Hittites and Coelacanths

We all will reach a place in our lives where we need to choose who we are going to believe—the world or God’s Word. You can’t have both.

Sep 06, 2024

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

The Bible isn’t a science book, but when it speaks about science it’s never wrong. It’s actually kind of entertaining to see how science is always catching up with the Bible.

I say that knowing full well that many Christians have very firms beliefs in concepts like evolution and other politically correct pseudosciences. I have no problem with that. We are all free to believe what we choose, and I choose to focus on the things that really matter—whether or not a person knows Jesus.

Jesus is the key. The rest comes with time and a deeper understanding of who God is.

Long ago, I made a choice to trust God’s Word above everything and everyone else. I went all in when I was really young. I guess I figured that if I said I would believe it, I needed to live like it. And that perspective, that life choice, has never steered me wrong.

When I was in elementary school, I read about a very strange fish, the coelacanth (SEE-luh-canth). When it was discovered in the fossil record, scholars and experts rejoiced because they’d finally found the missing link. The coelacanth seemed to have a fish’s body but also legs that were just beginning to form.

For many years, people used this ugly dude as evidence that evolution was true, and the Bible was myth. Well, until 1938 when a whole flock of coelacanths were discovered off the coast of South Africa.

Today they are called living fossils, because we were able to examine them and discover that their little legs are actually just fat little fins. They aren’t a missing link. They’re just an ugly fish with a really hard-to-pronounce name.

I had just read that story when I heard a history teacher talking about the Hittite civilization. I was young, still in elementary school I think. And this teacher said that scholars and archaeologists insisted that there was no proof, no historical record of the Hittites. So the Bible had to be false. The Bible talks about Hittites frequently, so if that part is historically inaccurate, the rest of the Bible is as well.

I remember vividly thinking about coelacanths and that if scholars and scientists could be wrong about a fish, they could be wrong about the Hittites too. And I knew—I was absolutely certain—that some day we would find historical evidence for the Hittites.

There are going to be many times throughout our lives in this world where the facts are going to be stacked against us. We are going to be told that the facts always overcome faith. That if we choose to believe what is in Scripture rather than what we can see with our own eyes (or what the academic elite insist is true), we are fools.

I’m all for facts. I like facts. They are stubborn things. And I am one who does not rely on blind faith. I don’t think God asks us to have blind faith. God has done more to prove His existence and His faithfulness and His goodness than He needed to.

But there will be times when the truth isn’t obvious. There will be naysayers and detractors and people in authority who refuse to acknowledge God. They may even give you evidence that proves their point of view.

And that’s where the rubber meets the road, my friends.

How much do you trust God? How much do you trust His Word? Has He proven Himself to you? Are you listening? Are you paying attention?

We all will reach a place in our lives where we need to choose who we are going to believe—the world or God’s Word. You can’t have both. They are diametrically opposed to each other.

Human understanding is a glorious thing, but we don’t know everything. We can’t see all the pieces or how they fit together. We are seeing through this “glass” darkly. We are missing essential details

God sees all of it. Everything that was, everything that is, and everything that will be.

Will you trust the perspective of those who can only see part of the whole picture? Or will you trust the One Who designed the picture?

By the way, in case you’re interested, the Hittites really did exist. It just took modern day archeology a few thousand years to catch up—and a few more decades for them to admit it.