In the last couple of verses, Sarai decided they were going to try and have a baby through her maidservant since there hadn't been any babies yet. We talked about why that was such a boneheaded move, and now we'll look at some of the consequences of trying to achieve in the flesh what God promised in the Spirit.
[Genesis 16:4-6]
After they go through with it, and Sarai's maid becomes pregnant by Abraham, the maid gained some animosity towards Sarai (To no one's surprise.) Sarai admits her mistake, but acts like a jerk towards Hagar until she ends up running away from camp.
Works of the flesh breed pride, competition, and contempt. You see this frequently when "accountability partners" go awry. In an attempt to force by the flesh what God promised as a work of the spirit, well-meaning discipleship groups start up things snapping yourself with a rubber band when you have negative thoughts or kicking each other in the nuts every time you look at porn. Everyone who has tried this knows that, at best, this results in red wrists and sterility, and at worst results in shame, dishonesty, and ruined relationships. Hagar was mad at Sarai for convincing her to go along with this stupid plan, and Sarai was mad at this woman who was carrying her husband's baby. Fleshly attempts at fake righteousness destroy relationships.
[16:7-11]
It's interesting that, despite their stupidity, Hagar's child was still a child of Abraham, and God had promised Abraham that He would bless his children. God's not one to skip out on a deal, so an angel informs Hagar that she can safely return to camp and that her children will be numerous just like Abraham was promised.
It's good to know that, even when we do something stupid, God is still God and His promises do not change. We can screw up and complicate things, but we can never stop the promises of God. So if God has promised you something and you ran away from it, it's still a promise and you can't destroy it completely.
[16:12-16]
This promise fulfillment came with a bit of catch though: this son is going to be a bit crazy and pretty much everyone is going to hate his guts. This had immediate fulfilment when Abram eventually had a song through Sarai, and that son and Ishmael didn't get along very well, and it had future fulfillment in that Ishamel's descendants founded Islam where Issac's descendants founded Judaism. God fulfilled the promise of fruitfulness to both descendants, but they were destined to be at war for the rest of their existence.
Similarly, there are people who will always hold to a fleshly, self-made righteousness. And while they may still be successful to a degree, they will always be at war with those who hold to the true promise of salvation by Grace through the finished work of Jesus. There will always be works-obsessed Hagars giving birth to book-burning, event-picketing, skirt-measuring Ishmaels, and they will "dwell in the presence of all [their] brethren." We can help each other out, and we have no excuse to be mean to each other, but this grace vs. works split will always be present in the church.
It's a tough thing to deal with, because it leads easily into "You disagree with me! You're an Ishamel! Burn the witch!" if you're not careful. It's easy to lash out at anyone telling you to stop being an idiot and say "I do what I want, you Pharisee!" when you are legitimately being an idiot. But there will always be Issacs and Ishmaels, and there will always be lazy people using it as an excuse to not have to put any effort into their lives. I think this is why the Bible warns us to not freak out over other people's convictions and to leave the ultimate judgement to God without kicking out everyone who disagrees with us.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Take My Maid, Please
Is it two weeks later already? How about that....
[Genesis 16:1-3]
There are a lot of interesting things happening in this section. Abram and Sarai both know that there's supposed to be a bunch babies going on, since that's the entire reason they decided to go wandering the desert and getting into wars and do all this fun stuff they've been doing. However, Abram's pushing 90 years old and, even when people are still living 150-ish years, that's pretty old. Sarai understandably gets impatient and does a couple of things to try to remedy the situation:
First, she accuses God of deliberately messing this up. Her thoughts aren't that there might be something else they need to do or that it's just not time, but that God is stopping her from having a baby just for the lulz.
Second, she comes up with a plan to let Abram also marry her maid and possibly have a baby with her instead. Also notable is that Abram was all for this plan.
For the most part, these guys have been pretty good about having faith in God to fulfill these promises. But here it seems like their patience ran out. They didn't see the promise coming fast enough to suit them so they decided to take matters into their own hands and fulfill this promise themselves. Even though God was pretty clear that the descendants would come from Sarai herself, they were tired of waiting and decided to rely on their own strength and their own plans to make this promise happen.
We often don't like God's version of a plan, so we come with a plan that's pretty similar but a lot more appealing to us. God says you're going to be a missionary and you say "Well...I'm a missionary to my business." God says you're going to be a business owner and you say "Well...I set up a separate checking account for missions donations so that's kinda like a business." God says to go give someone specific encouragement to their face and instead you poke them on Facebook and post them a funny picture.
More dangerously, this attitude is most prevalent when it comes to salvation and morality teachings. The Bible teaches that submitting your heart to God makes you a new creation; that as you grow closer to God you develop spiritual fruit and God transforms your heart to be more like Jesus. Alone, you are broken and fallen and the best works you can will yourself into doing are just rags made filthy by the pride that comes with forcing yourself to be a "good person." We know this, and yet we are not satisfied with the speed that it happens in ourselves or in other people so we feel like we have to force the matter.
You see this the most in youth sermons. The youth pastor knows that God transforms hearts, but also feels pressure to preach a sermon so good that 15-year-olds who got saved last week live with the same maturity and wisdom of a 40-year-old who has been saved since he was 17. The youth pastor knows that the reason he doesn't have sex outside of marriage is because he loves his wife, loves God, and so would never defile himself and cheapen the gift of love he has to give his wife; he knows the reason he doesn't do drugs is because he has a purpose in life that can't be achieved when he is stoned out of his mind or when his body is destroyed by these substances; he knows that he is a "good person" because God has worked on his heart throughout the years and now his desires line up better with God's, but this does not work fast enough, so he throws in other things to try and get the kids to clean up their act immediately. Love is slow, so scare them with STDs; self-respect takes time, so show them disturbing pictures and play to their pride so they'll pressure each other in a more acceptable way; spiritual maturity takes time, so we'll come with disgusting false sermons from out-of-context passages scaring kids into thinking it takes longer to get back into the presence of God than it does to "fall out" of it.
God promised us righteousness as a result of our marriage with Jesus, but we don't see it happening so we suggest our congregations take on fear as a wife and try to bear righteousness through her. We marry ourselves to pride, success, hatred, and things of the flesh to try and bear through them the fruit God promised we would bear through Christ.
Abram's faith had already been counted to him as righteousness; the plan was laid out and everything was on track before Abram and Sarai decided they could give it a push. And though we struggle with sin and watch those around us fall, we have already been declared righteous through the finished work of Jesus. You still help each other do the best you can, but when you get to the point where you think you're helping the salvation process or you start trying to modify behavior with petty fleshly incentives instead of an attitude grounded in our relationship with God, you are over-stepping your bounds and throwing a wrench of works into God's plan of Grace.
---
I was going to keep going there, but I think that's quite enough for today. The rest of chapter goes into some of the consequences of this decision, so we'll have some more fun with it next time.
[Genesis 16:1-3]
There are a lot of interesting things happening in this section. Abram and Sarai both know that there's supposed to be a bunch babies going on, since that's the entire reason they decided to go wandering the desert and getting into wars and do all this fun stuff they've been doing. However, Abram's pushing 90 years old and, even when people are still living 150-ish years, that's pretty old. Sarai understandably gets impatient and does a couple of things to try to remedy the situation:
First, she accuses God of deliberately messing this up. Her thoughts aren't that there might be something else they need to do or that it's just not time, but that God is stopping her from having a baby just for the lulz.
Second, she comes up with a plan to let Abram also marry her maid and possibly have a baby with her instead. Also notable is that Abram was all for this plan.
For the most part, these guys have been pretty good about having faith in God to fulfill these promises. But here it seems like their patience ran out. They didn't see the promise coming fast enough to suit them so they decided to take matters into their own hands and fulfill this promise themselves. Even though God was pretty clear that the descendants would come from Sarai herself, they were tired of waiting and decided to rely on their own strength and their own plans to make this promise happen.
We often don't like God's version of a plan, so we come with a plan that's pretty similar but a lot more appealing to us. God says you're going to be a missionary and you say "Well...I'm a missionary to my business." God says you're going to be a business owner and you say "Well...I set up a separate checking account for missions donations so that's kinda like a business." God says to go give someone specific encouragement to their face and instead you poke them on Facebook and post them a funny picture.
More dangerously, this attitude is most prevalent when it comes to salvation and morality teachings. The Bible teaches that submitting your heart to God makes you a new creation; that as you grow closer to God you develop spiritual fruit and God transforms your heart to be more like Jesus. Alone, you are broken and fallen and the best works you can will yourself into doing are just rags made filthy by the pride that comes with forcing yourself to be a "good person." We know this, and yet we are not satisfied with the speed that it happens in ourselves or in other people so we feel like we have to force the matter.
You see this the most in youth sermons. The youth pastor knows that God transforms hearts, but also feels pressure to preach a sermon so good that 15-year-olds who got saved last week live with the same maturity and wisdom of a 40-year-old who has been saved since he was 17. The youth pastor knows that the reason he doesn't have sex outside of marriage is because he loves his wife, loves God, and so would never defile himself and cheapen the gift of love he has to give his wife; he knows the reason he doesn't do drugs is because he has a purpose in life that can't be achieved when he is stoned out of his mind or when his body is destroyed by these substances; he knows that he is a "good person" because God has worked on his heart throughout the years and now his desires line up better with God's, but this does not work fast enough, so he throws in other things to try and get the kids to clean up their act immediately. Love is slow, so scare them with STDs; self-respect takes time, so show them disturbing pictures and play to their pride so they'll pressure each other in a more acceptable way; spiritual maturity takes time, so we'll come with disgusting false sermons from out-of-context passages scaring kids into thinking it takes longer to get back into the presence of God than it does to "fall out" of it.
God promised us righteousness as a result of our marriage with Jesus, but we don't see it happening so we suggest our congregations take on fear as a wife and try to bear righteousness through her. We marry ourselves to pride, success, hatred, and things of the flesh to try and bear through them the fruit God promised we would bear through Christ.
Abram's faith had already been counted to him as righteousness; the plan was laid out and everything was on track before Abram and Sarai decided they could give it a push. And though we struggle with sin and watch those around us fall, we have already been declared righteous through the finished work of Jesus. You still help each other do the best you can, but when you get to the point where you think you're helping the salvation process or you start trying to modify behavior with petty fleshly incentives instead of an attitude grounded in our relationship with God, you are over-stepping your bounds and throwing a wrench of works into God's plan of Grace.
---
I was going to keep going there, but I think that's quite enough for today. The rest of chapter goes into some of the consequences of this decision, so we'll have some more fun with it next time.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
The Jibblies
I'm going to keep this up. Had two tests this week so I was busy with that, but I'm also a lazy butt. But we're pushing on!
[Genesis 15:1-3]
Riding on that cool victory of saving Lot, God decides to give Abram a pep talk, saying "See? See? Told you I'd shield you." God also encourages Abram for not taking the spoils from the jerks who ran the town, assuring Abram that the relationship they have and the promises God gave him are an even better reward than the ones he just passed up.
Abram jumps on this opportunity to go "Yeah cool thanks. About those promises..." and begin to ask God exactly when that whole promise thing was supposed to happen. Abram was obvious concerned as he had been promised that his descendants would form an entire nation, but here he was well past 70 years old with his only current heir being one of his servants that he just happened to like more than others.
Abram demonstrated to us last time with his private militia that it does not violate your relationship or your promise with God when you prepare on your side; in fact, you're expected to prepare on your side. Here he demonstrates that it's not wrong to question what's going on. Abram expected descendants, and victory in saving Lot wasn't extremely fulfilling when the first promise didn't look like it was going to be fulfilled, so he calls God out on it, and that's okay. Compared to some of the stuff David prayed, his questions were quite tame.
We never see God punishing doubts and questions. When you make inquiries for the purpose of learning more, God rewards that. We all have an aversion to people questioning our beliefs, and a sense of guilt comes when we question our own, but plenty of Bible folks weren't afraid to call God out on whether or not He was who He said He was. We freak out over things like Richard Dawkins books, but if people are asking questions we should be able to answer them. When someone refuses to let me even ask questions, I immediately begin they are manipulating me and actually have no idea what they're talking about.
[4-6]
God doesn't really give Abram any new information, but reassures him that he's going to have so many descendants that his head will spin. God later ends up fulfilling this in two different ways: the literal, physical country of Israel is a fulfillment of this promise, as well as the spiritual descendants that would come through future covenants.
A cool bit of text here says that Abram believed God, and God credited him righteousness for it. Righteousness is a tricky subject when it comes to pre-law Bible characters. They did not have the Levitical law, so their righteousness couldn't really be based on whether or not they wore polyester or covered their poop properly. Instead, in the case of Adam and Eve, He bases their righteousness on obedience with what He has told them. In Abram's case, Abram got righteousness credited to his account for his faith. Elsewhere in Scripture the covenant God has with us today is compared to God's covenant with Abram moreso than God's covenant with Moses and Israel, so this is worth paying attention to.
I'm a math major, and I like to see the world as obeying mathematical rules that God Himself laid down. One of those rules deals with equality: if we're dealing with a value and we want to switch it out for another one, we can only do that if the two values have been proven equal. If we don't like one side of an equation, we can't just say "Man, that would be a lot easier to solve without those fractions. I'm gonna switch that side out for the number 6. Done." unless we have proved somewhere that the side in question is equal to six. God could not have exchanged Abram's faith with righteousness unless faith was equal to righteousness. God doesn't cook His books. If He wrote "righteousness" in Abram's ledger, that means that, under the covenant He had with Abram and, by extension, the covenant He has with us, faith and righteousness are the same thing. In Abram's case, it was faith in God's promise for descendants. In our case, it is faith in the finished work of Jesus.
[7-20]
I'm going to be honest: this part is weird and I'm never entirely sure what to do with it.
Basically, Abram asks for proof, so he goes and cuts a goat and a cow in half, and leaves them outside along with a dead bird. He gets tired trying to fight vultures off of them, falls asleep, and gets the jibblies. After the jibblies, God tells Abram that his descendants will be captives in another land for 400 years, but it's cool because God will beat the crap out of the other guys after they get out. Then Abram wakes up and has a vision of an E-Z-Bake Oven and a flashlight moving through the dead animals.
The best explanation I've heard for this is that this mimics a covenantal ritual like the ones every culture seemed to have before we all collectively realized that handshake was a lot easier and a lot less messy. I don't remember the details, but it involves walking between the animal caracasses and getting the blood on their robes. What Abram saw was God manifesting Himself to walk through and sign the covenant for both of them (The only good explanation of the imagery I could find was that the oven was supposed to evoke the future pillar of cloud and the torch the pillar of fire that He would use to lead the Israelites through the desert.) The significant picture here being that God signed for both of them; Abram wasn't even involved. Just another picture of how God's covenant with us is Him coming down here, not us building up to Him.
[Genesis 15:1-3]
Riding on that cool victory of saving Lot, God decides to give Abram a pep talk, saying "See? See? Told you I'd shield you." God also encourages Abram for not taking the spoils from the jerks who ran the town, assuring Abram that the relationship they have and the promises God gave him are an even better reward than the ones he just passed up.
Abram jumps on this opportunity to go "Yeah cool thanks. About those promises..." and begin to ask God exactly when that whole promise thing was supposed to happen. Abram was obvious concerned as he had been promised that his descendants would form an entire nation, but here he was well past 70 years old with his only current heir being one of his servants that he just happened to like more than others.
Abram demonstrated to us last time with his private militia that it does not violate your relationship or your promise with God when you prepare on your side; in fact, you're expected to prepare on your side. Here he demonstrates that it's not wrong to question what's going on. Abram expected descendants, and victory in saving Lot wasn't extremely fulfilling when the first promise didn't look like it was going to be fulfilled, so he calls God out on it, and that's okay. Compared to some of the stuff David prayed, his questions were quite tame.
We never see God punishing doubts and questions. When you make inquiries for the purpose of learning more, God rewards that. We all have an aversion to people questioning our beliefs, and a sense of guilt comes when we question our own, but plenty of Bible folks weren't afraid to call God out on whether or not He was who He said He was. We freak out over things like Richard Dawkins books, but if people are asking questions we should be able to answer them. When someone refuses to let me even ask questions, I immediately begin they are manipulating me and actually have no idea what they're talking about.
[4-6]
God doesn't really give Abram any new information, but reassures him that he's going to have so many descendants that his head will spin. God later ends up fulfilling this in two different ways: the literal, physical country of Israel is a fulfillment of this promise, as well as the spiritual descendants that would come through future covenants.
A cool bit of text here says that Abram believed God, and God credited him righteousness for it. Righteousness is a tricky subject when it comes to pre-law Bible characters. They did not have the Levitical law, so their righteousness couldn't really be based on whether or not they wore polyester or covered their poop properly. Instead, in the case of Adam and Eve, He bases their righteousness on obedience with what He has told them. In Abram's case, Abram got righteousness credited to his account for his faith. Elsewhere in Scripture the covenant God has with us today is compared to God's covenant with Abram moreso than God's covenant with Moses and Israel, so this is worth paying attention to.
