The Missing Link

By Yuri Solomon

The daughter of a dear friend of mine, complained to her mom about having to go to the museum of natural science to see “Lucy.” She asserted, “Mom I don’t believe we come from monkeys, so why should I have to go see Lucy.” “Lucy” is the name given to the famous fossil skeleton that American anthropologist Donald Johanson found in Ethiopia in 1974. Lucy purports to be the so-call, and dare I say mythical, "missing link." The missing link is the long sought after transitional form between species that evolutionist count on breathing the breath of life into their theory on the day it is discovered. Specifically, scientific proponents of evolution claim that Lucy is a 3.2 million year old hominoid bearing the cross features of primates and Homo sapiens (or humans.)

The exhibit has now made its way to our city and is on display in the museum of natural science. While many Christians may have little interest in this, the fact is we need to pay attention. They march our children down to the museum and fill their heads with these God-denying fables of man evolving from apes. Christians certainly should be concerned about this, yet not fearful. It merits our concern, first because Satan specializes in the tactical use of schemes to capture the attention of unsuspecting victims of his temptation, as he did Eve in the Garden of Eden. The hook line, “Has God said that you shall not eat of any of the trees of the garden,” was extreme and meant to make her more susceptible to subtler ideas that opposed God’s word. Secondly, as we are concern about teaching and training children, and perhaps many adults, in the difference between a Christian/Biblical worldview and a secular worldview.

So in light of these concerns, what simple things should Christians remember when approaching this subject? First and foremost Christians must realize, although passed off as science, evolution is not science. This statement may be surprising; however, science is definitively a hypothesis which can be empirically proven in a laboratory repeatedly. Evolution stops at being a hypothesis, and moreover falls far short of even being that, given the weight of evidence to the contrary (which evidences will not be discussed in this article.) Evolution fails every test of any sort that may be called legitimate science. Evolution is an unobservable theory, a belief, which its proponents desperately want to prove true, and the present hope of their glory is in Lucy. Christians can rest assured that evolution is only a belief and not a fact. Christian faith is in the words of scripture concerning creation, while the evolutionist trusts in their own unfounded reasoning and rationale about creation.

Secondly, Christians may find assurance in the fact that biblical truth cannot and will not ever be discredited. No one in all of history has ever proven that the assertions of scripture err. The opposite is true of these supposedly transitional forms. The reality is that Lucy is the latest attempt to substantiate the clearly defunct theory of Darwinian Evolution. She is in the back of the line of a long list of frauds and failures. There was Piltdown Mann (1890s), Peking Man (1912,), Homo erectus (1927) and the list goes on, always ending in virtual scandal to the dismay of the proponents of evolution. So Lucy is certainly not the first and probably will not be the last of these futile attempts at proving faulty theory. The reason the proponents of evolution are so oppose to our view being voiced in the public forum is because they know that their evidence is lacking; therefore, if your argument cannot be proven true, then the next course of action is to keep your opponents from asserting their position.

Lastly Christians should not inadvertently adopt their approach, seeking to forcefully silence the evolutionist. The truth will stand all on its own, and bring falsehood to shame. So then the appropriate response is to be bold in faith, allowing what they believe to be tested for its soundness, so that their faith will be increased by seeing the truth stand against its critics. Encourage our children to hear out the world’s rationale, especially while they have you by their side to help them reason well. Allow the light of God’s revelation to shine brightly against the dark theories of the world. It is the divine cultural mandate that our faith is placed on display in the market place of ideas. So go to their exhibitions. Hear the theories of the world. Test them in light of the scripture and hold on to what proves to be true. Tested faith is real faith.

Darwin predicted that the fossil record would either prove or falsify his theory; over a century later, the missing link remains undiscovered. Lucy is but another attempt at saving this doomed theory. The missing link is not a transitional form of any species; the missing link is "faith" that God created the heavens and the earth and he made every kind to produce after its own kind. The Christian may be confident that these words of scripture will always be true and no human theory can or will make this brilliant reality fade.

Playing to Win

For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. (1 Corinthian 9:19)

My friend Joe asked me, “How do you get passed the attitudes and hurtful dispositions of others?” To which I replied, “I play to win.” In other words, I try to keep my mind on what it takes to get a “well done” from God in every situation. That is the defining trait of a matured believer; every situation is an opportunity to profit eternally.

In I Corinthians 9, Paul lays out three contests that believers of the faith must overcome in order to bear fruit as a father (soul-winner/fruit bearer) in the faith. They are in reverse order in the text; because, his focus is ultimately on winning people. However, there are two prerequisites to winning people: winning against your body, and winning against the culture that has the person imprisoned. So the goal is winning against the person, which requires winning against the culture, which requires winning against one’s own flesh.

