President Donald Trump made this statement in the midst of his address to the joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on the evening of March 4th. In its context, the president was asking congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex change operations in children. While I heartily agree with his appeal and his assessment, I hope it might help open doors of opportunity for Christians to talk to friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, and fellow students about the God of creation. Of course, we should already be doing that, even if the messaging of our national leadership was antagonistic to the idea.
Mr. Trump echoes an idea we see in Scripture, though. David writes, “I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well” (Psalm 139:14). The psalmist says this in the midst of praising God as the masterful designer and creator. Isaiah adds that God formed you and me from the womb (Isa. 44:24). Job likens God to a master craftsman, a knitter who put him together with bones and sinew (Job 10:11). Paul underlines the awesomeness of our Maker, saying, “His eternal power and divine nature” are seen in His acts of creation (Rom. 1:20).
If you live to be 80 years old, your heart will beat over 3 billion times and you will not have had to tell it to even once! Neurons in the brain send messages to other parts of the brain, the nervous system, and the rest of the body. There are 86 billion neurons in the average brain. University of Washington neuroscientist, Astra Bryant (Ph.D.), says, “To ruthlessly simplify, treating all 86 billion neurons in the human brain as copies of that a single “typical” neuron, ignoring all of the glorious cellular specificity that characterizes the brain, we’re left with a range of 86 billion to 17.2 trillion action potentials per second” (neuwritewest.org) Not once have we had to tell a neuron to fire, and how would we if we wanted to? The human body is designed to repair, regenerate, and reprogram the cells in the body. There are trillions of somatic cells in the body (every cell not involved in reproduction, and so the majority of them), and there are 220 types with different functions like bone, skin, muscle, and nerves. These cells are responsible for the growth, maintenance, and development of the body (via ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). You have never once had to tell even one of those cells to do its job.
When someone stops to examine these few examples (and the countless others that could be added), we get back to the inescapable premise that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Yes, even with mutations, defects, chromosomal abnormalities, metabolic disorders, toxicities, infections, and other prenatal and genetic factors that are a part of our fallen world, we must agree that we are perfect the way God made us! The teleological argument (also known as the design argument) is a powerful proof that “the complexity of the world requires an intelligent designer” (plato.stanford.edu). Yet, who He is, how He is, and what that means to and for us requires more specific information about the Designer. That information is as close as your open Bible, read, studied, and understood as a way to have a relationship with the One who started it all! Never miss an opportunity to do that, privately in study and publicly in the assemblies.
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