Concise Answers to Your Crucial Questions Part 3 of 3

Last June (1995) we asked our readers to submit examples of the kind of tough questions that they are typically asked about Christianity. We received a good sampling of questions on a wide variety of topics from all across America. In this issue we are publishing the second in a series of those questions, along with our very best effort at providing a simple response to each. Simple, snappy answers would perhaps not always be the best answers if time and space limitations were not a factor in today's world-but they are. And the sound-bite that gets heard may be preferable to the longer answer that doesn't- at least so long as accuracy is not compromised. With that in mind, we invite you to read on. Question #5 FROM DEERFIELD, ILLINOIS: "If God  wants everyone saved, why have so few people   ever heard the Gospel?" ANSWER: First off, more people may have heard the Gospel than you realize. Jesus' promise that the Gospel will be preached in all the world before the end comes is not so far from becoming a reality in these closing years of the 20th century. And John the Revelator wrote that in Heaven there will be some from every tribe and people and tongue and nation. Of course, if the Church would give proper priority to its commission, this process would be even more effectively enhanced. But even where the Gospel has never been preached God has given men a general revelation of Himself through nature and conscience. And keep in mind that God will never judge anyone for what they have not heard-only for what they have not done with what they have heard. "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come." -Jesus Christ, Matthew 24:14 Question #6 FROM STONINGTON, CONNECTICUT: "Why does evil, in all of its forms, exist?" ANSWER: Moral, physical, and metaphysical evil all seem to somehow stem from God's decision to endow the human and angelic orders with the capacity to choose, even when that choice is against Him, His will, and His way-the essence of evil. But allowing the possibility of evil is not the same as actually creating evil. God did not create evil. "Seek good and not evil, that you may live." Amos 5:14 Question #7 FROM SOUTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA: "Did Noah take on board his ark two of every kind (Genesis 6:19-20), or seven of every kind (Gen. 7:2-3)?" ANSWER: Two of all and seven of some, i.e. 'clean' beasts-one for sacrifice (Gen 8:20), and three pairs to encourage greater proliferation and genetic variety. ________________________________________________ "Marrying evolution to creationism subverts the perspicuity of Scripture." ________________________________________________ Question #8 FROM WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA: "Isn't it plausible that God created a plan for life and then just allowed it to develop following the evolutionary process (by design)?" ANSWER: Plausible is defined as "apparently valid; giving a deceptive impression of truth; specious." And against the backdrop of today's evolutionary mind set, such a scenario as you pose may indeed be considered plausible. But it clearly subverts the perspicuity of Scripture and raises more problems than it 'solves'. The Genesis account repeatedly states that all living things reproduced after their kind, not mutant kinds. Attempting to 'marry' evolution to creation doctrine leads to other unBiblical conjecture, i.e. death before Adam, 'soulless hominids', uniformitarianism. Evolutionary theory itself teeters on such a thin wire evidentially-why not just accept the fact that the God of miracles said what He meant and meant what He said when He related the miracle of origins in Genesis 1-3? "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them..." -Exodus 20:11