Nimrod’s demand for central power and central worship squashes global cooperation. The precedent he sets creates a consequence for all future generations. What should have lead to cooperative commerce, through work, cooperative worship through gifts brought from the nations, and family reunions involving all of mankind became confusion and disorganization. This was a judgment not a blessing. It would lead to war, famine and pestilence, because men could not cooperate with each other. Where there is the highest degree of cooperation among men there is the highest degree of success and longevity among that people group. Peter Turchin discusses the development of empires such as Babel throughout human history in his work War & Peace & War, The life cycles of imperial nations. He builds his premise on the idea of cooperative living along meta-ethnic frontiers lead to the development of empires. His work is built around the philosophy of Ibn Khaldun, a 13th century Islamic thinker who spent most of his adult working life in Cairo, Eygpt. Turchin presents Khaldun concept of Asabiya, or collective solidarity. Asabiya certainly would have been present among those gathered in rebellion against God in Babble.
“Asabiya of a group is the ability of its members to stick together, to cooperate; it allows a group to protect itself against the enemies and to impose its will on others. A group with high asabiya will generally win when pitched against a group of lesser asabiya.” Moreover, “royal authority and general dynastic power are attained only through a group and asbiya. This is because aggressive and defensive strength is obtained only through…mutual affection and willingness to fight and die for each other.” In other words, a state can be organized only around a core group with high asabiya. By acting in a solidary fashion, the members of the core group impose their collective will on other constituents of the state and thus prevent the state from falling a part.”
The Lord himself has to intervene with the people of Babble to break their high asabiya. “But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." Genesis 11:6-7. One of the ingredients of developing asabiya is an, us verses them mentality. Nimrod would have promoted this initially through his hunting exploits, but it would have grown in its rebellion against the Noahide principles set forth by God and then in rebellion toward God himself and the setting up of a false religious system. It is clear from the scriptures that the idea Nimrod and his cohorts were interested in fame, glory and power, and rejecting God’s word for them and therefore their redemptive purpose. “They said to each other, ‘Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth. Genesis 11: 3—4.
False Worship in Babble
Dr. Henry Morris believes that the tower that Nimrod built was to worship to Satan, he states;
“Almost certainly his purpose was to build a great “high place” which could be used as a shrine dedicated to worshipful communication with the angelic host of Satan the army of demonic spirits.”
He further states.
“It is highly probable that all these characteristics of pagan religion were instigated and instituted at the Tower of Babble by Nimrod consulting with Satan. They began with the reinterpretation of the heavenly signs which had been intended to preserve the divine revelatory promise of Eden, changing them into the great deception of astrology, a system allegedly able to guide human beings in their personal lives here on Earth.”
I think that is equally probable that false religions survived the flood with the sons of Noah as they were to be initiated by Nimrod. The important fact is that they were present then and survive today. They are idolatry. Idolatry role as a hindrance to the development of redemptive gifts will be discussed in detail when we consider the life of Abraham. The important of discussing Nimrod’s form of worship is only important to us as a hindrance to the development of redemptive gifts. If indeed Nimrod was in partnership with Satan it was for the promotion of his own personal power at the expense of other men’s redemptive gifts. The best evidence of his usurpation of other men’s gifts is the silence of Noah throughout this period of history.
The men of Babble built a great city and a great empire with the purpose of rebelling against God. We should not extrapolate from this that cities and empires in and of themselves are sinful. This certainly is not the message that comes forth from the scriptures. The Lord can be worship in the city, just as he can on the deep, in the mountains and on the plains. Melchizedek was the king of Salem, a city. Jesus will dwell in New Jerusalem a heavenly city. God granted Israel specific land inheritances and cities in which they could worship and honor him within the context of an empire. Nimrod becomes the type of leader who fights against God instead of cooperating with him. He ultimately was the destroyer of redemptive gifts for the men and women he lead. History does produce great leaders that honor God and those that promote the redemptive gifts of their people. Several of China’s dynasties did, the Roman republic, Great Britain, and the United States of America, are examples that come to mind. Charlemagne and Russia under Peter the Great are others. The durability of a city or empire is directly proportional to their cooperation with God’s plan for that people group. The implementation of work, worship, family structure, and justice determine the people group’s success.
Robert C. Linthicum has written a tremendous book on God’s attitude toward the city. He begins the work by showing two Biblical types, Jerusalem as the city of light, and Babylon as a city of Satan. The author is clear in pointing out that both these “types” are within each city. Jerusalem is certainly a city that has sinned. Jesus said, in Matthew 23:37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing”. Babylon was also a place God wanted to bless. When speaking of Babylon the prophet Jeremiah said, Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. Jeremiah 29:7. Interestingly, Linthicum does not project the redemptive value he sees in cities upon empires
“There are always the empires. There are always the principalities and powers, whether alive in Egypt or Assyria, in Babylonia or Greece, in Rome or in Israel itself the “empire” is everywhere, oppressing individuals and families and tribes and nations in any way it can, politically or economically or spiritually. The empire is the very personification of evil, the abode of principalities and powers.”
Linthicum fails to draw his premise to its logical conclusion. If Jesus is the mayor of Jerusalem, and the King of Israel, and the King of Kings, he is the leader of an empire. Linthicum quotes Ezekiel 48:35, “And the name of the city form that time on will be. The Lord is There” His commentary on this passage is as follows.
“God’s intention for the city is that the Lord will be there. Like the Jerusalem in Ezekiel’s vision, this can be our hope for our city. The Lord will so permeate the life and activities and even the spiritual essence of that city that its very name will proclaim that God is found inside that city’s walls. Here simply stated is God’s intention for the city.”
Romans 2:11, “For there is no respect of persons with God,” there is also no favoritism, of place with God. God wants to be everywhere fully manifesting his presence and blessing people where he has placed them. When we follow his constructs we prosper and grow in his favor. This is true for every geographic location, each generation and all genealogical backgrounds.
