(Printable Student Sheet)
Needed: picture of the Mona Lisa, picture of a museum (included in previous lesson)
Recap
Last
time, we talked about the Big Bang, and
we asked the questions, “Where did all that matter come from for it to be so
densely packed at the beginning of the Big Bang?” “How did all of those quarks
and atoms know how to fit together to make planets and animals and people?”
It
didn’t quite make sense to us, so we
posited that the Universe had been created by some kind of “outside force” that
designed the Universe to fit together.
We’ll
talk about other religions and other possible creators of the Universe at
another time, so for now, let’s just name that “outside force” that created the
Universe as God, the God of the Bible, and see if that makes any more sense to
us.
Scripture:
Genesis 1:1-25 and Revelation 21:22-27
Genesis
1:1-8: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and
empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was
hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and
there was light. 4
God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light
"day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was
evening, and there was morning—the first day.
6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the
waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the
expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was
evening, and there was morning—the second day.
What is going on these verses? What does it mean that God
separated water from water? And what is this expanse that God named sky?
God took some of the water from the earth’s surface and gathered
it above the earth into a hydrosphere, a layer of water that completely
surrounded the earth in the sky. (We’ll talk more about the hydrosphere later.)
Genesis
1:9-10: And God said, "Let the
water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear."
And it was so. 10 God
called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called
"seas." And God saw that it was good.
How many places was the water under the sky, which means on the
earth, gathered to? (One.)
Which means that there was one ocean. But don’t we have at least four
oceans now?
When God created the world, He created it as one continent and one
ocean.
We call that first continent Pangea.
Genesis
1:11-19: Then
God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees
on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various
kinds." And it was so. 12
The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and
trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that
it was good. 13 And
there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of
the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark
seasons and days and years, 15
and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the
earth." And it was so. 16
God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser
light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on
the earth, 18 to
govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw
that it was good. 19
And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
Okay. There’s a mistake here, right? What day was the sun created?
(The fourth day.)
And what day did it say there was light? (The first day.)
And what day did it say there were plants? (The third day.)
So how could there be light and plants, which need sunlight to
live, before there was the sun?
Do we have light in this room? (Yes.) Is it from sunlight? (No.)
The sun is not the only source of light. In fact, the Bible talks
about another source of light that’s even better than the sun.
Revelation
21:22-27: I did not see a temple in the
city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it,
for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. 24The nations will walk by its
light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. 25On no day will its gates ever
be shut, for there will be no night there. 26The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into
it. 27Nothing impure
will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but
only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.
The glory of God is radiant. God Himself, shining down on His
creation, could have been that first source of light.
Genesis
1:20-25: And God said,
"Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the
earth across the expanse of the sky." 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every
living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds,
and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said,
"Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and
let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth
day.
24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures
according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and
wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals
according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the
creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that
it was good.
The Bible keeps talking about God making all kinds of plants and
fish and birds and animals. Do you think God really made every species of plant
and animal that we have today?
God did not make every species of plant and animal. God made one
of each kind of plant and one of each kind of animal and then allowed those
kinds to evolve into other species. Christians don’t completely reject
evolution. We believe that one kind of berry can evolve to produce another kind
of berry. A horse can evolve to make a zebra. A monkey can evolve to make
another kind of monkey. But a berry cannot evolve to become a bird, and a horse cannot become a cow, and a monkey cannot become a person. God
created each of those kinds to be
separate.
So how do we know what modern animals that we have today came from
one of those kinds that God created?
If two animals can breed together and create offspring, we’re
pretty sure that means that those two animals belong to the same kind.
Can a donkey and a horse interbreed? (Yes, it’s called a mule. So
they all belong to the horse kind.)
Can different kinds of cats interbreed? (Sure. They’re all part of
the cat kind.)
Can a black human and a white human interbreed? (Yes. All people
are people. They’re all the same kind.)
But can a human interbreed with a monkey? (No. And, in fact, a
scientist tried illegally to artificially
inseminate human women with various kinds of monkey sperm, and it just didn’t work. Humans and monkeys are
not part of the same kind.)
God created each kind of species to adapt within their species.
But the kinds of plants or animals can’t evolve into other kinds of plants or
animals.
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