant of Jesus and the brethren. 

If we are to be known by God, we cannot charge ahead of Jesus to secure our glorious victory. Rather, we step behind him and go serve. Jesus demonstrated his greatness and love by denying dishonorably on the cross. If we are to be his followers, we must follow his example.

Are you ready to lay down the banner of heroism and serve?