Peter Turchin, War & Peace & War, the life cycles of imperial nations, (PI Press) 2006 pg 6
Peter Turchin, War & Peace & War, the life cycles of imperial nations, (PI Press) 2006 pg 89, 90
Peter Turchin, War & Peace & War, the life cycles of imperial nations, (PI Press) 2006 pg 91
Peter Turchin, War & Peace & War, the life cycles of imperial nations, (PI Press) 2006 pg 5
Henry M. Morris, God of the Nations, (Master Books, 2002) pg 38
Henry M. Morris, God of the Nations, (Master Books, 2002) pg 42
Robert C. Linthicum, City of God, City of Satan a biblical theology of the Urban Church, (Zondervan Publishing House), 1991, pg 24-25
Robert C. Linthicum, City of God, City of Satan a biblical theology of the Urban Church, (Zondervan Publishing House), 1991, pg 83
Robert C. Linthicum, City of God, City of Satan a biblical theology of the Urban Church, (Zondervan Publishing House), 1991, pg 80
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Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Nimrod and John Smith and Pocahontas Mighty Hunters on the Earth
God leads men to the places that where they go, in the time in which they are sent and to the races and people groups to whom they are assigned. Babel is important for a number of reasons. It represents the first post flood city. Urban environments are places that God sends many people, and in our generation most people. Babel also represents the first great empire. If God has people living in the context of cities and empires then each has a redemptive purpose. It is also the place where the task of hunting is added to man’s redemptive task. There are sociological and psychological implications to this task both in the person of Nimrod and in the individuals and people groups that follow him. Early America will again provide us a pallet of comparisons for understanding the psyche of the hunter found in Nimrod and his generation. Hunters had a redemptive task in his generation as they did in early America.
The physical transition from pre flood to post flood Earth cannot be overstated. The relationship between man and nature was the greatest of these transitions. A world in which man and beast cohabitated in an environment completely based on vegetarianism is now filled with the appetites for flesh and blood. Men would have hunted and been hunted by the great beast of the world. Hyper-vigilance would have been a normative aspect of life and nature. Let’s look to the book of Job to get an understanding of the types of beast that Nimrod would and encountered. The passage is long but I believe worth including in it entirety. It captures the kind environment that Nimrod would have attained stature and recognition and why the scriptures would say of him, “Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.” Genesis 10: 8-9.
Matthew Henry said of Nimrod.
Nimrod was a great hunter; with this he began, and for this became famous to a proverb. Every great hunter is, in remembrance of him, called a Nimrod. 1. Some think he did good with his hunting, served his country by ridding it of the wild beasts which infested it, and so insinuated himself into the affections of his neighbors, and got to be their prince. Those that exercise authority either are, or at least would be called, benefactors, Lu. 22:25. 2. Others think that under pretence of hunting he gathered men under his command, in pursuit of another game he had to play, which was to make himself master of the country and to bring them into subjection.
It is certain that Nimrod had as his purpose ruler ship of other men, however the below scripture describes what he would have hunted! Commentators have called what is described a hippopotamus, or elephant. Could it describe two other beast possibly a dinosaur, behemoth, or the secondarily a dragon or leviathan because of its ability to breath out fire?
What Nimrod Hunted
"Look at the behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox. What strength he has in his loins, what power in the muscles of his belly! His tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are close-knit. His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like rods of iron. He ranks first among the works of God, yet his Maker can approach him with his sword. The hills bring him their produce, and all the wild animals play nearby. Under the lotus plants he lies, hidden among the reeds in the marsh. The lotuses conceal him in their shadow; the poplars by the stream surround him. When the river rages, he is not alarmed; he is secure, though the Jordan should surge against his mouth. Can anyone capture him by the eyes, or trap him and pierce his nose?
"Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he keep begging you for mercy? Will he speak to you with gentle words? Will he make an agreement with you for you to take him as your slave for life? Can you make a pet of him like a bird or put him on a leash for your girls? Will traders barter for him? Will they divide him up among the merchants? Can you fill his hide with harpoons or his head with fishing spears? If you lay a hand on him, you will remember the struggle and never do it again! Any hope of subduing him is false; the mere sight of him is overpowering. No one is fierce enough to rouse him. Who then is able to stand against me? Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me. "I will not fail to speak of his limbs, his strength and his graceful form. Who can strip off his outer coat? Who would approach him with a bridle? Who dares open the doors of his mouth, ringed about with his fearsome teeth? His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together; each is so close to the next that no air can pass between. They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted. His snorting throws out flashes of light; his eyes are like the rays of dawn. Firebrands stream from his mouth; sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke pours from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds. His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from his mouth. Strength resides in his neck; dismay goes before him. The folds of his flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable. His chest is hard as rock, hard as a lower millstone. When he rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before his thrashing. The sword that reaches him has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin. Iron he treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood. Arrows do not make him flee; slingstones are like chaff to him. A club seems to him but a piece of straw; he laughs at the rattling of the lance. His undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge. He makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment. Behind him he leaves a glistening wake; one would think the deep had white hair. Nothing on earth is his equal a creature without fear. He looks down on all that are haughty; he is king over all that are proud.” Job 40:15 – Job 41:34
The Missing Witness
There is a great gap between verses 7 & 8 in Hebrews chapter 11; verse 7 speaks of Noah verse 8 speaks of Abraham. A verse in between could have read. Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord he subdued the great beast and built mighty cities for God’s glory. It does not read that way because Nimrod did not use his God given redemptive gift for the glory of God. He was a mighty hunter because that was his redemptive gift. “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not” 1 Corinthians 4:7 What made Nimrod “different” was what he had received, and what he had received he received from the Lord. Proverbs 20:29 states, “the glory of young men is their strength.” Nimrod would have rightly attracted glory and honor to his strength, this is also redemptive. Proverbs 22:4, “Humility and the fear of the LORD bring wealth and honor and life. God has no problem with honor or glory being given to men. He just does not want his honor and glory usurped. That is what Nimrod and his followers did.
John Smith and Pocahontas: Redemptive Gift of Mighty Hunter in Cultural Partnership
It was possible for Nimrod to be a great hunter and to be Godly. Christian men did both in early America. Consider the testimony of 16th Century John Smith.
“Smith had to function in a situation where traditional European values, which emphasized the privileges of aristocracy, were unworkable. First, the settlers were physically removed from English political and social influences. Second, the talents needed to survive in the New World were in opposition to the complacent aristocratic assumptions about labor. What the colonial setting required was self-reliance and common sense, qualities Smith possessed. These traits were fore-grounded by the necessities of wilderness living and would eventually make the hunter figure the ideal representation of that experience. In the wilderness, physical self-reliance and independence also fostered mental self-reliance and independence. Smith developed confidence as a result of his abilities, which in turn endowed him with a form of power unknown to commoners under the European power structure. He was especially critical of the cowardly acts by those who considered themselves his betters.”
