Were Adam and Eve Neanderthals?

We're Adam and Eve Neanderthals, and that's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, hi, I'm Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us right now with your question at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on one of our social media sites. And of course, you can always email us your question at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to a voicemail.

This is one that came in from one of our listeners named Austin. My question is, when Jesus was born, did he have his full brain, you know, capabilities and knowledge as he would as an adult? Or did his brain functionality and wisdom grow as a normal human would? Or was he just laying there as a baby with full-on, you know, adult brain function and knowledge?

Anyway, thank you guys. Yeah, was he just like genius baby? And, well, no, I don't think so. And actually, there's a verse in Scripture that makes that absolutely clear in Luke chapter 2, in verse 52. This is right after the scene where Jesus is in the temple, and he is, you know, wowing everybody there in the temple.

His parents are looking for him. But verse 52 says, Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. We have to understand, God the Son, the eternal Son of the Father, the Word, became flesh, was made flesh, took flesh from the womb of the Virgin Mary so that he might grow in that flesh, in that humanity, if you will. And I think with that, you have cognitive growth, the growth of cognitive abilities, and I think that's what's being spoken of there in Luke chapter 2, verse 52. So Jesus, in and through the incarnation, when the Son of God was born, he wasn't just this super baby, that kind of a thing.

In fact, you know, what's really interesting is when Jesus goes back to his hometown in Nazareth, people, essentially, what were they saying? Who is this guy? I mean, we know his family.

We know his siblings. There's nothing really special about him. In other words, he wasn't, you know, doing these crazy miracles as a kid. It wasn't until his earthly ministry got started that he began to be revealed in a very clear sense as the Messiah, the Savior of the world.

And so, in one sense, a very ordinary childhood and upbringing, even. And I think that's what the scripture speaks to. And so thank you for that question. And again, the verse you want to look at is Luke chapter 2, verse 52. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.

We do receive emails here. Got an interesting one from Daniel, and he says, a recent caller on your show asked, can I, as a husband and father and spiritual leader of my family, administer the Lord's Supper at home? In short, the answer given was no, you must leave that to ordained pastors. I appreciate your answer, but I believe it was not at all well supported by scripture. I'm an ordained deacon in my church, very active in church life, and have been leading my family in the Lord's Supper for almost four years now. I cannot find any scriptural reference that prohibits this practice or that would discourage it. I believe that anyone with appropriate reverence and understanding should rejoice in their ability to partake of the Lord's Supper as often as they are led by the Spirit of God to do so. Interesting question.

Hey, Daniel, thank you for following up with us. So just for those who weren't listening earlier in the week to the broadcast, somebody asked the question, can just anybody administer the Lord's Supper whenever you want? Just take kind of communion on your own, or a father in particular, I think this was the context of the question, a dad wanting to administer the Lord's Supper for his family. And I said, no, ordinarily, the way in which the Lord's Supper is supposed to be administered is by a minister who's been ordained to the ministry of the word and sacrament in the context of the church.

And I knew we were gonna get some feedback on this, some questions about this, because this is something that might come off as strange. In the history of the church, I don't think that this would have been a strange thing, but I think in our context, specifically, and many of us raised in sort of broader evangelicalism, where that's not really the case. When people think about the Lord's Supper, it's just, hey, it's an opportunity for me to stop and remember Jesus and to remember his sacrifice for me. And if that's the case, well, then what's the big deal?

Why can't I just do that wherever? Well, a couple of things. First and foremost, the Lord's Supper is a sign and seal of God's gospel promises. It's the visible word to the people of God. Now there are a specific group of people, the officers of the church, in particular the elders of the church, who are called to administer the word and sacraments of the church.

And the reason that is is because we need to protect those things. It's like what Paul tells Timothy, guard the good deposit that's been handed down to you. Not just anyone should be entrusted with the teaching office of the church.

Why? Because this is God's holy and sacred word. And so in one sense, I think it just, by implication, it's very clear that not just anyone should be administering the Lord's Supper, and especially in private. Because if the Lord's Supper really is this picture of the unity we have as the body of Christ, it's something that we do together as a church. And this is precisely what the scripture teaches.

