Bible Archives

August 25, 2022August 24, 2022

Wildfire Aftermath and Recovery

If you are like me, you have watched with pain the terrible wildfires in the western United States. We tend to focus on the folks who have lost homes or barely got out with the clothing on their backs. However, the long-term effects of wildfires are not as bad as the human tragedy often caused by human mismanagement. Several research studies funded by the National Science Foundation have dealt with wildfire aftermath and recovery.

One study of charcoal from Wales and Poland tells the story of plants consumed by fire millions of years ago. Botanists say that instead of the grasses, trees, and flowers we see today, previous ancient land plants were under an inch tall. Some waist-high or knee-high plants existed, but much of the landscape was covered with tiny plants. At that time, the big plants were fungi that towered over all other plants. A well-preserved prototaxite fossil fungus shows that they stood 30 feet tall.

Earth’s atmosphere at that time had very little oxygen, unlike the 21% figure we see today. Fires would not occur because of the lack of oxygen. Modern studies show that a fire of any size isn’t likely below 16% atmospheric oxygen. Once the level exceeded 16%, fires occurred, and wildfire aftermath and recovery paved the way for the large plants we know today. Modern plants can generate large amounts of oxygen to sustain animal life.

In today’s wildfire aftermath and recovery, there are always “green islands” where a tree cluster avoids being burned because of the topography or nearness to water. A high percentage of seeds from these patches of unburned trees remain to germinate and grow. The creatures that would ordinarily eat the small trees are no longer there, so the plants survive to rapidly reforest the area. That means areas with “green islands” do not need human tree planting. Most human effort and resources can go to places with no “green islands.”

These studies help us understand God’s methods of preparing Earth for humans and the animals we need. Genesis 1:11-12 gives the same picture that the scientists are finding. It says that the first form of plant life was the grasses – “deshe” in Hebrew means tender grass. The second group of plants is “eseb,” meaning “naked seed,” – gymnosperms. That is followed by the tree bearing fruit containing its seed – angiosperms. The Bible tells us the order of progression from early forms of plants to the ones we depend on today. The Bible does not tell us how God did it or how long it took, but scientific research today gives us that information.

Reference: National Science Foundation “Research News”

August 23, 2022August 22, 2022

Placebo Treatment for Medical Problems

My wife is participating in a study of a new medical treatment. She is getting regular blood tests and various other medical tests to see if the treatment is effective. At the start of the study, the doctor told her that only half of the participants would get the actual treatment. The other half will receive a placebo, which is a pill with nothing but an inert filler. Placebo treatment is an accepted scientific way to measure a new medicine’s effectiveness.

One complicating factor of placebo treatment is that the human body is designed to cure itself, even with a placebo or nothing at all. In addition, a person’s mental outlook can affect the results of a drug or procedure. For example, reader’s Digest recently published an article by Lia Grainger titled “The Placebo Cure.” That article tells about a man diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He became part of a study to see if a drug used to treat type 2 diabetes could also help treat Parkinson’s.

When the study began, the patient immediately started feeling better. His joints ached less, he could move more easily, and he was able to start taking walks around the neighborhood. He said his memory was more robust, and he was convinced he was daily receiving the new drug. It turned out that he had been given a placebo.

The article defines the “placebo effect” as when the brain convinces the body that the fake treatment is authentic. Doctors have been using placebos for a very long time. One study showed that 89% of physicians used placebo treatment at least once a month. The scientific community only poorly understands this effect, but it is genuine and not questioned by medical researchers.

The design of the human body is one of God’s finest creations. Our minds have incredible power over the physical needs of our bodies, and it seems to be unique to humans and not a product of evolution or a chance process. This is true of our sexual relationships as well as our physical wellness. Our drug-saturated culture tends to throw a chemical at every problem. God has built into us an incredible number of ways in which our bodies fight disease and physical impairments.

We need to quickly emphasize that we are not saying there is no need for antibiotics, vaccines, or medical treatments. But, at the same time, we need to understand that we “are fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalms 139:14). One part of that is how our brains help our bodies maintain a high level of physical well-being.

Reference: “The Placebo Cure” by Lia Grainger in Reader’s Digest September 2022, pages 79 – 84.

August 22, 2022August 20, 2022

Our Planet’s Magnetic Field

There are a vast number of things that make life on planet Earth possible. We are all aware of some, while others escape most people’s knowledge. One thing that allows life to exist on Earth is our planet’s magnetic field.

All stars generate streams of radiation by the nature of their energy-producing systems, and our Sun is no exception. The solar wind is a constant threat to life on the Moon or Mars or in any spaceship traveling through the solar system. Studies show that Mars once had a magnetic field, but that field dissipated, leaving the surface sterile. The question for astronomers is why Earth didn’t suffer the same fate. Much of the answer to our planet’s magnetic field lies in Earth’s geology.

