Bible Archives

December 2, 2024December 1, 2024

Grounded Running in Birds

Have you ever chased after a bird? Trying to catch a gull or a robin is an exercise in futility because birds can run at very high speeds. In our part of the world, we have a bird called the Killdeer, which lays its eggs on the ground in the open. As a teenager, I would chase the adult birds, thinking I could catch one, but I did not realize they were running on the ground to lead me away from their nest. I never thought about why I could never catch one because I would run out of breath before the bird would. Researchers have studied what they call “grounded running” in birds.

When humans are in a hurry, they use what is called “aerial running,” in which we pick up our feet. In grounded running, birds always keep one foot on the ground. Keeping a foot on the ground consumes less energy than human aerial running. Dr. Armita R. Manafzadeh of Yale University says that even though grounded running may look funny, “It’s actually a pretty smart thing to do when you have the anatomy of a bird.” According to Dr. Manafzadeh, “If we try to interpret the diversity of animal locomotion through a human-centric lens, we’re going to miss out on lots of really cool and equally viable ways of moving around the world.”

It is only through modern technology that we have been able to study the ground running of birds. What appears to be a silly-looking strategy is a beautifully designed system that meets the bird’s needs. The more we learn about the design and wisdom displayed in the creation, the more we see the wisdom and creativity of God.

“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;
And the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you;
And the fish of the sea will explain to you.
Who among all these does not know
That the hand of the Lord has done this,
In whose hand is the life of every living thing,
And the breath of all mankind?” (Job 12:7-10 NKJV)

— John N. Clayton © 2024
Reference: Scientific American magazine for December 2024, page 12.

November 29, 2024November 19, 2024

Christ’s Unique Nature

The events of the last week of Jesus’s life show us how different He is from other historical religious leaders. Hebrews 4:15 says it very well: “We do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was tempted in every way as are we, yet without sin.” Consider what the Bible tells us about Christ’s unique nature, even during His crucifixion.

GRACE – Luke 23:34 Jesus prays for those killing him. Some other religious figures encouraged retaliation and violence.
MISSION – Luke 23:43 Jesus promised paradise to the thief on the cross. He told Paul in Acts 9:15 that there was a stated purpose for his life. From the very start, Jesus came to fulfill prophecy and to build His Church.
STRUGGLE – Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34 Jesus had a very human response to what was happening to Him.
FAMILY – John 19:26-27 One of the last acts of Christ on the cross was to assure the care of His mother.
HUMAN NATURE – John 19:28 Jesus was thirsty. Luke 22:44 Jesus was in agony over what was going to happen to Him. Luke 24:30-43 Jesus ate with his disciples, proving that he was alive.
TRUST – Luke 23:46 Jesus commended His spirit to the Father. Paul reflected this trust in 2 Timothy 4:6-8 and Stephen in Acts 7:59-60.
PERSEVERANCE – John 19:30 Jesus said, “It is finished.” He had completed the sacrifice that had been His purpose from His very birth.

When we stand before Jesus on the day of judgment, we cannot say, “Lord, you don’t know how it was,” because Jesus endured everything we experience. He came from a poor family and was not part of the religious hierarchy. Because of Christ’s unique nature, He refused to use violence, political power, or military force. He left us–His disciples–with a platform to change the world and gave us the tools to do it. Read Matthew 25:31-46 and see what Christians should be doing to help others. Understand that Jesus was different from all other religious figures and that following His teachings can change us–and the world.

November 28, 2024November 19, 2024

Ten Lepers and Thankfulness

On His way to Jerusalem, Jesus entered a village where He was met by ten lepers. They stayed a distance from Him and cried out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Jesus merely told them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” That seems like a strange thing to say to them. The Jewish law required that lepers keep their distance from other people. The only way to avoid that requirement was to become free of the disease and go to a priest to be declared clean. However, these ten were not free of leprosy, so why should they go to the priest?

The command Jesus gave would have required faith on the part of the ten lepers to trust and do as He instructed. Going to the priest to be declared free of leprosy when they were not would make no sense to them. But trusting the words of the one they had just called “Master,” all ten lepers started on the journey to the priest. It was only while on the journey that the miracle happened. They were instantly free of the dreaded disease. Their skin was restored. It must have been the most exciting moment of their lives when they looked at each other and saw beautiful, healthy faces and bodies.

Nine of the former ten lepers rushed on toward the home of the priest who could declare them clean and restore their ability to return to their families and society. One of them did something requiring extra effort. Before rushing to the priest, he ran back to the one who healed him.

“When he saw that he was healed, (he) returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at (Jesus’) feet, giving Him thanks” (Luke 17:15-16). The scripture notes that this man was not a Jew but one of the despised Samaritans. Jesus asked the man a rhetorical question, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?”

