We’re looking at Genesis 2b, and I’ll go ahead and define that for you as verses 15 through 25. God just finished preparing the garden of Eden and puts Adam in it. (This is a more detailed account of the sixth day of creation, by the way. Adam has been created, but Eve has not yet.) For some reason, this makes me think of dragging Adam over like in the Sims or something. God figures Adam might be getting lonely. I’ve never heard this passage focused in on, so it’s understandable if you think this is right where Eve comes in. After all, “it is not good for man to be alone” is like the slogan verse for marriage, right? Well, not yet.
The first thing God does after saying that is create the animals and place them in Eden as well. God brings them before Adam so he can name them all. (What a job!) Look close at verse 20 here. Out of the NASB, “the man gave names to all the cattle, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.” So God knows Adam needs companionship. The first thing He gives to Adam is all the animals, but that’s not the kind of company Adam needs. More creatures then you can probably imagine, and none of them filled Adam’s need. Then only after all of that is when God creates Eve. Adam calls her “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh”.
So that’s cool, right? Adam’s got a wife so perfect, it’s as if they were made for each other. And yes, that’s exactly what they were. You may hear this brought up in the context of marriage, and that’s fine and good, but I see an image that goes beyond that. I see a snapshot of relationships in general and how God intended them. If Adam was supposed to be superior or the ‘master’, any animal would do. He could have got an old dog and sat on the proverbial porch. This isn’t what God created us for though. The only companion that will suffice was another human being, an equal. Another rational, intelligent person with a will of her own. Sadly, that’s not how men (or some women for that matter) treat their significant other, is it? Men and women are different, despite whatever modern political correctness might try to stuff down your throat, but even in our difference, we were created equal. Of course, God has a lot more to say on that subject, but I felt this was worth mentioning since it’s the first picture of relationships, right as the first two humans are made.
That’s all for today. As always, please comment if you have thoughts. Then again, if you don’t have thoughts, you might want to see help about that. Also, the take-home question for today is: A did Adam and Eve have belly buttons and B what difference could it possibly make to us today? Stay tuned for when I share a little of my takeaway from the retreat. (Not involving belly buttons.)
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Well with my soul, not with my body
Well, I was too sick to attend church today, so I'm taking a little my and God time to get a little further in my projects. Relatedly, I believe it's high time for some coverage of Genesis 2. Also, I've added a subtitle to my blog that I think describes it fairly well. I'm just one guy wandering through the Bible. I've had no formal training outside of many years of sunday school, and I don't think I really need to. So these are my thoughts, and you can take them or leave them. Commenting on either the blog or the Facebook mirror is encouraged. I don't mind disagreement as long as you can do everyone the favor of remaining civil. But enough blather.
So Genesis 2. One theme you see a lot here is something I forgot to mention in Genesis 1. I stated that God talking means we listen. Or at least we should. We all know that doesn't always happen. But then in the Bible, you'll see repetition. In a perfect world, or at least with perfect people, that wouldn't be necessary, but God knows it is. It's like He is pointing out "you should be taking in all this stuff, but this part you really need to get". In chapter 1, you see it with "and God saw it was good" which I already addressed, not once but seven times by my count. That just reinforces how perfect He created everything.
The repetition in chapter 2 is less blunt. Read the first three verses slowly. (This will be in my verse of the weekish for a while.) See it? The trend continues through the chapter, but look at verse 3b real quick: "in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made". Does that sound redundant to you? It should. We just read that God made everything, so what's up with that? Just think about all the theories out there today from gap theory to theistic evolution. God isn't giving a whole lot of room for misinterpretation here. This is God's work that He created and made. Not this is some stuff that God found floating around and decided to look after. Not this is some stuff God set into motion with itty bitty bacteria and then sat back to see what would happen. This is God's work that HE created and made. He is responsible for every last atom of creation, and we should treat it as such.
The implications of that are enormous in scope, but we've got a whole Bible to go over how. I'm going to wrap up this post now, but I'm not even quite finished with Genesis 2. I want to give the second half a post of its own, so I will do that some time in the future.
JP out
So Genesis 2. One theme you see a lot here is something I forgot to mention in Genesis 1. I stated that God talking means we listen. Or at least we should. We all know that doesn't always happen. But then in the Bible, you'll see repetition. In a perfect world, or at least with perfect people, that wouldn't be necessary, but God knows it is. It's like He is pointing out "you should be taking in all this stuff, but this part you really need to get". In chapter 1, you see it with "and God saw it was good" which I already addressed, not once but seven times by my count. That just reinforces how perfect He created everything.