Again, the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 verse 16, this is the cup of blessing that we bless. Is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. See the focus there on our unity as the body of Christ, in one sense being actualized even when we're coming together around the table of the Lord. And that's what was happening in the early churches. People were gathering together with the saints, with the body of Christ, to do this thing that Jesus had told them to do. And so there's one line of evidence. But here's another thing that I would say, is if just anyone could administer the Lord's Supper to themselves or to other people however they wanted, then that would make church discipline virtually impossible.

If just anybody could just go about it. I mean, Jesus, when he sent out the apostles and they established these churches, local churches with elders and deacons, there's a process of discipline that Jesus gives to the church in Matthew chapter 18. And he says, look, if people continue in sin, don't treat them as a brother anymore. They're excommunicated. If they continue in unrepentant sin and they go through this process of discipline, you no longer treat them as a brother, you no longer commune them.

They've been excommunicated. But if just anybody can commune themselves, well, it just makes, it sort of undermines the structure of the church, the structure that Jesus himself and the apostles instituted. So I think that's another reason why it's really clear to me, according to scripture, that this isn't just something that anybody could do. We're called to do this together as a church under the faithful ministry of the word. And it's a sign of, one, our communion with Jesus Christ, specifically receiving his gospel gifts for us when we eat by faith, but also the unity we have as the body of Christ.

In other words, it's not something that we do on our own in a closet or administered kind of often in the park with our friends, that kind of thing. No, this is about the church and the gifts that Jesus gives to his church and the unity we have together as the church. So thank you again for following up, brother. And I appreciate your feedback, Daniel, and just grateful that you're interacting with the broadcast.

So God bless. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We're taking your phone calls, your questions on the Bible, the Christian life doctrine or theology, or maybe how your Christian walk intersects with what's happening in today's culture.

We'd love to hear from you. We're also open to calls from people maybe who have doubts about the faith, or maybe you're involved in another faith, another religion, and you have questions about Christianity. You can call us with those questions as well. Here's the number. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. And again, we'll be taking calls for the next 15 minutes or so. We also have a very special resource that we'd like to offer you today, and it really focuses on both faith and family. Yeah, Bill, we have a new offer that combines some of the best questions and answers we've received on the show about faith and family. I think it's fair to say that kids ask some of the best questions about the faith, oftentimes difficult questions.

And if we're honest, we aren't always ready to answer those questions. But our families ought to be a training ground where, you know, we as parents or grandparents, uncles or aunts, siblings, can help each other grow in the faith, answering those difficult questions. And that's one of the reasons why we've created as a core team this new resource on faith and family, and it's available on our website for a gift of any amount.

This collection includes questions and answers from the show, articles, and bonus materials about marriage, parenting, sexuality, and dating relationships, how to answer kids' questions, and even how to care for aging parents. And so Core Christianity exists to help answer tough questions about the Bible and the Christian faith. And when you get these important resources, you support us to continue to produce and broadcast the show, create more Bible studies, and distribute free Christ-centered resources so that many people can benefit from them. So thank you for your support, and I do hope you get a hold of this resource. You know, as we're heading into the weekend, this will be a great resource for your family, and you can find it by going to corechristianity.com forward slash family, just corechristianity.com forward slash family, and of course you can call us for that resource or any one of our resources at 833-843-2673.

That's 833-THE-CORE. Let's go to Selah calling in from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Selah, what's your question for Adriel? Hi, thank you for taking my call. I have a question. I've been in religion all my life, and I know I would like to say that I'm newly into the Christian faith.

I live a couple of years ago. Certain truths have come to be known to me, I guess, that I've now learned that only God came through his Holy Spirit, come bring that to you. And, you know, Christians read the Bible every day, so those truths to me are things that I've just recently learned, except I was at a prayer the other day, and I just kind of would like to know what verses in the Bible that could direct me to kind of better clarify, because we were doing just a repetitious prayer. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's a rosary, and there's a Hail Mary prayer, and the Hail Mary, I agree with, you know, it's a part of it, but some parts there, then I just like, I question my faith and what I was saying while I was praying, and I like what we do consider Hail Mary, Mother of God, and Elizabeth goes and part of the prayer. If you know what it says, you know, Hail Mary, full of grace, which is what I believe Elizabeth said to her cousin Mary, and so I don't know if you know the whole, but I just kind of want to know where I should stand now that these, just the whole thing, I just couldn't focus, and it just kind of popped out for me, and now I'm trying to find a church, another church.

