Selina also heard of a soldier’s wife who had just given birth to twins and was not expected to live. The countess responded quickly by helping the young woman as much as she was able—physically, materially and spiritually. The dying mother wept as she began to understand her sinful state before God and begged Selina to return to teach her from the Scriptures. Next door to the young wife’s lodgings was the public bakehouse, where the local residents would bring their dough ready kneaded to bake in the communal oven. Through a crack in the wall between the bakehouse and the soldier’s wife’s apartment, those awaiting their turn to bake their bread could hear snatches of the conversation taking place next door.

George Whitefield and John Wesley are well known as the primary human instruments used of God to spark the great evangelical revival in eighteenth century England and Wales. Far fewer Christians today are familiar with Selina Hastings (1707-1791), the English noblewoman who played a key role in supporting and promoting that same revival.
Selina was the Countess of Huntingdon, having married Theophilus Hastings, the 9th Earl of Huntingdon. Following her Christian conversion through faith in Christ at age thirty-one, she was filled with desire and determination to point others to Jesus as their Savior. Besides personally sharing the Gospel with many of her acquaintances, she supported scores of Christian evangelists in their ministry of traveling about to proclaim the message of salvation. In her lifetime she funded the construction of sixty-four Gospel-preaching chapels in England and Wales, established a college where many evangelists were trained, and supported missionary endeavors in colonial America and Sierra Leone, Africa.
To follow is an intriguing set of events that unfolded in Selina’s life when she was in her late forties and early fifties. They typify how the Lord used her significantly throughout her life to bring tremendous spiritual good to innumerable people.   
In 1756 Selina’s sixteen-year-old son named Henry became ill with an unidentified disorder that began adversely affecting his eyesight. She took him to London to obtain the best medical advice available. Despite the doctors’ efforts, Henry’s overall health continued to deteriorate, and he was gradually going blind.
In the spring of the following year, Selina brought Henry to Brighthelmstone (later called Brighton) on the southern coast of England. There it was hoped he would gain improved health through sea bathing, which in that day was thought to bring considerable benefit in the case of a number of ailments.
Shortly after arriving in Brighton, Selina was surprised when a woman she had never before met approached her in the street and exclaimed, “Oh Madam, you are come!”
Taken aback, Selina asked, “What do you know of me?”
“Madam,” the woman answered, “I saw you in a dream three years ago, dressed as you are now.” She went on to relate a dream she could never forget in which she had seen a tall woman dressed just as Selina was presently. She had understood that when that woman came to Brighthelmstone she would be the means of doing much good there.
Soon thereafter, Selina paid the woman a visit and learned that she likely had only a few months to live. The Countess shared the Gospel of salvation with her.
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Despite knowing more today than many Christians in the past, we still need to be careful and humble when interpreting and applying Scripture. If we do not respect historical and cultural differences, we can inadvertently misread Scripture through our own modern cultural lenses. 

