Rapid Growth

Theme: God cares for his creatures.

Bible Verse: He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and vegetation for the service of man, that he may bring forth food from the earth. (Psalm 104:14)

Materials Needed:

• Sheets of paper of various sizes

Bible Lesson

Psalm 104 has been called the “ecologist’s psalm.” Ecology is the study of living things and their environments. The psalm wonderfully describes all aspects of creation, including springs of water, trees, storks, wild goats, the moon, lions, sea creatures, and volcanoes. A recurring theme of the psalm is that God cares for the daily needs of his creatures. Verse 14 describes the provision of food for both man and beast.

In 1838, Charles Darwin (1809–82) read an essay by Thomas Malthus titled “On the Principle of Population.” Malthus argued that humans and animals always outgrow their food supply. If true, this inevitably leads to intense competition and mass starvation. Malthus assumed that over time populations grow geometrically (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.) while food supplies, at best, grow arithmetically (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, etc.). Darwin was strongly influenced by the pessimistic predictions of Malthus, and this became the false basis for his theories of mutation, competition, and natural selection for the formation and improvement of species.

This idea is challenged today by the dual trends of limited human population growth and abundant food supplies. Regional food shortages today are due to conflicts and distribution problems, not a worldwide lack of food. The threat of future food crises is also dispelled by Psalm 104:14. In truth, God continues to care for the physical needs of his creatures.

Science Activity

The term geometric or exponential growth is mentioned in the Bible lesson. This type of increase starts out gradually and then rapidly escalates as the numbers continue to double. Charles Darwin misapplied geometric growth, but it is a fascinating type of change. Many items in nature and in our culture increase geometrically:

Computer memory capacity

Food production

Growth of principal with compound interest

Information

Total number of books published

We will demonstrate geometric growth with a paper-folding exercise. Begin by asking participants to estimate how many times they can continue to fold a sheet of paper in half. One might suppose the number is almost limitless with an ever smaller result. However, it is practically impossible to fold any paper more than 6 to 8 times, regardless of its original size. This is true of writing paper, newspaper, or tissues. Consider the increasing number of paper thicknesses with repeated folding: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1,024, 2,048 . . . After just six foldings there are 64 paper thicknesses, equal to a major portion of this book, and any further folding becomes very difficult.

Any size sheet of paper can be folded only 6 to 8 times. The paper thickness doubles with each fold.

Science Explanation

Our geometric growth example can be written as 2n, where n is the number of paper foldings. Some larger, theoretical numbers of foldings are summarized in the table.

Geometric growth can be applied in a positive way to evangelism. Suppose a believer shares the gospel with two other people. Each of these two then share with two others, and so on. The number of people exposed to the gospel will then increase according to the number sequence seen earlier: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 . . . After just 32 “levels,” the entire world population would be reached. In this day of nearly instant communication with social media, the possibility of worldwide outreach is exciting.

Number of folds (n)	Total sheets of thickness	Approximate total thickness
5	32	0.125 in.
10	1024	4 in.
15	32,768	10.7 ft.
20	1.05 million	341 ft.
25	33.5 million	2 miles
30	1 billion	17,000 miles
35	32 billion	1 million miles