Bible Biology - Part 3
by Walt Giddings
November 17, 2019
Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 4:15
15 For though ye have ten thousand instructers in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.
Greetings kindred. We are on a first name basis here. My name is Walter. The Holy Spirit is our real Teacher. If Jesus Christ is our Real Teacher, what, then, is my role in His Classroom today?
The King James English word “instructers” is translated from the Greek word “paidagogos”{paheedag-ogos’], from which we obtain our English word “pedagogue”. May I read you the explanation for this Greek word “paidagogos”?
A servant whose office it was to take the children to school. By implication [figuratively] a tutor. Strong’s Greek Dictionary. Is my role in the Master’s classroom to lead you to The Real Teacher?
How many here attended both Bible Biology Lessons I and II? How many here attended neither? Those of you who attended either one or both know I bring an interesting background. Seven years after graduation from chiropractic college, I chose to reexamine all four years of four thousand six hundred twenty hours of anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology, lab analysis, diagnosis, and clinical work using The Bible as my road map, template, and “light unto my path”. These lessons are the result of that ongoing choice.
In the first two lessons we studied two body parts mentioned prominently in the Scriptures: the reins and the heart. In Lesson I we discovered the body part that not only looks like a set of reins, but also acts like them: the autonomic nerve system, sympathetic and parasympathetic. In Lesson II we discovered the body part that looks and functions as the Biblical heart of man: the central nerve system, the brain and spinal cord.
Psalms 139:14: I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
If we ask a Ph.D. in Human Biology to give us a brief layman’s summary of how the body is designed and made to express life, would his “Piled high and Deep” be too deep for him to do it? With a disciple’s familiarity with the Word of God, shall we take a stab at it? The living body retransmits a life energy, sourcing from outside this visible dimension, in a cycle of impulses or messages from the center of ourselves out to all parts and back again, “knitting together”, or coordinating our physiological functions, to engender an ease, or harmony within us, as opposed to a dis-ease or disharmony. The existence of the area or receptor for what sources from outside this dimension into our living bodies is actual. Its precise location in the most interior organ of the body is theoretical. Shall we call this area or receptor “the center”? And this center must at all times enjoy one hundred percent ease. Even the most trivial lack of ease, or dis-ease of this center results in instantaneous departure of spirit and soul. “The body without the spirit is dead”, James. In Lesson II, Bible Biology, we discovered the two Hebrew words translated heart, “leb” and “lebab”. The seminal or seed meaning of “leb” is the center of anything, and the seed meaning of “lebab” is the most interior organ of the body.
Proverbs 4:23: Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
We are consulting the Author of Biology. Does God ever use double entendre? As the issues of the expression of Adam’s life in this fallen world spring from the most interior organ of our bodies, so if we die in Christ, will the issues of eternal life spring from our glorified hearts? Has God ever left himself without witness? “Keep” is translated from the Hebrew word whose seed meaning is “guard”. When there is war, or suspicion of war, soldiers stand guard duty. Is the battleground the mind of Adam? “Heart” translates the Hebrew word “leb”, the center. In exploration of the meaning of verse 23, to compensate for the lack of the 1611 King James English no longer being spoken in our byways and markets, could we say for verse 23, “Guard thy center with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life”?
With the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, can the issues of life become the issues of eternal life? Who is minding the store? Are the issues of life the agencies of the body’s government? Can we see government within us? Can we see that being led of the Spirit is self government. Does that lead to family government? Does that undergird church government? Would that support local government? State government? National government?
Romans 1:19-20:
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.
Is one of the marks of a Christian his ability to see the invisible? In understanding things that are made, our bodies, the houses for our spirits and souls, are we understanding the invisible things of him? Are we without excuse?
There are two Scriptures that witness to the powering of our bodies from outside this dimension, even the invisible dimension. In no other books can we find this kind of writing, this nobility of expression, this beauty of sublime prose.
Hebrews 1:1-3:
1 God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his Person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Meditate on that phrase in verse three: “and upholding all things by the word of His power”. The extent of that power is frightening! Are we in awe yet? (Mark Romans 1:20) The day I first heard Pastor Jerry take us to Genesis 1:2 “And the earth became without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved, or brooded upon the face of the waters,” Pastor Jerry looked up from his reading and I heard him say, “The same Spirit of Power that brooded upon the waters is the same Spirit that indwells every Christian.”