About 1800 miles below our feet, a liquid iron core generates our magnetic field. Recent research shows that there was a time in the distant past when Earth’s magnetic field was dissipating, but just as it reached its lowest point, it regenerated. Using various new wave detection tools, researchers have found evidence of what brought the magnetic field back.

Earth has four layers: (1) the crust where we live, (2) a thick layer called the mantle, (3) a molten outer core, and (4) A solid inner core. In the molten outer core, swirling liquid iron generates electric currents, driving a geodynamo that produces our planet’s magnetic field to protect us from the solar wind.

We can’t go to the Earth’s core to study these layers, but minerals that contain tiny magnetic particles rise to Earth’s surface. By examining the magnetic crystals in anorthosite rocks with a superconducting quantum interference magnetometer, researchers can see a historical record of Earth’s magnetic field. That field began to regenerate as the inner core started to grow, allowing Earth to retain the water so vital to life.

This new research helps scientists understand how Earth became a habitable planet. The implications for life on other planets are clear, and we can see that our planet is extraordinary. When we see the complexity of our planet, it takes more faith to believe that our existence is an accident than to believe it was planned and designed. The tools God used to prepare a place for life to thrive are far more complex and exceptional than anyone can understand when reading, “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.”

Reference: National Science Foundation and Nature.com

August 19, 2022August 16, 2022

Medical Benefits of Spiders

The entertainment industry has done much to encourage arachnophobia (fear of spiders), and it starts at an early age. Remember, “Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey. Along came a spider and sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffet away.” It’s true that some spiders have venom that is dangerous to humans. However, we can’t let arachnophobia keep us from finding medical benefits of spiders.

There are many potential benefits of spider venom and secretions in medicine and agriculture. Here are five examples:

1) The venom of a Brazilian wandering spider has an ingredient that has been found helpful in treating erectile dysfunction.
2) The venom of a South American tarantula can calm an irregular heartbeat and may be used to treat atrial fibrillation.
3) Australia’s Blue Mountains funnel-web spider has a venom that attacks the nervous system of insects that eat crops but doesn’t affect humans.
4) Spider silk can be used as synthetic muscles for drug delivery systems or robotic devices.
5) Glue secreted by orbed web spiders gets stronger in the presence of water, possibly making it useful for surgery and underwater engineering.

God built these materials into the life processes of spiders so that they could survive and fulfill their purpose in the natural world. The medical benefits of spiders are not alone in the natural world. There are many plants and animals in the creation with chemicals that can have significant medical and agricultural benefits for humans. Science can recognize God’s chemical design and copy it to solve human problems.

In Proverbs 8:22-33, we find Wisdom personified by speaking and describing some of God’s actions in the creation process. The more we know of the creation, the more we understand God’s nature and wisdom.

Reference: Discover magazine Volume 32 #2, page 80.

August 17, 2022August 16, 2022

The Amazing Chickadees

If you have a bird feeder on your property, you are probably familiar with the amazing chickadees found throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The six North American chickadee species do not have large fat reserves like some birds, such as finches. Instead, their trim size gives them more mobility to evade predators such as cats or sharp-shinned hawks. However, it also means chickadees must find enough fuel daily to maintain their metabolism.

One way chickadees survive is by lowering their body temperature at night. A chickadee’s daytime body temperature is 108 degrees Fahrenheit, but it drops to around 86 degrees at night. This controlled hypothermia is a nocturnal semi-hibernation that slows their metabolism by about 25%. The next day, they must find enough food to maintain their daytime metabolism while replacing fat lost the previous night.

Besides the seeds at our bird feeders, chickadees eat caterpillars, insects, spiders, and conifer seeds. Since chickadees don’t migrate south for the winter, they store food for use during the cold months. Their stockpiles exist in various places, such as wedged into pine needle clusters or tree bark or even pounded into the ground. They store food in the lower branches of conifer trees, so it will be available when the upper branches are covered with snow. Chickadees prepare insects for storage by removing the heads of larvae and the wings of moths.

Storing food for later use requires remembering where it is, and studies have shown that chickadees can remember where they stored items for months. The hippocampus is the area of the brain involved in memory and spatial learning. In the fall, when food storage moves into high gear, the chickadee brain grows new neurons in the hippocampus. Their brain stores visual cues such as the spatial relationship between significant landmarks, allowing them to remember their cache locations from fall until the following spring.

Those of us who maintain bird feeders frequented by chickadees notice that they are not as shy around people as most birds are. The complexity of the amazing chickadees is extraordinary. They are another example of God’s design in the natural world, enabling the survival of a small creature we take for granted. This design speaks eloquently of the fact that we “can know there is a God through the things He has made” (Romans 1:20).

Reference: National Wildlife magazine February/March 1998, pages 24 -28.