I'm a math major, and I like to see the world as obeying mathematical rules that God Himself laid down. One of those rules deals with equality: if we're dealing with a value and we want to switch it out for another one, we can only do that if the two values have been proven equal. If we don't like one side of an equation, we can't just say "Man, that would be a lot easier to solve without those fractions. I'm gonna switch that side out for the number 6. Done." unless we have proved somewhere that the side in question is equal to six. God could not have exchanged Abram's faith with righteousness unless faith was equal to righteousness. God doesn't cook His books. If He wrote "righteousness" in Abram's ledger, that means that, under the covenant He had with Abram and, by extension, the covenant He has with us, faith and righteousness are the same thing. In Abram's case, it was faith in God's promise for descendants. In our case, it is faith in the finished work of Jesus.
[7-20]
I'm going to be honest: this part is weird and I'm never entirely sure what to do with it.
Basically, Abram asks for proof, so he goes and cuts a goat and a cow in half, and leaves them outside along with a dead bird. He gets tired trying to fight vultures off of them, falls asleep, and gets the jibblies. After the jibblies, God tells Abram that his descendants will be captives in another land for 400 years, but it's cool because God will beat the crap out of the other guys after they get out. Then Abram wakes up and has a vision of an E-Z-Bake Oven and a flashlight moving through the dead animals.
The best explanation I've heard for this is that this mimics a covenantal ritual like the ones every culture seemed to have before we all collectively realized that handshake was a lot easier and a lot less messy. I don't remember the details, but it involves walking between the animal caracasses and getting the blood on their robes. What Abram saw was God manifesting Himself to walk through and sign the covenant for both of them (The only good explanation of the imagery I could find was that the oven was supposed to evoke the future pillar of cloud and the torch the pillar of fire that He would use to lead the Israelites through the desert.) The significant picture here being that God signed for both of them; Abram wasn't even involved. Just another picture of how God's covenant with us is Him coming down here, not us building up to Him.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Lot has Been Kidnapped by Canaanites!
Short hiatus due to oversleeping, homework, and general laziness. But we're back! Friday's usually NT day, but I'm gonna stick with Genesis for today just because.
[Genesis 14: 1-12]
A big long list of countries goes to war with each other and ends up capturing Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot had unfortunately decided to camp out. Oddly enough this isn't even the real reason that Lot picked a stupid place.
[Genesis 14: 13-14]
One of Lot's buddies escapes and goes to tell Abram that Lot got himself kidnapped. Abram goes into hardcore favorite uncle mode and suits up a private militia that he apparently keeps on hand at all times and trained them himself from people born in his camp. I always forget exactly how rich Abram had to have been from the Bible description and from the fact that he has a private security force with him. We like our Bible characters poor so that people with lots of money will feel bad and give it to our cause, so you don't hear Abram's wealth mentioned much.
It's also notable that Abram kept some muscle with him even though God promised protection. More than once when expressing my desire to get a concealed handgun license I've been chided for a lack of faith because the person in question "trusted God to protect them." I find this argument absurd, because I know for a fact that anyone who tells you this probably wears a seat belt and looks both ways before crossing the street. There is a dangerous, unbiblical mindset (moreso in Charismatic circles) that faith can be measured by lack of precaution and reckless behavior. This is where you get people not protecting themselves as faith in God's protection, or not preparing for their sermons as faith in God's inspiration, or not practicing decent hygiene or medicinal habits as faith in God's healing. You see it the most in the medical sense, where taking medicine or getting a flu shot is offensive to Christians who have deluded themselves into thinking that God's protection means that you don't have to take care of yourself.
Abram kept a small military force with him because he's a rich guy wandering around foreign countries and knows he's going to get jumped a time or two. This did not violate God's promise because we are expected to handle ourselves as best we can. It paid off in this respect because now he's able to go on a rescue mission and get Lot back. If he had disbanded all his security because "Well, God said I'd be successful" he probably would have not lived this long anyway and definitely would have been able to save Lot. Reckless stupidity disguised as faith can get people killed.
[Genesis 15: 16-17]
Abram wins. 'Cause Abram's a bad enough dude to rescue Lot.
[Genesis 15:18-24]
There's a casual mention here of Melchizedek, a priest to whom Abram paid a tithe of all of his earnings. Typically when God makes a covenant with man, there's a priest who mediates. There wasn't a lot of information on the period from Adam to Abram, but you could see God Himself as the priest of that time; during most of the Old Testament the Levites take the job of priest; nowadays we're back to God Himself (Jesus specifically) as the high priest with all of us being lower-ranking priests, mediating our own relationship with God. Melchizedek was the priest over God's covenant with Abram, and we don't know a lot about him. Some think he was a king of a literal Salem (though there's little to no historical evidence of this,) and some think he was a manifestation of Jesus Himself (I lean towards that interpretation, but I'm not sure.)
Regardless, Abram gave him a tenth of the spoils from the battle. There are always those who say that tithing is unbiblical because we are not under the law anymore, but here we see Abram tithing before the Levitical law came into existence. While it may not necessarily be a hard and fast "exactly ten percent or I curse your income" law like it was during the old covenant, the practice of tithing and the principle behind it are still alive and well. The tithe exists as a sign that God is first. Nothing cuts to your mind and heart quicker than money, so making sure God gets the first portion of your income keeps you in a position of acknowledging God first, and remaining aware and thankful that it all comes from Him anyway.
Also, the king of Sodom tried to thank Abram by giving him all of the spoils from the war, but Abram refused and only took enough to feed his people. His logic for this was that he didn't want the king of Sodom to get the glory of making Abram rich. The text hasn't really gotten into it yet, but Sodom was about as about as wretched a hive of scum of villainy as you could get. To have his name and wealth forever associated with the king of such an evil place would have put a sour taste to his legacy forever. Sometimes your integrity is worth taking a convenience or financial handicap.
[Genesis 14: 1-12]
A big long list of countries goes to war with each other and ends up capturing Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot had unfortunately decided to camp out. Oddly enough this isn't even the real reason that Lot picked a stupid place.
[Genesis 14: 13-14]
One of Lot's buddies escapes and goes to tell Abram that Lot got himself kidnapped. Abram goes into hardcore favorite uncle mode and suits up a private militia that he apparently keeps on hand at all times and trained them himself from people born in his camp. I always forget exactly how rich Abram had to have been from the Bible description and from the fact that he has a private security force with him. We like our Bible characters poor so that people with lots of money will feel bad and give it to our cause, so you don't hear Abram's wealth mentioned much.
It's also notable that Abram kept some muscle with him even though God promised protection. More than once when expressing my desire to get a concealed handgun license I've been chided for a lack of faith because the person in question "trusted God to protect them." I find this argument absurd, because I know for a fact that anyone who tells you this probably wears a seat belt and looks both ways before crossing the street. There is a dangerous, unbiblical mindset (moreso in Charismatic circles) that faith can be measured by lack of precaution and reckless behavior. This is where you get people not protecting themselves as faith in God's protection, or not preparing for their sermons as faith in God's inspiration, or not practicing decent hygiene or medicinal habits as faith in God's healing. You see it the most in the medical sense, where taking medicine or getting a flu shot is offensive to Christians who have deluded themselves into thinking that God's protection means that you don't have to take care of yourself.
Abram kept a small military force with him because he's a rich guy wandering around foreign countries and knows he's going to get jumped a time or two. This did not violate God's promise because we are expected to handle ourselves as best we can. It paid off in this respect because now he's able to go on a rescue mission and get Lot back. If he had disbanded all his security because "Well, God said I'd be successful" he probably would have not lived this long anyway and definitely would have been able to save Lot. Reckless stupidity disguised as faith can get people killed.
[Genesis 15: 16-17]
Abram wins. 'Cause Abram's a bad enough dude to rescue Lot.
[Genesis 15:18-24]
There's a casual mention here of Melchizedek, a priest to whom Abram paid a tithe of all of his earnings. Typically when God makes a covenant with man, there's a priest who mediates. There wasn't a lot of information on the period from Adam to Abram, but you could see God Himself as the priest of that time; during most of the Old Testament the Levites take the job of priest; nowadays we're back to God Himself (Jesus specifically) as the high priest with all of us being lower-ranking priests, mediating our own relationship with God. Melchizedek was the priest over God's covenant with Abram, and we don't know a lot about him. Some think he was a king of a literal Salem (though there's little to no historical evidence of this,) and some think he was a manifestation of Jesus Himself (I lean towards that interpretation, but I'm not sure.)
Regardless, Abram gave him a tenth of the spoils from the battle. There are always those who say that tithing is unbiblical because we are not under the law anymore, but here we see Abram tithing before the Levitical law came into existence. While it may not necessarily be a hard and fast "exactly ten percent or I curse your income" law like it was during the old covenant, the practice of tithing and the principle behind it are still alive and well. The tithe exists as a sign that God is first. Nothing cuts to your mind and heart quicker than money, so making sure God gets the first portion of your income keeps you in a position of acknowledging God first, and remaining aware and thankful that it all comes from Him anyway.
Also, the king of Sodom tried to thank Abram by giving him all of the spoils from the war, but Abram refused and only took enough to feed his people. His logic for this was that he didn't want the king of Sodom to get the glory of making Abram rich. The text hasn't really gotten into it yet, but Sodom was about as about as wretched a hive of scum of villainy as you could get. To have his name and wealth forever associated with the king of such an evil place would have put a sour taste to his legacy forever. Sometimes your integrity is worth taking a convenience or financial handicap.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Go Jesus!
[Matthew 4:1]
It was when Wild at Heart quoted this passage that I knew that book was going to suck. It used "the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness" as Biblical proof that macho bear-wrestling men are God's favorite kind of men, leaving off the rest of sentence that says the wilderness thing was so Jesus could have a run-in with the Devil.
Eldredge's brainwashing crap aside, it's interesting that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness specifically to be tempted. Immediately after Jesus publicly accepted his death and resurrection, He gets to take a test over what it's going to take to pull this off.
Know that when you make a decision, you're immediately going to have to face tough choices about it. The devil likes to attack your decisions to convince you that you're not able to commit things in hopes that you'll stop trying, and God tends to allow these temptations so that you can see that you can overcome them.
[4:2-4]
To prep for the adventures ahead, Jesus fasted for forty days. After a forty-day fast, He was hungry. This brought on the first test: the devil told him "well, you've got your magic Jesus-powers, and I assume your fast is over since you Jews like your forty-day things, so why don't you just zap yourself up some bread out of these here rocks?"
Jesus replies with the Scripture "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."
So the first test was basically for Jesus to "cheat" and get Himself some bread using His privileges as God. We'll see later that Jesus is not hesitant to use a miracle or two when it comes to making food for people, so it's interesting that this miracle is one He won't do. Part of it is that this miracle would have been only for Himself, and not others. But I think the biggest issue here is that He's fresh off of His baptism, committing Himself to the mission of coming and dying for our sins. This requires that He comes and lives life as human being completely: that He walks as we walk, eats as we eat, and resists temptation using the same willpower that we use. If He were not fully human and able to fall for all the same reasons we could, His sacrifice would not have been as transferable as it was and teh redemption of the human race would not have been complete.
If Jesus had gone through with this desire and miracled up some bread, that would have been a step away from His commitment to live life as a human. If He can conjure up food whenever He feels like it, it's a slippery slope from there to just poofing around everywhere with teleport powers and making sure other temptations come nowhere near Him, cheapening and possibly nullifying His victory over sin. There probably was nothing wrong with making some bread, but it was the beginning of a path He did not want to travel.
It must have been hard for Jesus to go through life, knowing this power was there and not using it. It's like playing a video game and trying not to use a guide, when the internet is just sitting there going "Come on...you're stuck... look up the solution to this one puzzle... you're not even having fun right now, what could it hurt?" but that first solution you look up pretty much dooms you to using a guide for the rest of the game, and your achievements are hollow and fake.
So don't compromise anything about your goals, your promises, or your work. Even if you skimp on something that's not technically wrong, compromise leads to compromise and you'll likely end up destroying what you set out to do.
Actually, I don't really feel good ending on that note. While that's a good lesson, it's not the point of this passage. We don't learn about Jesus just to get pithy advice for our everyday life. We learn about Jesus so we see how awesome Jesus is. So when you're praying and you're worshiping, add this bit of information about what Jesus went through for you to your awareness. When you're thanking Jesus for who He is and what He's done, let there be a little more awe behind your praise because of everything Jesus had to put aside and not use, even though it was staring Him in the face. At any moment, He could have said "Forget this, I'm living like the King I am" and zapped Him up the best food in the world, spawned a palace under His feet, and said "you guys suck. I don't feel like destroying you all, so you can all come be My slaves and feed Me stuff," propped His feet up, and lived as our eternal earthly King. But He didn't. He didn't do it because He loves us so much that the death on cross route was more appealing to Him. He refused to even make bread for Himself so that He could empathize with our lives. He didn't compromise at all so that we could have eternal rewards that we don't deserve.
This took way too long, so I'm gonna cut it off short here, but yeah. Think about that.
It was when Wild at Heart quoted this passage that I knew that book was going to suck. It used "the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness" as Biblical proof that macho bear-wrestling men are God's favorite kind of men, leaving off the rest of sentence that says the wilderness thing was so Jesus could have a run-in with the Devil.
Eldredge's brainwashing crap aside, it's interesting that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness specifically to be tempted. Immediately after Jesus publicly accepted his death and resurrection, He gets to take a test over what it's going to take to pull this off.
Know that when you make a decision, you're immediately going to have to face tough choices about it. The devil likes to attack your decisions to convince you that you're not able to commit things in hopes that you'll stop trying, and God tends to allow these temptations so that you can see that you can overcome them.
[4:2-4]
To prep for the adventures ahead, Jesus fasted for forty days. After a forty-day fast, He was hungry. This brought on the first test: the devil told him "well, you've got your magic Jesus-powers, and I assume your fast is over since you Jews like your forty-day things, so why don't you just zap yourself up some bread out of these here rocks?"
Jesus replies with the Scripture "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."
So the first test was basically for Jesus to "cheat" and get Himself some bread using His privileges as God. We'll see later that Jesus is not hesitant to use a miracle or two when it comes to making food for people, so it's interesting that this miracle is one He won't do. Part of it is that this miracle would have been only for Himself, and not others. But I think the biggest issue here is that He's fresh off of His baptism, committing Himself to the mission of coming and dying for our sins. This requires that He comes and lives life as human being completely: that He walks as we walk, eats as we eat, and resists temptation using the same willpower that we use. If He were not fully human and able to fall for all the same reasons we could, His sacrifice would not have been as transferable as it was and teh redemption of the human race would not have been complete.
If Jesus had gone through with this desire and miracled up some bread, that would have been a step away from His commitment to live life as a human. If He can conjure up food whenever He feels like it, it's a slippery slope from there to just poofing around everywhere with teleport powers and making sure other temptations come nowhere near Him, cheapening and possibly nullifying His victory over sin. There probably was nothing wrong with making some bread, but it was the beginning of a path He did not want to travel.
It must have been hard for Jesus to go through life, knowing this power was there and not using it. It's like playing a video game and trying not to use a guide, when the internet is just sitting there going "Come on...you're stuck... look up the solution to this one puzzle... you're not even having fun right now, what could it hurt?" but that first solution you look up pretty much dooms you to using a guide for the rest of the game, and your achievements are hollow and fake.
So don't compromise anything about your goals, your promises, or your work. Even if you skimp on something that's not technically wrong, compromise leads to compromise and you'll likely end up destroying what you set out to do.
Actually, I don't really feel good ending on that note. While that's a good lesson, it's not the point of this passage. We don't learn about Jesus just to get pithy advice for our everyday life. We learn about Jesus so we see how awesome Jesus is. So when you're praying and you're worshiping, add this bit of information about what Jesus went through for you to your awareness. When you're thanking Jesus for who He is and what He's done, let there be a little more awe behind your praise because of everything Jesus had to put aside and not use, even though it was staring Him in the face. At any moment, He could have said "Forget this, I'm living like the King I am" and zapped Him up the best food in the world, spawned a palace under His feet, and said "you guys suck. I don't feel like destroying you all, so you can all come be My slaves and feed Me stuff," propped His feet up, and lived as our eternal earthly King. But He didn't. He didn't do it because He loves us so much that the death on cross route was more appealing to Him. He refused to even make bread for Himself so that He could empathize with our lives. He didn't compromise at all so that we could have eternal rewards that we don't deserve.
This took way too long, so I'm gonna cut it off short here, but yeah. Think about that.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Sons of Snakes
Since it seems like I generally won't have time on Sundays, I think I'm going to switch Friday to a New Testament day, just so I at least get it twice in the week.
[Matthew 3:1-5]
There was on Old Testament prophecy that, before the Messiah came, there would be a forerunner who told of His coming and warned people to get their act together. This role was filled by John the Baptist, who spent the time before Jesus started His ministry telling people to repent, because stuff was about to go down. It wasn't hard to him to get people's attention, because he was quite a character who wore patchwork clothes he probably made himself, he lived in the desert, and he ate bugs.
