LongevityLab for Congregations
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
Genesis 1:31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day
… and it was very good
Rediscovering God’s Design: Longevity Through Faith and Science
In Genesis, God declares His creation as “very good,” signifying a complete and perfect design. Many faith traditions view sickness, disease, and death as consequences of the fall of man, suggesting that these ailments are not part of God’s original blueprint but results of human deviation.
Medical history is rich with discoveries about our intricate design—from the circulatory and nervous systems to cellular processes like the Krebs Cycle. In 2015, I discovered a 2002 paper by Nobel laureate Dr. Yoshinori Ohsumi on autophagy, a process where the body cleanses itself by consuming dead or senescent cells during fasting. This “self-eating” reduces inflammation and promotes health, illustrating a built-in mechanism designed for our well-being.
Through the lens of Christian faith, it’s evident that God has equipped us with innate systems to maintain and restore our health. As Newton believed, God cares for us and has given us the intellect to understand His creation. The presence of autophagy and the redundancy of DNA in each cell highlight a divine backup plan, affirming that the “very good” original design persists within us today. New scientific discoveries continue to emerge, offering ways to slow aging, regain vitality, and even reverse biological age—all we need to do is embrace them.
In my personal journey toward longevity, I underwent a telomere length test at age 66 in 2019, revealing I was biologically older than 80% of men my age. Motivated to improve, I adopted new practices based on emerging research. Utilizing the Horvath Clock—a more accurate measure of biological age based on DNA methylation—I found that by August 2024, my biological age had decreased to 63, making me biologically younger than 95% of my peers.
God completed the job completely, join me in your own journey, and together let us minister longer.
