Wisdom for the Heart
Stephen Davey will help you learn to know what the Bible says, understand what it means, and apply it to your life as he teaches verse-by-verse through books of the Bible. Stephen is the president of Wisdom International, which provides radio broadcasts, digital content, and print resources designed to make disciples of all nations and edify followers of Jesus Christ.
Wisdom for the Heart
Seven Minus One Equals Zero
What if the entire logic of the gospel hinges on one daring claim: God made every nation from one man? We take you to Athens with Paul and walk through Acts 17 to show how he introduces the “unknown God” by starting at the beginning—creation, purpose, and the reality of a literal Adam. Not as a symbol or a myth, but as the historical foundation for why sin is universal and why the grace of the last Adam, Jesus Christ, is necessary and sufficient.
Together, we explore why “one blood” dismantles the false hierarchies that evolutionary thinking has too often reinforced, and how Scripture gives a better, richer account of human dignity and unity. We address the rising tide of theistic evolution inside the church, the interpretive maneuvers it requires, and the hidden cost to the gospel’s coherence when Adam and Eve are reduced to archetypes. Along the way, we contrast what science can brilliantly explain—how—with what only revelation can disclose—why. From the blind men and the elephant to Homer’s Odyssey, from Genesis to Romans and Corinthians, we connect cultural touchpoints to biblical clarity.
We also widen the lens: God not only creates humanity; He controls history. Nations rise and fall on His timetable; borders shift under His sovereign hand. That doesn’t excuse apathy—it anchors our hope. If you’ve wrestled with origins, human purpose, or the tension between mainstream science and Scripture, this conversation offers a thoughtful path forward: trust the God who speaks, who made us from one, and who remakes us in Christ into a new, redeemed people.
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When you're born again, you are born again into a new redeemed race. A particular possession of God. We are all members of one body that's universal in its truth, local in its application, 1 Corinthians chapter 12. So it's very important, and I say all of that, because it's important that you have a literal historical first Adam. That's where sin came from, and after his fall, death, and you have a an historical last Adam.
SPEAKER_00:So why are you here on this earth? Why is God giving you life? Today, Christians are considered fools if they believe that the human race comes from a man named Adam and a woman named Eve. Thinking we came from lower life forms is far more fashionable. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davy. On our last broadcast, we saw that God is the creator of all that exists. Today, we come to a passage where Paul expands that to include humanity. There are significant implications to the fact that God created us. And we'll explore that next. This message is called Adam and Eve for Real.
SPEAKER_01:You know, the more you discover about God, the more you come to appreciate the fact that He is, and really He must be: omniscient, all-knowing, omnipotent, all-powerful, omnipresent, transcendent above and beyond creation, yet imminent, involved, personally invested in creation. God never had a beginning. The great I am never began. And he never adds anything to his knowledge. For he knows all things at all times. And he knows that which is both possible and that which is reality. He knows every option from eternity past to eternity future. Another way to put that is you would never want to challenge him in a game of chess. He knows all of the moves and all of the options already. To put it another way, God has never ever learned anything. He's never learned anything. He's always known. He's never discovered one thing, one truth. Not one red blood cell in your body is ever out of his sight. Nor are the spinning stars and in billions of galaxies beyond his immediate observation and control. He created all there is, and we're only beginning to discover a sliver of what he already has created. Just a little portion of it. Now, part of the problem of humanity is the attempt to take what little they know and redefine God on that basis. To discover something and then to define God on that basis alone. It's like a mortician defining God's power over death based on what he has seen in his career at the funeral home. Ignore the biblical revelation of God. The unbeliever is bound. In fact, Paul says that he is blinded by the God of this world, unable to see the glorious light of the gospel. 