I vividly remember the time in my youth that I was in a Bible study with my pastor and we were looking at Luke 14:25-35. I got stuck on Jesus’ words in verse 26: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” I was a new believer, and it was the first time I had read that passage. I was horrified by the verb “hate,” which today means to intensely dislike something or someone. As an Asian youth steeped in a culture that almost idolizes respect for one’s parents, how could I hate my parents or my siblings? I loved them!
At the time, the Bible passage seemed clear to me: If I don’t hate my parents, I can’t follow Jesus.  But I could not choose between the seemingly irreconcilable options, and I began to weep. After realizing why I was crying, my pastor quickly reassured me that Jesus did not mean for us to literally hate our parents but simply that we must love Jesus more than anyone or anything else. It was hyperbole, he explained.
Of course, it was still a radical and, to some degree, offensive claim. But it became less harsh when understood not as disliking one’s parents, but as loving them less than one loves Jesus.
My youthful self read our modern understanding of “hate” back into Jesus’ use of the word, making his claim more offensive than it already was. I now know that people in Jesus’ ancient Middle Eastern culture often spoke with colorful hyperbole to make a point. This was their custom, and Jesus’ original audience would have understood his statement to be an exaggeration.
That incident was an early lesson for me in this truth about biblical interpretation: The Bible, even though it’s for us, was not written to us, but to audiences greatly removed from us in time, culture, and language. We can never read Scripture plainly, if by “plainly” we mean ignoring our own cultural biases and the cultural and historical gaps between us and the text. If we do not respect the historical, cultural, and linguistic differences between us and Scripture, we are in danger of reading modern cultural ideas back into the Bible and distorting whatever insights we might get out of it.
Clarity of Scripture
I am not saying that the Bible is so obscure that only Bible scholars can understand Scripture properly.  Neither am I arguing against the Reformation’s doctrine of the clarity of Scripture, historically called the “perspicuity of Scripture.” That doctrine does not assert that everything in Scripture is clear and easy to understand. It only teaches that what is necessary for salvation is clear in Scripture. We see this in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646): “All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them” (Ch. 1.VII).
Scripture itself shows that some parts of the Bible are not easy to understand: “(Paul’s) letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction,” the apostle Peter writes, (2 Pet. 3:16) and the Ethiopian eunuch needed Philip’s help to understand the prophet Isaiah (Acts 8:26-40).
So even without biblical scholarship, anyone can still read the Bible and sufficiently discern its main message of salvation. But not everything in the Bible is easy to understand, not even for first-century readers like the ones Peter wrote to. How much more difficult must it be for those who are centuries removed from the Scripture’s cultures, customs, and contexts?
Lost in Translation
Modern translations of the Bible, though generally reliable, are not infallible. Despite the translators’ best efforts, there are many cultural and linguistic nuances that cannot always be adequately translated into English or some other language.
For example, most of us know that ancient Greeks had multiple words for “love.” Agape means sacrificial love, philos means brotherly love, and eros denotes erotic or romantic love, to name the most common ones. All of these words are usually rendered into English from the original Greek of the New Testament as simply “love.” Readers of English translations can thus miss out on some linguistic nuances.
In John 21:15-19, for instance, Jesus asks Peter three times if Peter loves him. This is, of course, reminiscent of Peter previously disavowing Jesus three times. We can understand this story as Jesus gently reconciling with Peter and restoring him to his apostleship. What might be lost on us without reading the original Greek, however, is that two different words for “love” were used in that conversation.
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There is a direct link between creation and new creation, between this universe’s origin and its regeneration (Matt. 19:28). The good pleasure and power of God began it, and He shall complete it. His Word faithfully declares how it all began. Do not be mistaken. You cannot concede this point without undermining the foundation for others. 

Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker—Psalm 95:6

The doctrine of creation affects every area of life. We breathe created air, walk upon created ground, and look for the new creation to come. God revealed His glory to His creation and in this created world has unfolded the drama of redemption. Sadly, the biblical account of creation is under attack today. Some ridicule creation, others reject it outright. Should believers concede ground here? No, for compromising the doctrine of creation has far reaching effects for life and faith. This article will present five reasons creation is important while encouraging the reader to stand unashamedly upon the truth of the Word of God.
Creation Teaches Man about His Origins
One of the worst effects of amnesia is that people forget who they are. While we are more than the sum of our memories, the knowledge of birthplace, parents, upbringing—even our own names—all serve powerfully to shape our identities. Considering the widespread antagonism against the biblical account of creation, is it surprising that one of today’s most heated controversies focuses upon identity? So many are confused about who they are, and the answers the world holds forth are increasingly destructive.
The Bible explains both man’s identity and origin. God’s “Let there be” called forth and fashioned light, the seas, the earth, plants, and all living things. With man God did something different, “Let Us make man in Our image” (Gen 1:26). The Lord God fashioned man from the dust of the ground, molding him in unsearchable wisdom and making him a living being (Gen. 2:7).
Man is no soul-less product of evolution, but a fearfully and wonderfully fashioned person made to know and serve God in His presence (Ps. 139:14). Yet who can boast of being made from dust? Who can boast whose very existence is derived from another? An identity informed by creation is one of both dignity and humility. Man and women are not developed animals but dependent humans, made to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever (WSC 1).
Creation Calls Man to Trust God at His Word
“By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (Heb. 11:3). This faith is the reasonable foundation for knowledge. John Brown of Edinburgh wrote, “God has given us a revelation on this subject, and our knowledge rises out of our belief of that revelation.”[1] The Westminster Confession adds, “By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word” (WCF 14.2)
God spoke all things into existence and perfectly formed the universe in the space of six days (Ex. 20:11). However, through a combination of societal pressures, desire for academic standing, or fear of being called a fundamentalist, many believers have faltered on this particular point. But consider: if it is too difficult to believe God created the universe in six days, what about the more “difficult” doctrines God teaches? If a believer concedes to worldly pressure on creation, what about the resurrection? Some claimed the resurrection was incredible (Acts 26:8) and others mocked Paul for believing it (Acts 17:32). Yet Christians believe this, not because reason can uncover empirical evidence for doing so, but because God’s Word declares it to be true. Do not be ashamed. Do not doubt. Remember, “our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases” (Ps. 115:3).
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