August 15, 2022August 14, 2022

A Remarkable Tool of Astronomy – The JWST

On July 12, 2022, NASA released the first public images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), launched on December 25, 2021. JWST is a remarkable tool of astronomy that can see objects in outer space not visible to Earth-bound telescopes. Dr. Scott Acton is a 1984 Abilene Christian University graduate who worked on the JWST for almost 24 years as a wavefront sensing and controls scientist. As a Christian, he said, “Seeing these images will increase your faith.”

In February, Dr. Acton’s team was privileged to download a “throwaway” image from a JWST fine guidance sensor, which brought him to tears. He described his feelings by saying, “I realized that single image contained probably 500 galaxies that had never been seen before.”

As a remarkable tool of astronomy, the JWST enables us to expand our understanding of the incredible size and magnitude of the creation. As the tools of observation improved, astronomers realized that our Milky Way galaxy was just one of many. Thanks to the JWST, we can now see countless galaxies that astronomers have never seen before, and each one contains billions of stars, many of which have planets orbiting them.

These distant galaxies send out all kinds of light – not just visible light. The JWST can see the light invisible to our eyes and see it without the obstruction of our atmosphere. That light can tell us the history of creation and testify to the truthfulness of what the Bible says about creation.

In Job 38:6-7, God says to Job, “Upon what are the foundations of the earth fastened and who do you think laid the cornerstone when the morning stars sang together?” Dr. Acton says that he imagined the galaxies singing: “Not in any kind of language that people could understand, but certainly the emotion we can understand. I would call that emotion joy. It’s almost like the galaxies or the universe was happy that after all this time, we could finally see them.”

The pictures from this remarkable tool of astronomy will give us more evidence that the creation of the cosmos had a beginning in which time and space came into existence. We can see the evidence of design and purpose everywhere in the cosmos and on Earth. If there was a beginning, there had to be a cause, and that cause was “Elohim,” the God of Genesis 1:1.

Reference: The Christian Chronicle for August 2022, pages 18-19.

August 13, 2022August 10, 2022

Being Perfect Should Be Our Goal

Some years ago, in a question/answer session, a woman accused me of thinking I was perfect. I asked her what she meant by the word “perfect.” That resulted in a long string of profanity about how she was sure I was far from perfect. She even pointed out a spelling mistake in my latest journal.

I asked her to define “perfect” because the word means a different thing in the Bible than in our common English usage. The fact that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) makes it clear that becoming “perfect” in a biblical sense is not the same as a spelling error. Jesus called people to “…be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). The Old Testament identifies four men as being “perfect” – Noah (Genesis 6:8-9), David (1 Kings 11:4), Asa (1 Kings 15:14), and Job (Job 1:1). None of these men were sinless, so how could any of them be said to be perfect?

In the New Testament, we also see “perfect” used differently. Hebrews 2:10 tells us that Jesus “was made perfect through His suffering.” Jesus didn’t need to be made sinless. He was sinless. The Greek word translated “perfect” is “teleios,” meaning “to be an adult and full grown, not immature, infantile.” Second Timothy 3:16-17 tells us that scripture can make us perfect. Numerous New Testament admonitions command Christians to be “teleios.” (See Hebrews 6:1 and Colossians 1:28, 3:14. and 4:12 for examples). Another Greek word, “katartizo,” is sometimes translated as perfect, and it means “a state of wholeness or completion in which defects or shortcomings are left behind.” (See 1 Corinthians 1:10 and 2 Corinthians 13:11.)

Christians strive to be complete, but we know we will never be sinless. First John 1:8-10 tells us that sinlessness is not within us as mortals, and James 3:2-10 points out that our tongue is a challenge we all face. Christians often say, “I am a work in progress.” That is a biblical concept, and while I strive to be complete and try to be without sin, it is only through the power God gives us that I make any progress in either of those.

Please join me in prayer that God’s Spirit will be active in helping us to do better today than we did yesterday as we progress toward being perfect.

References: Young’s Analytical Concordance to the Bible and The New Bible Dictionary – Eerdman’s Publishers.

August 12, 2022August 10, 2022

Freedom of Moral Convictions

The political free-for-all that is going on in America now has all kinds of implications for people of faith. The problem is not whether people have the right to adopt any sort of moral stand but whether those people have the right to pass laws that discriminate against others who make different moral choices. Therefore, we must preserve the freedom of moral convictions in our words and actions.

In the past, laws made homosexual activity illegal, prohibited interracial marriage, and restricted people of Asian descent from owning a business or land. Outdated laws also declared that blacks were humans but not persons and therefore had no rights. Those laws have been removed, but there is a danger of new laws against Christain moral values.

