Why Study Engineering

Let’s look at the foundation of engineering. Why would we even want to study engineering? To answer that, consider an old anecdote:

A doctor, an engineer and an attorney were having lunch and were enjoying a nice discussion with their lunch. As often happens, the conversation drifted around to their careers and they started discussing who was in the oldest profession.

“If you will recall, the bible states that God took a rib out of Adam, and created Eve,” claimed the Doctor. “Clearly, this is the work of a Surgeon, so my field is the oldest field.”

The engineer agreed, but pointed out that “prior to that, God took chaos and created the entire universe. This is certainly the work of an Engineer, so there can be no doubt that Engineering predates the medical field, and is the oldest.”

“Not so fast,” commented the attorney. “Who do you think created all that chaos in the first place?”

This little story, while humorous, misses by just a tad. The attorney, while “admirably” defending his field, wasn’t quite right. God did create order out of chaos, but the chaos was not created, it was the raw material (or rather nothingness,) out of which God created the universe. So, sorry to all the attorneys out there who thought that they were in the oldest profession; “it just ain’t so.”

In actuality, the field of engineering is really the oldest profession (no slight intended to all the mothers out there who claim title.) So, to study engineering is really to study God! And to think, you thought that engineering wasn’t all that glamorous a field, huh?

When God created man, He described it as follows: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27) Did you catch that? God created us. Not only that, but He created us in His image. You and I were both created in the image of God. Now, consider that God is The Engineer, or The Maker, and that He created us in His image. That means that we were also created to be makers, like our Maker. A large part of engineering is making, and we were meant to make.

A wise student takes note of, and studies, the works of the more mature professionals in his field. As you go about your making, or engineering, remember that you were created to, in part, be a maker. There is no one who is better at engineering, than the One who created engineering to begin with. So, study how God has put things together, and learn all that you can about the greatest field in the world!

If you would like to know more about The First Engineer, here is a link to His Instruction Manual). There, you may read any part of the bible (the Owner’s Manual for our lives) in any of several different versions and different languages. You may also find many study aids.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version ®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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This page was last updated by Art G. Granzeier III on Tue 30 Jul 2019