Skip to the 4th paragraph if you don’t want to get into faith defense, and just want to get to the meat.
Just a quick heads up because as a Christian in a world that hates Christianity or a person just getting to know the Word Of God or are even just curious about it, you are going to face an un-precedent number of attacks from everyone and their brother if they aren’t Christian. These attacks typically come from atheistic intellectual types who watched 100 videos and read all the detracting science they can find and now feel completely ready to challenge the Word of God and the Christian faith. Some of the more silly attacks come from science allegedly “proving” the events of the Bible didn’t happen. This can be easily dismissed because science is never conclusive (which is why the definition of evolution is constantly changing and is divided into 3 camps at this point) and never deals with supernatural events. Evolution does not create life; it presents a method for life to evolve once there is life which most of us just call “adaptation” each to its own kind which is presented in Genesis. So in order to explain the dawn of life science now uses a term called “abiogenesis” which is a term that secularists throw around like confetti to cover the fatal flaws in the myth of evolution as the singular mechanism to explain all life on earth. Theoretically, even abiogenesis would rely on a model where the spontaneous formation of homochirality in proteins is the precondition for the establishment of homochirality of carbohydrates and for the metabolism at the start of the abiogenesis. In layman’s terms, abiogenesis even in theory can’t get to the biosystems that contain an almost infinite amount of vital important details, which together ensure their life. Abiogenesis would be dependent on more than just singular events, but an infinite number of sequences for it to have occurred. To even start the lab processes to mimic evolution or the beginning of abiogenesis the right conditions have to be introduced along with the right chemicals, molecules, proteins, amino acids etc. At that point, we have a “creation” scenario or an outside force (in this case the lab technicians) “creating” the proper conditions. In short, you need God for that even if you embrace the abiogenesis theory mechanism. Anyway – setting all that aside, science can still not and is not adequate to explain the supernatural. It can’t even explain how the writers of the Bible knew about streams in the ocean when they weren’t discovered till the early 1970s.
In a nutshell, because we know science is inadequate to explain God, there isn’t really a need to engage on a material level with Atheists because God is not dependent on time, space, or matter. Anyone sincerely interested in faith or not facing an eternity in damnation will address these things on a spiritual or humble level anyway. What you do want to be fully prepared to defend is the Word of God we currently have.
There are more than 400,000 textural variants between the manuscripts used for the Bible
but skeptics leave out that more than 99% of the textural variants are not meaningful. Spelling differences, different word orders or the use of a different article. Of the remaining differences less than 1% is considered a meaningful difference. Only half of those are viable, about 12 or so verses and about 12 or so phrases, and 2 passages. None of the Gospel or core documents in scripture are affected in any way. Nothing affecting our current understanding of the core documents is lost in translation.
In this post I am looking at Proverbs 3:9. Honour the LORD with your possessions, and with the firstfruits of all your increase: When we start looking at this section including verses 7-10 we are dealing with promises that describe general patterns. These are not 100% rules with no exceptions. For example – verse 7 is the instruction, “Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and depart from evil” verse 8 goes on to say that “It will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones”. To get to all this you would want to go back to the start of the chapter, but specifically verse 5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart And lean not on your own understanding; 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths”.
So yes when we take all this into account we’ve got people that are trusting in God and taking the steps that He directs them in according to His wisdom. That means you are not getting plastered every night. You are not overeating, you are not signing up for the parachute-less skydiving team or sleeping with everyone in sight and ending up with STDs, etc. You would be conducting yourself in a manner that honors God and takes care of your body. Now, is doing the right things always going to lead to amazing things in your life like we get in verse 10 “So your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wines”? Depending on the part of the world you live in and what you do for a living maybe, but the idea is that wisdom and leaning on God’s understanding and using our things to honor God. Firstfruits is re'shiyth ray-sheeth' the first, in place, time, order or rank (specifically, a firstfruit):--beginning, chief(-est), first(-fruits, part, time), principal thing. This is in reference to God’s covenant with Israel, but righteous people that follow God are far more likely to end up in a good situation in all aspects of life than those who do not. These verses are not meant as a get-rich-quick scheme.
When it comes to the New Testament everything we have should be a living sacrifice to God. Everything we have belongs to God. That’s might be hard to swallow, I get it, but it’s also TRUE. It’s not about what you give it's how you give it. The idea would be that you are doing things cheerfully. We are not under Old Testament tithing law, but the attitude we need to approach giving with is not that we own our possessions but rather that we are stewards of them and that God owns them. We are his servants.
This is an area I personally need to do better in which is probably why God has me working on this verse today.
Question – Are using the things we have to further the kingdom of God?
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