Has science eliminated the need for God

Hello, and welcome to the Westside churches special Monday Morning Coffee podcast on this podcast, our preacher Mark Roberts will help you get your week started right. With look back at yesterday's sermon so that we can think through it further and better work the applications into our daily lives. Mark will then look forward into this week's Bible reading so that we can know what to expect and watch for. And, he may have some extra bonus thoughts from time to time. So grab a cup of coffee as we start the week together on Monday Morning Coffee with Mark.

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the Monday morning coffee podcast for Monday, may the ninth. I hope you are ready to think a little further about yesterday's sermon, and I hope that you are ready to get ready to do some daily Bible reading. In second Corinthians, we wanna start the week with a sharp spiritual focus, and we're doing that right now. Pour that cup of coffee and let's get started Yesterday. I preached the second sermon in our series asking for a friend and yesterday worked with a really challenging question. Has science made God unnecessary? That certainly seems to be what a lot of our culture has bought into, but I hope from yesterday, sermon, you see absolutely not. Science has certainly not run God out of business. My major points yesterday were just to notice that science and faith are not incompatible. That is not how they have been historically viewed. And that is not how they are viewed today by a ton of heavily credentialed scientists, even guys who have won the Nobel prize. So there's lots of this science and faith are at war and that is completely bogus. Don't buy into that. Well then do we need God if we have science and all this amazing technology and the answer to that is yes, we need God, because there are a lot of questions that science can't answer and will never be able to answer. And some of those are questions. Maybe that science isn't well suited to take on like, what is love or how should we live? But there are even some questions that science would like to be able to answer. And that are in the purview of science. Like if the universe is entirely random, why is everything so perfectly fine tuned for life here on this planet, science would love to take a shot at that. And they have not been able to answer that question without God. And we even talked a little bit about if the universe is so random, why are there laws of science at all? We would not expect there to be constant scientific constants, like the speed of light. Other constants that science relies upon science is all about being able to do investigation by repeating regular steps. All of that depends upon the regularity of our universe and the way it is set up to be a constant and to always function in the same way. Gravity it's the law it's always there. And a good question to ask is why is it that way? If just this giant explosion just spun everything off, randomly into space, it shouldn't be working that way. Science tell us why our world is the way it is. Well, science can't do that without talking about God without talking about an intelligent designer. Well then thirdly, I ask the question, do we need science? If we have God, and this is really an attempt to take a shot at those who want to be anti-education who want to be anti-science who have this attitude of we're not gonna trust anything the scientists say, because we're Christians, that's a step, that's a giant step in the wrong direction. That's not what the Bible wants us to do. That's not what Bible figures like Solomon did. We need to use our minds to explore all that. God reveals about himself in his word and through creation. And I counted on Psalm 19 to help me make that point. So I do have a couple of extra thoughts for you here in the podcast. Just did a ton of research for that sermon. And you end up with so much stuff on the cutting room floor. I'm glad to have a moment or two with you on Monday to just give you some more to consider and some more to think about. I was really helped in this sermon and relied a lot on a book by ransom pores, has science made God a necessary kind of stole his title? Didn't I ransom POS has a bachelor's of science from Cal tech and a PhD in molecular in cell biology and biochemistry from Boston university. I don't think this guy is exactly a dummy and he has written an excellent book on the role of faith and the role of science and how they come together in our compatible and not at ward at each other, uh, with each other. And one of the points that he makes and that I want to add is that we need to be careful when the media starts dumping science on us and starts showing us these science figures professor. So and so, and doctor so and so because sometimes, sometimes scientists, aren't very honest. They have an agenda too. Now that doesn't mean that we don't ever trust science and that we're throwing out the baby with the bath water, but we need to remember scientists are humans and humans have biases and prejudices just like you do. And just like I do, for example, he quotes a fellow Dr. Hutchinson, who just says about Christianity and considering Christianity. He says, in my limited understanding Christianity, my limited understanding of Christianity told me that being