We have a second witness that Our Creator, Defender, Redeemer, Friend and Oldest Brother powers our physical bodies from outside the visible:
Psalms 66:8-9:
8 O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of his praise to be heard:
9 Which holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved.
“Who holdeth our soul in life.” The catastrophic, dire, disastrous, extreme pandemic consequences of The Fall renders our existence in this fallen world so precarious that Christ has to uphold us, to hold our soul in life!Adam in his fallen condition is now the weakest creature in all creation. At the time God cut the covenant with Abraham Adamkind was the fewest of all creatures on the earth. Go figure.
Question: Why does the Bible fail to mention the members, or the cells of the nerve system? Nerves are the wiring of the body. Does the Bible mention the living body’s master communication system, a system of living wires? A quick check in the Concordance claiming to be exhaustive finds no entry for nerve(s). (Romans 1:20). Do we believe the promise in verse twenty? “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” Are we without excuse? What is the implicit promise of this verse? Does this verse promise us that we can clearly see and understand the invisible by understanding the things that are made? Do Christians see the invisible?
What is the mission of living nerve tissue? What function is nerve tissue structured to perform? On anatomical charts the side by side depiction of an uncovered man and woman teaches us that structure and function are married! The old song says we can”t have one without the other. Is the mission of living nerve tissue to time messages from our epiphery to our periphery and back again in a cycle. Is the key to the government of physical functions timing? In an effort to explore the function of living nerve tissue, researchers in the 1970’s conducted a well-known experiment to answer some of our questions. They surgically exposed the vagus nerve of a rabbit and measured by instrumentation the impulses traveling through that exposed section of nerve tissue. Then the scientists narcotized a section of that exposed vagus nerve. They measured the impulses of nerve conduction before and after the narcotized section of the rabbit’s vagus nerve. The experiment failed to show any perceptible difference in the spike of the measured impulse between before and after. The marketers of modern medical practice seized on the report of this experiment, gleefully railing against the doctrine of nerve interference as quackery. The chiropractic institutions of higher learning cited the same textbooks of physiology they shared with medical colleges. With respect to nerve physiology the textbooks agreed the character of the nerve impulse as message is not measured by the amplitude, frequency, or related events of instrumental detection. The message of the Mental impulse is the timing by which it arrives. The experimental data on the measurements of the impulses through the narcotized section of the vagus nerve of the rabbit failed to include comparative data on the timing of the messages. At the very least medical claims that nerve interference is quackery were double minded. Is the mission of living nerve tissue to time messages out to all parts of the body and back again in a cycle? Is the key to the government of physical functions timing?
How then is nerve tissue structured to time messages? A review of the discoveries in physiology shows that every cell of every tissue type in our bodies is capable of benefitting from, and transmitting impulses. To simplify, nerve cells are specialized conductors of nerve transmissions. Skin cells live on average to be three days old. They die, and fall off in our clothes, our bedsheets, and our bathtubs. That ring around the bath tub is not just dirt and soap; it is dead skin cells. In my family I had the elbow grease to clean it off. That taught me everybody in my family is flaky. Life happens fast for skin cells. And their life and death is more visible than what happens under the skin. They are perfect for study to consider how cells benefit from and transmit mental impulses. All skin cells get pushed to the surface by the younger set birthing in from below. At the surface they are a minimum of one layer too far from their nerve supply. They die. That is by design, furnishing a thin layer of dead cells to interface with a dangerous environment in wolf country for fallen, naked Adam. Adam cannot live under the sun without a covering. With respect to eternal destiny we need a cover for our sins. With respect to our temporary mortal existence our bodies of sin need a cover. We forget daily how precarious is our state in the fallen condition!(Genesis 3:21). We recall that the LORD God disapproved of Adam being clothed with fig leaves. Verse 21 tells us that God taught them their need to switch trees, providing them with coats of skins to clothe them. The animal being skinned was not still wriggling, trying to escape. This is the first blood sacrifice. In the previous verse, verse 20, we see Adam understood God’s sermon. He honored his wife with the name Eve, meaning the mother of all those eligible to live again, to live eternally.
