Hi
Taafe
I’ve heard people say the earth is approx. 6000 years old.
The problem with this statement is that scientists prove otherwise and I find it difficult to believe.
Would like to see other people's opinions on this new or long-term Christians.
Well, let me see if I can offer up my explanation of what the Scriptures say, regarding the 'how' and 'when' this realm came to exist.
God's words says that there was a moment that God created this realm of existence. A moment, if you will, that He commanded the earth to exist covered in water. Spinning about in a vast and empty area that we call space. Then the word of God tells us that He took a few more days to complete the creation of a realm of existence that would sustain a unique creature of His creating, that He called 'man'.
As God is building and fine tuning this realm of His creating a place for man to live, He tells us that He did certain and various tasks within the timeframe of 'days'. He does some work building this realm and then He looks over what He's done and declares that a day has passed. He repeats this process for a period of time that He defines as a period of six days, and then He rests.
I believe that the earth, at the moment of God's commanding it to exist...it was spinning. The defining of a day has always been the amount of time it takes for a spinning planetary body to complete one full turn on its axis. We don't really have any data that might 'prove' that the earth rotated much differently, as far as speed, when it completed its first rotation and the speed it rotates today. Of course, we can surmise or make guesses, that the earth's rotational speed has differed over time, but there isn't any provable evidence of that guesswork.
So that's God's explanation to us as to the 'how' He created this realm in which we live. He began with the earth. As He continued through the time of the next 6 rotations of the earth, He built this realm. Put plants and animals on the earth and brought forth the dry land from under the water for them to live on. He scattered across the entire universe all of the stars and heavenly bodies that we see out there today. He literally, from absolutely nothing, created a realm of existence that would sustain the physical needs for the grandest part of His creating effort...man.
He says that He did all of that in six days and repeats that claim at least twice more in the writing of His word. For in six days the Lord, God created all that is in the heavens or on the earth... That's God's testimony to us from His word.
I believe that! I fully believe that about 6,000 years ago, and I'll explain that number in a moment, there was nothing that existed in all of the universe in which we live. There were no stars waaaay, waaaay out there. There was no sun or moon or asteroids shooting across the expanse. There was merely the black, inky, thick darkness of nothing. There wasn't any light. So the very first command of God, as He set forth to build this realm in which man would live, was "Let there be light!" He then set about building this earth and universe. Creating a realm of existence in which man, a creature that He was going to form from the very building blocks of the earth upon which they would live, could thrive.
I believe that God did that - from the commanding that there be light in this realm of our universe to the stooping down and creating His magnum opus, man - in the time it took the newly formed earth to spin 6 times on its axis.
Next up: 6,000 years.
God bless,
Ted