Be Fruitful and Multiply - Day 5 Continued

This past spring, I had the opportunity to teach our junior high students a unit in cellular biology.  The teacher was nervous to teach it because it dealt with reproduction and heredity.

 

Why is that we seem to have gone crazy on the subject of reproduction?  Is it because we have demeaned the act of human reproduction from a method - both created by God and ordained by Him according to his commandments - into a series of "gymnastic" events driven by the prurient nature of the flesh?  I know that we have because sexual acts outside of the marriage of a man and woman and sexual deviations never ordained - in fact strictly forbidden - by God are thrown in our faces every day from entertainment to advertising.  As a result of the blatant attack on morality, pornography has become a billion dollar a year industry, with an addictive potential to that of heroin and cocaine.

 

Let us return for now to God's plans regarding His creations.  All living things must do seven basic things:

1. Eat (animals) or produce (plants) food
2. Breathe
3. Eliminate waste
4. React to stimuli
5. Move
6. Grow
7. Reproduce

God provided for them all, from the individual cell to the most complex mammals, every living thing must do these seven things in order to live.  God provided us with life and in abundance!

 

The most basic forms of reproduction are asexual via mitosis.  Plants and animals at a cellular level "split" into two parts, each having the exact same genetic make up.  Some multicellular organisms reproduce via such processes as spores or "budding" (think of potato eyes.) 

However, for the variety of organisms to appear on the earth, God introduced sexual reproduction from the male pollen on the female pistil in plants to the complex sexual reproduction of animals via a cellular process called meiosis.  Through this process, each offspring is a genetically unique individual.  That keeps species vibrant and full of variety.

 

This was absolutely necessary for the fulfillment of God's plan for his creations, including His own children, created in His likeness.  Without it, all creation would be for naught.  Thus He taught Abraham and Moses:

 

And the Gods said: We will bless them, and cause them to be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas or great waters; and cause the fowl to multiply in the earth.

And it came to pass that it was from evening until morning that they called night; and it came to pass that it was from morning until evening that they called day; and it was the fifth time. (Abraham 4: 22-23)

 

As we study the next day of creation, we will hear this theme repeated: multiply and replenish the earth.  From the grass of the field to the sons and daughters of God, this must have been important to Him, for the commandment was given to every form of life upon the earth.

 

© Gebara Education, 2016