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NASB | Genesis 1:20 ¶ Then God said, "Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens." |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Genesis 1:20 ¶ Then God said, "Let the waters swarm and abundantly produce living creatures, and let birds soar above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens." |
Subject: which came first the chicken or the egg |
Bible Note: In my humble opinion, Genesis is not a "how" story. If God wanted to tell us how He created everything in the universe, it would take a lot more than one book. Genesis is, I believe, a "who" story which tells us "God created". This is the message we take from the book. "In the beginning, God created..." thus the "who" is established. As to evolution: in the study of living things, there is no question that things evolve. This observation is a far cry from the ill-conceived notion that somehow all living things were created through evolution, which is a non-starter both theologically and in the fossil record. This is where scientists and believers get confused. Some scientists try to take micro evolution and turn it into creation. Some Christians try to disavow all evolution as a communist plot... a serious mistake on both sides. We don't have to commit intellectual suicide to be Christians, nor do we have to be atheists to be scientists. Science and theology are both a search for the truth, and in God's world, they are in perfect harmony, as God is the author of all truth. When we seek truth, we should reconcile what we see in science with what we know theologically. If they don't match, we need to review our thinking to see where we are wrong. We should not settle for for bad or contrived "truth" on either side, but seek to find harmony of all truth as best we can... not by disavowing portions of theology or science, but by digging deeper to get to the "real" truth. As Christians, we must be careful not to throw out the baby with the bath water. Just because some folks in the scientific community try to wrongly assert creation through evolution, we should not assert that there is no such thing as evolution just to prove them wrong. I am perfectly comfortable saying, "Living things have evolved (generally within species), but God created them first". This is consistent with Biblical theology and modern science. As scientists, we must not follow those who assert false truth in order to rationalize their own personal theological (or a-theistic) position. We should examine the scientific truth and let facts speak for themselves. God gives us wisdom to understand the knowledge we collect. The beauty of our faith is that we don't have to be ostriches. We can examine theological truth in the full light of science and scientific truth in the full light of Scripture... we know that God makes it all work together... real "truth" is inseperable. To the extent that we can explain the consistencies of Scripture and scientific knowledge (which, as Christians, we believe are harmonious), we gain credibility both as scientists and as theologians. |