Even by Old Testament prophet standards (except possible Ezekiel), John was a bit eccentric. I'm sure God got a huge kick out of sending someone like John to be the first step in His plan, just because of how much it likely bothered the persnickety religious folk of the time. God likes to disrupt our views of how we think things should go, so it fits that, in a culture that valued proper behavior, nice clothes, and clean temples, that God would kick everything off with a bug-eating hobo.
Never get so wrapped up in your image of what Godly person looks like or how God works in general, because it's easy to miss it when God decides to use someone outside of your mold. The people at this time were waiting for a Messiah, and probably assumed He'd be a rich, attractive political powerhouse who would lead an army to Rome and win everyone their freedom, so the leaders missed this stinky crazy guy in the desert for not fitting their image. Nowadays we look for the eccentric poor underdog to be the source of God's work so much that we balk at any rich eloquent people who dare to be rich AND sincere. The minute you think you know the kind of person and events through which God works is the minute He throws something outside your comfort zone at you to see if you'll break down your perceptions.
[3:6-10]
John, like Jesus who will soon come after Him, is not a fan of Pharisees, who were the higher-ups in the church at the time. When the Pharisees come into the crowd, John immediately begins insulting their mothers and telling them to repent, certainly winning him lots of points back in town.
Being the spiritual leadership at the time, the Pharisees were the ones who read the Scriptures, interpreted the rules, and passed them on to the common people who mostly couldn't read. They were quite proud of their knowledge of all of the Old Testament laws and the extra laws they had come up with to make sure no one got close to breaking the real ones. The law said that you couldn't work on the Sabbath, so they determined that it you couldn't walk more than a certain amount on the Sabbath. They spent a good deal of their time arguing rules like this and informing people of any new ones they came up with.
The law was for the Jews, who were the descendants of Abraham (Abram currently in our Old Testament reading, but we'll get to his name-change soon.) Being God's chosen people, the Phraisees and all of Israel took pride in their heritage, so John was making quite the stir when he said that it wasn't that big a deal and that God could give Abraham children from rocks. When seemed to downplay the importance of Abraham as an ancestor and said an ax was going to the tree,he was foreshadowing how Jesus was about to come and open up a covenant with everyone, not just the Jews. The ax was going to the root of the old Covenant, and a new one was going to be planted in tis place where the children of Abraham don't get special treatment just for their family tree and memorizing long books and getting punches on their good deeds card. He was calling for repentance and realization of their sins to prepare them for the covenant that was coming.
So you can see why John was really popular with the religious folk.
[3:11-12]
When John baptized, he was making people aware of their sins, and getting them prepared mentally and spiritually for the message Jesus was going to bring. John submersed them in water to represent their death to the old ways and their birth to the new one, but physically he was just getting them wet. He was doing this to prepare them for Jesus, who was going to baptized them with the Holy Spirit and with fire, both which have a much more noticeable effect upon submersion that you can't hide with a dark t-shirt.
John was a big deal. He was prophesied centuries before he came on the scene, he was bearing the most important message of all time, and he had the whole country's attention. But John knew his place. John knew that what he was doing was merely symbolic, and that his job was just to prepare the way for Jesus to come do His work.
In whatever ministry you're called to, you are merely preparing the way for Jesus to come do His work. You are not the star, Jesus is the star. You're not worthy to carry Jesus' shoes for Him, so you are definitely not worthy of taking credit for His work. It would have been easy for John to get a cocky "I'm in the freaking Bible!" attitude and feel good about himself, but he knew his place. You should know yours as well.
[3:13-17]
So it was probably pretty awkward for John, with this realistic attitude of his, when Jesus Himself comes up and asked to be baptized. John was likely hesitant to let Jesus go through this symbolic shedding of the sinful nature and rebirth into the new nature, because the entire message here kinda revolved around Jesus being the one who does not sin. But Jesus insisted, and John knew better than to argue.
When everyone else was baptized, it represented death to their old, sinful self and rebirth to the new, fulfilled self. Jesus chose this act to mark the beginning of His ministry, not because He had sin to repent of, but because His entire reason for coming was to take the death that everyone else deserved for the sins, and rise again, victorious over these sins. His baptism did not represent exactly the same thing, but He too agreed to a symbolic death and rebirth, to signal to everyone present and to God the Father up in Heaven that He accepted His purpose and was ready to begin His ministry.
[Matthew 3:1-5]
There was on Old Testament prophecy that, before the Messiah came, there would be a forerunner who told of His coming and warned people to get their act together. This role was filled by John the Baptist, who spent the time before Jesus started His ministry telling people to repent, because stuff was about to go down. It wasn't hard to him to get people's attention, because he was quite a character who wore patchwork clothes he probably made himself, he lived in the desert, and he ate bugs.
Even by Old Testament prophet standards (except possible Ezekiel), John was a bit eccentric. I'm sure God got a huge kick out of sending someone like John to be the first step in His plan, just because of how much it likely bothered the persnickety religious folk of the time. God likes to disrupt our views of how we think things should go, so it fits that, in a culture that valued proper behavior, nice clothes, and clean temples, that God would kick everything off with a bug-eating hobo.
Never get so wrapped up in your image of what Godly person looks like or how God works in general, because it's easy to miss it when God decides to use someone outside of your mold. The people at this time were waiting for a Messiah, and probably assumed He'd be a rich, attractive political powerhouse who would lead an army to Rome and win everyone their freedom, so the leaders missed this stinky crazy guy in the desert for not fitting their image. Nowadays we look for the eccentric poor underdog to be the source of God's work so much that we balk at any rich eloquent people who dare to be rich AND sincere. The minute you think you know the kind of person and events through which God works is the minute He throws something outside your comfort zone at you to see if you'll break down your perceptions.
[3:6-10]
John, like Jesus who will soon come after Him, is not a fan of Pharisees, who were the higher-ups in the church at the time. When the Pharisees come into the crowd, John immediately begins insulting their mothers and telling them to repent, certainly winning him lots of points back in town.
Being the spiritual leadership at the time, the Pharisees were the ones who read the Scriptures, interpreted the rules, and passed them on to the common people who mostly couldn't read. They were quite proud of their knowledge of all of the Old Testament laws and the extra laws they had come up with to make sure no one got close to breaking the real ones. The law said that you couldn't work on the Sabbath, so they determined that it you couldn't walk more than a certain amount on the Sabbath. They spent a good deal of their time arguing rules like this and informing people of any new ones they came up with.
The law was for the Jews, who were the descendants of Abraham (Abram currently in our Old Testament reading, but we'll get to his name-change soon.) Being God's chosen people, the Phraisees and all of Israel took pride in their heritage, so John was making quite the stir when he said that it wasn't that big a deal and that God could give Abraham children from rocks. When seemed to downplay the importance of Abraham as an ancestor and said an ax was going to the tree,he was foreshadowing how Jesus was about to come and open up a covenant with everyone, not just the Jews. The ax was going to the root of the old Covenant, and a new one was going to be planted in tis place where the children of Abraham don't get special treatment just for their family tree and memorizing long books and getting punches on their good deeds card. He was calling for repentance and realization of their sins to prepare them for the covenant that was coming.
So you can see why John was really popular with the religious folk.
[3:11-12]
When John baptized, he was making people aware of their sins, and getting them prepared mentally and spiritually for the message Jesus was going to bring. John submersed them in water to represent their death to the old ways and their birth to the new one, but physically he was just getting them wet. He was doing this to prepare them for Jesus, who was going to baptized them with the Holy Spirit and with fire, both which have a much more noticeable effect upon submersion that you can't hide with a dark t-shirt.
John was a big deal. He was prophesied centuries before he came on the scene, he was bearing the most important message of all time, and he had the whole country's attention. But John knew his place. John knew that what he was doing was merely symbolic, and that his job was just to prepare the way for Jesus to come do His work.
In whatever ministry you're called to, you are merely preparing the way for Jesus to come do His work. You are not the star, Jesus is the star. You're not worthy to carry Jesus' shoes for Him, so you are definitely not worthy of taking credit for His work. It would have been easy for John to get a cocky "I'm in the freaking Bible!" attitude and feel good about himself, but he knew his place. You should know yours as well.
[3:13-17]
So it was probably pretty awkward for John, with this realistic attitude of his, when Jesus Himself comes up and asked to be baptized. John was likely hesitant to let Jesus go through this symbolic shedding of the sinful nature and rebirth into the new nature, because the entire message here kinda revolved around Jesus being the one who does not sin. But Jesus insisted, and John knew better than to argue.
When everyone else was baptized, it represented death to their old, sinful self and rebirth to the new, fulfilled self. Jesus chose this act to mark the beginning of His ministry, not because He had sin to repent of, but because His entire reason for coming was to take the death that everyone else deserved for the sins, and rise again, victorious over these sins. His baptism did not represent exactly the same thing, but He too agreed to a symbolic death and rebirth, to signal to everyone present and to God the Father up in Heaven that He accepted His purpose and was ready to begin His ministry.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
First Patriarch Problems
[Genesis 13:1-5]
It sounds like they had been journeying for quite some time. I'm sure this was still some awkwardness about the whole Egypt incident, and that Sarai was probably going to hold that over Abram's head for the rest of his life any time she wanted to buy something expensive. But since spirits were getting low, they all traveled back to the altar that Abram had set up when God promised him the land and they did some praying there.
In addition to thanking God for something the moment He promises it to you, it's also wise to do like Abram did and set up a reminder of it. Abram built an altar, but your reminder can be as simple as writing it down somewhere and keeping in a notebook, or in your wallet, or taped to your mirror, or as a reminder that pops up on your phone once a day. When it seems like life is taking forever and that the promise is never going to happen, go back to that marker and cry out to God. If we look at the prayers of people like king David in Psalms, God's not afraid for you to ask questions about what in the world is going on.
[13:6]
"God gave me land, but my brother and I are so rich that it's not big enough #ChosenOneProblems"
[13:7-9]
It was a bit cramped in Canaan, and there was starting to be some sheep fights or something. Abram really doesn't want their employees squabbling amongst themselves, so he offers to split the land up. He gives Lot first pick of the land, and promises to go settle the opposite direction from where Lot goes so they can give each other some elbow room.
In-fighting is one of the quickest ways to kill off any movement. When people are starting to squabble amongst themselves and unity is starting to degrade, it needs to be nipped in the bud immediately. I read a book on theater directing which stated that if someone is damaging the unity of the group, they need to be fired immediately regardless of how talented they are. Abram saw the team spirit starting to fall apart, and he did the right thing as a leader and decided they needed to give each other some space. I'm sure it was tough, since they had all assumed they were in this together, and living on opposite sides of their land was probably not in the original plan. But unity is the most important attribute for any team, and it needs to be preserved at all costs. Even if this means some members going their separate ways, it's better than the entire operation falling apart.
[13:10-13]
Lot got first choice of the land, and poor Lot made a really bad decision. The land was nice, and there was a city nearby so he could make a Costco run when he needed to, but unfortunately it was home to a group of people that have the distinction of being the only people after the flood that were so screwed up that God just nuked them. That hasn't happened yet and I'm sure Lot thinks he's gotten off pretty well, but it will turn out to be a decision that comes back to bite him.
[13:14-18]
And Abram gets the rest of the land. God also takes this moment to tell Abram exactly how big this nation of his is going to be: really stinking big. More than can be counted.
It's interesting that God waited for Lot to be gone before delivering this message. I have two possible interpretations of it and I'm not sure which one is more accurate.
First is that God waited until now because Abram had just decided to settle down and his territory was now official, so God could reveal the next step of the plan. After spending some time journeying around, Abram had finally come back to where God said He was going to be in the first place and decided to take a stake in it, so God could start the next phase. In this case, the lesson is that, even when you don't know the long-term plan, if God has told you the next step, you need to pitch your tent and make it official. While you're still journeying around trying to figure stuff out, God's not going to show you what's next. Pitch your tent in the land He's promised you, and He'll go from there.
The other thought is that getting rid of Lot was what allowed God to reveal the next step. It could be that Abram was never supposed to bring Lot in the first place, and that finally settling down with Sarai and going it alone like he was initially told was what triggered God revealing the rest of the plan. In this case, when God tells you something, don't change the terms. Abram putzed around for quite a while before heading out with just his crew, and probably wasted a good deal of time. When God tells you to do something, then do it, and do it completely.
It sounds like they had been journeying for quite some time. I'm sure this was still some awkwardness about the whole Egypt incident, and that Sarai was probably going to hold that over Abram's head for the rest of his life any time she wanted to buy something expensive. But since spirits were getting low, they all traveled back to the altar that Abram had set up when God promised him the land and they did some praying there.
In addition to thanking God for something the moment He promises it to you, it's also wise to do like Abram did and set up a reminder of it. Abram built an altar, but your reminder can be as simple as writing it down somewhere and keeping in a notebook, or in your wallet, or taped to your mirror, or as a reminder that pops up on your phone once a day. When it seems like life is taking forever and that the promise is never going to happen, go back to that marker and cry out to God. If we look at the prayers of people like king David in Psalms, God's not afraid for you to ask questions about what in the world is going on.
[13:6]
"God gave me land, but my brother and I are so rich that it's not big enough #ChosenOneProblems"
[13:7-9]
It was a bit cramped in Canaan, and there was starting to be some sheep fights or something. Abram really doesn't want their employees squabbling amongst themselves, so he offers to split the land up. He gives Lot first pick of the land, and promises to go settle the opposite direction from where Lot goes so they can give each other some elbow room.
In-fighting is one of the quickest ways to kill off any movement. When people are starting to squabble amongst themselves and unity is starting to degrade, it needs to be nipped in the bud immediately. I read a book on theater directing which stated that if someone is damaging the unity of the group, they need to be fired immediately regardless of how talented they are. Abram saw the team spirit starting to fall apart, and he did the right thing as a leader and decided they needed to give each other some space. I'm sure it was tough, since they had all assumed they were in this together, and living on opposite sides of their land was probably not in the original plan. But unity is the most important attribute for any team, and it needs to be preserved at all costs. Even if this means some members going their separate ways, it's better than the entire operation falling apart.
[13:10-13]
Lot got first choice of the land, and poor Lot made a really bad decision. The land was nice, and there was a city nearby so he could make a Costco run when he needed to, but unfortunately it was home to a group of people that have the distinction of being the only people after the flood that were so screwed up that God just nuked them. That hasn't happened yet and I'm sure Lot thinks he's gotten off pretty well, but it will turn out to be a decision that comes back to bite him.
[13:14-18]
And Abram gets the rest of the land. God also takes this moment to tell Abram exactly how big this nation of his is going to be: really stinking big. More than can be counted.
It's interesting that God waited for Lot to be gone before delivering this message. I have two possible interpretations of it and I'm not sure which one is more accurate.
First is that God waited until now because Abram had just decided to settle down and his territory was now official, so God could reveal the next step of the plan. After spending some time journeying around, Abram had finally come back to where God said He was going to be in the first place and decided to take a stake in it, so God could start the next phase. In this case, the lesson is that, even when you don't know the long-term plan, if God has told you the next step, you need to pitch your tent and make it official. While you're still journeying around trying to figure stuff out, God's not going to show you what's next. Pitch your tent in the land He's promised you, and He'll go from there.
The other thought is that getting rid of Lot was what allowed God to reveal the next step. It could be that Abram was never supposed to bring Lot in the first place, and that finally settling down with Sarai and going it alone like he was initially told was what triggered God revealing the rest of the plan. In this case, when God tells you something, don't change the terms. Abram putzed around for quite a while before heading out with just his crew, and probably wasted a good deal of time. When God tells you to do something, then do it, and do it completely.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Sister Act
[Genesis 12:1-4]
And here we meet Abram.We don't get a ton of backstory, but it starts with God telling him "pack your things and start walking. I'll tell you when you get where I want you." Now, I think this is an awesome idea for a road trip, but as the next step in your life I can image it would be fairly intimidating. Granted, it did come with fancy promise that he was going to be the start of a big nation and that he was going to have divine protection from anyone that may try to mess with him, so that probably helped, but it still takes some guts to pack up your family and move out "that-a-way!"
On top of all this, Abram was 75 years old, which seems like a bit late to start your nation-building project, since nation-building involves lots of fighting and baby-making, which you're not quite as good at in your 70's than you are earlier in your life.
We have a hard enough time doing what God tells us when it's something as simple as "go tell this to that person" or "give that guy five dollars" or "stop being such a jerk all of the freaking time." We like to completely discount the idea of God telling you what your next step in life is and make it some weird puzzle based on your talents. We won't do some of these even when God does give you a specific reason and outcome, and yet Abram packs his family up and headed off to Canaan. There's a reason Abram becomes a shining example of faith later on.
[12: 5-9]
While trekking through Canaan, God reveals that eventually this land is going to belong to Abram's descendants, giving Abram a hint of the size of what was to come from this journey. Abram finds a good camping spot, and builds an altar to God there. Nothing had really happened yet other than God saying what the plan was, but Abram built an altar regardless.
