the fire's in the water

The Word for today:
2 Peter 3:11-18

I'm not a scientist, but I have respect for science. Science, rightly understood, is the study of God's hand; just as theology, rightly understood, is the study of God's heart.

Hand and heart do not pull against each other.

I look at the stars and I think of how big God is; I look at a meadow in June and I think of how sensually extravagant he is. I look at my wife and I think of how utterly exquisite his artistry is. I see puppies and I sense his sense of humor. I watch my sons train and compete in footraces, and I glimpse his nobility and his sense of adventure; even, dare I say, his image before it was marred.

And after I look at his handiwork, I can look to scripture for its self-contained scientific secrets!

They pop up everywhere in the Bible. Like scripture's spiritual truths, its scientific truths are concealed to the skeptic and the naysayer. But those with a willingness to see--with ears to hear--will behold, between the lines of scripture, the inner workings of time and space.  So let's take a look inside...

For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.  (2 Peter 3:5-7)

Alright, how can the earth be burned up when it's mostly water? "Science" scoffed at this obvious biblical gaffe, right up until it was discovered that the fire is in the water. A close reading of the passage suggests there are resident forces within the world which could destroy it. We know today that water is made up of two elements, hydrogen and oxygen, both of them gases that can be very explosive. Just as scripture says, the water contains the fire.

The water molecule and the other elements--storehouses of nearly unlimited potential energy--will someday melt. They will come untied, and when they do every atom will be a bomb and the earth will dissolve as it consumes itself.

The Bible sounded preposterous to "science" up until the unleashing of the atom in the 1940's under the direction of Oppenheimer, Fermi, and Einstein. The world, as it whistles past the graveyard, isn't laughing at 2 Peter anymore.

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An Update:
As we speak, the elements are being maintained by the same Word which created them in the first place:

For by Christ all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  (Colossians 1:16-17)

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.  (Hebrews 1:3)

But there's a day on the way, called "the day of the LORD," when Jesus Christ is going to release his grip on the elements that form our world:
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.  (2 Peter 3:10)

And that, as they say, will be that.

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