First of all, if we do not discipline our own bodies, (i.e. attitude, arguments, and actions) we can hardly hope to endure the difficult course of successfully infiltrating a culture that holds a person hostage or winning against the resistance of the person you are intending to win. Worse even, Paul says it is possible to win, and after having run the course to win, one ends up being a cast away; because, the person sees hypocrisy.

But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. (1Co 9:27)

Paul points out potential loss; because, the person one seeks to reach views a weakness in behavior because of a lack of discipline over the body against sin. That's right; you won the battle but lost the war; because, your vise has outshone your virtue in the eyes of the person you sought to win.

Secondly we must overcome the culture that holds them captive. This involves what I call the “art of condescension.” Paul says,

For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. (1Co 9:19-22)

It is to become not sympathetic but empathetic with a person for the purpose of winning them over. The difference between sympathy and empathy is this: sympathy sits down at the foot of a mountain and weeps with a person about the difficulty of climbing the mountain; empathy on the other hand, puts its arm around the person and says I understand, but come on let’s climb the mountain together; “Condescension = humility + compassion + edification.” In other words, one becomes a servant to another in his area of weakness by entering into his situation. As someone aptly put it, "compassion is your pain in my heart".

The culture is a stronghold, a wall, which must not be assaulted by carnal combat, but marched around in faith and obedience, trusting and depending on the word of God to make the difference.

Now we are ready to win against the person, (i.e. against his ideology), armed with goodness against disorder, knowledge against tactic, temperance against attitude, patience against obstinacy, godliness against worldliness, kindness against weaknesses, and love against debt. This will enable you to pull down the stronghold that encompasses the person and take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

The Divorce of Marriage

We have moved beyond the need for mere "marital counseling" to a need for "marriage promotion." People are not getting married. Extreme secular culture has even gone as far as declaring marriage as old fashion, obsolete, and antiquated. The results are live-ins and/or disposable marriages. This cancerous ideology is metastasizing among heterosexuals while those who promote the gay agenda are seeking to distort the definition of marriage beyond that of a covenant relationship between one man and one woman. Simply put this most primary and historical institute of humanity is under attack on every front, whether divorce, abandonment, or perversion.

What havoc has this phenomenon wrought on our communities and society at large? The degradation of the sanctity of marriage is the source of the unwedded and unwanted pregnancy epidemic, teenage delinquencies, increased child abuse and molestation, continued propagation of divorce, the embrace of homosexuality, and countless mental, emotional, and spiritual wounds to the posterity of the broken marriages. Marriage may be optional or disposable in our minds, but this is anything but a reality. The pain is real; the cost is high, and the pathology is virtually unstoppable.

The most extreme consequence being realized today is that it is becoming more in vogue to simply not get married: sometimes out of fear, after experiencing the horrific details of the divorce of their parents, and sometimes out of seeking a personal lifestyle of convenience, not wanting the difficult challenges of this covenant keeping task; moreover, in a culture of "feel-good seekers," either motivation serves as a catalyst for abandoning marriage.

Lastly, long-term effects of a self-serving, self-esteem seeking, and self-gratifying culture is that our children are taught to enter into marriage with as much independence and autonomy as possible. The idea being, establish one's self firmly before entering into marriage. Parenthetically, one need only to converse with a few average adults passed age forty-five to quickly surmise that personal establishment is a life-long task which is refined and/or re-defined every decade of a person's life. Additionally, such establishment faces added difficulty and slower progress apart from a context of marriage and family contrary to popular credence. Moreover, even when the bonds of matrimony after this so-called personal and career achievements are met, the bonding glue on the tape of marriage is hardly sticky; rather, interdependence is thwarted by separate bank accounts, separate friendships, separate visions and ideals for the family, attending separate churches, and even separate lifestyles. When marriage in youth is postponed for social and material achievement, there is practically nothing left around which to build and grow a marriage.

All the ideals mentioned are sourced in man's cognition and not God's word. We've abandoned the instructions of the one who invented male and female, instituted marriage, installed its purpose, and informs its success: "And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them: and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion" (Gen 1:27-28).

This is the sole purpose of marriage: the propagation of God's image in the earth. Whatever pleasure we find in it is an incidental fringe benefit to the duty of faithfulness to God's word.

No doubt this does not sit well with our epicurean culture; however, rest assured that the Christian life will always bring us to the choice of seeking our pleasure or seeking God's glory, and both cannot be sought simultaneously. The glory of God still remains in the promotion of youthful, fruitful, faithful and dutiful matrimony, which will in turn provide for a more blessed and stable society.