Usually, even if it's a day or so before payday, I can do my budget because I've calculated the hours I've gotten and have a good idea of how much goes out for taxes. I don't have the check yet, and the possibility exists that I'll go to work the next day and the owners have run away with the money and burned the place to the ground, but I have enough faith in the agreement we have to know I'll get paid and plan for it in advance. Abram hadn't seen any evidence of this nation he was going to father beyond God saying it was going to happen, but he had enough faith to build an altar anyway thanking God for it. When God tells you something, you can plan around it immediately.
Early on in your Christian walk, it makes sense to be hesitant because you're new and haven't seen enough to really be certain of how this all works. But eventually, you should have enough confidence in God's word to know that, when He tells you something, it's going to happen, and you can start thanking Him for it and planning around it the moment He says.
[12: 10-20]
This is a weird little story, and it actually happens again later. They're going through Egypt, and Abram is afraid that his wife is so unbelievably hot that Pharaoh would have him killed to get to his wife. Since Abram was 75 at the time, it makes sense that Sarai was somewhere around there, so she had to be some kind of knockout to still be that paranoia-inducing gorgeous in at least her 60's.
To avoid being killed, Abram passes Sarai off as his sister rather than his wife. At first it seems like this could just be an old man flattering his old wife, but no, shortly after they enter Egypt Pharaoh takes a liking to her and decides she's going to stay with him. During her stay, the Egyptians treat Abram very well, I guess as a thank-you for having such a hot sister. However, since God already promised that things would not go well for anyone that messes with Abram, Pharaoh starts having some plagues in his house for messing with Abram's wife. When he finds out what's happened, he's pissed off, but doesn't want to mess with these guys any further since they seem to have some kind of divine shield over them, so he just kicks them out.
This whole stunt seems a bit silly, but I think this happened as a first sign to Abram that God was serious when He said that "I will curse those who curse you." If Abram had thought it through some more, he probably would have seen that the whole sister act (teehee) wasn't necessary, because God had already said He was going to fight on Abram's side. Instead they had to step through the whole awkwardness of this situation and bring some plagues on Pharaoh's house that may not have had to happen otherwise. But this served as a good lesson for Abram, that God was going to protect him.
And here we meet Abram.We don't get a ton of backstory, but it starts with God telling him "pack your things and start walking. I'll tell you when you get where I want you." Now, I think this is an awesome idea for a road trip, but as the next step in your life I can image it would be fairly intimidating. Granted, it did come with fancy promise that he was going to be the start of a big nation and that he was going to have divine protection from anyone that may try to mess with him, so that probably helped, but it still takes some guts to pack up your family and move out "that-a-way!"
On top of all this, Abram was 75 years old, which seems like a bit late to start your nation-building project, since nation-building involves lots of fighting and baby-making, which you're not quite as good at in your 70's than you are earlier in your life.
We have a hard enough time doing what God tells us when it's something as simple as "go tell this to that person" or "give that guy five dollars" or "stop being such a jerk all of the freaking time." We like to completely discount the idea of God telling you what your next step in life is and make it some weird puzzle based on your talents. We won't do some of these even when God does give you a specific reason and outcome, and yet Abram packs his family up and headed off to Canaan. There's a reason Abram becomes a shining example of faith later on.
[12: 5-9]
While trekking through Canaan, God reveals that eventually this land is going to belong to Abram's descendants, giving Abram a hint of the size of what was to come from this journey. Abram finds a good camping spot, and builds an altar to God there. Nothing had really happened yet other than God saying what the plan was, but Abram built an altar regardless.
Usually, even if it's a day or so before payday, I can do my budget because I've calculated the hours I've gotten and have a good idea of how much goes out for taxes. I don't have the check yet, and the possibility exists that I'll go to work the next day and the owners have run away with the money and burned the place to the ground, but I have enough faith in the agreement we have to know I'll get paid and plan for it in advance. Abram hadn't seen any evidence of this nation he was going to father beyond God saying it was going to happen, but he had enough faith to build an altar anyway thanking God for it. When God tells you something, you can plan around it immediately.
Early on in your Christian walk, it makes sense to be hesitant because you're new and haven't seen enough to really be certain of how this all works. But eventually, you should have enough confidence in God's word to know that, when He tells you something, it's going to happen, and you can start thanking Him for it and planning around it the moment He says.
[12: 10-20]
This is a weird little story, and it actually happens again later. They're going through Egypt, and Abram is afraid that his wife is so unbelievably hot that Pharaoh would have him killed to get to his wife. Since Abram was 75 at the time, it makes sense that Sarai was somewhere around there, so she had to be some kind of knockout to still be that paranoia-inducing gorgeous in at least her 60's.
To avoid being killed, Abram passes Sarai off as his sister rather than his wife. At first it seems like this could just be an old man flattering his old wife, but no, shortly after they enter Egypt Pharaoh takes a liking to her and decides she's going to stay with him. During her stay, the Egyptians treat Abram very well, I guess as a thank-you for having such a hot sister. However, since God already promised that things would not go well for anyone that messes with Abram, Pharaoh starts having some plagues in his house for messing with Abram's wife. When he finds out what's happened, he's pissed off, but doesn't want to mess with these guys any further since they seem to have some kind of divine shield over them, so he just kicks them out.
This whole stunt seems a bit silly, but I think this happened as a first sign to Abram that God was serious when He said that "I will curse those who curse you." If Abram had thought it through some more, he probably would have seen that the whole sister act (teehee) wasn't necessary, because God had already said He was going to fight on Abram's side. Instead they had to step through the whole awkwardness of this situation and bring some plagues on Pharaoh's house that may not have had to happen otherwise. But this served as a good lesson for Abram, that God was going to protect him.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Babel On
[Genesis 10]
Genesis 10 is a bit of freebie, as it's a genealogy. Most of the names in here aren't as well known, so it's harder to do cool things with it like you can with some of the later ones. Nimrod stands out because he, like Dorcas and other funny-named Biblical characters, cannot be taught in Sunday School because it will quickly derail into nothing by funny name jokes.
Really though, I got nothing for this. They did their job and started having babies.
[Genesis 11:1]
At first this sounds like a contradiction since we the previous list of people sorted them out by language, and then it says here they all had one language. I assume that this story happens sometime in the middle of that list of people, instead of happening right at the end. Either that or the sorting could have been applied retroactively based on whose descendants got what language. I dunno.
[Genesis 11:1-3]
"They had brick for stone," (NKJV) but no one would trade with them because they had 8 victory points on the board and a development card on the table that's been there for 9 turns, so that stone will probably make them a city and win the game.
...
Sorry.
So they're all travelling in one big pack, and have figured out brick-making by now. Based on the genealogy above, they were doing good at the "make babies" command, but so far not doing so hot on the "spread out and populate the Earth" part of the plan. They were getting the city-building thing down pretty good and were reluctant to start spreading out like the earth needed.
The hardest part of God's call on your life can often be the people that you have to leave behind. There's the obvious times when you've been hanging out with deadbeats and you need to find some people who won't hold you back, but even more difficult is the times when it's just time to move on to some place new. God didn't necessarily want them to spread out because they were all bad people and needed to be separated (though they didn't end up too great, based on the rest of the passage), but because the plan for repopulation required them to go elsewhere. Sometimes with the talents God gives you and the call that's on your life, you have to relocate and mess up some ties with the people where you are. But you can't let that fear of change stop you, because you may be messing up a bigger plan than you realize.
[11: 4-9]
So these guys, to save themselves from having to spread out, decide they're going to build a massive tower that will serve as a central hub for civilization, and all settle right around there.
What's interesting here isn't just that they did that, because that's just human nature to not want to leave each other, but that God said "Crap, they can pull this off. We have to do something here." Specifically God was worried because, with the level of unity they had, they could do whatever it was they decided. It took God mixing up their languages and forcibly scattering them around the world to stop this plan from happening.
What's sad here is that we have a perfect example of the power that we have when we band together and work for a common cause, but it was being put towards a project that was so stupid it took a miracle from God just so we wouldn't jack up the entire earth in the process. The lesson here is to make sure that our leadership knows what's up and is in tune with God. More specifically, if you are in a leadership position, make sure you know where God is going in your field. When leaders can get people rallied together and working towards a common goal, they will achieve that goal. So never underestimate the power of people working together, and always keep tabs on the people leading these movements and make sure their inevitable success will be a good thing.
[11: 10-32]
And then we get another big genealogy chunk. This one's a bit of a bigger deal though, because it introduces us to the next major set of players in Biblical history: Abram, his wife Sarai, and his nephew Lot. They were originally from Ur, and they moved to Canaan. They will be the focus of the next chunk of Scripture, so we'll leave it there for now.
Genesis 10 is a bit of freebie, as it's a genealogy. Most of the names in here aren't as well known, so it's harder to do cool things with it like you can with some of the later ones. Nimrod stands out because he, like Dorcas and other funny-named Biblical characters, cannot be taught in Sunday School because it will quickly derail into nothing by funny name jokes.
Really though, I got nothing for this. They did their job and started having babies.
[Genesis 11:1]
At first this sounds like a contradiction since we the previous list of people sorted them out by language, and then it says here they all had one language. I assume that this story happens sometime in the middle of that list of people, instead of happening right at the end. Either that or the sorting could have been applied retroactively based on whose descendants got what language. I dunno.
[Genesis 11:1-3]
"They had brick for stone," (NKJV) but no one would trade with them because they had 8 victory points on the board and a development card on the table that's been there for 9 turns, so that stone will probably make them a city and win the game.
...
Sorry.
So they're all travelling in one big pack, and have figured out brick-making by now. Based on the genealogy above, they were doing good at the "make babies" command, but so far not doing so hot on the "spread out and populate the Earth" part of the plan. They were getting the city-building thing down pretty good and were reluctant to start spreading out like the earth needed.
The hardest part of God's call on your life can often be the people that you have to leave behind. There's the obvious times when you've been hanging out with deadbeats and you need to find some people who won't hold you back, but even more difficult is the times when it's just time to move on to some place new. God didn't necessarily want them to spread out because they were all bad people and needed to be separated (though they didn't end up too great, based on the rest of the passage), but because the plan for repopulation required them to go elsewhere. Sometimes with the talents God gives you and the call that's on your life, you have to relocate and mess up some ties with the people where you are. But you can't let that fear of change stop you, because you may be messing up a bigger plan than you realize.
[11: 4-9]
So these guys, to save themselves from having to spread out, decide they're going to build a massive tower that will serve as a central hub for civilization, and all settle right around there.
What's interesting here isn't just that they did that, because that's just human nature to not want to leave each other, but that God said "Crap, they can pull this off. We have to do something here." Specifically God was worried because, with the level of unity they had, they could do whatever it was they decided. It took God mixing up their languages and forcibly scattering them around the world to stop this plan from happening.
What's sad here is that we have a perfect example of the power that we have when we band together and work for a common cause, but it was being put towards a project that was so stupid it took a miracle from God just so we wouldn't jack up the entire earth in the process. The lesson here is to make sure that our leadership knows what's up and is in tune with God. More specifically, if you are in a leadership position, make sure you know where God is going in your field. When leaders can get people rallied together and working towards a common goal, they will achieve that goal. So never underestimate the power of people working together, and always keep tabs on the people leading these movements and make sure their inevitable success will be a good thing.
[11: 10-32]
And then we get another big genealogy chunk. This one's a bit of a bigger deal though, because it introduces us to the next major set of players in Biblical history: Abram, his wife Sarai, and his nephew Lot. They were originally from Ur, and they moved to Canaan. They will be the focus of the next chunk of Scripture, so we'll leave it there for now.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Meat!
In a bit of hurry this morning, so I may may this one kinda quick.
Also, I found a way to indent my paragraphs on Blogger, so when I get some time to mess around in the CSS I'll fix up the formatting on these.
Back to Genesis!
[Genesis 9: 1-4]
After the flood, God allowed meat-eating. Mainly because the lifespan-shortening He wanted to do would go a lot faster if He put man on the track to discovering double quarter-pounders.
Originally God did not allow meat-eating, because death of any sort wasn't in His plan. Even when He finally allowed it, He did not allow them to eat the blood with the meat because the blood represented the life of the animal. To God, eating the blood was devaluing the life of the animal and not taking the fact that there is now death when there shouldn't have been too lightly. Even though we are not held to the letter of the old laws anymore, we can still use the law to find out something about the character of God. God respects all life, and we should never spill blood casually. Even in hunting, at the very least eat it or skin it or sell it.
They say an early sign of a kid being a psychopath is cruelty to pets and other animals. It makes sense, since God, who made us in His image, values all life, and so losing that fundamental bit of our intended nature is a sign that something has gone horribly wrong.
[5-6]
Even more so with human life. Spilling animal blood willy-nilly got you punished, but God required your life for spilling human blood.
Like I said back in the first chapters, never forget that, while all life is valuable, human life is far more valuable.
[7-17]
God tells Noah and his family to begin repopulating, and also irons out some details on the promise He made to not destroy Earth again. More specifically, He meant He'll never destroy Earth with a flood again, leaving Himself a nice little loophole to destroy it with fire during the apocalypse.
Also the rainbow He uses as a reminder of this promise is a fun one for creation scientists who hold the canopy theory. If the water canopy was really around the earth, it makes sense that it would screw with the humidity in the air and the conditions would never be right for a rainbow. Since the flood theoretically destroyed the canopy, there can be rainbows now, which is why there hadn't been one until this promise.
So every time it rains and you see a rainbow afterwards, maybe God was thinking about destroying everyone then went "Oh, right, that."
[18-29]
They start settling down and deciding who's going to do what, and Noah takes some farming duty. Noah grows some grapes and later gets plastered off the wine. I suppose if you'd just seen literally everyone in the world except you and your family die, and were probably still finding dead bodies laying around everywhere, you'd need a strong drink too. Anyway, he gets wasted and ends up passing out naked in his tent. One of his kids finds that hilarious and goes and tells the other two, who smack him upside the head and tell him that he's one of seven people alive at the moment so he should really stop being an idiot. The other two go in the tent backwards with a blanket so they can cover Noah up without looking at him. They get commended by Noah and Canaan gets a curse for his troubles.
Since these guys are effectively the first generation of a new era and a new covenant, God has to lay down some precedents. It sounds like there wasn't a lot of consequence before them (not counting...you know... the flood) and that God is establishing some rules now that there haven't been before. Even though there are rules and consequences that God takes very seriously, He was still not into publicly shaming people who do something stupid. Noah over-drank and embarrassed himself, but, even with more consequence now than usual, it wasn't good to make a big deal out of it beyond what needed to be done.
We need to always be helping each other grow, but we can respect privacy in the process. There is a time to involve others, especially when the person we're trying to help is being stubborn and it's for their own good, but always try to keep it between as few people as possible. When there's nothing more to be done, especially when it's not habitual, let's cover each other up and help each other save face.
Also, I found a way to indent my paragraphs on Blogger, so when I get some time to mess around in the CSS I'll fix up the formatting on these.
Back to Genesis!
[Genesis 9: 1-4]
After the flood, God allowed meat-eating. Mainly because the lifespan-shortening He wanted to do would go a lot faster if He put man on the track to discovering double quarter-pounders.
Originally God did not allow meat-eating, because death of any sort wasn't in His plan. Even when He finally allowed it, He did not allow them to eat the blood with the meat because the blood represented the life of the animal. To God, eating the blood was devaluing the life of the animal and not taking the fact that there is now death when there shouldn't have been too lightly. Even though we are not held to the letter of the old laws anymore, we can still use the law to find out something about the character of God. God respects all life, and we should never spill blood casually. Even in hunting, at the very least eat it or skin it or sell it.
They say an early sign of a kid being a psychopath is cruelty to pets and other animals. It makes sense, since God, who made us in His image, values all life, and so losing that fundamental bit of our intended nature is a sign that something has gone horribly wrong.
[5-6]
Even more so with human life. Spilling animal blood willy-nilly got you punished, but God required your life for spilling human blood.
Like I said back in the first chapters, never forget that, while all life is valuable, human life is far more valuable.
[7-17]
God tells Noah and his family to begin repopulating, and also irons out some details on the promise He made to not destroy Earth again. More specifically, He meant He'll never destroy Earth with a flood again, leaving Himself a nice little loophole to destroy it with fire during the apocalypse.
Also the rainbow He uses as a reminder of this promise is a fun one for creation scientists who hold the canopy theory. If the water canopy was really around the earth, it makes sense that it would screw with the humidity in the air and the conditions would never be right for a rainbow. Since the flood theoretically destroyed the canopy, there can be rainbows now, which is why there hadn't been one until this promise.
So every time it rains and you see a rainbow afterwards, maybe God was thinking about destroying everyone then went "Oh, right, that."
[18-29]
They start settling down and deciding who's going to do what, and Noah takes some farming duty. Noah grows some grapes and later gets plastered off the wine. I suppose if you'd just seen literally everyone in the world except you and your family die, and were probably still finding dead bodies laying around everywhere, you'd need a strong drink too. Anyway, he gets wasted and ends up passing out naked in his tent. One of his kids finds that hilarious and goes and tells the other two, who smack him upside the head and tell him that he's one of seven people alive at the moment so he should really stop being an idiot. The other two go in the tent backwards with a blanket so they can cover Noah up without looking at him. They get commended by Noah and Canaan gets a curse for his troubles.