a Christian would close off a lot of options and choices and freedoms about how to live my life. And that was a major influence causing me to keep my distance and to hold Christianity at arms length. I did not want a Lord. I wanted to be my own Lord. So I did not spend too much time thinking about whether Christianity was actually true because I already knew that it was personally inconvenient and I did not much want it to be true. He has several other quotes of similar scientists who are just saying things like I want atheism to be true. And I don't want to believe in God because I want to run my own life. So just remember that when someone says we need to follow the science, okay, we'll listen to what you say. And we'll examine that critically and carefully because we realize that scientists can be justice, prejudice, and justice biased as Christians can be, which is my way of reminding us that we need to be openminded. Christians are not close minded, act 17, 11. They examine everything to see if it is true. And then finally, the last thing that I will add here is Christians need to be careful that we don't die on the wrong hill. That sometimes happens. There are some things that are associated with Christianity that are not necessarily integral to Christianity. So for example, a pastor told a fellow, unless you accept and believe that the earth and the universe are only 6,000 years old, as a literal reading of the Bible implies you cannot be a Christian. That's a quote from an article in the Washington post. That really concerns me. I think there is some good evidence for the age of the earth being young, like 10,000 years. And I am. Yeah, I, I think I'm probably in the young earth camp because I have considered that evidence, but there is also evidence for the earth and for the universe to be super, super old, like 13 billion years old. And we need to consider and think about that evidence as well. But here's the point. The Bible does not say how old the earth and the universe are. That is not explicitly given to us in scripture. And you can be a Christian and not believe in the earth being 10,000 years old. And when we make that a point of faith, we are setting up a barrier to becoming a Christian or to remaining a Christian that the Bible itself does not set up again. I'm in the young earth camp. I'm I buy into that. I think there's some really good evidence for that. I'm persuaded by that, but that is not a central point of the gospel acts 2 38 is not repent believe in a young earth and be baptized. We need to think very carefully before we are adding things to the gospel that are not part of the gospel. And sometimes some of this science, Christian science faith debate pushes us into a corner where we end up adding some things to the gospel, as we're adamantly defending the truth of creation in Genesis one and two, for example, we can end up adding some things. And again, I am thinking mostly here about the age of the earth debate that just simply are not necessarily part of Christianity. And we want to be careful about that. Like I said, pick your hill to die on carefully. I don't think that's a hill that Christians have to die on and defend at all costs. Just give that some consideration. As we continue to think about how science and faith ought to be compatible, they ought to illuminate each other. And if they're not doing that, that's not because the Bible's wrong. It's because my understanding of the Bible is wrong, or it could be because what science is saying about the Bible or about nature is incorrect. Hope that will help you and hope you'll share that with others. As we continue in that series, asking for a friend, let's think about daily Bible reading. Now let's talk about second Corinthians. Welcome to Monday, we're starting the weekend. Second Corinthians chapter one, reading versus 12 to 24, verse 12 to the end of the chapter. Paul begins this epi. We read this on Friday with an appeal to the Corinthians to understand how much he has suffered for them and how much he cares for them. He now turns to defend himself against two false charges. The charge that he is devious, he is acting without integrity and the charge that he's been evasive about his travel plans and that he is too faced. And we get some of that travel plan business in versus 15 and 16, particularly because in first Corinthians 16, he had talked about how he was gonna go to Macedonia and then he was gonna do this. And then he was gonna do that. And those plans have changed that has opened up an opportunity for Paul's opponents to say, see, one day he says this and the next day he says that. And then he says this, and then all Paul's always changing his mind. You can't count on Paul. Paul says, that's not the case. Like the promises of God, verse 20, there is no fickleness with me. In fact, he now begins to advance the idea of the seal of God being upon him. The seal of the spirit he even talks about is given to him and to the Corinthians. And I know folks are gonna wanna know about the seal of the spirit and that could be spiritual gifts, the proof of God's ownership and the reality of their Christianity and discipleship and seal here is used in other places, in the new Testament as a very public kind of thing, the seal on the tomb of Christ. For example, everybody could see that and know