Time for some personal confession. Starting sometime in my late teen years, continuing all through my twenties, and into my early thirties, I was a professing atheist. And not a silent one by any means. I spoke my mind to anyone who would listen and, quite often, to those who didn’t want to. When I say I was a “professing” atheist, you can take that to mean I preached atheism!
I was quite well educated in all things science related. I maintained subscriptions to Science magazine and Astronomy magazine; the only classes for which I studied hard were those related to science, I watched every episode of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos documentary series. I made myself a student of science and I could recite all the latest theories and rattle off all the latest scientific discoveries and their implications.
Science became my hobby. But that would be selling things a bit short. It became the driving force behind my reason for living and the basis upon which I understood life itself and the world around me. As a child I was forced to sit in church, attend Sunday school and weekly catechism classes, and was generally excited about Jesus, but now, as I reached adulthood, that was replaced with a “real” understanding through scientific endeavor. Or so I thought.
I was certainly enthusiastic about my newfound scientific understanding. I recall in my early twenties working on an assembly line, across from some Christians. Since they were a captive audience, I made sure to extol upon them every piece of objective evidence, deductive reasoning, and experimental outcome science had to offer. There were, in Carl Sagan’s words, “billions and billions” of stars in the universe and our solar system just happened to be the lucky one upon which mere chance orchestrated life. Even now as I type that, I can see the preposterousness of it, but at the time, my arguments were either quite convincing or merely obnoxious (or probably both).
Eventually, my life began to collapse around me. Mired in self-destructive behavior fueled, at least in part, by the meaninglessness of a life that was the result of mere random chance, the castle I built for myself eventually fell, and all my scientific knowledge really couldn’t explain it or put it back together. I was left to pick up the pieces but had not the desire or drive to do so. The pain and inner turmoil I was left with was significant and ultimately pushed me to seek help.
But even then, I didn’t immediately let go of the scientific basis upon which I built my life. That took time. One particularly desperate night, I had a uniquely spiritual experience and, while I did not understand it, it was tangible enough that it started to change me. Subsequently, I was invited to church by a friend, and that “God encounter” I had was just enough to get me to accept. And thus I started down a road to a whole new understanding.
One of the first things I began to realize is that all my scientific inquiry was my attempt to make sense of my existence. And all those times I was fiercely arguing with others, trying to convince them how science explained our existence better than the Bible did, I was really hoping, unconsciously, someone would be able to convince me otherwise. I was on a truth quest…but I was not open to the truth! That is what the reality of my situation boiled down to.
Later, once I gave my life to Jesus Christ and began to understand the reality that the Bible is the very Word of God, supported by extensive and highly scientific research, I began to also understand that science supports the Biblical account of creation and life far better than it supports the proposition of spontaneous life and random chance mutations over billions of years. Those who espouse such “science” have made that their religion, just like I once did, and they are not really open to the truth.
My one-time obstinate denial of all things Biblical is really no surprise, the Bible speaks to this: “The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18) I have come to realize God is so much bigger than we can even imagine. He designed, created, and now sustains the entire universe with merely a thought. He is omnipotent, omniscient, and nothing is beyond his ability. To think for, even a second, we know enough, or ever could know enough, to truly understand the complexities of life and the world we live in is arrogant beyond compare. All of our collective knowledge is merely a drop in the ocean of all there is to know!
As the Apostle Paul wrote: “The wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, “He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness.” (1 Corinthians 3:19) And in Jeremiah 8:9: “These wise teachers will fall into the trap of their own foolishness, for they have rejected the word of the Lord. Are they so wise after all?” And Isaiah speaks of the destiny of those who see themselves as wise: “What sorrow for those who are wise in their own eyes and think themselves so clever.” (Isaiah 5:21) But when we are humble and turn our hearts to God, we can begin to understand the world around us and the meaning of life through his revealed Word.
“For the sake of your servant, O Lord, and according to your will, you have done all these great things and have made them known.” (1 Chronicles 17:19)
Whether you know God already and just want to learn more, or maybe your heart is just opening to the truth, here are some resources that can help you learn more about how science actually supports the Biblical account and can help you understand where you came from and where you are going:
Institute for Creation Research
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Paul wrote his letter to the church in Colossae during his first Roman imprisonment sometime in the early AD 60s. Epaphras had shared the Gospel there and helped form the church; a church made up mostly of Gentiles but also with a number of Jewish members. Certain heretical teachings had begun to influence the Colossian church, which Epaphras reported to Paul. This became the basis for Paul to write his letter, which is essentially written as a theological antidote to those errant influences.
Solomon succeeded David as king of Israel about 970 B.C. We do not know with certainty his exact age when he became King, but a study of Scripture suggests he was born around 990 B.C. which would make him about twenty years old when he took the throne. Think about any twenty-year-old you know right now, and you can imagine that becoming the ruler of a nation at that young age would present certain challenges. Solomon saw this, too, and described himself as “being like a little child” in his conversation with God in 1 Kings 3.
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