Why didn’t the others come back to thank Jesus? Maybe they were anxious to return to their lives, and that was more important than giving thanks. Perhaps they thought they would return after the priest had declared them clean. Of course, Jesus would not have been in that village later because He was on His way to Jerusalem. We often delay saying thanks until it is too late. Those nine lepers may have had nine excuses for not returning to say thanks immediately.

What’s your excuse? This is a reminder for us not to delay showing our appreciation. The ten lepers were healed, but the one who returned received a special blessing when Jesus told him, “Your faith has made you well.”

November 22, 2024November 18, 2024

Humuhumunukunukuapua’a

Hawaii’s state fish is the humuhumunukunukuapua’a. The scientific name is Rhinecanthus rectangulus, but people call them humuhumu for short. This is a species of triggerfish, and the design complexity of these fish defies any chance formation.

The name Humuhumunukunukuapua’a means “a triggerfish with a pig’s snout.” These fish eat lobsters, sea urchins, and snails. They can blow water jets from their mouths to find these foods under sand. The triggerfish name comes from having a “trigger” that locks their dorsal fin in the up position to prevent a predator from extracting them when they hide in a small crevice.

A four-bar linkage mechanism links the humuhumu’s skeleton to its jaws. That gives it a powerful mechanical bite needed to capture its hard-shelled prey. Engineers study the humuhumu to see how humans can assemble and use such structures. This bone-cartilage mechanical linkage defies any step-by-step evolutionary assembly process, and there is no evolutionary precursor to triggerfish.
Like all the examples of design in the natural world, the humuhumunukunukuapua’a strongly supports the biblical statement that we can know there is a God through the things He has made (Romans 1:20).

— John N. Clayton © 2024
References: Waikiki Aquarium, YouTube Deep Marine Scenes, Wikipedia, and “Evolution of Levers and Linkages in the Feeding Mechanisms of Fishes” in Integrative and Comparative Biology.

November 21, 2024November 18, 2024

The Koran Is Not From God

Several Muslims want to know why we don’t promote the Koran in the same way we promote the Bible. The answer to that question is that our ministry deals with evidence, and the evidence is that the Koran is not from God. We have studied the Koran, which is available in Penguin Classics ©1974 and translated by N.J. Dawood (who is a Muslim).

Some of our Muslim friends respond that you have to know Arabic to understand the Koran, but that is not true of the Bible. There are translations of the Bible in many languages, and all are understandable. Not all Muslims believe all that the Koran actually says. Many Muslims are ignorant of the Koran, just as many “Christians” are ignorant of the Bible. We are comparing the books, not what people believe.

We are looking at scientific accuracy. Our websites deal with scientific statements in the Bible that science has shown to be correct. Can the same be said of the Koran? Here are some examples of scientific problems with the Koran:

Al-Nisa 4:23 – Nursing passes on genetic traits from mother to child.
Fact: No genetic traits are transmitted by nursing.

Al-Nisa and Al-Araf – Semen comes from the back or kidney area.
Fact: Semen comes from the testicles and prostate.

Prophets 21:31, The Bee 16:15, Lugman 31:10, The News 78:6-8 – God threw down mountains like tent pegs to keep the Earth from shaking.
Fact: Mountains do not keep the Earth from shaking and are not like tent pegs.

Al-Saffat 37:6, Al Jinn 72:8-9, Al Tariq 15:16-18 – A piercing flame is a shooting star – a weapon of God used to strike devils.
Fact: Meteorites are solid lumps of matter that survive passage through Earth’s atmosphere and reach the ground.

Al-Anam 6:38 – All animals and all things that fly form communities like man.
Fact: Many forms of life do not live in communities.

Al-Nahl 16:69 – Honey emerges from a bee’s abdomen and heals men.
Fact: Honey is produced in a hive, not in a bee’s abdomen.

Al-Naml 27:15-44 – Solomon talked with ants, birds, and giants.
Fact: This kind of communication does not happen.

This is a short list of errors that indicate the Koran is not from God. No such list can be taken from the Bible, even though it gives several scientific statements. Our “doesgodexist.org” website has a correspondence course that contains these and other examples in Appendix A and Appendix B.

November 18, 2024November 17, 2024

God Reveals Himself in Two Ways

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handywork” (Psalms 19:1 KJV). That is how the psalm begins with a Hebrew parallelism where the same thought is repeated in slightly different words. The word translated “firmament” is sometimes translated as “sky.” Literally, the Hebrew word means “expanse.” As we look up at night, we see beyond what we usually call the “sky” and observe the “expanse.” We see God’s glory and handiwork in the things He has made. (See also Romans 1:20.) But an essential truth in Psalm 19 is easily overlooked. It tells us that God reveals Himself in two ways.

