Thinking Biblically About Earth History

Christians face challenges from the world in the area of science. We are told that science has demonstrated that the earth is 4.6 billion years old and that molecules-to-man evolution is a fact. These perspectives are in direct conflict with a plain reading of the Bible. Many Christians are at a loss as to how to think through earth history, choosing either to capitulate to deep time and evolution or to ignore the challenges completely. In this lecture series, we’ll take a deeper look at what the Bible says about earth history, and we’ll see that the Bible and science are not incompatible. By recognizing the outline of earth history provided in the Bible—Creation, Fall, Flood, and Tower of Babel—we’ll be able to correctly interpret the observations in geology and paleontology. Most importantly, this series will encourage you to have confidence in the trustworthiness of God’s word.

About this Series

Many Christians are at a loss as to how to think through earth history, choosing either to capitulate to deep time and evolution or to ignore the challenges completely. In this lecture series, we’ll take a deeper look at what the Bible says about earth history, and we’ll see that the Bible and science are not incompatible.

Series Length: 1 hour and 11 minutes
Instructor: Dr. Matthew McLain

Ep. 1 Thinking Biblically About Earth History

In this first installment, we're going to take a look at what the Bible says about the history of the earth. We'll see that the Bible presents four major earth-changing events in Genesis 1-11: the Creation Week, the Fall and Curse, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel. By building our earth history timeline around these events, we'll be able to make sense of scientific evidences like rocks and fossils. Additionally, we'll look at the pitfalls of Old Earth Creation and Theistic Evolution.

Ep. 2 Creation and the Fall

In this episode, we'll begin to take a look at the Creation Week and the Fall as historical events that had observable effects on the physical world. In so doing, we'll also spend some time getting to know how scientists learn about earth history through rocks and fossils. These observations will allow us to connect certain rock layers with particular events in the Creation Week and pre-Flood world.

Ep. 3 The Flood

In this episode, we'll take an in-depth look at Noah's Flood. We'll first establish how we know that it truly was a global Flood. Next, we'll seek to understand what mechanisms were involved in this catastrophe. Finally, we will spend some time figuring out which rock layers were laid down by the Flood, which will also allow us to make sense of patterns in the fossil record.

Ep. 4 The Post-Flood World

In the final episode of this series, we'll spend some time thinking about the world immediately after the Flood. How did animals spread all over the earth after the Flood? How did animals adapt to the new and changing world after the Flood? How does an understanding of the Flood and the Tower of Babel help us make sense of the human fossil record? We'll explore these questions and more in Thinking Biblically About Earth History: The Post-Flood World.