2 Corinthians 4, 4. Apart from God's revelation that you have with you tonight, God's self-disclosure, we really have no idea where or how anything began with any certainty, for none of us, in fact, no one was there. In 1872, John Sachs wrote an English poem about a group of blind men who decided to visit an elephant, determined by their powers of observation, what an elephant was truly like. His poem goes like this. Now, it's written in 1872 English, okay, so bear with me. It was six men of Indostan, to learning, much inclined, who went to see the elephant, though all of them were blind, that each by observation might satisfy his mind. The first approached the elephant, and happening to fall against his broad and sturdy side, at once began to bawl. God bless me, but the elephant is very like a wall. The second, feeling of the tusk, cried, Ho, what have we here? So very round and smooth and sharp, to me 'tis mighty clear this wonder of an elephant is very like a spear. The third approached the animal, and happening to take the squirming trunk within his hands, thus boldly up and spake, I see, quoth he, the elephant is really like a snake. The fourth reached out his eager hand and felt about the knee. What most this wondrous beast is like is mighty plain, quoth he, 'tis clear enough the elephant is really like a tree. The fifth, who chanced to touch his ear, said, Even the blindest man can tell what this resembles most, deny the fact who can. This marvel of an elephant is very like a fan. The sixth no sooner had begun about the beast to grope, than seizing on the swinging tail that fell within his scope, I see, quoth he, the elephant is really like a rope. And so these men of Indo stand disputed loud and long, each in his own opinion, exceeding stiff and strong, though each was partly in the right and all were in the wrong. On this windswept hill in Athens, that we have been traveling each week up to listen in on Paul's declaration to the Supreme Court of Athens, he's basically saying, you have some things that are partly right, but you are completely wrong. You have an understanding that there is some kind of divine power, that there are immortalities, that there are deities, so to speak. Of course, for them it was plural, but you are completely wrong. He's also effectively telling them, don't depend upon the power of your observation, with what little you can you can see. In fact, Paul says, I want to introduce to you this unknown God to you. I'm going to make him known. Now, if we if we pick our study back up in Acts 17, I want to organize our thoughts around two statements. And these two statements will sort of steer us, they'll summarize what Paul says next about God. The first statement is this God is the creator of humanity. Now, we begin in our last discussion noting that whenever you deliver the gospel to a pre-Christian world, which is where we're living now, an important place to begin is Genesis chapter 1, verse 1. By the way, the message Paul delivers to the court in Athens is a critically needed message for the people in America and every other country for that matter, that God is the creator of humanity. Now I want you to notice the middle part of verse 25, sort of drop back in there. He himself gives to all life and breath and all things, and he made from one every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth. For us, perhaps, who know the gospel, who have been in the Word of God, it's like, okay, sure. Uh next verse, please. No, these are staggering claims in the opening lines of the sentence. God is the original source of all life, all breath, and all things. And I want to notice with you again and spend a little time here this phrase. He made from one every nation of mankind. Now that prepositional phrase means that all of mankind tracks back to a common ancestor. One nation came from man and every nation from them tracking back to him. Now, Darwin taught that man, of course, evolved from apes and continued evolving as various races, with some races more developed than others. Frankly, I'm shocked that our world doesn't bring Darwin's horrific racism into the open and expose his belief that the dark-skinned races, whatever they might be, develop slower than the light-skinned races. For instance, he believed that Africans were not nearly as evolved as the European white race because of their dark skin. Why don't they ever put that in the science books they handed children? They don't. Even Stephen J. Gould later would admit, and I quote him, biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased exponentially following the acceptance of evolutionary theory. This is one of the ugly secrets about evolution that never quite makes it into print. Ken Hamm is going to be with us next week, and I've pulled a number of quotes from his wonderful book entitled Six Days, but he writes this: Darwin's error was later exposed through the field of genetics. What Darwin didn't know was that everyone has the same brown-colored skin pigment called melanin. A person's genetic makeup received from his parents determines his potential to produce a certain level of melanin, which is why we see a range of skin shades in people from light to middle brown to dark. Frankly, I wish I had more of it. I walk from here to the parking lot and I get burned. I'm pale pink. I could use some more of it. Ken Ham goes on to write this: after the scattering of the Tower of Babel, where God created language distinctions among all peoples, groups of people migrated according to their language and thus became isolated wherever they moved, allowing for a concentration of certain physical variations within those groups. The development of lighter or darker skin in certain demographic groups had nothing to do with evolution, but the decreased genetic potential for variation in isolated populations. Our differences, I like this statement, are only skin deep. In fact, no matter what our skin color or our ethnic background, we all actually belong to one race. One blood, you could literally interpret