In that first verse, the Hebrew word David uses for God is “El.” The ancient Middle Eastern people used that word to refer to a generic “god.” The Jews used it to refer to the Creator. Read the first six verses of that psalm, and you will see the psalmist says that twenty-four hours a day, the visible physical creation reveals knowledge of God and speaks of Him without using words. He says that this natural revelation of the Creator is available to everyone worldwide at all times.

Something changes in verse 7 when David begins to speak of God’s law–His divine revelation. In that verse, the word for God becomes “Yahweh.” The psalmist no longer uses the generic term known to all but the personal name revealed to Moses. (See Genesis 3:14.) In the following verses, David speaks of how God’s law revives the soul, imparts wisdom, brings enlightenment, and is greatly to be desired. God reveals Himself in two ways.

The point is that God is clearly revealed in His creation, but only in His written word can we fully know His will and plan for us. The cosmos, physics, chemistry, biology, and life all point us to “El,” an intelligent Creator. However, to fully know “Yahweh” the “I Am,” we turn to the written word. Some people refuse to accept the evidence of God in creation and call themselves atheists or, at best, agnostics. Others recognize that the creation indicates a Creator and adopt a theistic view but go no further.

The point is that we need to recognize that God reveals Himself in two ways. Go beyond the generic and lame concept of “the man in the sky.” Recognize that God has revealed Himself in the Bible and most clearly in Jesus Christ. The Creator loves us, and He conquered death by dying for us. (See John 1:1-14 and the rest of the gospels.) Our lives can only be complete when we accept God’s natural and written revelations.

November 15, 2024November 16, 2024

Singing and Making Melody in Your Heart

We hear many sounds in the natural world. Animals make sounds as a vehicle to convey a need they have. Birds get a lot of attention because we enjoy the sounds they use to mark territory or find a mate, but it is not music. What is music? We define music as “an art form that combines either vocal or instrumental sounds, sometimes both, using form, harmony, and expression of emotion to convey an idea.” Ephesians 5:19 talks about “singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.”

Genesis 4:21 tells us that Jubal was the father of the harp and the flute, and archaeological evidence shows that, along with drums, those were the first instruments of music. In 1 Samuel 16:14- 23, King Saul had mental issues, and his servants suggested that music might help. This led to David playing the harp in the presence of Saul, and every time he did, “Saul was refreshed and was well, and the evil departed from him.”

Music has many forms and people have used it for dancing in every culture. The dancing can be part of worship, between two people, or by an accomplished dancer. All of these are possible because of the human relationship with God, as we are created in His image. Singing was part of many activities described in the Old Testament. The Hebrew word “zamar” was used when the singing was a praise to God. Singing aloud used the word “ranan,” while singing of God’s attributes was described by the Hebrew word “shir.”

In the New Testament, Greek words refer to an individual’s response to God in song. The Greek word “ado,” used in Ephesians 5:19, “singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,” indicates that singing is to be done with understanding. The same word is used in Colossians 3:16. James 5:13 tells Christians to sing when they are happy. The word used there is “psallo,” and the same word is used in Romans 15:9 and 1 Corinthians 14:15.

Worship is not a spectator sport, and God did not intend for Church worship to be a time of entertainment. All of us should sing in worship, but some say, “I’m tone-deaf and don’t sing well.” The truth is that most of the singing in ancient times involved chants – not four-part harmony. God listens to your heart, not to your sharps and flats.

Today, many churches have paid singers and special programs that feature skilled musicians. These are wonderful to attend and listen to. I enjoy listening to Bill Gaither’s programs on television, but I don’t participate—I listen. One of our co-workers is Paul Foster, who has a beautiful voice and is a skilled musician. He has a daily YouTube program called “Songs of Encouragement.” It is a wonderful teaching tool for anyone but does not replace worship.

Music testifies to human uniqueness and is a great tool God gave us. God’s Spirit is a part of our singing in worship that unifies us and brings us closer to God. Don’t neglect your personal involvement in “singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.”

November 13, 2024November 11, 2024

The Curse of Incarceration

The Does God Exist? ministry recently mailed out our 6,000th apologetics course to a person in prison. Over the years, we have presented our programs in prisons throughout the United States. I recently had a conversation with an inmate who said he was glad to be in jail, where he was learning things from other prisoners to help him not get caught when he gets out and resumes his life of crime. This shows that the curse of incarceration is not working.

The solution to this curse is to change our concept of how to handle a person who has committed a crime. From a financial standpoint, when taxpayers must pay for a person who will be in jail for many years or even life, the cost is massive. There are some bright spots in this very dark problem. In Texas, a program called C.A.S.A (Christians Against Substance Abuse) has been able to change the lives of literally thousands of incarcerated men and women through education and counseling. Several chaplains in Texas prisons are using the “New Life Behavior” curriculum.

Recently, two factors have made getting our life lesson materials to prisoners more challenging. The mail service is more expensive, and prisons have extreme requirements for delivery because so many prisoners have received mail with hidden drugs.

