[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.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
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.
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