Michael Kruse

On Length of Days:

Heb 4:4-11

4 For in one place it speaks about the seventh day as follows, “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.†5 And again in this place it says, “They shall not enter my rest.†6 Since therefore it remains open for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7 again he sets a certain day — “today†— saying through David much later, in the words already quoted,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.â€

8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not speak later about another day . 9 So then, a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God; 10 for those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labors as God did from his. 11 Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs.

The seventh day has not ended. Is Hebrews in error when it suggests the seven day was not 24 hours?

I have done considerable reading and study in the history of science over the last twenty years. Church fathers like Irenaeus, Origen, Justin Martyr, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas suggested periods of longer than 24 hour days. Some speculated that each day was a thousand years. It was solid devout Christians, many of them clergy, that were the first geologist in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were the ones who first concluded that the earth was far far more ancient than we realized. They saw no issue. (It was Darwin, Marx and others who tried to co-opt science for secular humanist agendas in the mid-19th Century.) B. B. Warfield and William Jennings Bryan of the Scopes Monkey Trial fame believed in an ancient earth. Belief in secular evolutionism is not prerequisite for having an old earth perspective nor is a belief in the inaccuracy of the Bible.

As for Contemporary Evangelical leaders, all of the below at a minimum allow for an ancient earth and almost all actively embrace it.

Jack Akenberg (apologist)
Gleason Archer (Prof. of OT/Hebrew, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School)
Jack Collins (Prof. of OT at Covenant Theological Seminary)
Chuck Colson
Norman Geisler (theologian, apologist)
Hank Hannegraff (apologist author)
Jack Hayford (Pastor of Church of the Way, Four Square Gospel)
Walter Kaiser (Prof OT and President of Gordon-Conwell Seminary)
Greg Koukl (apologist)
C. S. Lewis (apologist)
Paul E. Little apologist, author)
Mark A. Noll (Prof. Christian Thought at Wheaton College)
Bernard L. Ramm (Eminent Evangelical theologian and defender of inerrancy)
Francis Schaeffer (apologist)
Chuck Smith, Jr. (pastor)
Lee Strobel (apologist)

These are just the Evangelicals.

You wrote:

“Now I think the *only* problem one might have is if one believes that the animals were created many millions of years ago. Having them created AGAIN after Adam was created might be a hurdle to jump.â€

Yes, and why do they believe animals have been around for millions of years. Because those are unequivocally and incontrovertibly the facts! The question is why those who insist on a 24 hour period insist on a more narrow interpretation than is warranted. This interpretation needlessly creates a barrier to people hearing the gospel as it seeks to promote some extra-biblical agenda. While we dare not ignore what scripture does say we also dare not make it say things it does not say.