Special thanks to Rev. Larry Smith for his help in compiling these answers.

Lesson 1: Is Genesis Relevant Today?

  1. What are some theological reasons the Earth cannot be millions of years old?

    The idea that the Earth is millions or billions of years old undermines the Bible’s message of sin, death, and salvation. The doctrine of Creation (based in Genesis) explains that one man’s sin led to the death, pain and suffering we experience today, whereas the anti-God doctrine of evolution and its stablemate, a belief in an “old Earth,” proposes the opposite: namely that millions of years of death, disease and struggle preceded (or even led to) man’s existence. If Genesis is merely myth, there is no basis for morality or any Christian doctrine. Since Genesis is true history, the foundation for Christianity is firmly established. See The “god” of an Old Earth.

  2. What must occur in order for true revival to be realized?

    Uphold the Bible’s authority from the very first verse, and tear down the strongholds of evolutionary/“millions of years” thought patterns (Isaiah 58:12), so that people will understand what sin is, what its consequences are, and why Jesus needed to die our on behalf.

  3. The book of Genesis is:

    a. The foundation of all Christian doctrine. TRUE

    b. Historical narrative. TRUE

    c. The most quoted-from or referred-to book in the entire Bible. TRUE

    d. All of the above. TRUE

  4. The humanist, Thomas Huxley:

    a. Agreed with theologians who reinterpreted Genesis. FALSE

    b. Admitted that evolution was only theory. FALSE

    c. Pointed out the hypocrisy of the theologians who reinterpreted Genesis. TRUE

    Thomas Huxley was an ardent humanist. Huxley went around the world “preaching” evolution and putting down Christianity. But when he saw the theologians of the day accepting evolution and then adding it to the Bible (but still trying to defend Christianity), Huxley pointed out to these compromisers how inconsistent that was. He showed them that if they believed in evolution, they couldn’t believe in the doctrines of the New Testament, and would have to throw away the whole message of Christianity.

    d. None of the above. FALSE

  5. To understand Christian doctrine, one needs to:

    a. Read the book of Genesis. TRUE

    b. Believe the main parts of Genesis. TRUE

    c. Believe and understand the book of Genesis, particularly chapters 1–11. TRUE

    d. Believe those parts of Genesis quoted in the New Testament. TRUE

    e. None of the above. FALSE

Lesson 2: Did God create in six literal days?

  1. How does denying that God created in six Earth-rotation days lead to the crumbling of the foundations of Christianity?

    Biblical authority and infallibility are called into question if God did not create in six Earth-rotation days as Genesis 1 clearly teaches. If the Bible is wrong when it speaks of God creating in six days, why is it not wrong when it speaks of the Virginal Conception or the Resurrection of Christ? The foundations of Christianity are based firmly in the words of Scripture, which state clearly that God created in six actual days.

  2. How do we know the days mentioned in Genesis 1 refer to normal-length days and not long periods of time?

    Biblical uses of the word day:

    • The Hebrew word for day (yom) is used 2301 times in the Old Testament.
    • Outside of Genesis 1: Yom + ordinal number (used 410 times) always indicates an ordinary day.
    • The words evening and morning together (38 times) always indicate an ordinary day.
    • Yom + evening or morning (23 times each) always indicates an ordinary day.
    • Yom + night (52 times) always indicates an ordinary day.
    • Exodus 20:11—The basis for our week is the six days of creation and one day of rest.
    • The Israelites walked around Jericho for seven days, not an indeterminate number of days.
    • Jonah was in the whale for three days, not three thousand years.
    • 2 Peter 3:8, in context, is showing God is outside of time, and is not attempting to define a “day.”

     

  3. Why is it not a problem that the Sun was created on Day 4, and not on Day1?
    1. We know today that all it takes to have a day-night cycle is a rotating Earth and light coming from one direction. The Bible tells us clearly that God created light on the first day, as well as the Earth. Thus we can deduce that the Earth was already rotating in space relative to this created light.
    2. God can, of course, create light without a secondary source. We are told that in the new heavens and Earth there will be no need for sun or moon (Rev 21:23). In Genesis, God even defines a day and a night in terms of light or its absence.

Lesson 3: Why is there death and suffering?