In Smith own writing he delineates between native peoples who were Christians and those who were not. His partnership with Christian Natives indicates the ability to embrace native people’s gifts with those of European men as equally valuable and necessary and redemptive. Describing himself in the third person he writes.
“Smith prevailed, and in the spring of 1607 he went in quest of the sources of the Chickahominy River. When he was prevented from sailing farther upstream by overhanging foliage, he led a small party to explore the interior of the province. He and his men, who included two Christian Indians, encountered and battled a large group of three hundred Indians, led by Opechancanough, brother of Powhatan and King of the Pamunkey.”
Nimrod had the same opportunity as Smith did to worship God in sprit and in truth. The distinction between the two is a matter of their hearts, not their gift mixes. Nimrod also had the opportunity to magnify God by promoting diversity instead of squashing diversity. Robert Tilton makes this observation of the relationship between John Smith and Pocahontas.
“John Smith and Pocahontas represent an ideal amalgamation of European and Native American. Even though this ideal was never realized, the connection between Smith and Pocahontas has remained fixed in the American imagination over the centuries. Robert Tilton argues convincingly that the rescue story is the basis for the appeal of these figures that it acts as a creation myth for America. The pair incorporates traits from European and Indian cultures essential to the hunter hero who comes to symbolize American independence.”
Difficult task confront every generation. Few people globally hunt for food at this time in history. However each of us is confronted with how our gifts are going to be used to the glory of God. Will we use those God given talents for the glory of God and the betterment of man? The worlds of Nimrod, John Smith and Pocahontas are past. However diversity is as relevant and issue today as in any generation. The English language is universal in a way that no other language has been since Babble. The missionary implications for this fact are more than I can include in this blog. However I will state these humble blogs have been read in more than 15 countries, from Europe to Malaysia, literally ever populated continent of the world, and probably in English. The implications of transference of sin also pervade the world through the English language. Our own glory of the glory of God this is the choice of every generation.
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0227-population.html
http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=4&contentID=637&commInfo=5&topic=Genesis
http://www.questia.com/read/109254867 Images of the Hunter in American Life and Literature. Contributors: Lynda Wolfe Coupe - author. Publisher: Peter Lang. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: 11.
http://www.questia.com/read/109254867 Images of the Hunter in American Life and Literature. Contributors: Lynda Wolfe Coupe - author. Publisher: Peter Lang. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: 12
http://www.questia.com/read/109254867 Images of the Hunter in American Life and Literature. Contributors: Lynda Wolfe Coupe - author. Publisher: Peter Lang. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: *
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FtSUPAM-uA
The physical transition from pre flood to post flood Earth cannot be overstated. The relationship between man and nature was the greatest of these transitions. A world in which man and beast cohabitated in an environment completely based on vegetarianism is now filled with the appetites for flesh and blood. Men would have hunted and been hunted by the great beast of the world. Hyper-vigilance would have been a normative aspect of life and nature. Let’s look to the book of Job to get an understanding of the types of beast that Nimrod would and encountered. The passage is long but I believe worth including in it entirety. It captures the kind environment that Nimrod would have attained stature and recognition and why the scriptures would say of him, “Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.” Genesis 10: 8-9.
Matthew Henry said of Nimrod.
Nimrod was a great hunter; with this he began, and for this became famous to a proverb. Every great hunter is, in remembrance of him, called a Nimrod. 1. Some think he did good with his hunting, served his country by ridding it of the wild beasts which infested it, and so insinuated himself into the affections of his neighbors, and got to be their prince. Those that exercise authority either are, or at least would be called, benefactors, Lu. 22:25. 2. Others think that under pretence of hunting he gathered men under his command, in pursuit of another game he had to play, which was to make himself master of the country and to bring them into subjection.
It is certain that Nimrod had as his purpose ruler ship of other men, however the below scripture describes what he would have hunted! Commentators have called what is described a hippopotamus, or elephant. Could it describe two other beast possibly a dinosaur, behemoth, or the secondarily a dragon or leviathan because of its ability to breath out fire?
What Nimrod Hunted
"Look at the behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox. What strength he has in his loins, what power in the muscles of his belly! His tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are close-knit. His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like rods of iron. He ranks first among the works of God, yet his Maker can approach him with his sword. The hills bring him their produce, and all the wild animals play nearby. Under the lotus plants he lies, hidden among the reeds in the marsh. The lotuses conceal him in their shadow; the poplars by the stream surround him. When the river rages, he is not alarmed; he is secure, though the Jordan should surge against his mouth. Can anyone capture him by the eyes, or trap him and pierce his nose?
"Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he keep begging you for mercy? Will he speak to you with gentle words? Will he make an agreement with you for you to take him as your slave for life? Can you make a pet of him like a bird or put him on a leash for your girls? Will traders barter for him? Will they divide him up among the merchants? Can you fill his hide with harpoons or his head with fishing spears? If you lay a hand on him, you will remember the struggle and never do it again! Any hope of subduing him is false; the mere sight of him is overpowering. No one is fierce enough to rouse him. Who then is able to stand against me? Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me. "I will not fail to speak of his limbs, his strength and his graceful form. Who can strip off his outer coat? Who would approach him with a bridle? Who dares open the doors of his mouth, ringed about with his fearsome teeth? His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together; each is so close to the next that no air can pass between. They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted. His snorting throws out flashes of light; his eyes are like the rays of dawn. Firebrands stream from his mouth; sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke pours from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds. His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from his mouth. Strength resides in his neck; dismay goes before him. The folds of his flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable. His chest is hard as rock, hard as a lower millstone. When he rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before his thrashing. The sword that reaches him has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin. Iron he treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood. Arrows do not make him flee; slingstones are like chaff to him. A club seems to him but a piece of straw; he laughs at the rattling of the lance. His undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge. He makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment. Behind him he leaves a glistening wake; one would think the deep had white hair. Nothing on earth is his equal a creature without fear. He looks down on all that are haughty; he is king over all that are proud.” Job 40:15 – Job 41:34
The Missing Witness
There is a great gap between verses 7 & 8 in Hebrews chapter 11; verse 7 speaks of Noah verse 8 speaks of Abraham. A verse in between could have read. Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord he subdued the great beast and built mighty cities for God’s glory. It does not read that way because Nimrod did not use his God given redemptive gift for the glory of God. He was a mighty hunter because that was his redemptive gift. “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not” 1 Corinthians 4:7 What made Nimrod “different” was what he had received, and what he had received he received from the Lord. Proverbs 20:29 states, “the glory of young men is their strength.” Nimrod would have rightly attracted glory and honor to his strength, this is also redemptive. Proverbs 22:4, “Humility and the fear of the LORD bring wealth and honor and life. God has no problem with honor or glory being given to men. He just does not want his honor and glory usurped. That is what Nimrod and his followers did.
