For the Birds, An Introduction
For the Birds, An Introduction.
“First this: God created the heavens and the earth – all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.” (Genesis 1:1-2, MSG).
Since the fifth day of creation in Genesis 1:20, birds have held a deep fascination among us humans. “And God said, ‘Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds soar high above the earth across the expanse of the heavens!’ So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was beautiful and excellent. And God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth!” And ever since, mankind has been saying ‘Amen!’ to God’s words of blessing over these birds of His.
It is abundantly clear that the Creator God has loved His fine-feathered friends from the beginning. God’s instructions to Noah included a special word for the birds… “Take seven of each kind of bird of the heavens, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of the earth.” (Genesis 6:3). And to this day, birds are the only creatures that flourish on every continent. God’s instructions to Noah revealed that birds hold a special place in God’s heart, and He wanted all of them, every kind, to flourish. The unique connection between God and birds has convinced me that, no, the birds didn’t evolve from meat-eating dinosaurs. God had special plans in mind for His birds. And it takes a greater leap of faith to think birds are evolved than to simply believe that Creator God invented them in the first place. As the psalmist proclaims in Ps. 50:7,11, “Hear O My people, and I will speak… I know by name every bird flying over the mountains, and every animal roaming over the fields is Mine, they belong to Me.”
So why have such commonplace creatures like birds been so enthralling to us since ancient times? The sheer magnitude of varieties in the 18,000 species of birds boggles the imagination, for one thing. So many kinds of birds, so many unique qualities to each species. On the one hand, birds seem so vulnerable in the wilds of nature, and on the other hand they literally are above it all in their freedom of movement and escapability. It is true, though, that 3/4 of the birds that live in the wild survive less than a year. Some sing, while others can only emit squeaks, squawks, whistles, gurgles, warbles, trills, rattles, or some other sound that can’t be described. They all, though, have hollow bones, water-resistant feathers with a muscle at the base of each one, and lay eggs.
Birds are mentioned over 300 times in Scripture, are used as examples of beauty and powerful symbols in countless pieces of the visual arts, and are singled out in more songs than one could imagine. Birds have been used as visual aids to represent qualities of God, to illustrate aspects of our relationship to Him, and to teach us spiritual truths. Birds are ready-made symbols for God’s protective care and divine provision. Every circumstance known to mankind could easily find a suitable symbol in one bird or another.
It wasn’t long ago that calling someone a “bird-brain” was a supreme insult. However, all the recent research into the brain of a bird has uncovered the fact that birds have a unique density of neurons packed inside their little brains. Many birds enjoy an ability to engage in a higher order of thinking than mammals, even some primates. Songbirds in particular are extremely intelligent, as well as ravens and parrots. Parrots can mimic over 800 words, while ravens have the ability to mimic human speech, and even reproduce the sounds of predators in order to lead them to a carcass. Crows, cousins of the raven, can recognize human faces, and a community of crows have been known to harbor grudges for many generations.
One of the most astounding facts discovered in bird-brain research is that songbirds each have a voice box fully awake during their REM sleeping patterns, which allows them to quietly rehearse the songs they are going to sing the next day! Birds sing in their sleep! Not only that, but when male and female mates sleep together, they each rehearse their songs in harmony for the next day!
In this meager introduction to a biblical study of birds, perhaps we can reserve the last word to Jesus from His Sermon on the Mount, “Look at the birds of the air!” (Matthew 6:26).