Christians believe that every human being is created in the image of God and should be shown the “agape” kind of love that Jesus taught. (See Matthew 5:43-44.) Prisons should be places where people are rehabilitated, not tortured. We cage dangerous animals, and caging a human is like caging a vicious dog. It doesn’t make the dog less vicious. That is the curse of incarceration.

Educating and rehabilitating humans would be far less expensive than our present system, where most prisoners are simply learning how to be smarter criminals and commit more crimes when released. Will America wake up to this need? If it happens, Christians are the ones who will lead the way.

— John N. Clayton © 2024
Information on CASA is available from Kings Crossing Prison Ministries at https://www.kingscrossingprisonministries.org/.

November 12, 2024November 11, 2024

Trashing God’s Creation

The Bible tells us that God created our planet to be a beautiful place and gave humans the responsibility to take care of it. However, we see today that humans are trashing God’s creation.

Several times in my life, I have had the privilege of being in an area where no human activity had ever been present. From the underwater gardens in the Galapagos Islands to isolated regions of Alaska, the beauty of the natural world has astounded me. In Australia, I was allowed to be in places where the nearest human city was hundreds of miles away, and the beauty was breathtaking. Canoeing in Canada’s Quetico wilderness was another place where I saw incredible beauty. Numerous trips to the bottom of the Grand Canyon allowed me to see an unspoiled natural environment.

Finding unspoiled places today has become increasingly difficult. Human greed, selfishness, and materialism have led to trashing much of our planet. Many people have sensed this loss, including those who may not see it as God’s creation but cannot deny the destruction of the natural world. One organization is the Ocean Conservancy, which is involved in global cleanup. One of their programs is the International Coastal Cleanup (ICC), which uses volunteers to pick up trash worldwide.

In 2023, ICC volunteers collected 1,947,483 cigarette butts, 1,358,870 plastic beverage bottles, 853,086 plastic bottle caps, 762,803 food wrappers, 563,390 plastic grocery bags, and a variety of trash, adding up to 14.3 million items. The issue of trashing God’s creation has gotten more attention since scientists discovered that microplastics contaminate all oceans and even show up in the human bloodstream. Medical research shows that these tiny plastic particles combine with chemicals to produce cancer, birth defects, brain damage, infertility, and various other health issues.

We see skeptics blaming God for these illnesses and problems when the root of much of the pain and suffering is humans trashing God’s creation. Christians cannot assume that this problem is unrelated to their faith. We need to be leaders in caring for God’s creation just as we must lead in helping our world understand Christ’s wisdom as He tells us how to live and how to treat each other.

November 8, 2024November 7, 2024

Is Prayer a Waste of Time?

We recently received an email from a man saying, “I have quit praying. It is a waste of time. Nothing I ask for ever happens or comes.” Is prayer a waste of time?

I understand the man’s comment. When my son was born, I prayed he would be healthy and blessed with a keen mind. After about six months, we learned that he had congenital cataracts. I prayed that his vision would be restored after cataract surgery, but then we learned that he had retinal problems and would be blind. I knew some blind friends who were very bright and had purposeful lives, so I prayed that my son would be bright and full of potential. However, by the time he reached school age, it was evident that he was mentally challenged.

At that point, I had to ask myself, “Is prayer a waste of time?” As a Christian, I knew the Bible said I should pray (John 16:24, Mark 11:24, Matthew 5:44, James 5:16). While studying this question, I gradually realized that prayer was never about physical needs. Jesus warned that problems would come (Matthew 24:4-13). Prayer did not remove issues for Jesus or Paul. Jesus was still crucified, and Paul still had an affliction (2 Corinthians 12:7-9).

The Bible teaches that prayer is primarily about spiritual issues, not physical ones. That doesn’t mean we should not talk with God about physical problems, but the promises of what prayer will do are spiritual. James 1:5 tells Christians to pray for wisdom, not intelligence. James 5:13-14 says, “Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray.” (KJV) The Greek word “afflicted” is “kakopatheo,” meaning to suffer evil. This is not about physical affliction but letting evil take over your life. The use of oil mentioned in the passage was not about medicinal value but a symbol of gladness or spiritual nourishment. (See Deuteronomy 33:24, Psalms 23:5, and Job 29:6.)

Colossians 3:2 tells Christians to “Set your mind on things above, not on things on this Earth.” Philippians 4:6-7 tells Christians that prayer will guard our hearts and minds, not skin and joints. Is prayer a waste of time? I have had atheist friends tell me they don’t understand how I keep going with all the things that have happened in my life. They don’t realize that prayer brings what this passage calls “the peace of God.” Peace doesn’t come from politicians or things of this world. Realizing that you have a purpose for existence is a beautiful reward of being a Christian. My prayer for you is that you will find that peace.