that, that makes me a little nervous about having the seal of the spirit, be something internal. I like spiritual gifts being the seal here. That's a pretty public thing. When you can do a miracle that said the seal here could be the indwelling of the holy spirit. And there is much that I could say about the indwelling of the holy spirit. And that's probably not gonna work on a podcast where I'm trying to give you some notes for your daily Bible reading here on Monday morning. But I think that's a possibility that has to be entertained here, that Paul could be referencing something that even you and I have now, the spirit in dwells us, and I have talked repeatedly about how we get little doses of things that will become more important or that Paul will talk about further in later epistles. In Romans, for example, he will have much more to say about the spirit in dwelling us, just be open to that and think about that. What's going on here with the seal of the spirit tomorrow will be in second Corinthians chapter two versus one to 11 as Paul continues to talk about why he canceled a visit, why he couldn't come right then. And he takes up the case of the man in first Corinthians five, who has been disciplined by the church in Corinth it's Tuesday. And we're reading second Corinthians chapter two versus 1, 2 11. Paul continues to be very personal here. This is a marvelous opportunity for us as we're spending the year with Paul. We're trying to think about Paul and the man. Understand Paul, hear him feel his emotions, really getting that second Corinthians two. We began verse one. I made it my mind not to make another painful visit to you. I'll tell you why I changed my plans. Cuz if I came right now, I'd have to yell at everybody and it would be difficult and it would be confrontational. And I don't wanna do that. I don't want to cause you pain verse two. So I'm writing you a letter instead, hoping verse three, that you will straighten some things up so that I can have a good visit instead of a bad visit. Maybe the Mark Roberts international east Texas version would say here in San Corinthians two, don't make me stop this car and come back there. And Paul says, I'm gonna write a letter instead of come back there. Then he talks about the man in first Corinthians five that the church withdrew from. And he talks here about how that man needs to be accepted since he has repented notice here that church discipline is corporate action. It's taken all together. And Paul says that their verdict of forgiveness is his as well. They have forgiven him. He's forgiven them. That man, it's all good. Let's all come together again and rejoice together so that Satan doesn't take advantage of this poor man being discouraged. I've repented. I'm trying to do what's right. Nobody at church will talk to me. Nobody at church will help me. Nobody at church pays attention to me. Oh my, I might as well go back into the world. At least people in the world care about me. Don't let that happen. Paul says we want to reaffirm this man. Second Corinthians chapter two versus one to 11. That's our reading for Tuesday. We'll talk about it further on zoom tonight. Come join us in the zoom Bible study. If you need the links for that, that's on the west side family page on Facebook, or it'll come to you in your email on the west side wire, see you tonight on zoom. We'll talk more about our Bible reading today. It's hump day it's Wednesday, second Corinthians chapter two versus 12 to 17 is our reading for today. That's not a big reading, but I have lots to say about it. It is super important. In second Corinthians, you're gonna want to have a pencil today, a pen to make some notes in your Bible. What's happening here is Paul's dealing with the things that are being said about him in Corinth, the things that are undermining his ministry, the problems that are going on there. People saying that Paul changes his mind about his travel plans. You can't count on him. What about this fellow? We disciplined. What are we gonna do about that? And then all of a sudden there's this giant abrupt shift. Paul has just been working along through those problems. And then all of a sudden, verse 14, thanks Peter to God. I'm in a triumphal procession. Wait, wait, wait. I thought you were dealing with issues and problems in Quran. What happened? What happens is verse 12. When I came to Troy as to preach the gospel, I didn't find verse 13, my brother Titus. He wants to know how have they taken what he wrote in the first Corinthian epi. Did that go over well, did they receive it? Did they change based on what Paul wrote and told them to be doing? But as we read a little bit further in second Corinthians in second Corinthians seven, go ahead and jump over there. Verse four. I am acting with great boldness towards you. I have great pride in you. I am filled with comfort in all of our affliction. I'm overflowing with joy while that's a change in tone. Paul seems very much on edge in San Corinthians, one and two very much concerned. You all care about me. I care about you. Now Paul's filled with comfort for even when we came San Corinthians seven verse five, our bodies had no rest. We were afflicted at every turn. Now verse six, God comforts the downcast comforted us by the coming of Titus and not only by his coming, but by the comfort with which