John Smith and Pocahontas: Redemptive Gift of Mighty Hunter in Cultural Partnership
It was possible for Nimrod to be a great hunter and to be Godly. Christian men did both in early America. Consider the testimony of 16th Century John Smith.
“Smith had to function in a situation where traditional European values, which emphasized the privileges of aristocracy, were unworkable. First, the settlers were physically removed from English political and social influences. Second, the talents needed to survive in the New World were in opposition to the complacent aristocratic assumptions about labor. What the colonial setting required was self-reliance and common sense, qualities Smith possessed. These traits were fore-grounded by the necessities of wilderness living and would eventually make the hunter figure the ideal representation of that experience. In the wilderness, physical self-reliance and independence also fostered mental self-reliance and independence. Smith developed confidence as a result of his abilities, which in turn endowed him with a form of power unknown to commoners under the European power structure. He was especially critical of the cowardly acts by those who considered themselves his betters.”
In Smith own writing he delineates between native peoples who were Christians and those who were not. His partnership with Christian Natives indicates the ability to embrace native people’s gifts with those of European men as equally valuable and necessary and redemptive. Describing himself in the third person he writes.
“Smith prevailed, and in the spring of 1607 he went in quest of the sources of the Chickahominy River. When he was prevented from sailing farther upstream by overhanging foliage, he led a small party to explore the interior of the province. He and his men, who included two Christian Indians, encountered and battled a large group of three hundred Indians, led by Opechancanough, brother of Powhatan and King of the Pamunkey.”
Nimrod had the same opportunity as Smith did to worship God in sprit and in truth. The distinction between the two is a matter of their hearts, not their gift mixes. Nimrod also had the opportunity to magnify God by promoting diversity instead of squashing diversity. Robert Tilton makes this observation of the relationship between John Smith and Pocahontas.
“John Smith and Pocahontas represent an ideal amalgamation of European and Native American. Even though this ideal was never realized, the connection between Smith and Pocahontas has remained fixed in the American imagination over the centuries. Robert Tilton argues convincingly that the rescue story is the basis for the appeal of these figures that it acts as a creation myth for America. The pair incorporates traits from European and Indian cultures essential to the hunter hero who comes to symbolize American independence.”
Difficult task confront every generation. Few people globally hunt for food at this time in history. However each of us is confronted with how our gifts are going to be used to the glory of God. Will we use those God given talents for the glory of God and the betterment of man? The worlds of Nimrod, John Smith and Pocahontas are past. However diversity is as relevant and issue today as in any generation. The English language is universal in a way that no other language has been since Babble. The missionary implications for this fact are more than I can include in this blog. However I will state these humble blogs have been read in more than 15 countries, from Europe to Malaysia, literally ever populated continent of the world, and probably in English. The implications of transference of sin also pervade the world through the English language. Our own glory of the glory of God this is the choice of every generation.
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0227-population.html
http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=4&contentID=637&commInfo=5&topic=Genesis
http://www.questia.com/read/109254867 Images of the Hunter in American Life and Literature. Contributors: Lynda Wolfe Coupe - author. Publisher: Peter Lang. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: 11.
http://www.questia.com/read/109254867 Images of the Hunter in American Life and Literature. Contributors: Lynda Wolfe Coupe - author. Publisher: Peter Lang. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: 12
http://www.questia.com/read/109254867 Images of the Hunter in American Life and Literature. Contributors: Lynda Wolfe Coupe - author. Publisher: Peter Lang. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: *
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FtSUPAM-uA
Monday, June 27, 2011
Noah, Churchill and You: Prophetic Voices to a Generation
“Son of man, when a land sins against Me by persistent unfaithfulness, I will stretch out My hand against it; I will cut off its supply of bread, send famine on it, and cut off man and beast from it. Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver only themselves by their righteousness,” says the Lord GOD. Ezekiel 14: 13-15
Noah is on a very short list of righteous men that God says could save themselves through righteousness. These three men are the best Biblical examples of men walking out their redemptive gifts and their generation. Noah and Job both were limited to the subjective voice of God, the voice of nature, and their on consciences. Daniel maintained a righteous life in a kingdom that was the antithesis of a righteous kingdom. He prospered and grew in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord. He had a sense of the supernatural and interpreted dreams; dreams given by God to an unbelieving King that prophesied the future history of mankind.
In other words, Nebuchadnezzar, dream was redemptive. It was a message from God to a man and to a people that did not know him. That same God placed Daniel in Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom so he and his people would know the true God. The redemptive gift of the dream and the dream interpretation both were being used by God to draw two kingdoms to him-self. This same truth is reflected in the life of Joseph. Joseph was placed in Egypt because God wanted to demonstrate his kindness to the Egyptians.
I want to demonstrate through these blogs that that patterns we see with Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh are normative and not exceptions. I will try to demonstrate that God has given men dreams, and visions of missionaries coming in many parts to the Earth. Additionally many of the philosophies and religious thinkers in various parts of the world have also provided means to dialog about the nature of God and His redemptive purpose for man. Paul’s quoting of Greek philosophers in Acts 17 is an obvious example of this pattern. “As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring’.” Acts 17:28 God never is arbitrary or unjust when he brings judgment on individuals or people groups. He always provides ample opportunity for repentance. This was certainly true of Noah’s generation.
“No shrub of the field had yet appeared on the Earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the Earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.” Genesis 2: 5-6
Many believe that it had never rained prior to the flood. If this is true then building and Arc for a coming flood is truly a task requiring faith. It was redemptive in its nature. It communicated for more than a century “repent” “change your mind” change the way you are doing things and follow God.” “But they would not” Matthew 23:37 If more people mean more ideas then certainly more years should have meant more wisdom but the pre flood generation never found their redemptive purpose and were destroyed for their lack of knowledge. Noah had the solution to their problem. They refused to recognize the fact that they had a problem. Violent communities have difficulties breaking the patterns that are causing their destruction.
