When it comes to issues that Christians might disagree on, few can compete with questions related to the age of the earth.

What does the Bible really teach about this topic? Is there room for disagreement within Christian orthodoxy?

If so, what are the boundaries for different viewpoints, and how do we keep all of this in perspective as we

seek to engage the world for Christ while remaining faithful to His Word? Well, we're going to

dig into all of these questions and more in my interview today with Gavin Ortland. Gavin has spent

over two decades thinking carefully about the Genesis Creation account, studying the text of Scripture and the

testimony of church history. In our conversation, he lays out his approach to thinking about this

doctrine, emphasizing the importance of a commitment both to Scripture as our ultimate authority

and Christian unity as the people of God. Gavin hosts the popular YouTube channel Truth Unites

and is the author of several books,

including Finding the Right Hills to Die on,

The Case for Theological Triage from Crossway.

Let's get started.

Well, Gavin, thank you so much for joining me again on the Crossway podcast.

Hey, happy to be here, Matt. Thanks.

So speaking about the doctrine of creation and more specifically issues like the age of the earth or the nature of the days of Genesis 1, those are topics that probably all of us have thought about a little bit,

and we all kind of know the stereotypes about conversations on those issues. But you write,

quote, no issue has been more challenging to fellowship and ministry relationships than these.

What does that look like for you? Yeah, a couple different sort of scenarios come to my mind.

One would be beloved friends of mine who have left the faith. And we maintain good friendship,

but in some cases, disagreements that they had with Christians on the doctrine of creation were one factor in their

experience. And so I've tried to be a good friend and listen to their perspective, to their concerns.

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