Paul saying, one human race. And we all came from the first human beings created, Adam and his wife, Eve. Now, evolutionists obviously don't like the idea of one literal man who became the father of a human race. And I think that it's because, in part, there is the gospel communicated in that. Listen to what Paul writes to the Romans. He says, sin came through this one man. Romans 15, 12. Now again, that takes you back to Genesis chapters 1, 2, and 3. Here's Adam, the father of all human beings. Adam sinned. His wife sinned first. She was deceived. We'll learn later in the New Testament as it's clarified. But Adam purposefully, knowingly, defiantly, without being deceived for a moment of all of Satan's ridiculous promises, took and ate of the fruit in defiance and disobedience to God, and thus passed on then to the human race his fallen nature, the nature of Adam. And the human race is now condemned in sin. And we prove very early that we have his nature, don't we? Very early. For some of us earlier than others. Now the gospel informs us that a second Adam, another literal man, the last Adam, came to create a new race. A new race through faith and his atoning work. 1 Corinthians 15, 45. Listen to what Paul writes to Romans, the Romans, the Roman believers again in chapter 5. For if by the transgression of the one man, many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. So what Paul is doing is contrasting the gospel in the sin of the first Adam, a literal man, by the way, and the atoning work of the sinless second or last Adam, Jesus Christ, a literal human being, both fully God and fully man. In other words, let me put it this way: Adam's blood unites humanity in sin. The blood of the second Adam unites us in salvation. You have one race, and that race is in deep trouble, condemned. When you're born again, you are born again into a new, redeemed race. A particular possession of God. We are all members of one body. That's universal in its truth, local in its application, 1 Corinthians chapter 12. So it's very important, and I say all of that, not to, you know, uh wear you out, but I say all of that because it's important that you have a literal, historical, first atom. That's where sin came from. And after his fall, death and disease and corruption. And you have a an historical last atom where there's hope and redemption. Now here's where evolution has invaded not just our culture, but the church. The church is becoming more and more besieged by theistic evolutionists. That is, they believe God started everything but then left it to evolve over millions and millions of years, and the human race eventually evolved from animals. Part of their problem, of course, is in the church, at least, theistic evolutionists, is to somehow erase or redefine what the Bible has to say about Adam and Eve, and somehow spiritualize it away because they don't want to outright deny it. They got to do something with it. Listen, I got to tell you, I am deeply saddened by church leaders today, seminary professors, not here, pastors, authors, who are continuing to compromise the Genesis account of six days, and they also then must deny a literal Adam and a literal historic Eve. But since the Bible speaks so clearly about Adam and his wife Eve, they have to perform interpretive gymnastics with the text in order to make some sort of compromise that allows for both God and evolution. So we got a problem, and the problem is Adam. The problem is Eve. We've got to do something with these two people. And let me give you some quotes from people living today, and I could give you more, but I'm gonna stick with these. Adam and Eve don't have to be the first couple on the planet. And Genesis 1 and 2 are really kind of a bit clunky. I like that word. It's clunky if you take it too literally. Dennis Alexander, another scholar in religion and science, asserts that Adam and Eve were one of many couples living at the time. He writes this I would see Adam and Eve not as the first human beings on earth. I think there were plenty of human beings around. Adam and Eve were farmers that God chose to come into fellowship with himself and to understand what fellowship with God was all about, who then fell. Now, what he's really trying to do is allow for evolutionary millions and millions of years before God ever chose that human couple named Adam and Eve to have fellowship with. But of course, in the meantime, he ends up destroying the credibility of the Genesis text and opens the door to disbelieve all of it. Listen, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that if Adam and Eve weren't really in the text and they really didn't live and they really weren't what the Bible seems to say they were, if they really weren't created by God, as the text clearly says, how do we know that they really had fellowship with God? And how do we know that they sinned? And how do we know that we really got from them that sin nature from Adam? I mean, all of it is easy to disbelieve if in the first chapter and the second chapter and the third chapter, it's just my new favorite word, clunky. Okay? Alistair McGrath, professor of theology at King's College, London. By the way, again, I'm quoting popular authors. Their books are in the Christian bookstore. There are those who will say that Adam and Eve is in some way, that they designate specific historical figures. I can