Contemporary Parallels to Violent Patterns Seen in the Days of Noah
Two studies from the US Department of Justice confirm that patterns of violence stem from the absence to two parent homes and peer groups that engage in violence.
“The authors conclude that racial disparities in violence are . . . largely social in nature and therefore amenable to change. They suggest that policies such as housing vouchers to help poor families move to more stable neighborhoods and other neighborhood improvements are perhaps the most effective options for reducing longstanding racial disparities in violence. The authors also emphasize that families matter, too, as evidenced by the lower risk for children living with married parents.”
“Perhaps the greatest challenge for intervention is to target youthful co-offenders in a way that reduces the likelihood that they will develop attitudes that promote crime. The study’s findings imply that lessons of violence are learned “on the street,” where knowledge is passed along through impromptu social contexts, including those in which offenders commit crimes together.”
As in the days of Noah does not simply have a context for normative behaviors as in marrying and giving in marriage it also has a negative one in which social constructs reinforce violence. This can lead to the judgment of God and eradication of generations of men, and the loss of their redemptive purpose in God’s plan on Earth. All this was avoidable if the men of that generation listened to the message of Noah. His message was the same as other prophets of the Old Testament and men and women of God today. “O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8. As Noah had solutions for his generation there are redemptive solutions for the world today. God is always in the process of providing Noah’s to help each generation through their problems such as violent behavioral. The question is will we be concerned? Will we seek the justice and mercy our generation needs?
The World Wars and Prophetic Voices
To further illustrate this point consider of the warnings Winston Churchill made about Nazi Germany prior to the expansion of the Third Reich just prior to WWII. The following is taken from a 1934 speech.
“There is a nation which has abandoned all its liberties in order to augment its collective strength. There is a nation which, with all its strength and virtue, is in the grip of a group of ruthless men, preaching a gospel of intolerance and racial pride, unrestrained by law, by parliament, or by public opinion. In that country all pacifist speeches, all morbid war books are forbidden or suppressed, and their authors rigorously imprisoned. From their new table of commandments they have omitted "thou shall not kill."
It is but twenty years since these neighbors of ours fought almost the whole world, and almost defeated them. Now they are rearming with the utmost speed, and ready to their hands is the new lamentable weapon of the air, against which our navy is -no defense, and before which women and children, the weak and frail, the pacifist and the jingo, the warrior and the civilian, the front line trenches and the cottage home, all lie in equal and impartial peril.”
Winston Churchill was a Noah in his generation. A man who understood his redemptive gift, a man who knew he was in an indispensible place, at a time set by God. Therefore when he was called to speak, he spoke. His words were rejected as were Noah’s the consequences were that sixty million (60,000,000) souls lost their lives. The progeny of 60,000,000 million souls is nearly impossible to consider. The loss of that life might have been completely avoided if policies of justice, mercy, and forgiveness were extended to the persons of Germany after World War I. Policies similar to those instituted after World War II like the Marshall Plan.
George Marshall stated in a speech at Harvard University on June 5, 1947.
“It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.”
What Marshall was recognizing was the value of each human being and their role in collective production or collective destruction. He recognized that desperate individuals who cannot exercise the redemptive task of work, or provide for their families, will create chaos and prevent the development of successful communities. Consider the sin of Sodom in this regard, documented in book of Ezekiel. “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” Ezekiel 16:49. Hitler filled the vacuum of the German people’s need for work and food and purpose. It was a diabolical perversion of the redemptive gift of the people who gave the world Martin Luther, and hundreds of other contributors to the knowledge and art of the world.
Like Noah, Churchill, and Marshall we have a prophetic voice to a generation. We are called to speak the wisdom of God as we understand it, and as he reveals it in the scriptures and the small still voice that speaks to us in prayer. Will we speak to issues of urban decay, sexual immorality, and injustice as we recognize it? Ezekiel chapter 3: 18-20 tell us that God holds us accountable to warning those who have strayed from the truth or who are ignorant about the truth. “When I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the wicked person and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their evil ways, they will die for their sin; but you will have saved yourself.
“Again, when a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before them, they will die. Since you did not warn them, they will die for their sin. The righteous things that person did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the righteous person not to sin and they do not sin, they will surely live because they took warning, and you will have saved yourself.”
Wickedness can be collective as well as personal. Let us be voices of righteousness in our generation. Let us build arcs of safety with words of righteousness. If our generation perishes because of its wickedness may it not be because we were silent.
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ218.html
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/crime/gun-violence/youths-gangs-guns/why-carry.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/210360.htm
http://www.rightwingnews.com/speeches/churchgermany.php
http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question57189.html
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmarshallP.htm
http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Europe/Germany-FAMOUS-GERMANS.html
Noah is on a very short list of righteous men that God says could save themselves through righteousness. These three men are the best Biblical examples of men walking out their redemptive gifts and their generation. Noah and Job both were limited to the subjective voice of God, the voice of nature, and their on consciences. Daniel maintained a righteous life in a kingdom that was the antithesis of a righteous kingdom. He prospered and grew in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord. He had a sense of the supernatural and interpreted dreams; dreams given by God to an unbelieving King that prophesied the future history of mankind.
In other words, Nebuchadnezzar, dream was redemptive. It was a message from God to a man and to a people that did not know him. That same God placed Daniel in Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom so he and his people would know the true God. The redemptive gift of the dream and the dream interpretation both were being used by God to draw two kingdoms to him-self. This same truth is reflected in the life of Joseph. Joseph was placed in Egypt because God wanted to demonstrate his kindness to the Egyptians.
I want to demonstrate through these blogs that that patterns we see with Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh are normative and not exceptions. I will try to demonstrate that God has given men dreams, and visions of missionaries coming in many parts to the Earth. Additionally many of the philosophies and religious thinkers in various parts of the world have also provided means to dialog about the nature of God and His redemptive purpose for man. Paul’s quoting of Greek philosophers in Acts 17 is an obvious example of this pattern. “As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring’.” Acts 17:28 God never is arbitrary or unjust when he brings judgment on individuals or people groups. He always provides ample opportunity for repentance. This was certainly true of Noah’s generation.