Since these guys are effectively the first generation of a new era and a new covenant, God has to lay down some precedents. It sounds like there wasn't a lot of consequence before them (not counting...you know... the flood) and that God is establishing some rules now that there haven't been before. Even though there are rules and consequences that God takes very seriously, He was still not into publicly shaming people who do something stupid. Noah over-drank and embarrassed himself, but, even with more consequence now than usual, it wasn't good to make a big deal out of it beyond what needed to be done.
We need to always be helping each other grow, but we can respect privacy in the process. There is a time to involve others, especially when the person we're trying to help is being stubborn and it's for their own good, but always try to keep it between as few people as possible. When there's nothing more to be done, especially when it's not habitual, let's cover each other up and help each other save face.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
We're done with boats!
Saturday means it's New Testament time!
[Matthew 2:1-2]
A little background information will help make this scene make more sense, specifically about King Herod. The main thing you need to know is that King Herod was freaking insane. Among some of his accomplishments (courtesy of Wikipedia):
[2:13-15]
Also wise: an angel advises Joseph and Mary to get out of town and wait until Herod's dead, since Herod will likely do some nutty things to try to off this kid.
Matthew points out that this also fulfills a prophecy about Jesus being called out of Egypt.
[2:16-18]
Since the wise men didn't come back, Herod assumed that they, and likely the kid's parents, figured out what he was intending on doing (He was surprised, as his reign so far has been famous for subtlety.) So, instead of making all the effort to find which kid is the right one, he decides to just kill all the children born between the first sighting of the star and now. Not terribly surprising gien Herod's previous record.
In Anne Rice's "Christ the Lord" novel (which I will totally finish someday, I promise) there's a scene where Jesus has something of an existential meltdown when He realizes that all those kids died on a search for Him. I like that scene, because it touches on how mentally difficult it must have been for Jesus to go through with the plan for His life. I'm sure no one at the time really blamed Jesus, since Herod probably would have done the same thing once he saw that people put "Baby's laughter" above him on a poll about things they like, but still. I don't really have a point with this, it's just interesting to think about the human implications for Jesus growing up.
Oh, and this fulfilled another prophecy.
[2:19-23]
Later on, after Herod was finally dead (They didn't actually go through with his order to kill all the other officials when he died. Because he was dead, and he wasn't there to enforce it,) they're told to go back. While they're heading back, they get warned in a dream to "actually, don't go ALL the way back, because Herod's son is in charge and only slightly less psychotic than Herod was. So, instead, go to Galilee." I'm sure Joseph was like "Well, why didn't you say that in first place? What? Galilee sucks! The only place with a vacancy is stinking Nazareth! Argh!" but all of this worked towards another one of the prophecies, that Jesus would be called a Nazarene. So even though it felt like their trip got botched, it needed to happen.
There are many times it feels like God called you to something that absolutely fell flat on its face. When that happens, it's easy to think either you misunderstood God and weren't supposed to do that, or that you royally screwed up and now God's plan is ruined. It's very possible in those times that the calling was just to get you to where you are now, and the success or failure of the call was irrelevant to what would come afterwards.
[Matthew 2:1-2]
A little background information will help make this scene make more sense, specifically about King Herod. The main thing you need to know is that King Herod was freaking insane. Among some of his accomplishments (courtesy of Wikipedia):
- Wanted to marry a teenager, but couldn't because of his wife and three kids. So he banishes said wife and kids
- Was suspicious of new wife's brother, so had him drowned while he was a party
- Later thought the new wife and his kids were plotting to take over his throne, so he executed them
- Since everyone hated him, he realized no one would cry when he died. So he ordered that, when he died, a bunch of popular officials should also be killed so there would be some crying
Most of his insanity came from his paranoia about his throne and I imagine the ego problems that resulted from his being about 4'2". So, to get a clear picture of Herod, just imagine this guy:
Think he's compensating for something?
In his favor though: he funded the Olympics and built a bunch of cool massive buildings. So there's that.
Anyway, you can imagine that this guy didn't take it too kindly when some creepy guys from other countries come up to him asking about "The King of the Jews" and not referring to Herod himself.
[2:3]
The rest of Jerusalem wasn't actually troubled that there might be a new king, they were just troubled because they weren't sure who was going to be executed next.
[2:4-8]
Psychotic paranoid king casually wanting to know where this new king is so he can go worship him too? Seems legit.
[2:9-11]
There's different opinions about the "Star of Bethlehem." Using fancy astronomy tools, we can see how the night sky looked around the time Jesus was born, and there was indeed a convergence of planets that may have been what the Wise Men were following. It's a little tough to attribute it directly to that, since it seems like it led them west to Herod, then back East to Jesus, though it could just be funny writing or translation giving this impression. It could also have been an angel or just some supernatural warning light, or it may have been Navi. Who knows?
A lot of people don't like reading this part too carefully because it kinda messes with our manger scenes and our Christmas plays. Following this chronologically, it seems pretty obvious that Jesus' birth happened quite a while before the wise men got to Him. All of our plays, Christmas cards, and horrible movies show the wise men getting there shortly after the birth of Jesus at the manger, but it's not really possible to get that from reading the text. I know that most people know at this point that were probably not three wise men, but I see why we stick to that imagery. I don't know why we insist on having them show up the second after Jesus is born. And why Jesus is born several months old already. And why He's perfectly clean. And why He didn't have an umbilical cord. And why it took about 30 seconds. And why Mary is incapable of emotion. And why angels look like Keith Green.
God, I hated that movie.
Anyway, it's interesting that the wise men brought Myrrh as one of their gifts. They were outsiders, and the details of Jesus' death and resurrection were difficult to glean from the Old Testament prophecies alone (At least, it seemed to take the disciples by surprise.) It probably seemed like a pretty morbid gift to give a young child, but it was super fitting along with their other three gifts to go along with what Jesus would end up doing. It's funny how these outsiders seemed to understand exactly who Jesus was and what He was called to do, when no one else in Israel seemed to get it.
Regardless, God used pagans to highlight what He was planning on doing through this birth. We tend to think we're so special and that God will use us for so much, but if we don't step it up and do what we're supposed to, God's not afraid to work through people we consider beneath us just to remind us that He is, in fact, God, and can do whatever He feels like by whatever means He feels like.
[2:12]
For all their insight, they had to have a divine warning to not go back to Herod. You'd think THAT would be the obvious part of this whole situations.
[2:13-15]
Also wise: an angel advises Joseph and Mary to get out of town and wait until Herod's dead, since Herod will likely do some nutty things to try to off this kid.
Matthew points out that this also fulfills a prophecy about Jesus being called out of Egypt.
[2:16-18]
Since the wise men didn't come back, Herod assumed that they, and likely the kid's parents, figured out what he was intending on doing (He was surprised, as his reign so far has been famous for subtlety.) So, instead of making all the effort to find which kid is the right one, he decides to just kill all the children born between the first sighting of the star and now. Not terribly surprising gien Herod's previous record.
In Anne Rice's "Christ the Lord" novel (which I will totally finish someday, I promise) there's a scene where Jesus has something of an existential meltdown when He realizes that all those kids died on a search for Him. I like that scene, because it touches on how mentally difficult it must have been for Jesus to go through with the plan for His life. I'm sure no one at the time really blamed Jesus, since Herod probably would have done the same thing once he saw that people put "Baby's laughter" above him on a poll about things they like, but still. I don't really have a point with this, it's just interesting to think about the human implications for Jesus growing up.
Oh, and this fulfilled another prophecy.
[2:19-23]
Later on, after Herod was finally dead (They didn't actually go through with his order to kill all the other officials when he died. Because he was dead, and he wasn't there to enforce it,) they're told to go back. While they're heading back, they get warned in a dream to "actually, don't go ALL the way back, because Herod's son is in charge and only slightly less psychotic than Herod was. So, instead, go to Galilee." I'm sure Joseph was like "Well, why didn't you say that in first place? What? Galilee sucks! The only place with a vacancy is stinking Nazareth! Argh!" but all of this worked towards another one of the prophecies, that Jesus would be called a Nazarene. So even though it felt like their trip got botched, it needed to happen.
There are many times it feels like God called you to something that absolutely fell flat on its face. When that happens, it's easy to think either you misunderstood God and weren't supposed to do that, or that you royally screwed up and now God's plan is ruined. It's very possible in those times that the calling was just to get you to where you are now, and the success or failure of the call was irrelevant to what would come afterwards.
Friday, January 20, 2012
We're off a Boat!
[Genesis 8:1]
I know it's not what the word literally means there, but it's funny that it says God remembered Noah. I imagine God up in Heaven playing Catan with the Godhead thinking "Ah, it's good to be rid of that Earth thing and be able to just chill with Us again, isn't it?" when an angel knocks on the door and says "Um...Lord...we were just wondering when Noah was going to-"
and God goes "CRAP!" and rushes out to take care of Noah.
Totally not what happened, but it's amusing.
[8:2-12]
The waters recede, the ark rests on a mountain, and Noah sends out test birds to see when it's safe to go back down. The dove bringing back and olive leaf/branch told Noah that the waters were starting to drain, and the dove not coming back at all meant it was safe to come down.
All this time Noah and his family had been scraping by an event that literally killed everyone but them. I imagine that every time that dove went out, it was fairly stressful waiting for it to come back. Even though they had survived the flood itself, they weren't out of the woods until they could go back down. I'm sure they were worrying if they'd have enough food to last until they could start growing things again. I'm sure they worried that the damage done was permanent and that they had survived the flood only to die on a barren, soggy rock. But the dove eventually got back good news, and I'm sure that olive branch was the biggest relief they'd had the whole trip, and that it gave them the strength to wait the extra few days it took for the water to recede the rest of the way.
When you're going through trouble, even if people are failing all around you, know that if you're walking in the protection of God, that you can make it. Just keep persevering, because eventually you'll see the olive branch that will tell you "help is on the way."
[8:13]
Noah had not even looked out until the dove didn't come back. He had sent the dove out through a window, but he had never opened the door and looked himself. He didn't trust his own eyes to be the judge of how good or bad the situation was, because looking out at the still half-flooded, destroyed world beneath him would have killed the morale of him and his family and they would have succumbed to despair, just like Peter walked on water just fine until he started looking at the storm around him. Instead he sent out the dove, and trusted the message the dove brought back, believing that God said that he would be spared.
Don't waste your time looking at the situation around you just to judge how much trouble you're in. Get all the information you need to do the job you've been given, but don't waste time worrying about what could go wrong. Trust what God tells you.
[8:14-20]
And God gives the go-ahead to get out of the ark and start the reconstruction effort. The longest road trip in the world was over. Noah's first act before beginning the task was to offer a sacrifice with the clean animals he brought along.
Bring glory to God when He gives you victories.
[8:21-22]
To top it all off, God promises that He'll never destroy the world quite like this again. He acknowledges that man's heart is evil, but He's not going to do this again and He also put restrictions on ground-cursing as a punishment method. Because this was the plan. The only kind of human God could have a meaningful relationship with was the kind that had the propensity for evil. This event marked how God was capable of and how man was deserving of absolute destruction. This is so we can see exactly what our sin deserves and exactly how wonderful it is that Jesus is now our righteousness instead of us having to depend on our own, because there would be some flooding pretty soon otherwise.
This verse is also how Texas gets away with not having Spring and Fall, because God only made Winter and Summer mandatory.
I know it's not what the word literally means there, but it's funny that it says God remembered Noah. I imagine God up in Heaven playing Catan with the Godhead thinking "Ah, it's good to be rid of that Earth thing and be able to just chill with Us again, isn't it?" when an angel knocks on the door and says "Um...Lord...we were just wondering when Noah was going to-"
and God goes "CRAP!" and rushes out to take care of Noah.
Totally not what happened, but it's amusing.
[8:2-12]
The waters recede, the ark rests on a mountain, and Noah sends out test birds to see when it's safe to go back down. The dove bringing back and olive leaf/branch told Noah that the waters were starting to drain, and the dove not coming back at all meant it was safe to come down.
All this time Noah and his family had been scraping by an event that literally killed everyone but them. I imagine that every time that dove went out, it was fairly stressful waiting for it to come back. Even though they had survived the flood itself, they weren't out of the woods until they could go back down. I'm sure they were worrying if they'd have enough food to last until they could start growing things again. I'm sure they worried that the damage done was permanent and that they had survived the flood only to die on a barren, soggy rock. But the dove eventually got back good news, and I'm sure that olive branch was the biggest relief they'd had the whole trip, and that it gave them the strength to wait the extra few days it took for the water to recede the rest of the way.
When you're going through trouble, even if people are failing all around you, know that if you're walking in the protection of God, that you can make it. Just keep persevering, because eventually you'll see the olive branch that will tell you "help is on the way."
[8:13]
Noah had not even looked out until the dove didn't come back. He had sent the dove out through a window, but he had never opened the door and looked himself. He didn't trust his own eyes to be the judge of how good or bad the situation was, because looking out at the still half-flooded, destroyed world beneath him would have killed the morale of him and his family and they would have succumbed to despair, just like Peter walked on water just fine until he started looking at the storm around him. Instead he sent out the dove, and trusted the message the dove brought back, believing that God said that he would be spared.
Don't waste your time looking at the situation around you just to judge how much trouble you're in. Get all the information you need to do the job you've been given, but don't waste time worrying about what could go wrong. Trust what God tells you.
[8:14-20]
And God gives the go-ahead to get out of the ark and start the reconstruction effort. The longest road trip in the world was over. Noah's first act before beginning the task was to offer a sacrifice with the clean animals he brought along.
Bring glory to God when He gives you victories.
[8:21-22]
To top it all off, God promises that He'll never destroy the world quite like this again. He acknowledges that man's heart is evil, but He's not going to do this again and He also put restrictions on ground-cursing as a punishment method. Because this was the plan. The only kind of human God could have a meaningful relationship with was the kind that had the propensity for evil. This event marked how God was capable of and how man was deserving of absolute destruction. This is so we can see exactly what our sin deserves and exactly how wonderful it is that Jesus is now our righteousness instead of us having to depend on our own, because there would be some flooding pretty soon otherwise.
This verse is also how Texas gets away with not having Spring and Fall, because God only made Winter and Summer mandatory.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
We're on a Boat!
Late start tonight. School's in full swing now and I kinda forgot.
[Genesis 7:1-4]
Interestingly, God is just now really telling Noah the plan. He told Noah to build the boat first, then later said it was because everyone was about to die except him. This just adds to the oddness of the situation and the faith it took Noah to build it. Building a boat when you know the whole world is about to flood is one thing; building a boat just because God said to is another thing entirely. Many times the direction God is leading seems strange, but there will often be a Eureka moment, either by finally seeing the consequences, or because God straight up says "oh, yeah, and this is why."
Also God amends the animal count a bit, saying that all the clean animals get 7 of each, as well as the birds. Presumably because there needed to be sacrifices afterwards and God knew He was about to lift the meat embargo so just two of everything wouldn't be enough to repopulate.
[5-16]
Noah does as commanded, and God does as promised. God doesn't do anything halfway, so it says that, in addition to rain, the "fountains of the great deep" and the "windows of heaven" contributed to the world-destruction effort. Creation scientists interpret this as tectonic movement breaking continental plates open (Possibly starting continental drift and breaking the world apart form a possibly Pangaea-like arrangement) and those who hold to the canopy theory say the canopy "broke" and all the moisture which made it up contributed to the rain. It had also presumably not rained at all until this point, so I imagine this was terrifying in all sorts of ways.
Also cool is the line "...and the Lord shut him in," possibly implying that God Himself closed the door on the ark, or just that God kept the water out and the ride safe. I've seen this verse used in Eternal Security arguments, but....yeah, I don't see it.
God held up His end of the bargain. If Noah had fudged on any of it (decided it didn't need to eb QUITE that big, or that he really didn't want to build a tall enough stall for a giraffe, or that he would wait on finishing the ark because he only had, like, 6 episodes left of Breaking Bad until he had Netflixed the whole thing) then the entire human race or a few species of animals could have been exterminated. And I imagine if Noah, the one guy who God saw fit to save, had fallen short, that God would not have had the patience to try another round of intelligent life and stuck with the angels and playing pool with the remaining planets or something.
Part of the reason I started doing this blog again was because I know God has gifted me with writing. I know that God has called me to write and that He has some plan for my writing talents. Having a scientific major and a busy schedule makes it easy to neglect this, and I have generally not been good about keeping this up. I want to make sure I step up the game here, because I have no idea what degree of consequence may rest on doing well in this respect.
Follow through on what God is telling you, because there could be global consequences you are currently unaware of.
[7:17-24]
...and everyone died. The end.
Really, not a whole lot to add here. Everyone but the people on the ark died. I imagine it took centuries for the smell to go away.