understand why people say that. I think it makes quite a lot of sense. But for me, it makes even more sense to say that in some way Adam and Eve are stereotypical figures, and in some way they encapsulate or represent the human race as a whole. In other words, it makes more sense to him that Adam and Eve weren't a literal, historical couple. They just represent the human race in some stereotypical way, a race that will evolve over millions of years rather than a race that descended from a literal couple who were created on the sixth day, according to Scripture. Carl Gibberson, a former professor of Eastern Nazarene College, along with Francis Collins, wrote, We make no claim that the description provided in Genesis is how God created us. Neither science nor the Bible answers that question. Oh? Oh, that's my word, by the way. I slipped into the quote. I just wanted to be part of that quote. The Genesis account says little about how God created. Again. Oh. Adam was created from dust and God's breath. Eve was created from Adam's rib, but none of these explanations can possibly be actual descriptions. It's simply not reasonable to try to turn the brief comments in Genesis into a biologically accurate description of how humans were formed. Really? Well, the problem I have with this quote, by the way, is that it's not coming from the science department at NC State or UNC Chapel Hill. The problem is it's coming from a Christian college, from a Christian professor. Who's trying to somehow make science, nature, and reason fit with some miraculous account that just to him doesn't seem reasonable? And if you notice, he says that we just don't have enough information about it. No, the problem is he doesn't like what little information we've been given. And by the way, I wonder if this professor would have a problem with the fact that we have even less biblical information on how God is going to recreate our bodies that'll last forever. Do we believe that? How somehow he's going to translate us from mortality to immortality, and he's going to create a heaven that we'll enjoy forever. We have less on how God did that or will do that. I imagine he would like to believe that. William Dembski, a professor at Southern Evangelical Seminary in Matthews, North Carolina, let's just bring it home here, right here in North Carolina, correctly makes the connection between a literal understanding of a literal Adam and Eve and a young earth. And that's because, as parents and the genealogies provided for us, if you take it literally as we would Genesis chapter 5, you're going to end up with a young earth view of creation. But for Dr. Dembsky, he admits this is a problem. He writes, the young earth solution to reconciling the order of creation with natural history makes, note this, good exegetical and theological sense. In other words, if all you have is are the scriptures, it makes good exegetical sense to come up with that. He says, indeed, the overwhelming consensus of theologians up through the Reformation held to this view. I would adopt it in a heartbeat, except that nature seems to present such a strong evidence against it. Never mind, good exegetical sense, theological sense, and those within the church, up through the Reformation and beyond, really, it just seems more likely based on what I see. Again, what do you see? What little do you see or understand? We only know a fraction of what God has done. It's a tragic error, by the way. He's saying we need to evaluate scripture in light of nature, not evaluate nature in light of scripture. And this is from an evangelical seminary. By the way, what would the evidence of nature tell you about the new heaven and the new earth? I mean, what kind of quarry did that require? Where's the refinery for that gold? How long would it take to create that? And where did those, I know I mentioned this before, but it always comes back to me. Where do you get those huge pearls from? Where are those monster oysters living? And how long to create those gates of pearl? And by the way, I went back into the text of Revelation 21, and it does indeed say specifically that each gate is one pearl. How long did that poor oyster work on that one? What would the evidence of nature lead us to? The normal processes of nature cannot explain the miraculous. In fact, Jesus Christ told his disciples in John chapter 14 that he was going to prepare that heavenly city, the Father's house, and then he was going to come back and take all those who believe in him back with them. Well, how are we going to go from here to there? Wouldn't that defy the natural law of gravity? I hope so. I hope he can. And he will. And a million others. The problem is our world of theologically compromising Christianity. It's somehow trying to make the Bible fit an evolutionary schematic. Even Dr. Dembski admitted this. He said, a young earth seems to be required to maintain a traditional understanding of the fall. I'd like to say a biblical understanding of the fall. And yet a young earth clashes sharply with mainstream science. Paul, in this text, is introducing God to the Athenians by effectively introducing Adam. And by virtue of a literal Adam, a young earth, and every nation coming from him. But Paul is in other passages saying the same thing. Listen to what he wrote to Timothy. For it was Adam who was first created. And then he first Timothy 