April 24, 2012

Bean Counter

Last Saturday I spoke about the Fruit of the Spirit at a Women’s Tea and I used the pomegranate as an illustration of a fruit with multiple characteristics. In doing research on the pomegranate I was surprised to learn that each fruit contains exactly 840 seeds. I immediately had two questions, ‘Who would even think to count all those seeds and how many did they have to count to know that each and every one contained exactly 840 seeds.’ I can only imagine the joy God has watching us explore His creation. “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.” (Genesis 1:11 NIV)

1 comment:

Steve Corey said...

Gail;

-----I think someone would have to count the seeds of each and every pomegranate to know that each and every pomegranate has exactly 840 seeds. As of right now, all anyone really knows for sure is that every pomegranate whose seeds have been counted has had 840 seeds, and that not all pomegranates have had their seeds counted. Moreover, it is known that the number of pomegranates not having their seeds counted are billions or even trillions of times more numerous than those that have had their seeds counted. The extrapolation of some idea that each and every pomegranate has exactly 840 seeds just because less than a billionth of them all have been found to have 840 seems ridiculous.
-----I am glad God gave us some principle other than ridiculous for clear thinking. I think it is fascinating that He limited the amount an individual can know to a minuscule proportion of all there is to know, maybe a proportion even smaller than that of examined pomegranates. Yet of the microscopic proportion of all there is a man can know, God gave him the ability to discover the truth about Himself, as Paul said in Romans, “Ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature, namely, His eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.” (Rom 1:19) God is a God of sensibility and consistency. It is even more sensible to note that since not one pomegranate ever examined has had other than 840 seeds, then all pomegranates ever to be examined will have 840 seeds, than it is ridiculous to think that any genetically allowable deviation in seed number would produce such a phenomenally low percentage of deviation as to be unobserved.
-----What is ridiculous is to hear the testimonies of all of the folks who have experienced God’s effects first hand, to note all of the Biblical prophecies plainly fulfilled hundreds and even thousands of years later, and to discern all of the consistencies between a physical universe far too complex to have just happened and a Book which sensibly explains its existence, then to insist God is a figment of man’s imagination. That’s ridiculous! Since folks like this so insist upon being ridiculous, yet can of themselves fulfill some barely imaginable purpose, let’s give them a purpose fit for their thinking. Let’s put them to counting the seeds of the rest of the pomegranates.

Love you all,
Steve Corey