  1. If you were witnessing to someone who wondered how to reconcile all the violence present in our society with a loving, caring God, how would you respond?

    The Bible makes it clear that death is the penalty for our sin, not just the sin of Adam. If you accept the Bible’s account of history, then our sins—not just the sins of “the other guy”—are responsible for all the death and suffering in the world! In other words, it is really our fault—not God’s—that the world is the way it is. No-one is really “innocent.” (See Why Does God’s Creation Include Death and Suffering? for more information.)

  2. If you were a pastor being interviewed by the secular media, describe one way you might begin to answer the question, “Pastor, how do you explain the increasing violence in schools that we are experiencing today?” See The “Missing Link” to School Violence?
  3. Describe, in your own words, how accepting millions of years of Earth history affects the Biblical teaching of the Gospel.

    As soon as Christians allow for death, suffering and disease before Adam’s sin (which they automatically must if they believe in millions of years), then they’ve raised a serious question about their Gospel message. What, then, has sin done to the world? According to Christian teaching, death is the penalty for sin (Romans 6:23)—and this fact is the foundation of the Gospel! The whole message of the Gospel falls apart if you have this view of history. It also would mean that God is to blame for death. (See Why Does God’s Creation Include Death and Suffering? for more information.)

  4. What is the significance of the clothing God made for Adam and Eve?

    The clothing provided a covering for their sin, and provided a picture of what Christ would one day do when He offered Himself as the final covering for sin.

  5. How is the Biblical teaching of the new heavens and Earth affected by a belief in “millions of years” of Earth history? (Hint: What will the restoration be like?)

    If one believes in millions of years, then this world has always been a deadly place. How can all things be “restored” to a state with no death, pain or tears in the future (Revelation 21:4) if there never was a time free of death and suffering?

  6. Explain why someone cannot call himself a “Christian nudist” and be consistent with Scripture.

    Genesis teaches that when God made Adam and Eve they were naked. But sin came into the world, and sin distorts anything. Sin distorts nakedness. Immediately Adam and Eve knew they were naked, and they tried to make a pair of pants out of fig leaves. They still saw their nakedness. God came and killed animals and gave them coats. This was the first blood sacrifice. It was a covering for their sin. The same word for these animal-skin coats is used of the priest’s coat. It means a complete covering or “atonement.” We, too, are to wear clothes to cover our nakedness.

Lesson 4: Is there Really a God?

  1. What are some problems associated with using the standard “design implies a Designer” argument for the existence of God?

    Evolutionists will say: “Things have evolved to fit their environment, so of course they will appear to be designed” (even though this is circular reasoning).

    Scientists get excited about finding stone tools in a cave because these speak of intelligence—a toolmaker. They could not have designed themselves. Neither would anyone believe that the carved Presidents’ heads on Mt. Rushmore were the product of millions of years of chance erosion. We can recognize design—the evidence of the outworking of intelligence—in the man-made objects all around us. Similarly, in William Paley’s famous argument, a watch implies a watchmaker. Today, however, a large proportion of people, including many leading scientists, believe that all plants and animals, including the incredibly complex brains of the people who make watches, motor cars, etc., were not designed by an intelligent God, but rather came from an unintelligent evolutionary process. (See Is There Really a God? How Would You Answer?)

  2. How would you answer someone who claims there is no God?

    See Is There Really a God? How Would You Answer?

  3. What would you say to someone who claims the Christian must have faith to accept God exists?

    The Christian faith is not a blind faith—it is a logically defensible faith. This is why the Bible makes it clear that anyone who does not believe in God is without excuse: “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). (See Is There Really a God? How Would You Answer?)

    Lesson 5: Do animals “evolve”?

    1. Why does natural selection not support the concept of molecules-to-man evolution?

      Natural selection results in a net loss of information in the genome—not a net gain, which is required by molecules-to-man evolution.

    2. Why is it false to say, “God created all things as we see them today”?

      All things are suffering from the curse God placed on His creation, because of Adam’s sin (Genesis 3:17–19; Romans 8:20–22). Mutations (copying mistakes) increase as genetic information is passed from one generation to the next. Speciation has occurred in the years since the Flood.