According to the Washington Post, 55 transgender candidates are running for public office this election year. That source also says that 20 gender nonconforming and 18 non-binary candidates are running. They have every right to seek public office. An old cliché says, “I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Unfortunately, that is no longer true in many cases. Every day we read about public figures who express their opinion and are threatened with a lawsuit or physical harm by someone who feels offended.

We know first-hand about the threat to the freedom of moral convictions. We have pointed out many long-term negative consequences of the LGBTQ lifestyle, especially if drugs and/or surgery are involved. Stating those facts has resulted in threats of lawsuits as well as personal threats against your editor. Christians who openly say that they believe God designed marriage to be between a man and a woman are facing threats of violence or loss of employment in today’s America. If the LGBTQ community succeeds in getting enough representation in our government, will they pass laws outlawing Christian moral beliefs?

Jesus spoke loudly and clearly about the separation of Church and State. Both sides of this issue need to understand the consequences of allowing moral or religious beliefs to determine who makes and enforces the laws. We must not repeat history or expect recompense for past sins.

Reference: The Week for 8/14/22, page 16.

August 11, 2022August 10, 2022

Fetal Development in the Womb

One thing that can get lost in the rhetoric about abortion is what happens in the fetal development in the womb. The story begins around the 14th day of a 28-day menstrual cycle when an ovary releases an egg. When the sperm fertilizes the egg, the zygote, as it’s called, contains a mixture of genetic information from both parents. Fertilization usually occurs in the fallopian tube near the ovary that produced the egg.

This already growing zygote must travel to the uterus to implant itself. If the zygote lodges in the wrong place, such as in a fallopian tube, the result is a medical emergency called an ectopic pregnancy. Such a pregnancy can rupture the tube, leading to internal bleeding that can cause the mother’s death.

Once the zygote attaches in the uterus, the mother produces the hormones that nourish and protect it, allowing the growth process to continue. What might be considered a “heartbeat” can be detected long before there are chambers and valves that make up the human heart. Specialized cells create a heart tube that produces a fluttering electrical activity that can be heard with a stethoscope or detected by an ultrasound machine.

When pain signals come from the senses, they must travel to the brain’s cortex which develops at about weeks 24 or 25 of pregnancy. It is amazing that by the end of the first trimester, the developing baby has every organ it will ever have throughout its life. They merely continue to grow and develop.

People used to justify slavery by saying that blacks were humans but not persons. Nobody can support such a distinction from a scientific or moral standpoint. Yet, some have used the same failed logic to justify abortion.

The complexities of reproduction are so massive that there is still much that science doesn’t understand. Nevertheless, it is incredible that an atheist can look at the fetal development in the womb and not be amazed at the beauty and wonder of its design. “For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made” (Psalms 139:13-14a CSB).

References: Science News for July 16 & 30, 2022, page 6-7; Skeptic Magazine, Volume 27 # 2 2022, page 22.

August 6, 2022August 4, 2022

Misunderstanding the Concept of Prayer

We often find both atheists and believers misunderstanding the concept of prayer. Atheists see prayer as a crutch and an exercise in futility. Madalyn O’Hair, the leading atheist in the late 1900’s, was fond of saying, “No god ever answered any prayer at any time, nor ever will.” Other atheists have said that a god who needs his ego fed by the constant praise of humans isn’t worth having. For many believers, prayer is a crutch to lean on when you are in trouble.

A friend of mine tells the story of being with a family when one of their members was dying. The dying man took his last breath, and then there was silence. One of the family members said, “So what do we do now?” Another said, “I guess we should pray.” To that, the first family member said, “Does anyone here know how to pray?” They were misunderstanding the concept of prayer.

Some religions view prayer as a payment to their concept of god. They see prayer as something their god commands as a price of membership or payment for blessings received. The Christian prayer, as presented in the Bible, is very different. There are multiple admonitions for Christians to pray, but it was never given as a command to all people.

The Christian concept of prayer is not to boost God’s ego or to inform Him about a situation. Instead, Matthew 6:8 tells us, “…your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” Jesus followed that statement with a model prayer acknowledging God’s power and glory, recognizing that everything we need comes from Him, and seeking His forgiveness as we forgive others.

Because prayer is integral to spiritual health, it is also a huge contributor to good mental health. Humans need to look to a higher power, which is part of most 12-step recovery programs. Passages like Matthew 7:7-8, Luke 11:9-10, and John 14:13-14 don’t promise physical comfort but spiritual results. James 4:2-7 makes it abundantly clear that prayer is not a selfish request for physical pleasure.

There are 85 original prayers in the Old Testament, and 60 of the psalms are prayers. When you look at who does the praying, why, and what the ultimate result of the prayer is, you don’t see self-seeking requests to an ego-driven god who needs praise to maintain his self-image. What you see is people realizing their dependence on the Creator and seeking a relationship with Him. Those who don’t see their prayers answered may be misunderstanding the concept of prayer.