he is comforted by you. He told us of your longing, your mourn, your zeal for me. So I rejoice still more. Paul met Titus probably in Philippi. Titus tells Paul, Hey, they love you. They have accepted what you have written. They know that you're an apostle, they're making those changes. They're repenting, they're doing what's right. And so that changes the writing of second Corinthians in the middle of the epi. Suddenly Paul gets word from Titus meets Titus and says, wow, they are receiving me as an apostle. I am vindicated as an apostle. And so we have what in, in many commentaries is gonna be called the great digression from second Corinthians, two 14 to chapter seven in verse four, Paul digreses from dealing with the issues in Corinth to talk about his apostolic credentials and to talk about his love for the Corinthians and to talk about how they need to receive him. And he pictures that in our reading today, Wednesday's reading as being a victory procession. We know that a Roman general who had a great victory would come to Roman, he'd be given this tremendous victory parade. And he would lead that triumphal procession. And Paul says, that's how I feel. I feel like I have triumphed in Christ and that I am being vindicated here because you accept me as an apostle. Remember, that's our theme that we're working with here. The big idea in Corinthians is accept me because I care about you. And Paul knows they are accepting him. And that will change for a couple of chapters here. What Paul wants to talk about because instead of dealing so directly with problems, Paul is gonna talk more about his care for the Corinthians and his heart for them. That'll be Thursday's reading second Corinthians chapter three, I'll see you tomorrow. We'll talk more about that. Welcome to Thursday, we're reading chapter three versus one to 10. Get more of the heart of Paul today. And his concern that the Corinthians care about him, the way he cares for them. He begins by asking some questions to questions in verse one. He expects clearly the answer to both of those to be no, I'm not commending myself. And of course I don't need a letter of recommendation to you or from you. You are my letter. The best letter I could possibly get is the Corinthian church. He says, you people, you authenticate my ministry and who I am as an apostle because of what I did among you, because I was able to establish a church in a worldly town like Corinth. And so I don't need a human letter written on ink and paper or Papyrus. I have the letter that was written by the spirit, the author, Jesus, the Christ, not some group out of Jerusalem that is still trying to bind the old law. Those folks don't even understand the old law they claim to be sufficient in and of themselves. Paul says, I would never say that I'm not sufficient at all. I need Jesus. I need the spirit. And then he begins to make the comparison in our reading today, between the old covenant that was lifeless, it was unable to forgive sins and make alive. Yes, there was provisional forgiveness. Under the old law, there was the day of atonement. There were sacrifices and trespas offerings and those made provisional forgiveness of sins possible. But if Jesus hadn't died, those, those sacrifices would never have meant anything. God forgave sins in the old Testament, I'm thinking about king David, Nathan, the prophet says flat out to him. God has forgiven your sin. And how did God do that? God did that based on those sacrifices in view of the cross to come, just like God forgives your sins and my sins today, based on the cross, as God looks in the past and sees what Jesus has done. So in the old Testament, it was Jesus. What Jesus will do now, it is what Jesus has done, but without Jesus, there is no forgiveness at all. And so the law of Moses is dad. It can't do what the new covenant can do. And so Paul talks about the power of that new covenant and the power of the spirit versus letters carved in stone. Don't be drawn here into some foolish discussion of the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law. Paul, isn't going there at all. That's not the discussion at all. The contrast of spirit and letter is not intent versus being a Pharisee and making too much of the fine details. Know the contrast here is life and death. The old kills, because it couldn't truly forgive on its own without Jesus, the law Moses couldn't forgive anybody, but the new law, the new covenant in Christ surpasses it because yeah, because it has Jesus Christ. It is the ministry of the spirit. Even more glorious. We'll have more of that tomorrow. We'll even talk a little bit about veiling and what goes on with some of those things, as we think about how the new covenant obliterates the old it's glory is greater verse 10 of our reading today. We'll talk more about that in our reading tomorrow, as we complete second Corinthians chapter three on Friday, it's Friday, end of the week, let's do our daily Bible reading as we get the weekend underway. Second Corinthians chapter three versus 11 to 18. The discussion continues of how the old covenant is fading away. And Paul uses kind of an unusual metaphor for that. He talks about Moses veiling his face, and we remember that Moses veiled, his face as a result of being in close conversation with God, when you're that close to God, your face