“No shrub of the field had yet appeared on the Earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the Earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.” Genesis 2: 5-6
Many believe that it had never rained prior to the flood. If this is true then building and Arc for a coming flood is truly a task requiring faith. It was redemptive in its nature. It communicated for more than a century “repent” “change your mind” change the way you are doing things and follow God.” “But they would not” Matthew 23:37 If more people mean more ideas then certainly more years should have meant more wisdom but the pre flood generation never found their redemptive purpose and were destroyed for their lack of knowledge. Noah had the solution to their problem. They refused to recognize the fact that they had a problem. Violent communities have difficulties breaking the patterns that are causing their destruction.
Contemporary Parallels to Violent Patterns Seen in the Days of Noah
Two studies from the US Department of Justice confirm that patterns of violence stem from the absence to two parent homes and peer groups that engage in violence.
“The authors conclude that racial disparities in violence are . . . largely social in nature and therefore amenable to change. They suggest that policies such as housing vouchers to help poor families move to more stable neighborhoods and other neighborhood improvements are perhaps the most effective options for reducing longstanding racial disparities in violence. The authors also emphasize that families matter, too, as evidenced by the lower risk for children living with married parents.”
“Perhaps the greatest challenge for intervention is to target youthful co-offenders in a way that reduces the likelihood that they will develop attitudes that promote crime. The study’s findings imply that lessons of violence are learned “on the street,” where knowledge is passed along through impromptu social contexts, including those in which offenders commit crimes together.”
As in the days of Noah does not simply have a context for normative behaviors as in marrying and giving in marriage it also has a negative one in which social constructs reinforce violence. This can lead to the judgment of God and eradication of generations of men, and the loss of their redemptive purpose in God’s plan on Earth. All this was avoidable if the men of that generation listened to the message of Noah. His message was the same as other prophets of the Old Testament and men and women of God today. “O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8. As Noah had solutions for his generation there are redemptive solutions for the world today. God is always in the process of providing Noah’s to help each generation through their problems such as violent behavioral. The question is will we be concerned? Will we seek the justice and mercy our generation needs?
The World Wars and Prophetic Voices
To further illustrate this point consider of the warnings Winston Churchill made about Nazi Germany prior to the expansion of the Third Reich just prior to WWII. The following is taken from a 1934 speech.
“There is a nation which has abandoned all its liberties in order to augment its collective strength. There is a nation which, with all its strength and virtue, is in the grip of a group of ruthless men, preaching a gospel of intolerance and racial pride, unrestrained by law, by parliament, or by public opinion. In that country all pacifist speeches, all morbid war books are forbidden or suppressed, and their authors rigorously imprisoned. From their new table of commandments they have omitted "thou shall not kill."
It is but twenty years since these neighbors of ours fought almost the whole world, and almost defeated them. Now they are rearming with the utmost speed, and ready to their hands is the new lamentable weapon of the air, against which our navy is -no defense, and before which women and children, the weak and frail, the pacifist and the jingo, the warrior and the civilian, the front line trenches and the cottage home, all lie in equal and impartial peril.”
Winston Churchill was a Noah in his generation. A man who understood his redemptive gift, a man who knew he was in an indispensible place, at a time set by God. Therefore when he was called to speak, he spoke. His words were rejected as were Noah’s the consequences were that sixty million (60,000,000) souls lost their lives. The progeny of 60,000,000 million souls is nearly impossible to consider. The loss of that life might have been completely avoided if policies of justice, mercy, and forgiveness were extended to the persons of Germany after World War I. Policies similar to those instituted after World War II like the Marshall Plan.
George Marshall stated in a speech at Harvard University on June 5, 1947.
“It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.”
What Marshall was recognizing was the value of each human being and their role in collective production or collective destruction. He recognized that desperate individuals who cannot exercise the redemptive task of work, or provide for their families, will create chaos and prevent the development of successful communities. Consider the sin of Sodom in this regard, documented in book of Ezekiel. “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” Ezekiel 16:49. Hitler filled the vacuum of the German people’s need for work and food and purpose. It was a diabolical perversion of the redemptive gift of the people who gave the world Martin Luther, and hundreds of other contributors to the knowledge and art of the world.
Like Noah, Churchill, and Marshall we have a prophetic voice to a generation. We are called to speak the wisdom of God as we understand it, and as he reveals it in the scriptures and the small still voice that speaks to us in prayer. Will we speak to issues of urban decay, sexual immorality, and injustice as we recognize it? Ezekiel chapter 3: 18-20 tell us that God holds us accountable to warning those who have strayed from the truth or who are ignorant about the truth. “When I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the wicked person and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their evil ways, they will die for their sin; but you will have saved yourself.
“Again, when a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before them, they will die. Since you did not warn them, they will die for their sin. The righteous things that person did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the righteous person not to sin and they do not sin, they will surely live because they took warning, and you will have saved yourself.”
Wickedness can be collective as well as personal. Let us be voices of righteousness in our generation. Let us build arcs of safety with words of righteousness. If our generation perishes because of its wickedness may it not be because we were silent.
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ218.html
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/crime/gun-violence/youths-gangs-guns/why-carry.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/210360.htm
http://www.rightwingnews.com/speeches/churchgermany.php
http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question57189.html
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmarshallP.htm
http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Europe/Germany-FAMOUS-GERMANS.html
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Free to Worship Free to Create
“Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
“Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."
Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Genesis 4: 2-8
“ Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch. Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. His brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play the harp and flute. Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of [g] bronze and iron.” Genesis 4: 17 19- 22
Abel’s Worship
Westminster Larger Catechism: States, “What is the chief and highest end of man? It answers the question in this manner. Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever!
The above scriptures tell us the very familiar story of Cain’s murder of his brother Able. Abel was a worshiper. “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.” Hebrews 11:4. There are a couple of distinctions between Able and Cain’s offering that I want to point out. Abel brought the fat portions and the first born of his flock. Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil. Some have taught that Cain’s offering was not acceptable because it was not a blood sacrifice but many grain offerings have been found acceptable throughout the scriptures. (Number 5:15 and Ezekiel 45:15) are but two examples among many.
The Murder of Redemptive Generations
Let’s explore this thought from the vantage point of the scriptures I have listed and from the subjects of worship and creativity. If the Lord rejected Cain’s grain offering it would not be in keeping with the honoring of Cain’s Redemptive gift. “Cain worked the soil”. Genesis 4:2, What made Cain’s offering unacceptable is that is was given from a heart of compulsion and not a heart of Love. He gave some. Matthew 6:21 says, “for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Cain’s heart was not directed to God. He let shame cover him instead of the grace of God, he grew angry and killed his righteous brother. We will never know what the line of Abel would have produced. What worshipers, what creators. In the Koran, Sura 5:32 it has this quote.
