Family Photos
One day in Mexico I got into a conversation with a neighbor. He was a nice young man who didn't have any trouble with talking to a foreigner (me). At least in that era (1980s), high school students in Mexico would get a good dose of humanism in the public schools. They were given a fairly heavy amount of communism, a lot of Marxism, and a tremendous supply of evolution. He knew I was a Christian preacher so he asked me some questions about the things he was being indoctrinated with at school.
The young man was not being belligerent. He was very polite. He just wondered if I had any good reply to the things he was taught in his public school. The subject of evolution came up. I think he knew intuitively that some of the things he was being told were wrong. He just did not have any good options against them.
“Why doesn't the bible say anything about evolution?” he asked me.
I really had never thought about it exactly like that. I did not know what to answer. I was only about ten years older that he was. Immediately something happened that is a little hard to explain. It seemed that I was suddenly distant from the conversation. My consciousness became as if I were a third person, listening to a conversation that two other people were having. With the “three” of us standing there, I heard myself ask the young man a question.
“Does your mother have any pictures of family members on the walls of your living room?
“Of course”, he replied.
“Does she have pictures of the neighbors on the walls?”
“No”, he said.
“The bible tells us about the family of Adam, which is your family. In the book of Genesis, it doesn't tell about some other family. It tells us about your family origins; not about some other race of beings. That is why there are no accounts of apes and such.”
The young man was silent. I had never heard this before, either. Finally, he smiled for the first time in our conversation. He said good bye and the “three” of us went home. The young man and I were impacted by what we had just heard. As we went home, I was being just as quiet and thoughtful as he was. The Holy Spirit once again made it look as if I knew what I were talking about.
Nov 2, 2023