Hey, well, I appreciate this question. I mean, practical, related to prayer, what should prayer look like, and I think we want to just go with what the scriptures say. You don't have examples in the New Testament of that prayer, you know, the Hail Mary. You do have, again, the language of Elizabeth there, but I don't know that we are called, in fact, there's no indication in scripture that we are called to address the departed saints, those who have died in the Lord prior to us, and to go to them and to ask them for prayer.

I think that's a later tradition. I don't think that's something that we see in the New Testament. I think if you want to know, you know, well, what does it look like for me to pray, and how should I pray, I think just go straight to the words of Jesus in Matthew chapter six, in particular, verses five and following. So there Jesus gives us the words of the Lord's Prayer, which I'm sure you know as well, but he also gives a couple of warnings. Right before he introduces the Lord's Prayer, he says to his disciples, verse seven, when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard for their many words.

Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this, and then he introduces the Lord's Prayer. So there Jesus is addressing faithless prayer, thinking about the pagan nations and how they would just sort of repeat themselves and say the same things over and over and over again, almost as an incantation, hoping to get, you know, the gods or a god to listen to them and to grant them favor. It was very superstitious, and Jesus says, don't treat prayer as this superstitious thing, just sort of going through the motions and saying these words as if they're magic words to get God to bend his will to yours. No, that's not what prayer is.

When we pray, we go to the Lord in faith, and then as I said, Jesus gives us the kinds of things we should be praying for. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. In other words, there's a focus on God and his kingdom, his name being hallowed, that is being made holy, not in that it can be made more holy than it is, because God is God.

He's infinitely holy, but in the sense that God's name would be sanctified in our own hearts and in the world. You see this passion for God's glory right at the outset of the prayer. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Say that prayer every day. Repeat that prayer. When Jesus talks about not making vain repetitions, it's not against repetitive prayer. I think we can repeat the same prayers with faith before the Lord, honestly, and that's a good thing.

It's vain repetitions. It's seeking God for the things that he has not called us to seek him for. I would just encourage you, when you're thinking about prayer, to focus on what the scriptures teach. The whole Bible is given to instruct us on how to pray. Then you have those specific places, like in Matthew chapter 6 or even the Psalms, that I think provide even deeper instruction or just focused instruction on prayer.

I would say that's where you're going to want to focus your attention, sister. God bless you in prayer and also in finding... It sounds like you're looking for another church and finding a church that really values the preaching of the Bible and where Christ is proclaimed faithfully and you can continue to grow in your relationship with him. God bless. Thank you, Sella, for being a regular listener to CORE Christianity, and thanks, Adriel, for that. Wonderful to pray the Psalms, as you often mentioned. What a great place to go for guidance on how we are to pray. This is CORE Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We're still taking your calls.

833-THE-CORE is the number. Here's a voicemail from one of our listeners named Richard. A guy asked me about Adam and Eve, and I didn't know what to tell him because he asked me about Neanderthals. I know there might be some verses in the Bible that relate to Neanderthals or giants or whatever, like Nephilims. I didn't really know exactly what to tell him other than just trying to stick with what was in the Bible, but thanks.

Yeah, appreciate this question. There are some people who have tried to make the case that God basically oversaw human evolution, that you had these species that were building up to the human race, and they were essentially animals, not created in the image of God, and that eventually there came a point where God breathed the soul into these creatures, and then that's when you had Adam and Eve, that kind of a thing. I don't take that view. I don't think that that view fits with the teaching of Genesis chapter 2, specifically in verse 7 where we read, the Lord God formed the man of the dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. In other words, at this point when God breathed into man, forming him, creating him from the dust of the ground, that's when he becomes a living creature. Now there are other living creatures in the world that God created, the animals and whatnot, but this is something unique.

This is the creation of man. This is where you get Adam and Eve as well. Then where does that put Neanderthals? Were Adam and Eve Neanderthals? No, I don't believe that they were Neanderthals.