[Genesis 7:1-4]
Interestingly, God is just now really telling Noah the plan. He told Noah to build the boat first, then later said it was because everyone was about to die except him. This just adds to the oddness of the situation and the faith it took Noah to build it. Building a boat when you know the whole world is about to flood is one thing; building a boat just because God said to is another thing entirely. Many times the direction God is leading seems strange, but there will often be a Eureka moment, either by finally seeing the consequences, or because God straight up says "oh, yeah, and this is why."
Also God amends the animal count a bit, saying that all the clean animals get 7 of each, as well as the birds. Presumably because there needed to be sacrifices afterwards and God knew He was about to lift the meat embargo so just two of everything wouldn't be enough to repopulate.
[5-16]
Noah does as commanded, and God does as promised. God doesn't do anything halfway, so it says that, in addition to rain, the "fountains of the great deep" and the "windows of heaven" contributed to the world-destruction effort. Creation scientists interpret this as tectonic movement breaking continental plates open (Possibly starting continental drift and breaking the world apart form a possibly Pangaea-like arrangement) and those who hold to the canopy theory say the canopy "broke" and all the moisture which made it up contributed to the rain. It had also presumably not rained at all until this point, so I imagine this was terrifying in all sorts of ways.
Also cool is the line "...and the Lord shut him in," possibly implying that God Himself closed the door on the ark, or just that God kept the water out and the ride safe. I've seen this verse used in Eternal Security arguments, but....yeah, I don't see it.
God held up His end of the bargain. If Noah had fudged on any of it (decided it didn't need to eb QUITE that big, or that he really didn't want to build a tall enough stall for a giraffe, or that he would wait on finishing the ark because he only had, like, 6 episodes left of Breaking Bad until he had Netflixed the whole thing) then the entire human race or a few species of animals could have been exterminated. And I imagine if Noah, the one guy who God saw fit to save, had fallen short, that God would not have had the patience to try another round of intelligent life and stuck with the angels and playing pool with the remaining planets or something.
Part of the reason I started doing this blog again was because I know God has gifted me with writing. I know that God has called me to write and that He has some plan for my writing talents. Having a scientific major and a busy schedule makes it easy to neglect this, and I have generally not been good about keeping this up. I want to make sure I step up the game here, because I have no idea what degree of consequence may rest on doing well in this respect.
Follow through on what God is telling you, because there could be global consequences you are currently unaware of.
[7:17-24]
...and everyone died. The end.
Really, not a whole lot to add here. Everyone but the people on the ark died. I imagine it took centuries for the smell to go away.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
IT'S GON RAIN!
[Genesis 6:1-4]
This is a really strange passage, but it's interesting. Taken at face value, it sounds here like angels and demons were coming down to Earth and getting it on with humans. The offspring of these encounters were giants and the "mighty men who were of old." I heard an interesting theory that these mutant offspring of angel and man were the inspiration for many fables such as Hercules, Achilles, Gilgamesh, and other such tales. The argument being that many cultures have developed similar stories, so it could be that they were based on some common memories of super humans like these. It's not airtight, as the idea of "a guy, who's a normal guy, except he's REALLY strong!" doesn't exactly take a large brainstorming session and could easily have been developed in a vacuum. Still, it's kind of a cool thought.
Interesting history musings aside, this was part of what made God unhappy with how things were going, and He decided He didn't have enough patience to keep letting these people live 800 years. For this and other reasons, God started reducing the average lifespan to 120 (which is still pretty nice by today's standards.) God doesn't like inappropriate relationship with the spiritual realm. Whether it's having sex with an angel, witchcraft, or even manipulative prayer rituals, God has cut lifespans to 1/8th of what they used to be for doing things like that in the past, so it's probably a good idea not to do it.
[5-12]
Upon further reflection, He realized "Actually, 120 years is still too long deal with these guys. Your lifespan is now 'until I get this flood together.'"
So things got crappy to the point where God decided He was going to wipe everything out and that the whole thing was a mistake. The only thing saving the world from complete destruction was that God thought Noah was a pretty cool guy, so He decided not to kill Noah.
Sensationalist fear-mongering pastors whose churches you should leave and over-zealous youth leaders whom you should fire use this passage to preach "GOD IS NOT AFRAID TO DESTROY YOU! SO DO WHAT I SAY AND GIVE MY CHURCH MONEY/ DON'T KISS YOUR GIRLFRIEND." The focus being on "evil people get squished, and good people get on the boat." This does seem to lead nicely from the passage, and, if we were still under the old Covenant, would be a fantastic message. In the New Testament reality we live in now, however, what you should take from this passage is "I'm so glad God sees Jesus' righteousness when He looks at me, and not my own, because otherwise I would totally deserve a flood right now." Noah found grace in the sight of God because he defied everything about human nature and managed to live in a way that was relatively pure when compared to the other people alive at the time. Now, all it takes is the blood of Jesus to find Grace in the eyes of God.
Unfortunately for fear-mongering pastors and youth leaders, this means we'll have to get people to act right and stay pure by teaching them that God is worthy of our respect and that relationships are a beautiful covenant and not a toy. This upsets people because you don't get a cult of brainless sheep out of it and it's not as fun as screaming.
[13-22]
There are further lessons here though. After God decides He's going to spare Noah, He gives him a set of instructions on how to build a boat that's going to keep him alive while God's wrecking everything else. He gave dimensions for the boat and instructions on what to take with him. Now it was up to Noah to fulfill these instructions. Presumably, if Noah had fudged on some details, or not taken enough food, or not taken enough animals, he either would have died with everyone else or the repopulation effort would have gone horribly wrong. Noah found grace, but still had a responsibility to make sure he got all the benefits of it.
Thanks to Jesus, all Christians have found grace with God. That does not mean that we are free of responsibilities or instructions. Life still has plenty of dos and do-nots that we can royally screw ourselves up by not observing. There are still things God likes does not like, there is still right and wrong, and there is still wisdom and foolishness. The difference now is that the consequences have shifted from punishment to discipline. The negative consequences from these actions now are not God saying "Well, you messed up. Guess it's time for a smiting" but instead happen so that we will learn and grow. We're not "paying a price" for our sins anymore - Jesus paid all of that price and if you think you can suffer in any way that will help pay for it, you think far too highly of yourself - instead we are just suffering the consequences of why we were told not to do that in the first place.
This is a really strange passage, but it's interesting. Taken at face value, it sounds here like angels and demons were coming down to Earth and getting it on with humans. The offspring of these encounters were giants and the "mighty men who were of old." I heard an interesting theory that these mutant offspring of angel and man were the inspiration for many fables such as Hercules, Achilles, Gilgamesh, and other such tales. The argument being that many cultures have developed similar stories, so it could be that they were based on some common memories of super humans like these. It's not airtight, as the idea of "a guy, who's a normal guy, except he's REALLY strong!" doesn't exactly take a large brainstorming session and could easily have been developed in a vacuum. Still, it's kind of a cool thought.
Interesting history musings aside, this was part of what made God unhappy with how things were going, and He decided He didn't have enough patience to keep letting these people live 800 years. For this and other reasons, God started reducing the average lifespan to 120 (which is still pretty nice by today's standards.) God doesn't like inappropriate relationship with the spiritual realm. Whether it's having sex with an angel, witchcraft, or even manipulative prayer rituals, God has cut lifespans to 1/8th of what they used to be for doing things like that in the past, so it's probably a good idea not to do it.
[5-12]
Upon further reflection, He realized "Actually, 120 years is still too long deal with these guys. Your lifespan is now 'until I get this flood together.'"
So things got crappy to the point where God decided He was going to wipe everything out and that the whole thing was a mistake. The only thing saving the world from complete destruction was that God thought Noah was a pretty cool guy, so He decided not to kill Noah.
Sensationalist fear-mongering pastors whose churches you should leave and over-zealous youth leaders whom you should fire use this passage to preach "GOD IS NOT AFRAID TO DESTROY YOU! SO DO WHAT I SAY AND GIVE MY CHURCH MONEY/ DON'T KISS YOUR GIRLFRIEND." The focus being on "evil people get squished, and good people get on the boat." This does seem to lead nicely from the passage, and, if we were still under the old Covenant, would be a fantastic message. In the New Testament reality we live in now, however, what you should take from this passage is "I'm so glad God sees Jesus' righteousness when He looks at me, and not my own, because otherwise I would totally deserve a flood right now." Noah found grace in the sight of God because he defied everything about human nature and managed to live in a way that was relatively pure when compared to the other people alive at the time. Now, all it takes is the blood of Jesus to find Grace in the eyes of God.
Unfortunately for fear-mongering pastors and youth leaders, this means we'll have to get people to act right and stay pure by teaching them that God is worthy of our respect and that relationships are a beautiful covenant and not a toy. This upsets people because you don't get a cult of brainless sheep out of it and it's not as fun as screaming.
[13-22]
There are further lessons here though. After God decides He's going to spare Noah, He gives him a set of instructions on how to build a boat that's going to keep him alive while God's wrecking everything else. He gave dimensions for the boat and instructions on what to take with him. Now it was up to Noah to fulfill these instructions. Presumably, if Noah had fudged on some details, or not taken enough food, or not taken enough animals, he either would have died with everyone else or the repopulation effort would have gone horribly wrong. Noah found grace, but still had a responsibility to make sure he got all the benefits of it.
Thanks to Jesus, all Christians have found grace with God. That does not mean that we are free of responsibilities or instructions. Life still has plenty of dos and do-nots that we can royally screw ourselves up by not observing. There are still things God likes does not like, there is still right and wrong, and there is still wisdom and foolishness. The difference now is that the consequences have shifted from punishment to discipline. The negative consequences from these actions now are not God saying "Well, you messed up. Guess it's time for a smiting" but instead happen so that we will learn and grow. We're not "paying a price" for our sins anymore - Jesus paid all of that price and if you think you can suffer in any way that will help pay for it, you think far too highly of yourself - instead we are just suffering the consequences of why we were told not to do that in the first place.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
No kill-backs!
Finishing chapter 4. Actually I meant to do this section last time and didn't for some reason.
[Genesis 4: 16-24]
This shows the reason God didn't want people killing Cain. Since there weren't a ton of people on the Earth at the moment, I'm sure losing Abel messed up enough of the plan. From Cain's descendants we see Enoch, who later we learn was a pretty cool guy, and people who were apparently very influential in the creation of animal husbandry, music, and metal works. So even though Cain screwed up, God still had plans for his descendants so he let Cain stay alive for a while. Think of this when total jerks are becoming successful in life: God may have a plan He's working that requires them to be in that position for one reason or another.
There's also an anecdote in this passage about a guy named Lamech, who murders someone and gives a speech saying "Remember how God said He would avenge Cain seven times if anyone killed him? Well then that means I'll probably be avenged seventy-seven times! Right?....guys?" and probably was killed shortly after, since it doesn't sound like God Himself made any such statement.
[4:25-26]
So Adam and Even have another son that takes the job that Abel was supposed to have. There's a random possessive "me" in that verse that other translations say was Eve talking, but in the KJV and the NKJV it sounds like the author is saying it. Kinda weird.
But after this kid Seth is born, it says that men began to call on the name of the Lord. So it sounds like Abel was supposed to be an early spiritual leader before he was offed, so the plan was delayed until Seth was born. It's comforting to know that God can still make a way even when people don't step up that should have. The plan can still be delayed and possibly not be as effective as it was once going to be, but God is bigger than our mistakes and can find a way.
[Chapter 5]
Chapter 5 is one long genealogy leading from Adam to Moses. What immediately jumps out is that people were living hundreds of years. God's initial design was for no one to ever die, so even after the fall they got a lot longer than it eventually deteriorated into. In Creation Science there's also the whole Canopy thing where the climate was much better and the atmosphere much friendlier to long lifespans and large animals and what have you. But again, not getting into that.
Another standout is Enoch, who, according to this, walked with God and did not die. The earlier part of Genesis suggests that a lot of the walking with God came to an end after the whole Fall thing, so it's impressive that someone managed to get it back, and get so close to God that instead of dying, as was the curse everyone had, God just took him straight up into Heaven (or wherever he was taken.)
And all of this leads up to Noah, who will the focus of next time.
[Genesis 4: 16-24]
This shows the reason God didn't want people killing Cain. Since there weren't a ton of people on the Earth at the moment, I'm sure losing Abel messed up enough of the plan. From Cain's descendants we see Enoch, who later we learn was a pretty cool guy, and people who were apparently very influential in the creation of animal husbandry, music, and metal works. So even though Cain screwed up, God still had plans for his descendants so he let Cain stay alive for a while. Think of this when total jerks are becoming successful in life: God may have a plan He's working that requires them to be in that position for one reason or another.
There's also an anecdote in this passage about a guy named Lamech, who murders someone and gives a speech saying "Remember how God said He would avenge Cain seven times if anyone killed him? Well then that means I'll probably be avenged seventy-seven times! Right?....guys?" and probably was killed shortly after, since it doesn't sound like God Himself made any such statement.
[4:25-26]
So Adam and Even have another son that takes the job that Abel was supposed to have. There's a random possessive "me" in that verse that other translations say was Eve talking, but in the KJV and the NKJV it sounds like the author is saying it. Kinda weird.
But after this kid Seth is born, it says that men began to call on the name of the Lord. So it sounds like Abel was supposed to be an early spiritual leader before he was offed, so the plan was delayed until Seth was born. It's comforting to know that God can still make a way even when people don't step up that should have. The plan can still be delayed and possibly not be as effective as it was once going to be, but God is bigger than our mistakes and can find a way.
[Chapter 5]
Chapter 5 is one long genealogy leading from Adam to Moses. What immediately jumps out is that people were living hundreds of years. God's initial design was for no one to ever die, so even after the fall they got a lot longer than it eventually deteriorated into. In Creation Science there's also the whole Canopy thing where the climate was much better and the atmosphere much friendlier to long lifespans and large animals and what have you. But again, not getting into that.
Another standout is Enoch, who, according to this, walked with God and did not die. The earlier part of Genesis suggests that a lot of the walking with God came to an end after the whole Fall thing, so it's impressive that someone managed to get it back, and get so close to God that instead of dying, as was the curse everyone had, God just took him straight up into Heaven (or wherever he was taken.)
And all of this leads up to Noah, who will the focus of next time.
Monday, January 16, 2012
First Blood
Didn't get to it yesterday, but I was unsure of whether or not I'd get to write on Sundays or not. Sundays typically involve a lot of running around and socializing, so I end up with not a lot of time. If it ends up being impractical to write on Sundays, I may switch Friday to a New Testament day just to get a couple of them in a week. But for now, back to Genesis.
[Genesis 4:1-5]
Another passage we hear frequently, since it leads to some killing to keep the kids in Sunday school interested, and it also makes a good offering message.
We're introduced to two of Adam and Eve's sons, Cain and Abel. Abel keeps sheep and Cain is a farmer. It came offering time and, from the way it's described here, it sounds like Cain went "Oh, yeah, here's some fruit" while Abel made it a point to use the firstborn and the best. So God was happier with Abel's than with Cain's. Here we learn that God doesn't like to be an afterthought, and that God doesn't like that vegetarian crap.
Where your money goes says a lot about where your priorities lie. Making it a point to remember your tithe and offering as soon as money comes in is a good way to train yourself to be more giving, and put God first in other areas. Honestly there's not a lot to say here that hasn't been said a million times already.
[Genesis 4:6-7]
God says "Look, if your offerings don't suck we won't have a problem. Chill out." Just like his parents, Cain is already exhibiting the lovely human tendency to pretend he is the only person in the universe that does not have a problem, and that all of the crap he's brought on himself is somehow everyone else's fault. He offered an inferior sacrifice that he knew full well was second-rate, and when God didn't care for it he gets mad like God is unfair and like he deserves just as much praise and appreciation as Abel, who actually put some effort into it. He then gathered up his friends and started the Occupy Eden movement.
God warns him that, if he does well, he'll be fine, but if he doesn't then it's a slippery slope. When you start giving in, sin is waiting at the door for that opportunity to drag you further. Even in the fallen world before Jesus, God implied that Cain had the power to not sin. Now even more, we have the power to resist temptations and have no one to blame but ourselves when we mess up. Like Cain, we have a tendency to get angry when we mess up and look for anyone to blame but ourselves, but we don't see any temptation we cannot beat, so it's on us when we fall in.
[4:8-12]
And it only took two generations for the first murder to happen, and probably only three before the first generic cop show that lasted a couple seasons and that guy from that one movie you loved in it so you watch the first season trying really hard to convince yourself it's not terrible.
Cain tries to cover up what he did, by apparently hoping that God didn't see what went on and just saying "Nope. Don't know what you're talking about." It seems they were not yet fully appreciative of how God can see everything. As punishment for defiling the ground with his brother's blood, that ground will no longer give him food, so he has to spend the rest of his life wandering and trying not to be killed by a bunch of angry people that just discovered what murder was thanks to him.
