Now to get back to where I started:  How does all this information about the DNA-RNA-protein complex expand the context of my biblical understanding and prohibit me from calling this narrative PREACHERS DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT THE BIBLE?

When a child is conceived, the beginning is one fertilized cell.  That cell divides and becomes two, then four, then eight, and sixteen and so on.  But there is no body there; all the cells are identical.  At some point in this process of division, differentiation begins.  Some cells become blood inside blood vessels, or muscle, or bone.  Organs begin to form, like eyes or a liver.  The differences in the cells in these different organs or structures are accounted for by the different proteins, which catalyze, or facilitate, different chemical reactions which do different things and make the cells, well, different.

With my admittedly small understanding of the DNA-RNA-protein complex it is exciting to consider that different proteins are produced by different sections of the DNA chain unzipping, being transcribed and translated into protein.  Which section of DNA unzips?  Well, part of the answer is related to which sections are free to unzip and which are held fast by a repressor molecule.  Suddenly I can speculate—and it is still a guess, but an educated guess—that it is “possible to think of development—the process of growth from a single fertilized egg into a staggeringly complex adult human—as an enormous exercise in gene-switching: as tissues arise through development, so whole suites of genes must be switched on and off.”¹  And, I will add, at the right place or location in the forming body, and at the right time, or in the correct sequence.

Now, since I believe the DNA-RNA-protein complex is an artifact of Jesus’ creation, everything I just discovered and speculated on becomes an analogy for me about another body, the body of Christ.  For just as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body² – though many – are one body, so too is Christ.³  The preacher, not unlike messenger RNA, seeks out a quiet inner sanctuary, like the nucleus of a cell, where he can spend time alone with a passage from the Bible, like a section of DNA.  His sermon is not an exact copy of the Bible, but more like a mirror image reflecting the Bible and the times and circumstances of his own congregation.  He preaches his sermon to the congregation along with an application: “in the light of these things this is what should be done.”  Now, unlike the amino acids in the cell, individual members of the congregation have a choice whether or not to heed and act on the preacher’s admonition.  Those who act, form the protein, if you will, which catalyzes this particular function of this particular cell of the body of Christ.  And the different functions catalyzed by the different sermons are the very things that differentiate the congregations, or cells, from one another.

For in fact the body is not a single member, but many, Paul wrote the Corinthians.  If the whole body were an eye, what part would do the hearing?  If the whole were an ear, what part would exercise the sense of smell?  But as a matter of fact, God has placed each of the members in the body just as he decided.  If they were all the same member, where would the body be?⁴  Remember that mass of identical, undifferentiated, cells we all start out as?

So the laundry list of Solomon’s wealth and power might unzip, as it were, for a particular preacher, who produces a timely sermon that touches the hearts of certain members of a specific congregation, who in turn catalyze a specific function in a specific cell of the body of Christ.  All the while, it is completely possible that another preacher studying the laundry list of Solomon’s wealth and power and God’s promise to bless Solomon with the wisdom he asked for and the wealth he did not ask for might produce an entirely different sermon that results in the accomplishment of yet another function in another cell of the body of Christ.  Still another preacher may study the laundry list of Solomon’s wealth and power and compare it to the list of things God forbade Israel’s kings, and produce an entirely different sermon with entirely different results.

Though it is highly unlikely that any preacher would hold all three passages before his congregation, plus an illustration from the DNA-RNA-protein complex, in the twenty minutes or so allotted to him before Sunday dinner burns, even this has become a meaningful sermon to me.

I will sooner understand where and when to switch-off gene suites in the developing human being than I will grasp even the vaguest outline of the body of Christ, let alone a specific need or function of a specific cell at an appropriate time.  My criticism of preachers’ sermons, therefore, whether good or bad, is completely irrelevant, because it is not based on any knowledge of the needs and functions of any specific cell of the body of Christ, but on the preachers’ apparent affirmation or contradiction of the current state of my understanding of the Bible.  And though the process through which I arrive at my abstract truth is very vibrant and alive to me, any written results are little better than an autopsy report.  Future like-minded investigators may be able to study my autopsy report to point out where I went wrong.  But neither they nor I will help a single preacher find a single timely sermon by writing autopsy reports or post-mortems on autopsy reports.

So then, application one of my would-be sermon is something like: “Hey, Dan!  Lay off the preachers!  Who are you to pass judgment on another’s servant? Paul wrote the Romans rhetorically.  The explicit context was in reference to relations between the strong and weak in faith, that they should not despise or judge each other.  Before his own master he stands or falls, Paul continued.  And he will stand, for the Lord⁵ is⁶ able⁷ to make him stand.⁸  Would I be stretching the context too far to offer this same courtesy to priests, pastors, preachers and Bible teachers all over the world?

Addendum: January 17, 2019
Tables comparing 1 Corinthians 12:12 and Romans 14:4 in the NET and KJV follow.