Quotes from John H. Walton

The roles assigned to humans bind them together in their common plight and bind them to the gods in servitude. Egyptian sources offer no explanation for the creation of humans. Sumerian and Akkadian sources consistently portray people as having been created to do the work of the gods—work that is essential for the continuing existence of the gods, and work that they have tired of doing for themselves.

In Israel people also believed that they had been created to serve God. The difference was that they saw humanity as having been given a priestly role in sacred space[43] rather than as slave labor to meet the needs of deity.

The objective is for public education to inform students of scientifically plausible mechanisms without straying from empirical science into metaphysical teleology or dysteleology

The protection of rights is inevitable if preservation of dignity is valued.

Job presses his point that it is bad policy for God's most faithful people to suffer (theologically counterintuitive).7 Caught on the horns of this dilemma, what is a God to do? This is what the book is going to sort out. Because the book is about God, the teaching that it offers is valuable to all of us. It does not tell us why Job or any of us suffer, but it does tell us a bit about how we should think about God when we are suffering. This is what we really needed to know anyway.

THERE IS GOOD REASON why Christian theologians consider theodicy the unsolvable theological issue. The reason is this: It is unsolvable.

The idea that people think with their hearts describes physiology in ancient terms for the communication of other matters; it is not revelation concerning physiology. Consequently we need not try to come up with a physiology for our times that would explain how people think with their entrails. But a serious concordist would have to do so to save the reputation of the Bible. Concordists believe the Bible must agree—be in concord with—all the findings of contemporary science.

The most respectful reading we can give to the text, the reading most faithful to the face value of the text—and the most "literal" understanding, if you will—is the one that comes from their world not ours. Consequently

I suggest that we must be defined not by our salvation but by our faith. The "Lordship Salvation" debate is frustrating because sometimes proponents on both sides make it sound as if "salvation" is the reason for our faith.43 That cannot be right. Salvation is a benefit of our faith gained by the grace of God; God is the reason for our faith.

In the ancient world the king stood between the divine and human realms mediating the power of the deity in his city and beyond. He communed with the gods, was privy to their councils, and enjoyed their favor and protection. He was responsible for maintaining justice, for leading in battle, for initiating and accomplishing public building projects from canals to walls to temples, and had ultimate responsibility for the ongoing performance of the cult.

In the foreword of Neil Postman's book Amusing Ourselves to Death, he compares the apocalyptic visions of George Orwell (1984) to those of Aldous Huxley (Brave New World). One of the comparisons speaks to the issue at hand: "In 1984 . . . people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

On the basis of Adam's statement, combined with these data on usage, we would have to conclude that God took one of Adam's sides—likely meaning he cut Adam in half and from one side built the woman.

When the legal treatises are viewed in this light, one can propose that these are not laws, but exemplary verdicts that can serve the intended didactic function.[9] It is in this sense that they offer model justice. To go the next step, one can infer that not only is what we find in documents such as Hammurabi's stele not a "code," it is not even "law." These are not legislative documents. They report verdicts, they do not prescribe laws.

Our point, however, is not to worship the Bible; we worship the God of the Bible.

With God there are no dead ends, only training grounds.

From all of the above neither the king nor the deity is seen as lawgiver (especially given the current consensus that these are not laws). No such abstraction as "law" exists in their minds, only the practical need to administer justice. Nevertheless, the king was the primary source for legislation, typically through decrees.[22]

The most central truth to the creation account is that this world is a place for God's presence.

Since all people are in the image of God, all deserve to be treated with the dignity the image affords.

It seems to many that they have to make a choice: either believe the Bible and hold to a young earth, or abandon the Bible because of the persuasiveness of the case for an old earth. The good news is that we do not have to make such a choice. The Bible does not call for a young earth. Biblical faith need not be abandoned if one concludes from the scientific evidence that the earth is old.

The Bible's message must not be subjected to cultural imperialism. Its message transcends the culture in which it originated, but the form in which the message was imbedded was fully permeated by the ancient culture.

It is not unusual for the question to be raised, "Is the Sabbath a law that we Christians have to keep?" The answer is that if we have to be reminded, commanded, or coerced to observe it, it ceases to serve its function. The Sabbath is not the sort of thing that should have to be regulated by rules. It is the way we acknowledge that God is on the throne, that this world is his world, that our time is his gift to us.

The Bible is not a book of rules. The Bible reveals the God whom we serve, and we serve him gladly.

We live in a world of rights that has no sense of purpose; we live in a world of tolerance that has no sense of dignity for those tolerated or conscience concerning what is to be tolerated; we live in a world of leisure and squander it on empty pursuit; we live in a world of comfort and convenience where we can accumulate anything we want except that which matters most.

Our world does not reduce God by distributing his power to other deities. Rather, we reduce God by making him a figurehead. We too often portray him as standing back from a world that runs on its own. We banish him to the hidden corners of our lives while we amble through life, pursuing our own ambitious goals driven by narcissism, hedonism, and materialism and refusing to allow God to bridle our self-sufficiency.