“Because of this, we decreed for the Children of Israel that anyone who murders any person who had not committed murder or horrendous crimes, it shall be as if he murdered all the people. And anyone who spares a life, it shall be as f he spared the lives of all the people.”
I quote this passage because it captures the thought well. If you murder a man you murder a nation. This has great significance to our topic as I discuss lost opportunities to see God’s redemptive purposed accomplished through various people groups.
Cain’s Worship
What is more interesting to me about the quoted Biblical passages above is what became of Cain and his family. They became the first city builders, the first metal workers, and the first musicians. When you see men growing in creativity they are growing in a God given attribute. Can that gift be used for perversion? Clearly, but that was not their purpose, and that is the point. God gave long life and creativity to the early generations of humanity in the scriptures so that they could, “reach out and find him, though he was not far from anyone of them.” Acts 17:27 They could have found him in every aspect of their creativity. Their long lives would have allowed them to perfect each craft that they started to a level that are incomprehensible to our generation. How many things and to what degree can you perfect a task in an 800 year life. The fact that they used that time to grow in violence toward each other makes the sin greater and hence the punishment more severe. They misused their redemptive gifts within their generation, their geography and their respective genealogies.
This is conjecture but could Able and his seed been the stabilizing influence on the Earth through those generations that would have stayed the judgment of God? Abraham and Mosses are both examples of men who interceded for wicked kingdoms and generations. We will never know.
A Lost Generation
“Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, "God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him." Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time men began to call on the name of the LORD.”Genesis 4:25-26
Genesis chapter four provides us an important genealogy in this regard. The fact that pre flood men are listed says God values them. He mentions those who took life, including Cain and Lamech and contrastingly those who called upon His name in particular. This theme of taking life it is important within the Genesis context.
“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Genesis 6:5 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.” Genesis 6:11-12.
Opportunity Provided By Long Life
The per-flood Earth was distinctive. The lack of fear in the animal kingdom has was present. The length of men’s lives is another distinction. It is safe to infer that animal’s lives would have been long as well. The natural order communicated the goodness of God in an even more profound manner than it does today. These issues are important to our topic because the purpose that God had for men during that time was to fill the Earth. There was a communal aspect that should have been reflected in the conscience of men. There was a creative aspect that was reflected in the natural order. The Earth probably had one working language and most likely tribal languages. Commentators are divided on this issue. Matthew Henry allows for language development prior to the flood in his commentary on the whole bible.
If there were any different languages before the flood, yet Noah's only, which it is likely was the same with Adam's, was preserved through the flood, and continued after it.
We certainly see language development in the post flood period in Genesis 10: 4, 20, 31 the development of tribal languages. Chapter 11, begins with, “Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.” Genesis11:1. This point is vitally important to our understanding of God’s purposes for man even prior to the flood. God initiated both diversity and uniformity, as men abused uniformity they were left with diversity. The reason for this is that God values diversity more than uniformity.
Cain and Able were very different men, with differing ways of making a living. They had no social influences other than their parents. Each of their ways of being was to be celebrated. Cain’s jealously led to murder because he refused to believe in a God who said. If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? Many are downcast today; depressed is our modern word for this, because they have not done right. They have not exercised the freedom to be themselves. In Cain’s case a farmer, and they have not valued diversity, Able was a shepherd. If we will value our distinctions we can mutually worship God. The sins of the church historically have been the murder of those who worship differently. Thankfully we no longer murder each other over differing forms of worship within the Christian church. Let us move beyond tolerance to celebration of diversity and creativity. If Cain and his family can move from sin to creativity certainly this generation of believers can as well.
http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/documents/larger1.htmlhttp:/
http://wingless.aoriginality.com/?p=16
http://mhcw.biblecommenter.com/genesis/11.htm
“Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."
Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Genesis 4: 2-8
“ Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch. Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. His brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play the harp and flute. Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of [g] bronze and iron.” Genesis 4: 17 19- 22
Abel’s Worship
Westminster Larger Catechism: States, “What is the chief and highest end of man? It answers the question in this manner. Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever!
The above scriptures tell us the very familiar story of Cain’s murder of his brother Able. Abel was a worshiper. “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.” Hebrews 11:4. There are a couple of distinctions between Able and Cain’s offering that I want to point out. Abel brought the fat portions and the first born of his flock. Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil. Some have taught that Cain’s offering was not acceptable because it was not a blood sacrifice but many grain offerings have been found acceptable throughout the scriptures. (Number 5:15 and Ezekiel 45:15) are but two examples among many.
The Murder of Redemptive Generations
Let’s explore this thought from the vantage point of the scriptures I have listed and from the subjects of worship and creativity. If the Lord rejected Cain’s grain offering it would not be in keeping with the honoring of Cain’s Redemptive gift. “Cain worked the soil”. Genesis 4:2, What made Cain’s offering unacceptable is that is was given from a heart of compulsion and not a heart of Love. He gave some. Matthew 6:21 says, “for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Cain’s heart was not directed to God. He let shame cover him instead of the grace of God, he grew angry and killed his righteous brother. We will never know what the line of Abel would have produced. What worshipers, what creators. In the Koran, Sura 5:32 it has this quote.
“Because of this, we decreed for the Children of Israel that anyone who murders any person who had not committed murder or horrendous crimes, it shall be as if he murdered all the people. And anyone who spares a life, it shall be as f he spared the lives of all the people.”
I quote this passage because it captures the thought well. If you murder a man you murder a nation. This has great significance to our topic as I discuss lost opportunities to see God’s redemptive purposed accomplished through various people groups.
Cain’s Worship
What is more interesting to me about the quoted Biblical passages above is what became of Cain and his family. They became the first city builders, the first metal workers, and the first musicians. When you see men growing in creativity they are growing in a God given attribute. Can that gift be used for perversion? Clearly, but that was not their purpose, and that is the point. God gave long life and creativity to the early generations of humanity in the scriptures so that they could, “reach out and find him, though he was not far from anyone of them.” Acts 17:27 They could have found him in every aspect of their creativity. Their long lives would have allowed them to perfect each craft that they started to a level that are incomprehensible to our generation. How many things and to what degree can you perfect a task in an 800 year life. The fact that they used that time to grow in violence toward each other makes the sin greater and hence the punishment more severe. They misused their redemptive gifts within their generation, their geography and their respective genealogies.