The repetition in chapter 2 is less blunt. Read the first three verses slowly. (This will be in my verse of the weekish for a while.) See it? The trend continues through the chapter, but look at verse 3b real quick: "in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made". Does that sound redundant to you? It should. We just read that God made everything, so what's up with that? Just think about all the theories out there today from gap theory to theistic evolution. God isn't giving a whole lot of room for misinterpretation here. This is God's work that He created and made. Not this is some stuff that God found floating around and decided to look after. Not this is some stuff God set into motion with itty bitty bacteria and then sat back to see what would happen. This is God's work that HE created and made. He is responsible for every last atom of creation, and we should treat it as such.
The implications of that are enormous in scope, but we've got a whole Bible to go over how. I'm going to wrap up this post now, but I'm not even quite finished with Genesis 2. I want to give the second half a post of its own, so I will do that some time in the future.
JP out
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Do Not Adjust Your Monitor, We Are In Control
If all goes smoothly, I have magically linked my blog into my Facebook notes. Did I mention I have a blog? Tis true, and now I can do double duty with it. There's a couple posts on it before this, so if you want to check it out, there's probably a link somewhere attached to the note, but I'll pop a URL right down here for your convenience:
http://daytodaycrisisoffaith.blogspot.com/
There's not a lot of interest, just ramblings of me that some may have already seen, in more or less the default appearance. If you're into the whole RSS scene, you'll be able to grab that there. If you don't know what an RSS is, don't worry about it. If you are reading this looking for another of my quiz notes, don't sweat it. Those will most likely return in the coming school year. They'll be regular notes since I don't really want them to leak into my blog. Because! I think I finally have a direction for my blogging. I have a couple projects which I would like to keep track of via this. Wrapped in secrecy, I'm only going to fully reveal it/them when I get far enough that I trust myself to follow through, but the part I am beginning on tonight is something I've wanted to do with the blog for a while. I'm a bit of a pack rat when in comes to church bulletins, and in looking through my collection, I've got the feeling that I have a few cents worth to share on a lot of them. So what I'll be doing periodically (not guaranteeing regularity though) is talk about the topics and incorporate my own thoughts. I think I may even put together my own thoughts about random Bible passages without old sermon inspiration. If this idea doesn't interest you, tough cookies. You've been warned, and if you don't want to read, by no means do so. But if you do, I welcome it and your (civil) comments.
Segue out of intro to my first of hopefully several if not many Bible Blurbs. (If you have a better name, I'm open to it. I don't want to call them sermons or lessons, so that's the best I could do.) The topic today is Genesis 1, please turn with me to it now. Generally speaking, I'm not going to copy down more than a verse or two. I encourage use of your own copy of the Bible. If you do not have one, I suggest A) getting one, B) using biblegateway.com, an excellent website (with a sorta clunky search engine) and/or C) talking to me. If you don't have the means, I will find a way to get a copy of the Bible into your hands if you have a need. But yes, Genesis 1.
I was looking through it the other day myself, and these are my thoughts. A lot of people know the first chunk or so, and even more know the gist. God makes things, calls 'em good, makes some more things and yay, we've got creation. It's an easy chapter to skim. After all, we know this part already, right? Well, I don't think so. Not only is all scripture useful for all manner of things (2nd Timothy 3:16), but think about it for a second. The Bible is God's word, and when God speaks, we ought to listen. Not listen to just the rules or the happy parts or the proverbs, listen to every single word of it. So that's what I did, and I hit something kinda neat.
You may be familiar with it: after every day, God sees that it (being the day's creation) was good. One the one hand, of course it's good. God just made everything, even still got that new creation smell, of course it's good. But think on "good" for a moment. These days, the word is pretty bland. We mean it the same way we mean "decent", "ok" and a lot of times "good enough". Is that what brand new creation was like? Good enough? Not likely. When God sees that it is good, He doesn't mean fine or ok. This is the God so holy that a single sin cannot enter His presence, the God so perfect that our earthly bodies would not survive the sight of Him. When God says it's good, you'd do well to believe it was good. Perfect, awesome, faultless, that kind of good. Not "I did a pretty good job on this paper, I should get a passing grade" good, not "we'll call it good" good, this is God good.
