All right, this is the first time I have ever done this.  Well, I tried on some other site.  Okay, my question is really dumb, and I kind of just want to prove that I am right to someone in my family.  So some family member thinks we have the bloodline of Jesus Christ because our last name is ‘Plant’; I guess it means ‘offspring’ or something like that.  There is more to it I guess.

Sincerely,
Pruning The ‘Plant’

Dear Pruning The ‘Plant’,

It is impossible to be a descendant of Jesus because Jesus had no children.  Jesus was never married and never fathered any children.  Your family might be connecting their last name to Jesus through Matt 15:13, but that is a figurative reference to planting – not a literal family with the surname of ‘Plant’.  It is absolutely impossible to be a descendant of a man that had no offspring.

Hello.  I am a thirteen-year-old girl, and I see spirits and have dreams, and then they end up coming true… sometime I see peoples’ auras; I have even read a few minds before.  Having these psychic abilities, I don’t really like because I can’t always control them.  I was wanting to know if it is against Jesus and God to have these abilities?  I would really love if you would help out!!!

Sincerely,
Claire Voyant

Dear Claire Voyant,

Every supernatural ability that Jesus and His apostles displayed were easily verifiable.  They healed lepers, the blind were made to see, the lame were made to walk, and they raised the dead from their graves (Matt 11:5)… just to name a few types of miracles that were performed by those sent by God.  All of these abilities were verifiable, vivid, and public.  Psychics, palm-readers, astrologists, and others that profess to have miraculous abilities always hide behind a cloud of mystery and veil of secrecy.  We are sure that you really believe what you are saying, but it is important that we don’t mistake being perceptive for being clairvoyant.  Witchcraft, sorcery, astrology, and other supposed psychic arts are of the devil (Acts 19:18-19).  Be very careful to avoid anything associated with these things.  You are probably a very intuitive and aware young lady, but make sure to admit that these talents are natural and not supernatural.  God wants us to have honest and sincere hearts (Lk 8:15).  God’s Word cannot flourish in our lives until we admit that He is the only one with supernatural power.

I heard that it says in the Bible somewhere that the devil was seen coming to Earth as lightning from heaven, and I was told that translated in the old Hebrew, ‘lightning’ means ‘barak’ and ‘heaven’ means ‘high place’ or also ‘baumha’.  Is it true that this translation says He saw the devil come to Earth as “Barak Baumha”?  I’ve heard this many times.  Is it true?

Sincerely,
Red About Blue

Dear Red About Blue,

As interesting as the political implications of your question are, the answer is, “No, that’s not true.”  The verse you are referring to is Lk 10:18.  That particular verse is in the New Testament… which is written in Greek, not Hebrew.  The Greek word for ‘lightning’ is ‘astrapa’, and the Greek word for ‘heaven’ is ‘ouranos’.  So you can rest easy knowing that the whole barak-bauhma-equals-devil teaching is false.

Is it possible that the almighty God created another world besides heaven, Earth, and hell?

Sincerely,
Multi-Dimensional

Dear Multi-Dimensional,

Anything is possible with God (Mk 10:27), but if He created other worlds, He never told us.  The secret things belong to God (Deu 29:29).  We cannot prove nor disprove whether God has created other worlds, but we do know that if they do exist – they don’t have any bearing on our lives.  The Scriptures tell us everything that we need to know to be saved (Rom 1:16)… parallel cosmic worlds aren’t something we need to know about.

Forgive me for this rant, but I was horrified when I woke up this morning and read the Q&A about whether or not dinosaurs exist.  There is a very big contradiction between AYP saying that we "humans lived in peace with the dinosaurs" and the truth.  Carbon dating does not lie.  An organic item that decays loses carbon atoms at a specific rate, and that is used to determine the age of fossils.  I see no reason why forensic scientists (and we would have to certainly believe something even more outrageous than, let's say, the sun revolves around the earth than to believe that they are all part of some big conspiracy), and their data based on carbon dating are somehow wrong.  What's wrong with saying, "I don't know"?????  Are you telling me that the horrible "museum" they have about us living with dinosaurs is correct?  Disinformation for the sake of proving the Gospel is not proving the Gospel at all!  This would bring me to my question: why is it so wrong for us to say, "I don't know" when asked questions like this?  When I am in apologetics mode when having to defend the/my faith and someone asks me a question like this, I simply say, "I don't know; what I do know is what is written in the Bible, and there is nothing there that explains the dinosaurs, so I guess God figured we humans were more important."  Besides, I thought we were not to use the Bible for science; I thought it was a spiritual message, not a worldly one.

Sincerely,
Dino-Debater

Dear Dino-Debater,

"I don't know" is a perfectly fine answer, but the Bible does make some statements about animals that can't be ignored.  God says that all land animals were created on day six (Gen 1:24-31)... that would include dinosaurs.  You are also fair in saying that the Bible isn't a science book – but it does provide a certain worldview through which we view science.  Atheism is the same way.  Atheism isn't science, and yet, it colors the way people view scientific data.  A large portion of the scientific establishment views the world through naturalistic lenses – meaning that they assume everything that is here came through natural, random processes.  One paleontologist looks at millions of dead bones piled under dirt, debris, silt, etc. and sees millions of years of decay and evolution.  Another paleontologist sees the same fossils scattered in abundance under the same rock layer and sees a cataclysmic event – most likely Noah's Flood.  The difference isn't the data; it is they way they view and interpret the data.  Most of the modern scientific community has chosen to interpret the data through evolutionary lenses.  They assume that:

1. The world is billions of years old because evolution would need billions of years to occur.
2. All rock layers form slowly over time – even though we have great examples of rock forming rapidly.  (Mt. St. Helen's explosion in 1980 is a great example of cataclysmic rock formation).  This viewpoint is called “uniformitarianism” and is based off the concept that all things are the same throughout time – if something is happening slowly now, then it must always have happened that way.  The Bible specifically says that isn’t the case (2 Pet 3:4-6).
3. That nature is all there is.  Naturalism assumes that there is no supernatural and that there is no supernatural intervention in the events of mankind’s history or the world’s creation.

These assumptions color the data of a large portion of scientists.  It isn’t a conspiracy, but it is interpretation of data based upon their worldview.  The Bible agrees perfectly with scientific data, but it often disagrees with scientists.  Carbon-14 dating (and other radiometric dating methods) is based off of a naturalistic worldview.  We don’t have the space here, but we would highly recommend you read this article, written by a scientist, on the assumptions involved in carbon-14 dating.  Once again, the problem isn’t with the carbon half-life measurements… but with the interpretation of the data.

The Bible dwells in perfect harmony with science, but when scientists assume that there is no God involved in the creation of this planet, they often fail to understand the data they are collecting.