Have you ever found it thought-provoking what hangs people up in the word of God? For some, they can’t quite believe in a virgin birth. For others, it’s the idea of a 6-day creation. Still some stall out at the idea of characters in Genesis living for a really long time.
What I find curious is I’ve never heard anyone question how we’re going to be turned from dust in the ground to a newly resurrected body when Jesus comes back. (1 Thess 4:16 – For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.) Now that is amazing! One blast from God’s trumpet and particles of dead flesh, in different stages of decay, will reassemble in a split second. I love to picture that scene. It’s a different version of God speaking order into chaos at creation. The power in God’s words doesn’t penetrate my everyday thoughts. I don’t marvel enough.
At a more mundane level, an application for me these days is to remind myself not to fret if material things are wearing out, like the wallpaper that is beginning to peal in my kitchen. Or even my 52-year old skin. As a red-headed child, I blithely lay out in the sun . Now the skin damage is visible. Oh well! Who cares about the wallpaper. But I’m thankful that I will get a new body. I wonder what I’ll look like!
Reflections on God's Word 
Dec 02, 2009 @ 15:07:06
Our wallpaper is peeling?? Heavens!
I think the reason people don’t get hung up on how the resurrection can take place yet can be bothered by worldwide floods, 900-year-old people and a six day creation is that all these things ocurred in the past and have a parallel narrative in the scientific literature that is at odds with a literal reading of Scripture. THis is not the case with the Second Coming and the resurrection of the dead, which has yet to happen.
So it is the cognitive dissonance between two different epistemologies that causes the problem for many people, including some devout, believing Christians.
Dec 02, 2009 @ 16:37:43
Good point, I hadn’t thought of it in that context. But why can’t one do some backward thinking? if we trust Jesus in what he (who is God) says he will do, then why can’t we trust that what his word says he did is true, even though we can’t at this point in time reconcile the tangible evidence we have?