    3. Explain, in your own words, the Biblical view of the changes we observe in animals today.

      Creatures were to reproduce “after their kind,” so mice come from mice, lizards from lizards, daisies from daisies. Molecules-to-man evolution has never occurred, nor does it occur today. But organisms have a wonderful “built-in” genetic capacity for rapid change in response to environmental pressures—most easily observed today in isolated island environments.

      Examples of rapid adaptation give us an insight into how the Earth’s many vacant ecological niches were recolonized after the Flood—a global event in real history. This event buried the “world that then was” (2 Peter 3:6). As the animals left the Ark, multiplying to fill the Earth and all those empty ecological niches, natural selection could easily have caused an original “dog kind” (e.g.) on the Ark to “split” into wolves, coyotes, dingoes, etc. Because there are historical records showing some of these subtypes in existence only a few hundred years after the Flood, this means that there had to have been some very rapid (non-evolutionary) speciation. So it is encouragingly supportive of Biblical history when such rapid changes are seen still occurring today.

      Because this was already a fallen world, the fossils record death, suffering and disease. Because it was a created world, the fossil record consists of the remains of some creatures that no longer exist, and some that still do, but no sequence of one type changing by stages into a totally different type, whether slowly or quickly.

    Lesson 6: Where did the “races” come from?

    1. What is it important for a Christian to be able to answer the question, “Who was Cain’s wife?”

      Skeptics have used Cain’s wife time and again to try to discredit the book of Genesis as a true historical record. Sadly, most Christians have not been able to give an adequate answer to this question. As a result, the world thinks Christians cannot defend the authority of Scripture and, thus, the Christian faith.

      Many skeptics have claimed that, for Cain to find a wife, there must have been other “races” of people on the Earth who were not descendants of Adam and Eve. To many people, this question is a stumbling block to accepting the creation account in Genesis and its record of only one man and woman at the beginning of history—a record on which many Old and New Testament doctrines depend.

      Defenders of the Gospel must be able to show that all human beings are descendants of one man and one woman (Adam and Eve)—as only those people who are descendants of Adam and Eve can be saved. Thus, believers need to be able to account for Cain’s wife and show clearly that she was a descendant of Adam and Eve.

    2. Explain, in your own words, the answer to this question: “Who was Cain’s wife?”

      She was either his sister or another close female relative.

    3. Read Genesis 4:14. Did Cain actually find his wife in Nod?

      No.

    4. Who was Cain frightened of so that he fled to the land of Nod?

      His brothers and sisters and other relatives.

    5. Why is it important to evangelism to defend that all people groups are descended from Adam?

      Only descendants of Adam can be saved.

    Lesson 7: What is the only answer to racism?

    1. Is evolution the cause of racism? If not, what is?

      Evolution is not the cause of racism—sin is.

    2. How have evolutionary ideas fueled racist ideas?

      See Get Answers: Racism for ideas.

    3. Describe, in your own words, why racist attitudes are wrong, according to the Bible. What should our attitudes be toward different people groups?

      We are all “one blood”—all descendants of Adam, and therefore, all related. We need to view other people groups as our relatives who are in need of salvation.

    Lesson 8: Dinosaurs in the Bible?

    1. Explain how dinosaurs could be used to explain all elements of salvation.

      In thinking about dinosaurs, one also has to talk about death (after all, dinosaur fossils are dead!)—and thus, the origin of death because of sin. This leads into a discussion of the Gospel.

      As the topic of Noah’s Flood is discussed (a Flood that buried billions of creatures including dinosaurs—and thus the main cause of most dinosaur fossils), the vital matter of salvation can also be covered. After all, Noah’s Ark is a picture of salvation in Christ. Just as Noah had to go through a doorway to be saved, so each one of us must go through a doorway—the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said in John 10:9: “I am the door. If anyone enters in by Me, he shall be saved…”

    2. Why is the topic of “dinosaurs” so popular?

      They are among the most mysterious of creatures when viewed outside of the Bible. People are naturally drawn to areas they do not fully understand. Evolutionary thinking about dinosaurs has contributed to a corrupt view in relation to dinosaurs. The word “dinosaur” (meaning “terrible lizard”) was invented in 1841 by Sir Richard Owen. This name can unjustly stereotype dinosaurs as something evil that is to be feared, which provokes the curiosity in people.

    Lesson 9: How can we raise godly children?

