Read
And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:25
Reflect
Whenever you get into a discussion about Christianity with a true skeptic, several questions will inevitably come up. Why do good people suffer? Why would a loving God allow evil into the world? How could a loving God allow people to suffer in Hell? And if creation is true, then what about dinosaurs?
That last one can actually be harder to answer than some of the others because Scripture addresses suffering, evil, judgment and salvation, but it is largely silent about history’s biggest giants. We know dinosaurs existed, and it is difficult to imagine creatures that enormous living alongside human beings without leaving a pretty substantial mark on human memory.
On August 12, 1990, fossil hunter Susan Hendrickson discovered the remains of what would become one of the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex specimens ever found. Nicknamed SUE in her honor, the dinosaur measured about 40 feet long. That’s a creature you would expect people to remember if humans had routinely shared the landscape with it.
Some Christians believe in a young earth, dating creation back only thousands of years. Some of them believe dinosaurs actually are mentioned in Scripture, identifying the behemoth in Job 40 and the leviathan in Job 41 as dinosaur-like creatures. Other Christians understand those passages differently and believe the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing toward an earth billions of years old allows plenty of room for dinosaurs to have lived millions of years before human beings appeared.
What do I think?
I honestly don’t know.
And I’m OK with that.
Sometimes we act as though faith requires us to have an answer for everything. But there are questions far more personal to me than when dinosaurs walked the earth. If you asked me, “What was God’s plan and purpose in allowing my Mom to die so young?” I couldn’t give you a satisfying answer. I desperately wish I could. There are days when I would still love to sit across from the Lord and hear Him explain exactly why that had to happen.
But I trust Him even without the answer.
And if I can trust God with a question that personal and painful, surely I can trust Him with questions about dinosaurs, fossils and exactly how the opening chapters of Genesis fit together with the history written into the rocks beneath our feet.
Dinosaurs certainly roamed the earth. Exactly when they lived in relation to mankind shouldn’t divide Christians or distract us from the things Scripture makes unmistakably clear. Faithful believers can disagree about the age of the earth, the interpretation of Genesis 1 or exactly what Behemoth and Leviathan were. Those can be fascinating questions, but they aren’t the Gospel.
We should be far more concerned with telling others about the love of Christ and holding firmly to the truths at the center of our faith: His birth, His death, His resurrection and our need for salvation through Him.
Genesis tells us that God made the creatures of the earth and saw that His creation was good. Whether Tyrannosaurus rex walked that earth thousands of years ago or tens of millions of years ago, it was still part of a creation that belonged to Him.
There are mysteries God has chosen not to explain to us yet. That’s OK. We don’t have to understand everything He has done in order to trust the One who did it.
For now, let’s hold tightly to what He has revealed and trust Him with what He hasn’t.
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Reflection copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.
Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