ends up glowing, kinda like you're kinda like you're radioactive. I just read a book about Cher noble and while the landscape doesn't actually glow, it nearly does. It's so radioactive over there, after that massive nuclear reactor accident that occurred, there's lots of glowing going on over there. Well, this is a different kind of idea. The idea being close to God causes Moses face to glow, but that would fade away and Moses put a veil on so that people couldn't see that fading and there's conversation about why exactly he did that. That's out of verse 13. Why would Moses do that? Why didn't Moses want the Israelites to see the glory fade? Well, something Moses was embarrassed that, that it was fading. I, I, I don't think that's the point at all. I think the point here is that the covenant would someday fade away and Moses didn't want to undermine their faith in the covenant, but now people need to see that the covenant was always intended to fade away that that was not the perfect covenant. In fact, there were many things about the old covenant under Moses that were not what was best. And that, that certainly said it needed to be replaced. One of those would be that only Moses had access to God and that you need a high priest to carry blood into the sanctuary to make atone. Once a year, we, we have a better high priest. The Hebrew writer will talk about it. We all have access to God through that high priest, Jesus, the Christ that covenant was designed to fade away. And so we need to see that verse 13, that that's how that covenant was always supposed to work, but no, some Jews verse 14, some of those opponents of Paul, they don't wanna think of Judaism as fading away. So they're trying to somehow take Christianity in and glue it into Judaism, an awkward transition, an awkward thing to do for certain Christianity and Judaism can't be merged together, but they're trying to synthesize those two together or really in some ways, capture Christianity, particularly Gentiles. You have to become a Jew, be circumcised. If you wanna be a true Christian, they don't want to see that the law of Moses was temporary and was designed to bring us to Christ and then fade away. No verse 15, they're still reading the law. Like it ha like they have a veil over their hearts. They don't want to see the truth about the covenant that Moses brought and that, that was always designed to fade away. And so when you do see the reality of that covenant, then there is freedom. We behold that with an unveiled face first, a teen beholding the glory of the Lord. I wanna talk about that more on Facebook Friday, as I do some reading today, maybe you've already watched that by the time that you're listening to this podcast, or maybe you do that in a different order. You'll listen to the podcast and later see the, the Facebook video. But we want to see that glory comes when we're part of the new covenant freedom, freedom from sin. And I think probably freedom here would be freedom for Gentiles to be part of the new covenant without having to submit to circumcision. Paul will continue these ideas as we read in second Corinthians chapter four next week. There you go. That's Bible reading for Friday. Thanks for reading with me. Well, that puts another podcast episode to bed. Thank you for listening. If you like, what you hear, I hope that you will subscribe or follow that you'll rate and review. And especially that you will tell others about the podcast. This podcast really is about building spiritual momentum all through our week, rather than it just being something that happens on Sunday, kind of we peak out. And then during the week we get disconnected from the Lord and from being a disciple, we talk about the sermon and we keep that flowing. We talk about our daily Bible reading and what's going on and how to understand it and what the big ideas are so that we can continue to be the kind of disciple that we want to be. Tell others about the Monday morning coffee podcast. Hope to see you on Sunday. As we continue this asking for a friend series, the third lesson in that series, we're gonna talk about the Bible and we're gonna talk about why the Bible is a special book. When every religion claims, oh, we've got a special book. Our holy book is so unique. Our holy book is what you need to read and follow what makes the Bible special when there is a crowded marketplace full of so-called scriptures. Talking about that on Sunday in the 10 40 hour, come be with us at the west side church of Christ, just christians.com will give you more information about our location and our other services. You can stream it there or stream it on our Facebook page. If you can't be with us in person. So until next time, may your coffee be delightful. I hope your Friday is wonderful. And I hope that the Lord will be with you today. All day. I'll see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

Thanks for listening to the Westside church of Christ podcast. Monday morning coffee with Mark. For more information about west side, you can connect with us through our website, just christians.com and our Facebook page. Our music is from upbeat dot IO that's upbeat with two P'S, U P B E a T, where creators can get free music. Please share our podcast with us. And we look to seeing you again with a cup of coffee, of course, on next Monday,