    1. What is the Biblical basis for marriage?

      In the beginning, God created one woman for the only man He had created.

    2. How does the Biblical basis for marriage preclude homosexual behavior?

      In the beginning, God created a man and a woman, not a man and a man.

    3. Explain how it is possible for the true knowledge of God to become lost in a culture.

      As the knowledge is passed down orally, it is changed bit by bit. Further, some parents neglect to teach the next generation about God.

    4. How does the acceptance of molecules-to-man evolution destroy the basis of marriage?

      If we are only evolved pond scum, then there are no absolutes, and thus no reason to commit ourselves solely to a person of the opposite gender.

    Lesson 10: Fossils and the Flood: What’s the Connection?

    1. Why must the Grand Canyon have formed within the past few thousand years, and not millions of years ago?

      The Flood of Noah’s Day (approx. 4300 years ago) would have destroyed the Canyon if it had formed “millions of years” before the Flood occurred. It must have formed some time since then.

    2. What is the connection between fossils and Noah’s Flood?

      We would expect a world-wide flood to result in billions of dead things (i.e. fossils) buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the Earth. The majority of the fossils found around the world are a result of the Noah’s Flood.

    3. Why does a belief in “millions (or billions) of years” of Earth history tend to lead to a belief in a local, rather than global, Flood?

      Those who believe the Earth is millions of years old usually believe the Flood was a local event because a global Flood destroys the “evidence” (the fossil record/rock layers) of the “millions of years.”

    Lesson 11: How can we evangelize a secular world? (part 1)

    1. Why is the preaching of the cross considered a “stumbling block” to the Jews?

      The Jews were a creation-based culture, believing in the true God, understanding sin (having the Commandments), but by and large not accepting the message that Jesus Christ was the Messiah—this was their stumbling block. (See Road Work Ahead.)

    2. Why is the preaching of the cross considered “foolishness” to the Greeks?

      The Greek culture was “evolution-based” (their philosophers taught an early concept of evolution; they had no idea of the God of Creation, as the Jews understood). They had no understanding of the meaning of sin or why death was in the world. They did not have the foundational knowledge to understand the Gospel. They thus responded by claiming that Paul’s message was foolish.

    3. In what ways is our culture like the Greek philosophers? like the Jews?

      Generations of young people are being taken through an education system that is by and large devoid of the knowledge of God. They are being taught that the universe can and should be explained only by natural causes—nothing supernatural was involved. These people are being directed on to a road similar to the one the Greeks were on. This road detours them away from an understanding of the Cross, because it does not have the right beginning/history leading to the message of the Cross. Most of today’s students are really “Greeks” in their thinking, and thus respond to the message of the Cross as “foolishness.”

      There are still those in our society who have been raised with foundational knowledge of Christianity, but have not yet received the free gift of eternal life.

    Lesson 12: How can we evangelize a secular world? (part 2)

    1. What is “pre-evangelism”? Why is it necessary in today’s culture?

      To be successful in reaching today’s generations with the Gospel, like Paul in reaching the Greeks, these people need to be shown the way back to the true beginning of history (Creation, Adam and Eve, Fall, etc.), to get them onto the right road, so they will understand the message of the Cross. At the same time, the evolutionary humanistic propaganda these people have been taught needs to be counteracted.

    2. What is the problem with teaching only “Bible stories” in today’s Bible school classes?

      It doesn’t reconnect the Bible with the real world, and doesn’t teach the children how to defend and uphold their faith.

    3. Why is it important to reconnect the Bible to the real world?

      So that we recognize it as authoritative in all matters it touches on.

    4. List and define the “7 Cs of History.”
      • Creation—God created the universe in six actual days and declared it “very good.”
      • Corruption—Adam’s disobedience brought death, sickness and sorrow to the world, thus leading to the need for a Redeemer.
      • Catastrophe—God judged the wickedness of man with the global Flood of Noah’s day.
      • Confusion—God confused the language of Noah’s descendants, causing them to spread out into various tribes and nations all over the Earth.
      • Christ—The Creator God stepped into history to become a man and came to redeem the world from sin.
      • Cross—Christ died on the cross, and paid the death penalty for those who receive Him.
      • Consummation—The curse will one day be removed and God will prepare a new heavens and Earth for His children.