How’s your new skeleton?
In 1 Corinthians 12, God (through Paul) says this:
‘As it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.’
In the context, Paul’s not mainly talking about that fleshy thing that’s probably resting partly on a chair and partly on a mouse or your laptop as you’re writing. He’s talking about the church, the body of Christ. I’ve been thinking a lot about that today, as I prepare to lead a seminar on ‘Unity in Evangelism’ on Tuesday. But that’s not what’s stuck in my mind this evening.
What’s stuck in my mind is this: you get a new skeleton every ten years.
I was asking my friend Dan, a medical student, what he’s been learning. And he was telling me about osteoclasts and osteoblasts. And they are amazing. Now, I just got the 60-second summary, and he’d been researching it for 3 hours, and orthopaedic specialists probably look into it for years, so you’re not about to get some on-the-button explanation. But let me try to tell you a bit of the genius of your body.
We’ve all got bones, right? Loads. And part of the bone system are these little dudes called osteoclasts, which basically attack your bones, breaking them up. Sounds bad, doesn’t it? But no, because they work in partnership with team osteoblast. Osteoblasts scuttle around doing bone-formation work, i.e. generating more bone. The net result is that your bones are renewed. Every year, about 10% of your bone is chipped away by the osteoclasts. But simultaneously, the osteoblasts create another 10% to replace what was taken. And that’s how your skeleton gets renewed every 10 years (because 10 lots of 10% make 100%). It’s also through this system that the body repairs little fractures and breaks, without us even realising it.
‘Why are you telling me this, Mackie?’
Because it reveals something of the glory of God. Before tonight, I had no idea that this was happening inside me, and yet it’s been going on for more than 2 decades. That’s more than 2 skeletons.
But God knew.
Osteoclasts and osteoblasts make God happy. God rejoices in his creation, the reflection of his enduring glory (Psalm 104:31).
God has known about osteoclasts and osteoblasts forever! And he’s been celebrating them constantly. Among other things. Every time we discover something new like this, God’s already on to it. But he gives us the privilege of discovering it too, so that we can marvel at his works. And at him, saying with the psalmist:
‘O Lord, how numerous are your works!
In wisdom, you have made them all.’
(Psalm 104:24)