[4:13-15]
Cain seems to think this is unfair and that he can't handle it (He just won't stop whining...) and tries to prove by repeating the punishment back verbatim. I guess arguing skills hadn't been invented yet. But Cain does point out that he'll probably be killed on sight by most people now. God realizes there aren't a ton of people to go around at the moment, so a killing spree breaking out right now would probably be really bad for the outlook of human history. To make sure these wonderful creations don't immediately murder themselves out of existence 30 years into the project, God puts special protection on Cain and vows that anyone who kills him will have much scarier retribution done to them. Even though Cain screwed up and deserved to be killed, God had a plan that was bigger than that. God will get things done, even if someone messes up.
[Genesis 4:1-5]
Another passage we hear frequently, since it leads to some killing to keep the kids in Sunday school interested, and it also makes a good offering message.
We're introduced to two of Adam and Eve's sons, Cain and Abel. Abel keeps sheep and Cain is a farmer. It came offering time and, from the way it's described here, it sounds like Cain went "Oh, yeah, here's some fruit" while Abel made it a point to use the firstborn and the best. So God was happier with Abel's than with Cain's. Here we learn that God doesn't like to be an afterthought, and that God doesn't like that vegetarian crap.
Where your money goes says a lot about where your priorities lie. Making it a point to remember your tithe and offering as soon as money comes in is a good way to train yourself to be more giving, and put God first in other areas. Honestly there's not a lot to say here that hasn't been said a million times already.
[Genesis 4:6-7]
God says "Look, if your offerings don't suck we won't have a problem. Chill out." Just like his parents, Cain is already exhibiting the lovely human tendency to pretend he is the only person in the universe that does not have a problem, and that all of the crap he's brought on himself is somehow everyone else's fault. He offered an inferior sacrifice that he knew full well was second-rate, and when God didn't care for it he gets mad like God is unfair and like he deserves just as much praise and appreciation as Abel, who actually put some effort into it. He then gathered up his friends and started the Occupy Eden movement.
God warns him that, if he does well, he'll be fine, but if he doesn't then it's a slippery slope. When you start giving in, sin is waiting at the door for that opportunity to drag you further. Even in the fallen world before Jesus, God implied that Cain had the power to not sin. Now even more, we have the power to resist temptations and have no one to blame but ourselves when we mess up. Like Cain, we have a tendency to get angry when we mess up and look for anyone to blame but ourselves, but we don't see any temptation we cannot beat, so it's on us when we fall in.
[4:8-12]
And it only took two generations for the first murder to happen, and probably only three before the first generic cop show that lasted a couple seasons and that guy from that one movie you loved in it so you watch the first season trying really hard to convince yourself it's not terrible.
Cain tries to cover up what he did, by apparently hoping that God didn't see what went on and just saying "Nope. Don't know what you're talking about." It seems they were not yet fully appreciative of how God can see everything. As punishment for defiling the ground with his brother's blood, that ground will no longer give him food, so he has to spend the rest of his life wandering and trying not to be killed by a bunch of angry people that just discovered what murder was thanks to him.
[4:13-15]
Cain seems to think this is unfair and that he can't handle it (He just won't stop whining...) and tries to prove by repeating the punishment back verbatim. I guess arguing skills hadn't been invented yet. But Cain does point out that he'll probably be killed on sight by most people now. God realizes there aren't a ton of people to go around at the moment, so a killing spree breaking out right now would probably be really bad for the outlook of human history. To make sure these wonderful creations don't immediately murder themselves out of existence 30 years into the project, God puts special protection on Cain and vows that anyone who kills him will have much scarier retribution done to them. Even though Cain screwed up and deserved to be killed, God had a plan that was bigger than that. God will get things done, even if someone messes up.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Begat!
Like I said, I'll be doing the New Testament on weekends, mainly to keep things fresh, and only doing the NT two days out of the week will keep me from completely finishing it while I've barely made a dent in the Old. Not sure if I'll do all four Gospels in a row or do a couple of books and then come back. We'll see. But, for now: Matthew!
[Matthew 1:1-17]
Matthew was writing for a Jewish audience, so he puts a lot of emphasis on proving Jesus as the promised Messiah. With that as his goal, he starts with a genealogy, confusing everyone who is casually handed a Gideon Bible with just the New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs. With some hardcore studying and an audience with a decent Bible education, you can do some pretty neat sermons based on the genealogy of Jesus, but that kind of prep is a bit beyond the scope of this blog. So, just a couple things.
With any sort of Bible education, you'll notice as you scan through this part trying not to feel happy that your Bible reading will go that much faster today (Come on...we've all thought it) that there are some big shot awesome people in here (David, Abraham, Solomon), some sketchy characters (Rahab, Solomon) and a bunch of people you've never even heard of (Jothan, Abiud, and apparently a salmon.) All of these people ended up with the honor of being in Jesus' lineage. Even the people who screwed up and the ones who probably died without leaving a huge dent in the world and probably thinking they never accomplished much, by just being who they were and going where God led them, played a part in bringing Jesus into the world. So if you're walking with God and keeping your priorities straight, you never know what effects God will cause to ripple out even hundreds of years down the road.
Second, it's interesting that this traces the line through Jospeh, since Joseph contributed nothing genetically to Jesus. He married Mary while she was already pregnant with Jesus, and yet this was enough to satisfy the Jews to whom Matthew was writing that Jesus came from the line of David (Since that was one of the requirements for being the Messiah.) Even though Jospeh was not Jesus' birth father, he adopted Jesus into his family and that was good enough for God and the Jewish community. It's comforting, as a Gentile who came into the faith after the Jews, to know that God considers adoption just as binding and just as important as children born naturally. (Though I should note that elsewhere the Bible also places Mary in the line of David, it's interesting that Matthew chose not to mention that when writing to a Jewish audience.)
[1:18-24]
Matthew skips over a lot of the story parts to get straight to the point of Jesus being the Messiah, but I like that here it shows Joseph as a pretty cool guy. Mary is pregnant via the Holy Spirit, and when Jospeh finds out, he decides to call of the marriage quietly instead of going all Much Ado About Nothing on her and slapping her during the wedding and all that.
But then an angel shows up and says "No, it's cool, the baby is God's and He's gonna save the world and all that, so you should still get married and name Him Jesus. You should also start capitalizing His pronouns, so tell the person making the "It's a Boy" banners."
Joseph's faith here is pretty remarkable. Granted and angel appeared to him and told him, so that definitely helps your belief a bit, but it's still impressive. There's been a really long "dead period" religiously here, since the Old Testament canon was finished several hundred years back and the Jews are now occupied by Rome. It's a safe bet that prophecy and miracles were pretty scarce the last couple of centuries, so for Joseph to go along with the miracle virgin pregnancy thing when it looks like a sin that would otherwise result in exile or stoning shows that this guy trusted in God pretty strongly. The baby would have been born anyway, but obviously, since Matthew starts with this story, Joseph being the father made it far easier for the Jews to accept Jesus as the Messiah. Fairly basic lesson here: Do what God says.
[Matthew 1:1-17]
Matthew was writing for a Jewish audience, so he puts a lot of emphasis on proving Jesus as the promised Messiah. With that as his goal, he starts with a genealogy, confusing everyone who is casually handed a Gideon Bible with just the New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs. With some hardcore studying and an audience with a decent Bible education, you can do some pretty neat sermons based on the genealogy of Jesus, but that kind of prep is a bit beyond the scope of this blog. So, just a couple things.
With any sort of Bible education, you'll notice as you scan through this part trying not to feel happy that your Bible reading will go that much faster today (Come on...we've all thought it) that there are some big shot awesome people in here (David, Abraham, Solomon), some sketchy characters (Rahab, Solomon) and a bunch of people you've never even heard of (Jothan, Abiud, and apparently a salmon.) All of these people ended up with the honor of being in Jesus' lineage. Even the people who screwed up and the ones who probably died without leaving a huge dent in the world and probably thinking they never accomplished much, by just being who they were and going where God led them, played a part in bringing Jesus into the world. So if you're walking with God and keeping your priorities straight, you never know what effects God will cause to ripple out even hundreds of years down the road.
Second, it's interesting that this traces the line through Jospeh, since Joseph contributed nothing genetically to Jesus. He married Mary while she was already pregnant with Jesus, and yet this was enough to satisfy the Jews to whom Matthew was writing that Jesus came from the line of David (Since that was one of the requirements for being the Messiah.) Even though Jospeh was not Jesus' birth father, he adopted Jesus into his family and that was good enough for God and the Jewish community. It's comforting, as a Gentile who came into the faith after the Jews, to know that God considers adoption just as binding and just as important as children born naturally. (Though I should note that elsewhere the Bible also places Mary in the line of David, it's interesting that Matthew chose not to mention that when writing to a Jewish audience.)
[1:18-24]
Matthew skips over a lot of the story parts to get straight to the point of Jesus being the Messiah, but I like that here it shows Joseph as a pretty cool guy. Mary is pregnant via the Holy Spirit, and when Jospeh finds out, he decides to call of the marriage quietly instead of going all Much Ado About Nothing on her and slapping her during the wedding and all that.
But then an angel shows up and says "No, it's cool, the baby is God's and He's gonna save the world and all that, so you should still get married and name Him Jesus. You should also start capitalizing His pronouns, so tell the person making the "It's a Boy" banners."
Joseph's faith here is pretty remarkable. Granted and angel appeared to him and told him, so that definitely helps your belief a bit, but it's still impressive. There's been a really long "dead period" religiously here, since the Old Testament canon was finished several hundred years back and the Jews are now occupied by Rome. It's a safe bet that prophecy and miracles were pretty scarce the last couple of centuries, so for Joseph to go along with the miracle virgin pregnancy thing when it looks like a sin that would otherwise result in exile or stoning shows that this guy trusted in God pretty strongly. The baby would have been born anyway, but obviously, since Matthew starts with this story, Joseph being the father made it far easier for the Jews to accept Jesus as the Messiah. Fairly basic lesson here: Do what God says.
Friday, January 13, 2012
I Know Things Now
(Alternate title: Snake snake snake snake snake...)
[Genesis 3: 1-6]
Anyone read on Youversion? Their NKJV translation prints the first verse twice.
Anyway.
It's interesting that the first attempt at temptation here is "So, I heard God doesn't let you eat down here," to which Eve replies "Oh no, we can eat. Just not that one in the middle. That one kills us."
It sounds like he's trying to paint God as a bad guy right off the bat. Running into someone (Or...somesnake...) who is suspicious or antagonistic towards someone you respect is jarring. I imagine's Eve response has her thinking "Why would you accuse God of something like that?"
Satan's next attack of "Nah man, He's just trying to keep you down! He knows that once you eat that, you'll be like Him and He won't be able to be up in your business anymore! Fight the power!" is a classic play on everyone's weak point: ego. Forget that their life has been absolutely perfect: living naked with the sexiest person alive, eating perfect food, getting to study animals without fear of being mauled by them, with your only responsibilities being to learn about all this stuff and have a lot of sex, obviously the God who put you in this situation is out to get you.
Oddly enough, the only lie that Satan told was that the tree did not ensure death (It did, just not immediately.) He laid out exactly the reason God did not want them to eat the fruit: doing so would open their eyes to the world of good and evil, and they get to be like God in the awareness that not everyone is good and that there are parts of our nature that just plain suck. But the temptation of having some extra power, of being in charge, was enough for both of them to cave and disobey.
[Genesis 3:7-10]
As soon as they ate the fruit, they realized they were naked and shame came upon them. Since they declared that they want there to be a line between good and evil in their world, then their shame receptors had to turn on. They broke the one rule God set down for them, so God opened their hearts to all the other rules He had. So when God comes walking in, their shame receptors reveal to them the one main thing God was trying to hide from them: that they don't deserve God.
When the only rule was that they shouldn't eat this one fruit, they were oblivious to how unworthy any creature is of being in the presence of Almighty God. They had no trouble just walking up to Him and going "Hey God, why did you make those naked cats? They're creepy." But now that they had chosen to disobey, they got a sense of just how screwed up they actually were. They weren't really even created perfect, they were just created in a system where they were oblivious to their imperfection. But making this choice broke down the blinders, and they got exactly what they wanted.
[Genesis 3:11-13]
God: So who's responsible for this?
Adam: Eve gave it to me.
Eve: Satan made me do it.
Satan: trollolololol pwnd
So God calls them out on it, and mankind begins its first excursion into one of its greatest pastimes: blaming anyone but themselves for their problems. Their shame made them realize "Wow, I'm a putz," but their new found pride stopped them from admitting it. How lovely.
[Genesis 3:14-20]
God says "Fine, you want a world where you're aware of right and wrong? Then you get a world closer to the one you deserve." Flowers used to just be pretty, now they have thorns and random bushes that are just sitting there have sharp things too. Taking care of the plants used to be just talking to them and untangling vines, now you have to rotate crops and fight off bugs and have the government pay you to kill it all with milk. Your relationship was great, now you're going to bicker and argue. Having a baby was going to be like pulling out a splinter, now you have to break yourself in half. And now you have to die. So have fun with that.
[Genesis 3:21-24]
But then God shows a bit of mercy and makes them some clothes. He knows they now have to cover up their shame, but He provides the way for them to do it properly. He does this because this is not the end of what He created, it is just the beginning of the ultimate plan. He knows that there is no satisfactory plan for man that does not include them being pig-headed enough to screw up this bad. So He lets them screw it up, lets them see their shame, and then covers it for them. He let us screw up and then sacrificed an animal to make them a covering, because He wants to establish the pattern of us being aware of how foolish we are, and needing a gift from God to cover it up. This entire episode, which Satan thought was a victory for him, was exactly the first step God needed to establish the system that would eventually lead to our salvation through Jesus. He let us fall from a world where we were not aware of our sin and covered up that sin so that later we could fall the from the law and, through Jesus, enter a world where we are aware of our sins but they are paid for.
[Genesis 3: 1-6]
Anyone read on Youversion? Their NKJV translation prints the first verse twice.
Anyway.
It's interesting that the first attempt at temptation here is "So, I heard God doesn't let you eat down here," to which Eve replies "Oh no, we can eat. Just not that one in the middle. That one kills us."
It sounds like he's trying to paint God as a bad guy right off the bat. Running into someone (Or...somesnake...) who is suspicious or antagonistic towards someone you respect is jarring. I imagine's Eve response has her thinking "Why would you accuse God of something like that?"
Satan's next attack of "Nah man, He's just trying to keep you down! He knows that once you eat that, you'll be like Him and He won't be able to be up in your business anymore! Fight the power!" is a classic play on everyone's weak point: ego. Forget that their life has been absolutely perfect: living naked with the sexiest person alive, eating perfect food, getting to study animals without fear of being mauled by them, with your only responsibilities being to learn about all this stuff and have a lot of sex, obviously the God who put you in this situation is out to get you.
Oddly enough, the only lie that Satan told was that the tree did not ensure death (It did, just not immediately.) He laid out exactly the reason God did not want them to eat the fruit: doing so would open their eyes to the world of good and evil, and they get to be like God in the awareness that not everyone is good and that there are parts of our nature that just plain suck. But the temptation of having some extra power, of being in charge, was enough for both of them to cave and disobey.
[Genesis 3:7-10]
As soon as they ate the fruit, they realized they were naked and shame came upon them. Since they declared that they want there to be a line between good and evil in their world, then their shame receptors had to turn on. They broke the one rule God set down for them, so God opened their hearts to all the other rules He had. So when God comes walking in, their shame receptors reveal to them the one main thing God was trying to hide from them: that they don't deserve God.
When the only rule was that they shouldn't eat this one fruit, they were oblivious to how unworthy any creature is of being in the presence of Almighty God. They had no trouble just walking up to Him and going "Hey God, why did you make those naked cats? They're creepy." But now that they had chosen to disobey, they got a sense of just how screwed up they actually were. They weren't really even created perfect, they were just created in a system where they were oblivious to their imperfection. But making this choice broke down the blinders, and they got exactly what they wanted.
[Genesis 3:11-13]
God: So who's responsible for this?
Adam: Eve gave it to me.
Eve: Satan made me do it.
Satan: trollolololol pwnd
So God calls them out on it, and mankind begins its first excursion into one of its greatest pastimes: blaming anyone but themselves for their problems. Their shame made them realize "Wow, I'm a putz," but their new found pride stopped them from admitting it. How lovely.
[Genesis 3:14-20]
God says "Fine, you want a world where you're aware of right and wrong? Then you get a world closer to the one you deserve." Flowers used to just be pretty, now they have thorns and random bushes that are just sitting there have sharp things too. Taking care of the plants used to be just talking to them and untangling vines, now you have to rotate crops and fight off bugs and have the government pay you to kill it all with milk. Your relationship was great, now you're going to bicker and argue. Having a baby was going to be like pulling out a splinter, now you have to break yourself in half. And now you have to die. So have fun with that.