2.13. Not born, not evolved, created by the Word of God. Dr. Peter Enns is a professor for years, was a professor for years at Westminster Theological Seminary. Again, another seminary that started because of the liberalism that was encroaching in the community. It'd been around now, it's been around many, many years, but in he retired in 2004 and he wrote with some open frustration with the emphasis of Paul on Adam. I just couldn't help but chuckle, but it is it isn't a laughing matter. But he says this it's not so much that Genesis talks about an Adam, it's the fact that Paul talks about an Adam. That's the heart of the tension concerning Genesis and evolution. If Adam just stayed in the Old Testament where he belonged, we wouldn't have this problem. But Paul draws him out. And for Paul, Adam is the first human being. Well, maybe we ought to listen to Paul. What do you say? Can you imagine? By the way, that happens to be the gospel message of Paul to the Athenians. Look back at chapter 17 and verse 26 again. And he, God, made from one man, a literal man, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth. Listen, that is not clunky. That is descriptive. It's descriptive. Paul is confirming in the New Testament what happened in the Genesis account in the Old Testament. And by the way, what he's saying here, understand this. It isn't any more popular in Athens as it is in America. Those Athenian council members were sitting there, and by now they're probably thinking, this guy is a bit off. See, they believed that Zeus was the originator of life. And they believed it came from him. The Greek word for life, by the way, is Zoe. And Paul is effectively confronting that. He's saying in this manner, this is what they would be hearing, that Zeus did not produce Zoe. Thaos, God, produced Zoe. Life. And God created all the variations of color and physical attributes within one race. There's only one human race. And the Athenians, by the way, didn't like that, because they had for centuries believed that the Greek race, they believed, was a distinct race and was the master race. That of course will be picked up later by Hitler and the Germans, who would believe that same thing centuries later. Not so, all of mankind are members of one race descending from one man, a literal first man by the name of Adam, who was created. And let me kind of draw it into the gospel then. So no matter what color you are, when it comes to the gospel, God is colorblind. No matter what part of the family tree, you know, you fell from. When it comes from the when it comes to the gospel, God is socially blind. No matter how much money you have or status, God is economically blind when it comes to the gospel. No one has the inside track, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Listen, we thank God for Adam and the human race, but we must not cling to the human race. But by faith become a member of God's chosen race, a redeemed people, a prized possession, who've been called out of darkness, our eyes have been opened into a marvelous light. So in just a couple of sentences here, Paul literally confronts the Athenian theories of origins. And for us, the theory of Darwin, along with theistic evolutionists as well. God is the creator of humanity. I have a second point. We'll do this a little quicker. God is the controller of history. Notice verse 26 again. And he made from one, one man. You could render it. ESV translates it that way, which I prefer. He made from one blood or one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation. In other words, every nation and the borders of every nation and the length of the history of every nation is under the sovereign control designed by God. Which means it isn't the role of the Christian to save his nation from perishing. God has determined the length of its history. Any more than it is your role to save this planet from perishing. We do not take the place of God. It's his. No, be a good guardian of it. It doesn't mean that you're not supposed to care about this country. It's one thing to be responsible and even a patriotic citizen, which I happen to be with great joy. But it's another thing to assume sovereign ownership and believe that if you don't save it, that somehow God's purposes will be shortchanged. What's God gonna do if we don't save it? By the way, the worldlings are determined to attempt to save it because they have been able to detect, as God has allowed it, that this universe is winding down. It's winding down. Well, God has in his omnipotent hand a stopwatch. And it is all divinely ordained according to his purposes, and we're right on track. Paul states here the nations belong to God. He's the Lord of history. He goes on to add in verse 27 that these nations should seek God if perhaps they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. Now, that doesn't mean that they, any nation or individual, can find God on their own. Paul wrote to the Romans, how can they believe in one in whom they've of whom they've never heard? They have to hear about him. How will they hear? He writes, without a preacher or a messenger, Romans 10, 14. