Anthropology is a field of study that seeks to better understand the human race and what is means to be human. Its purpose is to answer the same question that David asked about 3,000 years ago. What is man?
Unlike many anthropologists today, David’s question about the origin, value, and purpose of the human race did not come as the result of archaeology (digging into the earth) but astronomy (looking up from the earth to the heavens). He writes: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?” (Psalm 8:3-4). Consider what the inspired answers to this age-old question:
Humanity is the result of special creation, and not evolutionary luck. Humanity has not clawed its way up the evolutionary food chain over billions of years of time. From the beginning of creation, humanity was made a little lower than the angels and has been crowned with glory and honor (Psalm 8:5). Neither evolution nor its ugly step-sister theistic evolution is true.
Humanity is the creation of God that is intended to have dominion over all the rest of God’s creation, and not live in service to any created thing. Jehovah Himself made humanity to have dominion over the works of His hands and put all things under his feet—all sheep and oxen, the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the seas (Psalm 8:6-8). Thus, all idolatry in any form—metal or mental—is wrong.
Humanity is the creation of God that has the intelligence and the ability to recognize the worthiness of God and joyfully praise Him for it (Psalm 8:9). Therefore, the whole duty of man is summed up with these simple words: “Fear God and keep His commandments” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).
Do you?
