GLEANINGS — September 1, A.D. 2013                                                                                                               "Here I rant...er, stand," Part One

Suppose two men set off from the same point, on two different paths that appear to be parallel. Suppose the paths are actually a tiny fraction of a degree off parallel. At first, the two would be able to walk along, conversing with eye contact at normal volume. After they travelled further, it would become evident that their paths were diverging, and they would have communicate by shouting as each continued on his respective path. Eventually, the two travellers would not be able to see each other.
Genesis is the starting point of the Bible. What two students of Scripture might be tempted to regard as a minor, fractional difference at that starting point of their respective lifelong journeys toward greater understanding of the whole Bible will become a great divergence that will become increasingly manifest the further they go.
To stay on the true path, one must implicitly trust the God-breathed Bible, which has His divine authority and is inerrantly infallible, from its very first word (2 Timothy 3:16). 
Therefore this writer vigorously denies the big bang theory, all its dependent cosmogony, as well as evolutionary Darwinism in either its original formulation or its newer, more fashionable forms. He also denies the array of "interpretations" of Genesis chapters one and two which do not arise from the text of Scripture, but always seek to accomodate what is falsely called knowledge – including gap theories, day-age theories, and the recently articulated (20th century) framework hypothesis.
Nor does this writer live on a "planet," defined as an unremarkable speck of dust swirling among billions of others in "outer space." He lives on the Earth, that unique place privileged to serve as the footstool of Him Whose throne is in Heaven (Isaiah 66:1). That Earth became even more highly favored than it was at its creation, for He became incarnate and tread upon it. 
Orbs such as Mars and Venus, like the Earth in some ways, are among billions of heavenly luminaries, including the two great lights which stood still in the heavens when almighty power heeded Joshua's prayer (Joshua 10:12,13). The sun, moon, and stars (including those called  PLANETES –wanderers– by the ancients, Jude 1:13; cf. 1 Corinthians 15:41) are all younger than Earth by a period of three days of ordinary length. All of the bodies in the firmament of heaven have a divinely revealed purpose which is centered on the Earth and the creatures upon the Earth (Genesis 1:14-18).
Moreover this writer and you the reader are both one of those creatures, but not "just another animal," or a member of one species among millions whose forms and capacities are the result of random mutations occuring over eons of death and extinction. Apes and other animals have limbs and powers that are like ours in some respects. Unlike them, this writer and you the reader share in the unspeakable privilege of bearing the image of Him Who made all creatures great and small, but Who chose and exalted mankind to have dominion over all the others (Genesis 1:27, 9:6).						
												 to be continued...