The Dangers Lurking Behind Scriptural Compromise

Let’s begin with a question. When you strongly believe that someone has lied to you, does that affect your relationship with them? Think about it. Does a bit of doubt slip into your mind when they tell you something that sounds kind of unrealistic? Sometimes what they say may even seem plausible, but you’ve found holes in their stories before, so how do you know, really know, that this new story is the whole truth? This scenario could be experienced with a wide variety of sources – people we know, people we know of, politicians, news channels, social media pages or groups, magazines, websites, books, authors, the police, the ‘system’, the Bible…

“Whoa, surely not the Bible?” may have been the response of many Christians to this seemingly out-of-place statement. Yet, there are thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands or more, of Christians who don’t believe everything in the Bible, and they’re okay with it. They shouldn’t be. Scriptural compromise can lead us down a slippery slope when we get to choose which parts of the Bible we believe and which we don’t.

Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil. (Proverbs 4:25-27)

…my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. “Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children. (Hosea 4:6)

But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. (2 Peter 3:5-6)

Perhaps some Christians need to be reminded of the utmost importance of total allegiance and submission to the authority of God’s Word.

You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God … (Deuteronomy 4:2).

Every word of God proves true; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you and you be found a liar. (Proverbs 30:5-6)

For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. (Matthew 5:18‎)

—and Scripture cannot be broken—(John 10:35b)‎

What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though everyone were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.” (Romans 3:3-4‎)

Let’s also not forget the warning of dire consequences to anyone who ‘adjusts’ the words given by God.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel– not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:6-8)

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. ‎(Colossians 2:8)‎

O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” for by professing it some have swerved from the faith… (1 Timothy 6:20-21)

… just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. (2 Peter 3:15-17)

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. (Revelation 22:18-19)

One of the topics that many Christians compromise on most commonly is the story of creation as described in Genesis. They are quick to dismiss the literal understanding of Genesis upon learning the theory of evolution.

Henry M. Morris III¹ wrote in his 2001 article The Dangers Of Compromise² “Yet today, even among the core of evangelicals… there are voices of Christian men and women who are questioning the most basic and foundational revealed truth in Scripture that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). And not merely questioning the curious mechanics and unique events of the creation week, but debating the very words and message of that week.”

Some attempt to marry the theory of evolution and the Bible by ‘crediting’ God with using evolution in His creation process. However, let’s see if this alignment between the Bible and evolution is possible.

Firstly, Romans 5:12 says: Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—. The words Paul used here in the original Greek imply that before Adam (and Eve) sinned by disobeying a direct, unambiguous command from God, there was no death. The theory of evolution requires that everything dies, and must die, so that only the strongest may survive… and then die themselves to make way for the newer, “improved” version.

Secondly, the very nature and character of God is called to question when “attributing to Him the evil, wasteful, chaotic, … death-filled processes of evolutionary ‘creation’…” (Morris 2001).

And this leads us to another disconcerting practice that has evolved, so to speak. There have been Christian scholars and theologians who have tried to ‘mould’ the Word of God to align with what evolutionists have claimed to be ‘scientific facts’. They are guiding their followers and students down the slippery slope of compromise mentioned previously. If Genesis doesn’t mean what it says, then if some parts contained in Scripture aren’t true, then surely its teachings can be untrue as well?

Here are some ways that some Christians try to compromise the Bible to mould with evolution:

– The Framework Hypothesis – the belief that Genesis 1 is more ‘poetic’ than a historical narrative. It’s not to be taken literally but is actually a figurative story which reveals that God made everything without actually saying how it was done.

– Theistic Evolution – there are two viewpoints here. According to the first view, God created the natural laws with the eventual emergence of life in mind. However, early on He stepped back and let His creation take over. He let it do what it was designed to do, and life eventually emerged from non-living material. The second view is that God performed constant miracles to bring about the origin of life as we know it. According to this view, He led life step by step down a path from primaeval simplicity to contemporary complexity. This view is similar to Darwin’s evolutionary tree of life but with God’s intervention taking the place of directing mutation and natural selection.³

– The Gap Theory – the belief that there’s a very long span of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. The world that existed during this gap was destroyed, and God recreated it in the six days described in Genesis. This allows evolution and all the other theories to take place within that ‘gap’ and after this, God stepped in and demolished and then recreated the world.

– The Day-Age Theory – this is a belief that the “days” spoken of in the first chapter of Genesis are consecutive stages and not literal, 24-hour days. Each ‘day’ is thought to represent a much longer period of time, such as a million, or even more, years.⁴ (Although this theory poses many problems considering the order in which God created things.)

These are only 4 of the best-known explanations by Christians who were taken off guard by evolution. This happened because they wanted to harmonize our understanding of the Bible with what appears to be overwhelming “scientific evidence” of a “very old” earth.

The intentions of the founders of these theories were honourable, but they made a vital error. They believed the flawed research findings that point to an ancient world/universe. They thought that they needed to provide a way for both the Bible and “science” to be correct, by compromising on the inerrancy of the Bible, instead of questioning the accuracy of the science behind the ancient-Earth theories. We’re not saying there’s a problem with science–and we acknowledge that our understanding of the Bible can be incorrect at times, but we shouldn’t be moved by false science. If a scientific discovery is based on actual and reliable data following an objective scientific method, it would add information that could reshape our understanding of an inerrant Bible.

As Christians we are called to

“destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,” (2 Corinthians 10:5) in order to “no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:14), (Morris 2001).

The age of the earth and evolution have not been completely settled by irrefutable evidence. For example, some research being done today is showing extensive evidence of a young Earth. Scientists worldwide are finding more and more holes in this ancient universe, Darwinism theories using actual scientific methods. These are academics in various scientific fields – biologists, geologists, archaeologists, palaeontologists, etc. – searching for the truth. “There is more “proof” of the veracity of Scripture in history, archaeology, and ‎science than at any other time. More work has been done and published than ever before!” (Morris 2001)

You will find more content on why evolution is a hypothesis and how intelligent design makes for a far better theory in our articles below:

Fortunately, there are still plenty of Christians and churches that believe and hold fast to the Scriptures – thousands and thousands of them. It is our prayer and hope that those who have compromised their faith by trying to fit the Scriptures into a flawed ‘scientific’ mould, would be able to see the truths currently being revealed through pure untainted science and realise that the Bible is, has been, and always will be the inerrant Word of God.

References:

Dr Henry Morris III was the Executive Vice President of the Institute for Creation Science, and held four earned degrees, including a D.Min. from Luther Rice Seminary and the Presidents and Key Executives MBA from Pepperdine University.
Citation: Henry M. Morris III, D.Min. 2001. The Dangers Of Compromise. Acts & Facts. 30 (7).
Citation: ‘What Is Theistic Evolution?’, GotQuestions.org, accessed 13 September 2023, https://www.gotquestions.org/theistic-evolution.html
Citation: ‘What Is the Day-Age Theory?’, GotQuestions.org, accessed 13 September 2023, https://www.gotquestions.org/Day-Age-Theory.html