May 22-23, 2021
From the Pastor’s Desk: Pastor Mark Liu
Hello, brothers and sisters. It is my pleasure to share the word of God through this article. I recently received a book, written by a sister of RCAC, about the book of Revelation. I am very excited and encouraged to read such a well written book. The content inside gave me a lot of inspirations. In particular, the author John included the prophecies in the book for a purpose, and that is to prepare us as our Lord Jesus will come again. We need to be better prepare ourselves and the time is near.
When we read God’s Word, we must always remind ourselves that God’s Word has a purpose, and one of its purposes is to let us know Him, not just know Him, but know Him well.
Speaking of knowing God, Psalm 19:1-2 appeared in my mind: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. 2 Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.” In this verse, David told us that the heavens and the sky declare and proclaim the Glory of God. In other words, God is the one who created everything. But today, many people may have accepted the theory of evolution. What is taught in schools is that human beings are evolved beings. I don’t have much knowledge to analyze the views presented by evolution. However, I also recently read another book, written by an Old Testament scholar, John Walton. What he shared has inspired me a lot too, and I want to share the learnings with you here.
First, when we read Genesis, we must not forget that when Genesis was written, it was a long time ago. There is a big difference between the culture at that time and now. To understand the creation described in the first chapter of Genesis, one must have a certain understanding of the culture of the Near East. Of course I don’t have much knowledge to share with you the culture of the Near East, but if you read Genesis under the premise of the culture of the Near East, you will have a different understanding of Genesis. In short, what Genesis wants to express is the purpose of creation, not how it was created. Whether creation or evolution, the essence is to explain how things come from. But in Genesis, the content is not concerned about how things come from but what is the purpose of the creation. The focus is on the purpose of creation.
When we read the creation of the first day, we will know that the purpose of creation is to set up time. The purpose of the creation of the second day is to set up the weather. Time and weather produce the four seasons, which is the way human beings depend for their livelihood. After that, there are creatures, and the apex of creation is human being. All this is carried out in an orderly manner and with a purpose. Evolution does not know the purpose, only creation can have a purpose. Evolution is all about probability, only creation follows a certain order. Disrupting the order would mean nothing can be sustained and everything will be in chaos. Evolution does not know when to stop, only creation can. All this is telling us the fact that everything is created by God. When all created things are displayed according to the definition of the Creator, they are glorifying God. That is what Psalm 19 told us. What about us? If people want to glorify God, they must live according to God’s will, and God’s will is to rely on Him and live for Him.
When we look at God’s creation again, we will all admire the granduer of creation. And this Creator is not far away from us, but lives in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. What a wonderful mystery this is.
May God bless you all, and may God bless RCAC.
His Servant,
Pastor Mark Liu
Putonghua Ministries