[Genesis 3:21-24]
But then God shows a bit of mercy and makes them some clothes. He knows they now have to cover up their shame, but He provides the way for them to do it properly. He does this because this is not the end of what He created, it is just the beginning of the ultimate plan. He knows that there is no satisfactory plan for man that does not include them being pig-headed enough to screw up this bad. So He lets them screw it up, lets them see their shame, and then covers it for them. He let us screw up and then sacrificed an animal to make them a covering, because He wants to establish the pattern of us being aware of how foolish we are, and needing a gift from God to cover it up. This entire episode, which Satan thought was a victory for him, was exactly the first step God needed to establish the system that would eventually lead to our salvation through Jesus. He let us fall from a world where we were not aware of our sin and covered up that sin so that later we could fall the from the law and, through Jesus, enter a world where we are aware of our sins but they are paid for.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Bachelor pad
[2:18-20]
So things were going well in the garden, but God was starting to notice that Adam wasn't taking the trash out, wasn't showering, and had a pile of dishes in the sink that was starting to smell so bad he was just eating off napkins he kept on the living room table. God then realized that maybe a world of just men is not a great idea.
So God thinks "Well, maybe one of the other things I created can help him out," and has Adam take a look at each one and give them a name while he's at it. None of them worked, so God made a new plan.
There's a growing group of people who think it's not really necessary to go to church. They're not satisfied with the way most churches run the show, so they stay home and do their own Bible reading and thinking deep theological thoughts about what utterly fantastic people they are and how great church would be if they ran it even though they're not really going to start a church. The justification from this comes from their satisfaction with their own relationship with God and that their bitter, ranting blog posts get comments so they're kinda getting fellowship.
To think that you're okay without regular fellowship with other believers is to ignore this fact: when the world was nothing but one guy, God, and animals, God considered Adam alone. This is at a time when God was coming to Earth and literally walking around and talking with Adam, and He still said Adam was alone. So no matter how good your "quiet time" is, and how much you love your dog/cat/human centipede/parakeet, if you are not getting regular fellowship with other believers, you are alone, and it is not good.
[2:21-25]
Adam wakes to find Eve, and says "ooh...yeah...she wins" and is really grateful he didn't go with the giraffe.
People often see an excuse for sexism in the Bible declaring woman as "a helper." But, in the Latin Vulgate, the word "helper" used to describe woman is the same "helper" used to describe the Holy Spirit. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the only sin that God won't forgive, so I don't think "helper" is considered a demeaning term here. Woman's entire existence was because God looked at a world without her and went "Wow...okay, wow, this isn't gonna work."
God set out to make man in His image, and wasn't satisfied when there was only one kind. God Himself consists of three Persons, so man alone was not a satisfactory representation of His image. To remedy this, God took a part out of man, and made it into woman. Those two together represent the image of God He intended, because now intimate relationship is part of the nature. They become "one flesh" and one single unit in a way that resembles how God is One being.
Well that finishes off the chapter and the next section doesn't divide up into small chunks quite as easily, so I'm gonna end it here.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
*tree!*
[Genesis 2: 1-3]
And God takes a break. Since I am coming up on the next school year, I am in the process of making myself take fewer breaks, so this is not a terribly urgent passage for me. But, it's worth dwelling on, lest in my attempts to be more productive I end up burning myself out. There really does need to be a day a week where you can just recharge. It doesn't need to be Sunday, and it doesn't even need to be the same day every week, but make sure you've got time to calm down.
[2:4-6]
If taken literally, this is an interesting passage that leads to the Canopy theory in Creationist views, but, like I said, I'm not getting into that.
What is interesting is that God used this mist to take care of things until He made man to take care of it. So it seems that once God made people, He stopped doing the mist thing because it was now man's job to take care of stuff, and if man screwed it up, then it screwed up.
We often ask why God allows certain things to happen. In some cases, it may just be that we have a responsibility that we are not fulfilling. God didn't "protect you" from Diabetes because you eat 3000 calories a day. God isn't providing you work because you're a lazy good-for-nothing who can't be bothered to write a cover letter or format a resume properly. God doesn't bring the mist to take care of stuff when He's told you to take care of it.
[2:7]
Man was created uniquely to everything else. For every other aspect of Creation, God just spoke and they happened. For man, He got His hands dirty. He used the dirt in the ground to form the body, and then breathed life into him. This breath gave man his soul, and created the two-part nature of body and soul that no other creature shares. God let everything else generate algorithmically, but sculpted man by hand.
As I said before, humanity is not a shameful species; it is the highest species on Earth. God breathed a part of His own nature into us and gave us the capacity for true relationships, for love, and for freedom of will.
[2:8-15]
So God planted the Garden of Eden and it's described as a pretty swanky place. It has gold, onyx, and...bdellium (which is apparently a tree resin that smells nice.) It's at this point that God stops the mist and tells Adam that it's his job to take care of this place. The dominion mandate is in effect, and God is sitting back and waiting to see what Adam will discover first. God knows every aspect of every material in this creation and knows what can be done with it. In all of the stuff in the ground, God knows about the potential for things like paper, rope, concrete, enchilladas, and Pokemon cards. God knows there is water on Mars and is giddily awaiting for man to start coming up with rocket propulsion. Like a father who has just built his son a new jungle gym, He just wants to see Adam start figuring everything out.
There's one or two ground rules though.
[2: 16-17]
There's that one tree you need to stay away from. Other than that, go nuts.
There's always discussion over why God even bothered. Why put the one thing they're not supposed to do smack in the middle of the Garden where they can see it? Why not put it on the other side of the world in a cave somewhere if He had to make it all?
There's lots of theories about it, but I hold to two. One is that part of a satisfying relationship is that they are in it voluntarily. If your friends had no choice but to be your friends, the relationship would not be terribly fulfilling.If there's not an out, it's not impressive when people stay in. In order for God to claim that He was in true relationship with humanity, He had to provide them a way to get out of relationship with Him. Even in Heaven He had apparently established the ruleset and natures that allowed Satan to fall, because even the worship of the angels would not satisfy Him if they did not have the choice of packing their bags and heading out.
Secondly, in discussing this concept, we often forget that later the Bible tells us that redemption through Jesus was the plan from the beginning. As God was formulating the plan for this "humanity" project, He knew that the Fall and the Redemption was the best way to go. Any plan that involved giving humanity free will inevitably led to our falling away en masse. Thus the only workable plan was to let that fall happen, and redeem us through Jesus' sacrifice. If God had put the tree in a cave on the other side of the world, we would have found it eventually and then sinned. If it hadn't been a tree, we would have broken whatever rule God did set up because that is the nature of free will. So best to put it where we can see it and get the thing over with so we can do the redemption as fast as possible.
---
I may come back and do more later, but I have to go for now. Good times.
And God takes a break. Since I am coming up on the next school year, I am in the process of making myself take fewer breaks, so this is not a terribly urgent passage for me. But, it's worth dwelling on, lest in my attempts to be more productive I end up burning myself out. There really does need to be a day a week where you can just recharge. It doesn't need to be Sunday, and it doesn't even need to be the same day every week, but make sure you've got time to calm down.
[2:4-6]
If taken literally, this is an interesting passage that leads to the Canopy theory in Creationist views, but, like I said, I'm not getting into that.
What is interesting is that God used this mist to take care of things until He made man to take care of it. So it seems that once God made people, He stopped doing the mist thing because it was now man's job to take care of stuff, and if man screwed it up, then it screwed up.
We often ask why God allows certain things to happen. In some cases, it may just be that we have a responsibility that we are not fulfilling. God didn't "protect you" from Diabetes because you eat 3000 calories a day. God isn't providing you work because you're a lazy good-for-nothing who can't be bothered to write a cover letter or format a resume properly. God doesn't bring the mist to take care of stuff when He's told you to take care of it.
[2:7]
Man was created uniquely to everything else. For every other aspect of Creation, God just spoke and they happened. For man, He got His hands dirty. He used the dirt in the ground to form the body, and then breathed life into him. This breath gave man his soul, and created the two-part nature of body and soul that no other creature shares. God let everything else generate algorithmically, but sculpted man by hand.
As I said before, humanity is not a shameful species; it is the highest species on Earth. God breathed a part of His own nature into us and gave us the capacity for true relationships, for love, and for freedom of will.
[2:8-15]
So God planted the Garden of Eden and it's described as a pretty swanky place. It has gold, onyx, and...bdellium (which is apparently a tree resin that smells nice.) It's at this point that God stops the mist and tells Adam that it's his job to take care of this place. The dominion mandate is in effect, and God is sitting back and waiting to see what Adam will discover first. God knows every aspect of every material in this creation and knows what can be done with it. In all of the stuff in the ground, God knows about the potential for things like paper, rope, concrete, enchilladas, and Pokemon cards. God knows there is water on Mars and is giddily awaiting for man to start coming up with rocket propulsion. Like a father who has just built his son a new jungle gym, He just wants to see Adam start figuring everything out.
There's one or two ground rules though.
[2: 16-17]
There's that one tree you need to stay away from. Other than that, go nuts.
There's always discussion over why God even bothered. Why put the one thing they're not supposed to do smack in the middle of the Garden where they can see it? Why not put it on the other side of the world in a cave somewhere if He had to make it all?
There's lots of theories about it, but I hold to two. One is that part of a satisfying relationship is that they are in it voluntarily. If your friends had no choice but to be your friends, the relationship would not be terribly fulfilling.If there's not an out, it's not impressive when people stay in. In order for God to claim that He was in true relationship with humanity, He had to provide them a way to get out of relationship with Him. Even in Heaven He had apparently established the ruleset and natures that allowed Satan to fall, because even the worship of the angels would not satisfy Him if they did not have the choice of packing their bags and heading out.
Secondly, in discussing this concept, we often forget that later the Bible tells us that redemption through Jesus was the plan from the beginning. As God was formulating the plan for this "humanity" project, He knew that the Fall and the Redemption was the best way to go. Any plan that involved giving humanity free will inevitably led to our falling away en masse. Thus the only workable plan was to let that fall happen, and redeem us through Jesus' sacrifice. If God had put the tree in a cave on the other side of the world, we would have found it eventually and then sinned. If it hadn't been a tree, we would have broken whatever rule God did set up because that is the nature of free will. So best to put it where we can see it and get the thing over with so we can do the redemption as fast as possible.
---
I may come back and do more later, but I have to go for now. Good times.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Dominion, Prosperity, and the Cornucopia
Alright, onto the rest of the chapter.
[Gen 1:2]
I don't plan on going into detailed creation theories, but I always thought this verse was interesting. The Sunday school version of this process starts with nothing, then light, but the actual order of the verses has a formless void heaven and earth as the first steps of creation, then references the Spirit of God hovering over "the waters." This confused me for a long time, because it didn't make sense for there to be waters when the rest of the stuff hadn't happened yet.
Then I read this article about an experiment done with the LHC, and it made a little more sense. (that article wasn't the exact one I read, but I can't find the other one at the moment.) In short, the article states that, immediately after the Big Bang, matter existed as a "quark-gluon plasma" before forming into the matter we know today. Plasma is liquidity, so, in my completely non-science-trained mind, I think this makes sense. God spoke the universe into existence (bang), and it was void and without form (existing in a chaotic plasma form) and God hovered over these "waters" and formed the Universe we know today. Works for me.
[Gen 1:3-25]
And the Creation order we're all familiar with. Light, separation of Heaven from Earth (I guess? Possibly formation of planets? I don't remember what the one-word kid-friendly version was on the chart), separation of water from land, plants, stars (including the sun), fish and birds, then critters. (It's okay, Oxford Comma, you'll always be correct in my style book.)
Not a whole lot to say here I didn't already cover in the last couple of comments.
[Gen 1:26-31]
This passage basically defines my outlook on life. It's the idea that, with our creation, came the command to "subdue [the earth], have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." While the Fall and the subsequent mission to spread the Gospel changed mankind's priorities, it still stands that, when we were created, our job was to master the Earth we were put on.
Now, common sentiment thanks to the slant of movies and cartoons makes that like a horrible, Captain Planet villain mission, but that's a simplistic view. To have dominion over the Earth means to find every possible way to make it work for our benefit and our enjoyment. This means to study the way everything works and learn how to care for it and manipulate it in the way that is best for us. As man was first encountering fruit, eating the fruit was the first way we had dominion over the creation. As we learned to plant it and create more of it, that was also dominion. When we learned that not watering the plants kills them and that not planting more means we'll eventually not have any, that was a step towards dominion. When we learned we could combine them with other foods, that was dominion. When we learned to make cobblers out of them, that was delicious dominion.
But it's not just in the plant and sciencey way; anything we learn about and make work for us is part of this dominion mandate. When we learned rubber was bouncy and we could use it to play sports that were fun, we were having dominion over the creation. When we learned we could use silicon and electricity to carry a current and store information, we were having dominion. When we create music, poetry, and funny internet videos, we're having dominion over speech, sound, and words.
The call to have dominion over the earth is a call to get an education, to master a skill, and to contribute to the world around you. Some pervert this mandate as an excuse to destroy entire ecosystems so we can have fun for a little while, but dominion includes taking care of the creation. Even more disgusting, though, is this popular perception that humans are evil and anything we do to the world is horrible. Go to any kid's talking animal cartoon and the "scariest" part of the movie is when the humans show up (dun dun dunnn). We have it pounded into our heads our entire lives that humans are evil, any footprint we leave on our environment is an abomination, and that our attempts to improve our quality of life are shameful. When the Bible tells us that mankind was given the highest honor of all Creation: to be a human is the greatest honor God gave any creation. We were put here to take care of this creation; our destruction would be catastrophic, not good for the planet.
So go to school. Pick your favorite aspect of this world and choose to dominate it. Learn everything you can about it, and make it work for you and for us as a whole. And be proud of whatever you achieve in this pursuit and whatever success you may gain from it, because it is your duty as a human being, the only part of Creation God considered important enough to die for.
[Gen 1:2]
I don't plan on going into detailed creation theories, but I always thought this verse was interesting. The Sunday school version of this process starts with nothing, then light, but the actual order of the verses has a formless void heaven and earth as the first steps of creation, then references the Spirit of God hovering over "the waters." This confused me for a long time, because it didn't make sense for there to be waters when the rest of the stuff hadn't happened yet.
Then I read this article about an experiment done with the LHC, and it made a little more sense. (that article wasn't the exact one I read, but I can't find the other one at the moment.) In short, the article states that, immediately after the Big Bang, matter existed as a "quark-gluon plasma" before forming into the matter we know today. Plasma is liquidity, so, in my completely non-science-trained mind, I think this makes sense. God spoke the universe into existence (bang), and it was void and without form (existing in a chaotic plasma form) and God hovered over these "waters" and formed the Universe we know today. Works for me.
[Gen 1:3-25]
And the Creation order we're all familiar with. Light, separation of Heaven from Earth (I guess? Possibly formation of planets? I don't remember what the one-word kid-friendly version was on the chart), separation of water from land, plants, stars (including the sun), fish and birds, then critters. (It's okay, Oxford Comma, you'll always be correct in my style book.)
Not a whole lot to say here I didn't already cover in the last couple of comments.
[Gen 1:26-31]
This passage basically defines my outlook on life. It's the idea that, with our creation, came the command to "subdue [the earth], have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." While the Fall and the subsequent mission to spread the Gospel changed mankind's priorities, it still stands that, when we were created, our job was to master the Earth we were put on.
Now, common sentiment thanks to the slant of movies and cartoons makes that like a horrible, Captain Planet villain mission, but that's a simplistic view. To have dominion over the Earth means to find every possible way to make it work for our benefit and our enjoyment. This means to study the way everything works and learn how to care for it and manipulate it in the way that is best for us. As man was first encountering fruit, eating the fruit was the first way we had dominion over the creation. As we learned to plant it and create more of it, that was also dominion. When we learned that not watering the plants kills them and that not planting more means we'll eventually not have any, that was a step towards dominion. When we learned we could combine them with other foods, that was dominion. When we learned to make cobblers out of them, that was delicious dominion.
But it's not just in the plant and sciencey way; anything we learn about and make work for us is part of this dominion mandate. When we learned rubber was bouncy and we could use it to play sports that were fun, we were having dominion over the creation. When we learned we could use silicon and electricity to carry a current and store information, we were having dominion. When we create music, poetry, and funny internet videos, we're having dominion over speech, sound, and words.
The call to have dominion over the earth is a call to get an education, to master a skill, and to contribute to the world around you. Some pervert this mandate as an excuse to destroy entire ecosystems so we can have fun for a little while, but dominion includes taking care of the creation. Even more disgusting, though, is this popular perception that humans are evil and anything we do to the world is horrible. Go to any kid's talking animal cartoon and the "scariest" part of the movie is when the humans show up (dun dun dunnn). We have it pounded into our heads our entire lives that humans are evil, any footprint we leave on our environment is an abomination, and that our attempts to improve our quality of life are shameful. When the Bible tells us that mankind was given the highest honor of all Creation: to be a human is the greatest honor God gave any creation. We were put here to take care of this creation; our destruction would be catastrophic, not good for the planet.
So go to school. Pick your favorite aspect of this world and choose to dominate it. Learn everything you can about it, and make it work for you and for us as a whole. And be proud of whatever you achieve in this pursuit and whatever success you may gain from it, because it is your duty as a human being, the only part of Creation God considered important enough to die for.
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