How old is the earth?

I met a guy today when I was in Liverpool City Centre at lunch time. My friend and  I were handing out leaflets about Christianity and a young man asked me if I believed that the earth was only 5000 years old. I am not sure where he got his figure from but if you take the chronology of the bible literally you do come to a figure of roughly 6000 years. I am not really into arguing these kinds of issues as my knowledge in this area is limited. I know Christians who believe that the earth is millions of years old. They think that geology can prove this. Others take the bible literally (as I do) and feel that God created a mature earth that looks, feels and appears to be very old but has only been around for a more limited period of time. You see when God made the earth it was formed to be inhabited, the trees would have looked mature (they were not all young saplings), the plants, the rivers, the landscape did not grow to maturity, it was mature when created.

Think about the first man and woman, Adam and Eve. They were not born as babies, young children or even adolescents, they were created as a mature man and woman. We are not told their ages but we are told that they were capable of being responsible for their actions. This is why when sin came into the world that God held Adam responsible for his actions (Genesis.3.11). He then addressed Eve. Both were accountable for what they had done. By the way things are no different today - we will be held accountable for our beliefs, behaviours and words. The holy scriptures record God's assessment of what happened the day that sin and evil entered the world: "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Romans.5.12) .

I couldn't argue the case for an old earth/young earth from an intellectual point of view but I do know this - the bible is true. Sin and death are here. We all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans.3.23) and the wages of sin is death. I do however love the rest of this last quotation - "the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans.6.23).

Adam brought sin (Romans.5.15/1.Corinthians.15.22) but the Lord Jesus brought the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. He (Jesus) purchased salvation through his death and came back from the dead so that we can be right with God.

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