I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. (Psalm 139:14)
…upon this is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out. (Matthew 16:17–18, MSG)
It’s tempting to see life—and even sports—as a primal contest, where the strongest not only survive but thrive, claiming the largest prizes. Professional golfers meticulously refine their equipment, training, and nutrition to hit farther and straighter.
The Tour Championship now offers golf’s richest purse: $40 million in total, with $10 million to the winner—a modern picture of what appears to be natural selection at work.
Yet Yuval Noah Harari reminds us in Sapiens that human success has never depended on brute strength alone. What set us apart wasn’t being the fastest, strongest, or fiercest, but our unique ability to create shared stories and cooperate on a massive scale—through religion, nations, money, and laws.
In this sense, “fitness” is less about raw power and more about imagination and collaboration. Even as an atheist, Harari acknowledges the power of religious “myths” or “fictions” to unite people. These shared beliefs have built communities and nations, enabling humanity not just to survive, but to flourish.
This raises a deeper question: Are we more than mere mammals struggling to survive? Scripture presents a far higher view. Genesis 1:26–27 tells us that we are eternal beings, created in the image of God—far beyond the fleeting product of biological chance, struggling for roughly eighty years before fading away. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, designed to live forever.
C.S. Lewis speaks to a similar truth. “While humans have evolved biologically, Christianity offers a new kind of evolution—spiritual transformation. This change is not about improving our old selves but about becoming something entirely new: “new men.” Not stronger caterpillars, but butterflies—entirely transformed creatures.”
During His three-year ministry, Jesus spoke of what many might have dismissed as a “religious fiction”—the coming Kingdom of God. Pilate mockingly asked, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus replied, almost like a line from a children’s story: “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
Could our instinct to form communities, as Harari suggests, hint at a greater spiritual reality? Jesus shows us that it does. His Kingdom is not a story, but a living, expanding reality. His “called-out” people—ecclesia, a populous of transformed believers, the Church—are growing and evolving, and not even the gates of hell will prevail against it. Humanity is invited to become new creatures, to be “born again” into a life that transcends mere survival.
We were made for more:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea… “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.” (Revelation 21:1, 3)
Prayer: Jesus, open my eyes to the Truth—You and Your living body, the Church.