March 11 – Matty (Headwind)

August 9, 2020March 1, 2021

A Phylogenetic Tree of Life

Get wisdom! Get understanding! Do not forget, nor turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will preserve you; Love her, and she will keep you. Wisdom is the principal thing; Therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.
(Proverbs 4:5-7) NKJV

Back in the early days of DNA sequencing in systematics, when PCR machines (polymerase chain reaction) were cool new toys, the data was fragmentary. We were a grad student in one of the molecular labs sequencing plant DNA.

July 5, 2020July 5, 2022

The Purpose of Creation

In all his wisdom and insight God did what he had purposed, and made known to us the secret plan he had already decided to complete by means of Christ. This plan, which God will complete when the time is right, is to bring all creation together, everything in heaven and on earth, with Christ as head.
All things are done according to God’s plan and decision; and God chose us to be his own people in union with Christ because of his own purpose, based on what he had decided from the very beginning. Let us, then, who were the first to hope in Christ, praise God’s glory!
(Ephesians 1:8-12) Good News Translation

One of the things which allows Matty’s Paradigm to be a consistent with the broad narrative of scripture is understanding that creation has a specific purpose. This purpose harmonizes physics with spirituality.

July 4, 2020July 4, 2022

Purpose and Reason

Two dolphins with what look like big smiles.

Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
(2 Timothy 1:9) KJV

Our devotional is called WHY? Why did God create the universe? In the process of answering this question we have deduced that creation has a purpose:

The purpose of creation is to bring about the permanent physical separation of light from darkness, day from night, good from evil.
– The Purpose of Creation

June 25, 2020March 12, 2022

Evolution is Death

Then the Lord told me to say to the people, “Listen! I, the Lord, am giving you a choice between the way that leads to life and the way that leads to death.
(Jeremiah 21:8) Good News Translation

Evolution requires the passage of heritable traits from one generation to the next. If reproduction hasn’t taken place, then evolution is impossible.

June 25, 2020March 12, 2022

The Wages of Sin is Death

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
(Romans 6:23) KJV

What does it mean that there was no death before sin? There are a couple of issues here.

What is life?
What is dying?

June 25, 2020June 27, 2022

Death Through Sin

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned –
(Romans 5:12) NKJV

One of the most helpful things for a Christian to know is the context of evolution. The traditional battle lines of the debate have been creation vs. evolution, but that’s a trap designed to distract you from the real issue.

March 11, 2018March 14, 2022

March 11th

Sunlight filtering throught leave of a knarled tree in the fall

The Reason for Death

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
(Genesis 2:8-9) ESV

We (that’s me and the Holy spirit) use deductive reasoning to resolve supposed conflicts between the Bible and what people refer to as “science” but which we’ve isolated and identified to be THE NARRATIVE (SciPop).