Doesn't stop there though. We'll go on to see what happens to this beautifully good creation, but I'm not going that far tonight. I will highlight that it's a grand set-up, planned by the Writer Himself. The two things I personally take out of these thoughts are firstly that, for God's part, the world would be pretty awesome if there wasn't all that sin out there mucking things up. The other is, if we can look at the stars and flowers, rainbows and sunsets and still see the beauty and wonder, how much better were things when He made them? It's a cool thought to imagine a fraction of the glory we'll have to look forward to in Heaven, isn't it? I certainly think so.
That conludes the re-inaugural post of this, my blog. Follow along with me if you dare. I'm going more public because I want to hear from all y'alls, so don't let me down. For now, this is JP over and out.
http://daytodaycrisisoffaith.blogspot.com/
There's not a lot of interest, just ramblings of me that some may have already seen, in more or less the default appearance. If you're into the whole RSS scene, you'll be able to grab that there. If you don't know what an RSS is, don't worry about it. If you are reading this looking for another of my quiz notes, don't sweat it. Those will most likely return in the coming school year. They'll be regular notes since I don't really want them to leak into my blog. Because! I think I finally have a direction for my blogging. I have a couple projects which I would like to keep track of via this. Wrapped in secrecy, I'm only going to fully reveal it/them when I get far enough that I trust myself to follow through, but the part I am beginning on tonight is something I've wanted to do with the blog for a while. I'm a bit of a pack rat when in comes to church bulletins, and in looking through my collection, I've got the feeling that I have a few cents worth to share on a lot of them. So what I'll be doing periodically (not guaranteeing regularity though) is talk about the topics and incorporate my own thoughts. I think I may even put together my own thoughts about random Bible passages without old sermon inspiration. If this idea doesn't interest you, tough cookies. You've been warned, and if you don't want to read, by no means do so. But if you do, I welcome it and your (civil) comments.
Segue out of intro to my first of hopefully several if not many Bible Blurbs. (If you have a better name, I'm open to it. I don't want to call them sermons or lessons, so that's the best I could do.) The topic today is Genesis 1, please turn with me to it now. Generally speaking, I'm not going to copy down more than a verse or two. I encourage use of your own copy of the Bible. If you do not have one, I suggest A) getting one, B) using biblegateway.com, an excellent website (with a sorta clunky search engine) and/or C) talking to me. If you don't have the means, I will find a way to get a copy of the Bible into your hands if you have a need. But yes, Genesis 1.
I was looking through it the other day myself, and these are my thoughts. A lot of people know the first chunk or so, and even more know the gist. God makes things, calls 'em good, makes some more things and yay, we've got creation. It's an easy chapter to skim. After all, we know this part already, right? Well, I don't think so. Not only is all scripture useful for all manner of things (2nd Timothy 3:16), but think about it for a second. The Bible is God's word, and when God speaks, we ought to listen. Not listen to just the rules or the happy parts or the proverbs, listen to every single word of it. So that's what I did, and I hit something kinda neat.
You may be familiar with it: after every day, God sees that it (being the day's creation) was good. One the one hand, of course it's good. God just made everything, even still got that new creation smell, of course it's good. But think on "good" for a moment. These days, the word is pretty bland. We mean it the same way we mean "decent", "ok" and a lot of times "good enough". Is that what brand new creation was like? Good enough? Not likely. When God sees that it is good, He doesn't mean fine or ok. This is the God so holy that a single sin cannot enter His presence, the God so perfect that our earthly bodies would not survive the sight of Him. When God says it's good, you'd do well to believe it was good. Perfect, awesome, faultless, that kind of good. Not "I did a pretty good job on this paper, I should get a passing grade" good, not "we'll call it good" good, this is God good.
Doesn't stop there though. We'll go on to see what happens to this beautifully good creation, but I'm not going that far tonight. I will highlight that it's a grand set-up, planned by the Writer Himself. The two things I personally take out of these thoughts are firstly that, for God's part, the world would be pretty awesome if there wasn't all that sin out there mucking things up. The other is, if we can look at the stars and flowers, rainbows and sunsets and still see the beauty and wonder, how much better were things when He made them? It's a cool thought to imagine a fraction of the glory we'll have to look forward to in Heaven, isn't it? I certainly think so.
That conludes the re-inaugural post of this, my blog. Follow along with me if you dare. I'm going more public because I want to hear from all y'alls, so don't let me down. For now, this is JP over and out.
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