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. The gospel has to be delivered. And it has to be delivered for a person to be saved. They must hear the gospel, Romans 10, 17. What Paul means here is that the Athenians are close to the truth in that they know there are deities, so to speak. They know that there are immortalities, they know there are spirit beings, but like the blind man of the blind man of Indostan, they are partly right, but they still end up entirely wrong. Now the word Paul uses here, that's a key word to describe their searching, you might have noticed that he writes, if perhaps they might grope for him. That word means to feel around, like the groping of a blind person who has difficulty finding the object he wants to hold. And this is so incredibly strategic here. Paul is using the same verb to grope that one of Athens' most famous citizens used in his best-selling work entitled The Odyssey. The author's name was Homer, and Homer told the story of Odysseus, the Greek champion warrior, who is trapped on one occasion with his soldiers in a cave, and the cave is controlled by a one-eyed giant named Cyclops. Odysseus, this warrior champion, is able to blind the giant's eye with a spear, and then he and his men try to avoid the blinded and rather upset, enraged giant who is groping for them with his hands. And he uses that same word. Paul now uses that famous Athenian's writings. And he chooses, of course, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, that same verb to describe the Athenians in their groping about trying to find God. But he also implies in that, would you notice, that the true and living God wants to be found. He desires fellowship, companionship. He doesn't need us, but he delights in us. Mankind was created for worship and companionship with this creator, God. Adam and Eve sinned, and God came because they used to walk. I'm not exactly sure how that worked, but they walked together. God came looking for them and cried out, Where are you, Adam? They're hiding behind some bushes, some tree. God seeks, as it were, companionship with those that he has created. In his book, John Lennox explains the inability of reason alone to grasp the answer to the most important issues of life. A study of mythical origins, and all the theories actually can't answer the question that resonates in the heart, really, of every human being as they pillow their head. And Matilda, he says, has made a beautiful, luscious three-layered cake. The cake is taken to be analyzed by a group of the world's top scientists, nutritionists, and biochemists. The nutrition scientists finishes their examination and are able to tell us the number of calories in the cake and each specific nutritional element and effect upon the human body. The biochemists are able to determine the structure of proteins and fats and why you shouldn't eat it, but it's a great idea anyway. All of that in the battery in the icing. The physicists are able to analyze the cake in terms of fundamental particles and so on. The mathematicians are able to determine the behavior of those particles with sets of elegant equations and how they correspond and to what degree with each other. They present an elaborate report on how the cake was made and how its various ingredients relate to one another and how the cake will affect the body, and on and on. He says this. But suppose you ask the experts one question. Why did Aunt Matilda make that cake? They will not be able to answer. The only person in the room smiling would be Aunt Matilda, because she alone knows its purpose. And listen, it isn't an insult on any scientific discipline to do everything that they do and yet be unable to answer the question why? Because they cannot. In fact, the only way we'd ever get an answer to the question why is to ask whom? Aunt Matilda. And she will tell you it's a birthday cake for her nephew to celebrate with him. Listen, without any disclosure, no amount of scientific analysis will ever be able to enlighten us. The study of origins has has enough trouble with the question how. Think about it. How did life originate? How did all of the elements that we can detect and analyze, how'd they come together to form life? But even if they can come close to the answer, how they still will be millions of miles away from the answer to why? Why is there life? Why does this universe exist? Why do you exist? Why do you have life? Analyze the chemicals in your body. You cannot determine the purpose of being alive. Why this universe? Measure it, study it, explore it. You will never be able to answer the question, why? God's word comes along and says, let me answer that for you. The heavens. Oh, their purpose is to declare the glory of God. For us to effectively stand in awe of his creative might and power. And listen, let me say this, and we're done. You exist to serve and represent and worship and love and enjoy and one day talk with and walk with and worship and praise and serve your creator.
SPEAKER_00:You've been listening to wisdom for the heart. Stephen Davy is working through a series from Acts 17 entitled Introducing God. We have one more message to go in that series, and we'll bring you that message next time. In the meantime, we'd love to interact with you. If you have a comment, a question, or note that you'd like to send to Stephen, our mailing address is Wisdom International. PO Box 37297. Raleigh, North Carolina 27627. We'd enjoy getting a card or letter from you. Our website is found at wisdomonline.org. Thanks for joining us today. Please be with us next time for more Wisdom for the Heart.