I think that you probably have these creatures, these persons. Obviously there's a lot of questions that people have about Neanderthals, but I would say that they're also descendants of the first people that God made, Adam and Eve, here in Genesis chapter 2 verse 7 with similarities, and also made in the image of God. I've done a ton of reading on this, but I know that there are some who have said, actually we have these assumptions about the Neanderthals that they're not really persons, if you will, they're just animals, when in reality there's evidence that's been discovered even recently of technological advancement language and so on and so forth, the kinds of things that would I think lead one to believe that no, these are real persons, also made in the image of God, descendants of Adam and Eve as well.

That's my view, and I think it's supported by the teaching of Genesis chapter 2 verse 7. God bless. You're listening to CORE Christianity. Just a reminder that we have that wonderful resource for you and your family. If you go online this weekend, you can find it at corechristianity.com forward slash family. It's our faith and family collection with some great resources that deal with things like marriage and dating and some of the questions that kids might ask. So check that out at corechristianity.com forward slash family.

Let's go to Mark calling in from Missouri. Mark, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Yes. My question is, it talks about Lucifer being a beautiful angel and was in heaven. And when God realized his motives and what he was trying to do, a third of the angels along with Lucifer fell from heaven and was cast out of heaven. So my question is, let's say you and I and hundreds of thousands of millions of people go to heaven. Is there a chance that we could be cast out of heaven if we change? I'm not clear on that.

Thank you for that question, Mark. No, I don't believe that there is a chance that we can be cast out of heaven, so I think that God gave the angels a choice. I think he gave Adam and Eve, they're in the garden, a choice. And at that point, they were able, I'm thinking of Adam and Eve in the garden, they were able to sin or able not to sin. They could have chosen to obey God's law or they could choose to disobey God's law. And God gave them freedom of choice and left to the freedom of their choice, they sinned against the Lord. And as a result of their sin, all of us fell with Adam and Eve in sin.

Paul talks about this in Romans 5, verses 12 and following. And so now we're in this situation where we can't choose not to sin. Our natures, if you will, have been corrupted by sin. We have this propensity even to sin, so we need God's grace.

And God gives us his grace through his son, Jesus. We can be regenerated by the grace of the Holy Spirit, born again, but even still, we struggle with sin as believers. Our hope is that one day, sin will finally and fully be done away.

Well, when is that? That's in the new creation, when we're in the presence of the Lord, no longer, I think, bound by that sin, by indwelling sin. And so when we're in the presence of the Lord, when we're in heaven, or for the new creation for that matter, we're going to be in this state of just confirmed righteousness, glorification. There won't be any more sin, and sin will never again take us away from God and his presence. And so that's a hope that we have, a wonderful hope, frankly, and one which the scriptures give to us. And I think that the image is painted for us at the very end of the Bible in the book of Revelation, chapter 21 especially, where you have the picture of the new heavens and the new earth coming down from heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, and God saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. No more death.

Why? Well, there's no more sin. It's been fully and finally conquered by Jesus, and in the new creation, we have that great hope. No more tears, no more death, no more pain. And so you don't have to worry, Mark, about, you know, well, boy, could we fall in heaven and potentially go through the same process all over again. No, God is not going to let that happen. And so God bless you, brother, and praise God for that great hope that we have.

Amen. This is Core Christianity. Quick question from Naomi, who emailed us, Adriel, and she says, This is America mentioned in the Bible.

Ah, yeah. Well, no, I don't think specifically that America, I mean, sometimes people will look at these prophecies in places like the book of Ezekiel and even the book of Revelation, and they'll try to say, Oh, I think that's speaking about us specifically as a nation. No. Now, that doesn't mean that the Bible doesn't have a lot to say to the nations of the world, including the United States of America today in terms of what we see in scripture and calls to repentance, calls to faith, calls to act and live in ways that are godly. But if you're asking me, do I think that the Bible clearly prophesies about America and our presidents and so on and so forth, no, I don't think that's the focus of the teaching of the scriptures. The focus of the teachings of scriptures is Jesus Christ. God bless. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833, the Core. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.