My father’s mother’s father was a Methodist circuit riding pastor in north Georgia named Charles Ledford. These hardy servants of God rode horseback to circulate among the churches under their care. He and his wife, my great grandmother, Lillie, died quite young, probably due to the intense rigors of life back then in the post-civil-
war South. The few photos I have of them with their daughters indicate that they lived in poverty. As a result, my grandmother, Leone, spent time in an orphanage before being adopted by the Lightfoot family. Later, of course, she married my grandfather, Pete Beck, Sr.
Circuit riders existed because there were not enough pastors for each church to have its own local preacher. Since the church buildings could not move, the circuit riders followed a defined circuit so that each church knew when he would arrive. That way the members would plan to be present when he was.
The Bible tells us that the earth is stationary and the sun rides a circuit above it.
The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. 2 Day to day pours forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge. 3 There is no speech, nor are there words; Their voice is not heard. 4 Their line has gone out through all the earth, And their utterances to the end of the world. In them He has placed a tent for the sun, 5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; It rejoices as a strong man to run his course. 6 Its rising is from one end of the heavens, And its circuit to the other end of them; And there is nothing hidden from its heat. Psalm 19:1–6 (NASB95)
I have been reading and studying the Bible since the Spring of 1971 and continue to discover new “nuggets” of truth in its pages. It is a book that never grows old or dull. Its depths can never be completely plumbed. Its inspired words provide life and truth to those who revere it and rely on the Holy Spirit to teach us from it.
The passage in Psalm 19 begins by informing us that the creation tells us about God and his glory.
A proper understanding of the creation provides a proper understanding of God. A skewed understanding of creation gives us a warped view of God that can produce a false understanding of who we are.
The devil loves to contradict God’s words. He did so in the Garden of Eden when he told Eve, “You will not surely die!” He does it now. Sadly, the majority of modern Christians have bought into his contradiction of scripture regarding the nature of the heavens and the earth. Modern cosmology, which originated with Copernicus, teaches us that the sun does not make a circuit above the earth, but that the earth revolves around the sun. This is no small thing. It leads us to the following conclusions.
- The Bible is not always true.
- The earth is not central to God’s creation.
- We are under the grip of the sun’s “gravity,” which means we serve it instead of its serving us.
- Eventually, heliocentrism leads to other lies – the Big Bang theory, evolution, and atheism.
This profound contradiction of God’s Word regarding the sun is defended vigorously by well-meaning believers who insist that they believe every word in the Bible, except, of course, those which contradict the heliocentric theory. Those they conveniently ignore or twist, ascribing their supposed error to the ignorance of the biblical authors, at which God winked, thus allowing untruths to fill the pages of scripture. No wonder so many have wandered away from biblical truth.
Once we say that some of God’s Word is false, all of it comes into question.
Heliocentrism teaches us that the earth is held in the iron grip of the sun’s immense “gravitational pull,” making the sun the center of things in our “solar system,” which is an infinitely small part of an ever-expanding incomprehensibly huge universe. This means that we humans dare not think of ourselves as special or central to God’s plan.
The Bible, however, teaches us that God created the earth as the center of things, a perfect enclosed habitation for mankind, above which he placed the “lights,” which serve us, much as the circuit riders served the churches under their oversight and care.
Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. 17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:14–18 (NKJV)
So which is it? Does the sun serve us, as God says, as it completes its daily circuit above, or do we serve the sun by forever revolving around it as it hurtles at ridiculous speeds going who knows where? It depends on whether we believe the Bible or Copernicus, doesn’t it? Since I worship God, not Helios or any man, I say the Bible is correct. How about you?