Since we rapidly change skin in an ongoing process of regeneration, we use skin cells as a ready and visible exhibit of all other cells that also regenerate, and benefit from and transmit mental impulses. Liver cells are the fastest regenerating tissue inside our bodies; but that process lacks visibility. The birth of skin cells, their growth, adult function, geriatric function, and death pictures for us the life cycle of all cells under the skin. This five fold life cycle of skin cells pictures for us the life cycles of all the other tissue cells of our living body. The cells of the living nerve system are specialized conductors of life energy in the form of mental impulses. Nerves are the slowest regenerating tissues inside of us because of their complexity. (Romans 1:20). Shall we believe, shall we by-live, shall we live by the promise that we see the invisible by under standing the things that are made? Visual aids: look at the nerves “that are made.”
NEURON : neuron (noor’ on) [Gr. “nerve”] [TA] any of the conducting cells of the nervous system. A typical neuron consists of a cell body, containing the nucleus and the surrounding cytoplasm .. ; several short radiating processes (dendrites) ; and one process (the axon), which terminates in twiglike branches (telodendrons) .. The axon together with its covering or sheath forms the nerve fiber. [Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary 32nd Edition p. 1267].
Some of my instructors taught me to relate the new and intimidating with things familiar and known. In neuroanatomy I was without the Bible. In neuroanatomy seven years after graduation I was with the Bible examining everything I was taught in the Light of Scripture!(Luke 6:44). What word comes closest to being under the word NEURON? “Dendrites” is the diminutive form of a Koine Greek word appearing in Scripture: dendron [G 1186]. Diminutive means smaller version.
Luke 6: 44: For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes.
Tree is translated from the Koine Greek word “dendron.” Why is the illustration of a “tree” used to explain neuroanatomy? The word tree is descriptive. It helps us to fix in our minds what we are seeing. The twig like branches of the body of a star-shaped nerve cell resemble diminutive trees. It helps us remember their structure, and hints at their function. Are structure and function married? Does each speak to the other? Read me the word appearing under “Dendrites” in parentheses. “Receivers,” a term peculiar to the general science of radio, indicates that neurons are structured for performance in the intelligent ability to communicate. The intelligent ability to communicate undergirds the key sign of life, the intelligent ability to adapt.
What is the name of the long red tail attached to the star-shaped body of the nerve cell? What words appear in parentheses under axon? The term “conductor” is peculiar to the science of electricity and transmission of electrical energy. The term is certainly descriptive, but we run into a serious limitation with the metaphor of electricity. Electrical energy burns and destroys living tissue. The key question in its introduction into living tissue is how much. It is always risky. Whatever flows through nerves and all other cells of the body edifies and quickens living tissue. Every cell in the body of man benefits from and transmits these quickening messages. Biologists say what flows through living nerves “is solicitous of the living tissues through which it flows.” An apostle of Jesus Christ does not use the term “solicitous”. In language un-rivaled in beauty and brevity he is saying for almost two thousand years that this supply “maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.”
The tree metaphor to help us remember structure is used again. The end of the red tail called axon has axon terminals. The other commonly used name is telodendrons.
Telodendrons” sources from two Greek words, telos and dendron. To serious students of the Scriptures, who have had some study in prophetic endtimes the word telos means end, conclusion, goal, purpose, result, termination, and the uttermost. Telodendrons are end trees.
Matthew 24:13: But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
“The end” is translated from the Greek word telos [G5056]. What word in parentheses is associated with telodendrons? Transmitters are the instruments of radio wave propagations or broadcasts. Like receivers, with transmitters we have a term peculiar to the general science of radio and the intelligent ability to communicate.
But is it a bridge too far to see the function of trees as communicating? Or, will that depend on what we see trees receiving, and what we see trees transmitting? Their branches are the supports for a canopy: in the case of deciduous trees a canopy of leaves; in the case of non deciduous trees a canopy of evergreen needles. Both canopies of leaves and needles receive sunlight, photons of solar rays for photosynthesis. What do both canopies of leaves and needles transmit? Oxygen! Trees take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Too many of the people of this country are Public Fool Graduates. I have the unmitigated authority (and the gall) to say this: I are one! Our ignorance of the function of the canopies of trees led to our complete failure to storm Congress over the Obama policy of reducing CO2 emissions. The policy still threatens to make Obama a successful treeless wastelander. With the liberal media as his guests on an Air Force One coast to coast flight, President Obama attempted to communicate privately that they were now in the fly-over zone. He said the people living in the fly-over zone hold onto their Bibles and guns too hard. This Muslim may still get the ultimate revenge on the huge group of at least nominal Christians living in the middle of the country.
