There are two different but connected errors that seriously plague modern Christianity. The first is the common error throughout segments of Christianity, including among Latter-day Saints, that the Earth was created in a single week. I addressed this error and corrected it last week. The second common error is that the world approximately 6,000 to 7,000 years old. That is what this article is about. The idea that the world is only 6,000 years old, an error that has damaged the faith of tens of thousands, even millions, of people, is based on a couple of fundamental misunderstandings of the scriptures. Both have also been refuted by modern revelation starting with the Prophet Joseph Smith. In order to correct this error and demonstrate what the scriptures truly teach on this subject I will combine a proper understanding of scriptural context with modern revelation to establish what it is about the Age of the Earth that the scriptures do teach so that we Latter-day Saints will not continue to fall into the error that other Christians have.
Category: New Testament
Ancient Biblical Anarchy In The Law Of Moses
One of the most common mistakes that people make when reading the scriptures has to do with what they think it says about government. For example, most people read the stories of Saul, David, Solomon, and the succeeding kings of Judah and Ephraim as some divine endorsement of monarchy or, more generally, statism. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. All the kings of the Israelites were absolute disasters and everything after 1 Samuel 8 is the fulfillment of a warning God gives the Israelites that choosing the rule of men over His rule would be nothing but a disaster. The Old Testament is deeply anti-monarchist and anti-statist. This brings up an important question though: If God didn’t endorse kings (or the state more generally) then what kind of government does He support? What does it look like when you have God as your King? Here I answer this question while laying out what modern forms of government most closely match or best allow for God’s government to be established among His people.