What about God’s use of trees as a descriptive metaphor? Why on earth did Adam and his wife ever conceive the thought they could hide from the all-knowing, all-seeing God?
Genesis 3:8: And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD.
God amongst the trees of the garden.
Hiding from God is the second of three acts that Adam and his wife committed: they covered their nakedness hiding their sin with the fig leaves; they hid from God; and they shifted blame unto another for the consequences of their sin. These three acts are the pathognomonic signs of our debased nature, our carnality. Why did Adam and his wife choose the trees of the garden for a hiding place? Why did they feel safer from the betrayed God among the trees? Did men use the illustration or picture of trees to explain neuroanatomy? Were they following God’s use of the illustration of trees to picture something in Genesis? Are the trees of Eden in the garden of God mentioned elsewhere in the Scriptures? What does God say the trees picture?
Ezekiel 31:8-9
8 The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty.
9 I have made him fair by the multitude of his branch es: so that all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God envied him.
Mark Ezekiel 31. If I were to say to you that the Word of God says the trees of the field shall clap their hands, would you think I am fruit loop?
Isaiah 55:12: For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth be fore you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
In our Bibles we not only have trees that clap their hands, we have trees that envy in Ezekiel chapter thirty one, verse nine. (Ezekiel 31). In Ezekiel thirty one does God identify this tree that is the envy of “all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God”? Does verse three identify this great tree as the Assyrian? Does verse six tell us “all great nations” dwelt under his shadow? Is the Assyrian a family of people having a common ancestor? Are all nations families from a common ancestor? If I discover the names of my fathers am I said to be filling in my family tree? Are many of our people, profiling their DNA to determine their ancestry, attempting to fill a void that can only be filled by an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ?
Are students of God’s neuroanatomy, identifying the branches of a microscopic nerve cell as trees? Are we imitating what God has done in the oldest literature in Adam? Are we studying “the things that are made” to understand “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world”? Take one more close look at the red tail of the NEURON. Just as the sheep of the flock of the Great Shepherd are in symbiotic relationship, so are the members or cells inside the body of man. The axon, the longest process of the nerve cell, has company. These cells are named in honor of Theodor Schwann, 1810-1882, German anatomist and physiologist. To be an anatomist and physiologist simply means acquiring a special understanding of structure and function. On our visual aid, read what is said in parentheses under “Schwann’s Cells”. Schwann Cells exude a waxy substance called myelin. Look at the term “myelin sheath”. Read in the parentheses what is written: “insulating fatty layer that speeds transmission.”
How close are we getting to the great Mysteries of Creation? There is that word trans mission: the intelligent ability to communicate. In order to reveal a mystery kept secret from students at high dollar tuition science universities disclosed to us freely from the pages of Scripture, I need for you to flip over your visual aids to the side that reads STRUCTURE OF NERVE TISSUE.
Please do not go to sleep on me now. I know how hard it is to learn a new language. I lost count how many afternoons I lifted my forehead from the pages of Scripture or the pages of anatomy and physiology textbooks reviewing this stuff in the light of Scripture. And it was my second go around. If you already fell asleep on me and are just now stirring I understand. The speaker that addresses the landed tribes of Israel is addressing people who fall asleep sitting still. I feel unequal to the task. Brother Jerry Junior reminded me not too long ago at Fellowship Dinner that when the speaker has filled up his listener anything poured in after that spills over and out. If I have had the misfortune of doing that to you, get this CD, Bible Biology Lesson III, and review it at your leisure. I do not want you to miss out on this secret. Who knows if God will choose you to minister to graduates victimized by their own alma maters. You will know a secret freely they were denied at great expense!
On this side of the visual aid labelled STRUCTURE OF NERVE TISSUE we see some familiar things from the other side.. In the upper left corner we see the body of an individual nerve cell complete with nucleus and dendrites. What were dendrites called on the other side? “Receivers” is correct. The obvious purpose of this illustration is to picture in more detail the longest process of the nerve cell, the axon. Do you recall what the axon filaments or telodendrons were called? “Transmitters” is correct. Dendrites as receivers and telodendrons as transmitters tell us that the flow of mental impulses is always from dendrites to telodendrons. The term mental impulses instead of nerve impulses reminds us that the impulses are agencies of what minds our biological store. Telodendrons are not pictured here. The end of the axon is sliced off to reveal the layers of myelin sheath. One last thing: two of the lines between the layers of myelin sheath are named: notice the major dense line. It is the widest and most expansive space between all the layers of myelin sheath.
Who here has never heard of a synapse? Its other name is synaptic junction. It is the tiny space between the telodendrons of a nerve and the dendrites of the next nerve in intimate relation with each other. The mental impulse causes the telodendrons to secrete biochemicals called neurotransmitters which wash over the dendrites of the next nerve giving rise to the same mental impulse conducted within it. Questions?
It is time to tell you the secret. Fasten your eyes on the axon structure. There is a timely and orderly flow of protein flowing through the concentric space between the insulating layers of myelin sheath, labelled major dense line. This protein originates from within the nerve cell body and flows in the space labelled major dense line to the telodendrons. Protein is a series, or chain of amino acids: the specific order or arrangement of the amino acids constitutes the protein code. When the code in that protein flow changes and that change reaches the end of the axon, the telodendrons, it causes the telodendrons to switch its connection to another available nerve in the area to establish synaptic junction with it. In short there are no switches in the bodies master communication system called the nerve network. The living wires of the body do the switching.
This country’s foremost distinguished biologist in the latter half of the 20th century, Austrian born Paul Weiss, leaked this discovery in the 1970’s. He was the first head of the Biology Department of the new Rockefeller University, New York City. He left that position and became the top research scientist in biology. His real love was teaching. He spent the latter years of his life exhorting young students to tackle the thorny questions of biology in esoteric research projects in spite of the losses of cushy funding. Most funds are investor funds and investors want to see the potential immediate applications that could result from the research. Weiss understood the need to fill in gaps in knowledge that might clearly yield no immediate practical application to increase earnings. In his interview Weiss discussed the ability of the living wires of the body to do their own switching, invisibly writhing and squirming like angleworms and snakes inside us. He said, “Most of us are running on Model T nerves; we don’t practice switching connections often enough.”
The first and obvious difficulty in finding nerves in the sacred pages is the Greek word for nerves did not yet exist. The Latin word n-e-r-v-u-s, from which we get our English word nervous, n-e-r-v-o-u-s, means sinew, tendon, bow string. Oxford English Dictionary, admits the Latin word nervus is synonymous with the Greek word neuron. “The modern sense of nerve” occurred with Galen, top doctor to the court of the Emporer Marcus Aurelius, 200 A.D., over a hundred years following the circulation of copies of of the books of the New Testament.
The second obvious difficulty is no anatomical Greek names in Scripture are found for the nerve structure. Instead, we find Greek names in Scripture for nerve functioning. Where do we find “the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth”? Where do we find “all the body by joints and bands having nourishment minstered and knit together”? Where do we find “all the building fitly framed together” growing unto “an holy temple in the Lord” and “builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit?”
When I stumbled over these Scriptures and found nerve function in the Bible, I was astounded. Why was no one talking about these things? This is remarkable testimony that The Bible’s sixty six books are the best science library we could hope to consult! We have pictured nerve structure in our minds. Most function is invisible. Shall we understand “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world” by seeing clearly “the things that are made?”
Imagine if science colleges and universities started springing up, teaching “the secrets” of The Bible, the science contained within it. Could a spontaneous revival spread among The People of the Abrahamic Covenant? Would The People of The Books begin to see The Relevance of The Bible? The Truth that the living wires of the body called nerves have no switches because they do the switching with each other is kept secret!
Is the possibility the Bible might be seen as relevant the Reason the Truth is kept secret? In our next lesson we will explore the Scriptures that contain The Secret for free.
To be continued, God willing, on another occasion.