This is conjecture but could Able and his seed been the stabilizing influence on the Earth through those generations that would have stayed the judgment of God? Abraham and Mosses are both examples of men who interceded for wicked kingdoms and generations. We will never know.
A Lost Generation
“Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, "God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him." Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time men began to call on the name of the LORD.”Genesis 4:25-26
Genesis chapter four provides us an important genealogy in this regard. The fact that pre flood men are listed says God values them. He mentions those who took life, including Cain and Lamech and contrastingly those who called upon His name in particular. This theme of taking life it is important within the Genesis context.
“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Genesis 6:5 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.” Genesis 6:11-12.
Opportunity Provided By Long Life
The per-flood Earth was distinctive. The lack of fear in the animal kingdom has was present. The length of men’s lives is another distinction. It is safe to infer that animal’s lives would have been long as well. The natural order communicated the goodness of God in an even more profound manner than it does today. These issues are important to our topic because the purpose that God had for men during that time was to fill the Earth. There was a communal aspect that should have been reflected in the conscience of men. There was a creative aspect that was reflected in the natural order. The Earth probably had one working language and most likely tribal languages. Commentators are divided on this issue. Matthew Henry allows for language development prior to the flood in his commentary on the whole bible.
If there were any different languages before the flood, yet Noah's only, which it is likely was the same with Adam's, was preserved through the flood, and continued after it.
We certainly see language development in the post flood period in Genesis 10: 4, 20, 31 the development of tribal languages. Chapter 11, begins with, “Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.” Genesis11:1. This point is vitally important to our understanding of God’s purposes for man even prior to the flood. God initiated both diversity and uniformity, as men abused uniformity they were left with diversity. The reason for this is that God values diversity more than uniformity.
Cain and Able were very different men, with differing ways of making a living. They had no social influences other than their parents. Each of their ways of being was to be celebrated. Cain’s jealously led to murder because he refused to believe in a God who said. If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? Many are downcast today; depressed is our modern word for this, because they have not done right. They have not exercised the freedom to be themselves. In Cain’s case a farmer, and they have not valued diversity, Able was a shepherd. If we will value our distinctions we can mutually worship God. The sins of the church historically have been the murder of those who worship differently. Thankfully we no longer murder each other over differing forms of worship within the Christian church. Let us move beyond tolerance to celebration of diversity and creativity. If Cain and his family can move from sin to creativity certainly this generation of believers can as well.
http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/documents/larger1.htmlhttp:/
http://wingless.aoriginality.com/?p=16
http://mhcw.biblecommenter.com/genesis/11.htm
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
The Sabbath; A Lesson in Continuity
Six days a week we wrestle with the world wringing profit from the Earth. On the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. .. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, the seventh day we dominate self. Abraham Joshua Heschel
In each of these blogs on the first days of creation I have tried to give the reader a life lesson that can positively affect their lives. The importance of this effort and the responsibility associated with it is most important when discussing the seventh day. I have pondered this one the longest and feel somewhat inadequate in covering the topic. It should be easy but it is filled with pot holes. Not because God has made it complicated but because men jump to extremes when it comes to this topic. The following is copied and pasted from the Seventh Day Baptist statement of belief page.
We believe that the Sabbath of the Bible, the seventh day of the week, is sacred time, a gift of God to all people, instituted at creation, affirmed in the Ten Commandments and reaffirmed in the teaching and example of Jesus and the apostles.
We believe that the gift of Sabbath rest is an experience of God's eternal presence with His people.
We believe that in obedience to God and in loving response to His grace in Christ, the Sabbath should be faithfully observed as a day of rest, worship, and celebration. Genesis 2:2-3; Exodus 16:23-30; Exodus 20:8-11; Matthew 5:17-19; Mark 2:27-28; Luke 4:16; Acts 13:14, 42-44; 16:11-13; 17:2-3; 18:4-11; Ezekiel 20:19-20; Hebrews 4:9-10; John 14:15; Isaiah 58:13-14; Luke 23:56.
The Statement is simple enough but then the controversy begins that I am trying to avoid. I am not alone in this avoidance of conflict. Paul exercised it as well. Colossians 2:16 written by him states, ‘Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day’. He also writes in Romans 14:5, ‘One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind’.
In each one of these ‘day’ blogs I have tried to demonstrate the lesson being taught by the Lord. Abraham Heschal teaches this best. However I want to add my two cents even if I have to borrow a penny from Abraham. The lesson that is taught to man through the Sabbath is the lesson of continuity. Jesus calls himself the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He says that he himself is the Lord of the Sabbath. In other words he is above time. He is the same yesterday today and forever, time does not change his nature. When we celebrate the Sabbath (however defined) we are communicating a trust in God over time. We are trust him not only to complete his work but that we can trust him that our work is complete as well. He who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it until the end. This is not just a statement about task completion, but a statement about how God rules over eternity, time and the task he has called us to. He has placed us within a generation. Distinct and separate and subject to judgment collectively for the work it did in time. Matthew 11:15-17 read “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: ‘We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.” Jesus is describing a generation in time not fulfilling its call because it did not discern the hour of its visitation. Each generation has a ‘hour of visitation’ each is part of the continuous story of God’s grace demonstrated in history and in time. The Sabbath is a constant, it is an anchor, reminding us, that not only does he hold the whole world in his hand, but that we can face tomorrow because the Lord of the Sabbath lives.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24476815/ABRAHAM-JOSHUA-HESCHEL-The-Sabbath
http://www.seventhdaybaptist.org/content/believes-history/statement-belief
In each of these blogs on the first days of creation I have tried to give the reader a life lesson that can positively affect their lives. The importance of this effort and the responsibility associated with it is most important when discussing the seventh day. I have pondered this one the longest and feel somewhat inadequate in covering the topic. It should be easy but it is filled with pot holes. Not because God has made it complicated but because men jump to extremes when it comes to this topic. The following is copied and pasted from the Seventh Day Baptist statement of belief page.
We believe that the Sabbath of the Bible, the seventh day of the week, is sacred time, a gift of God to all people, instituted at creation, affirmed in the Ten Commandments and reaffirmed in the teaching and example of Jesus and the apostles.
We believe that the gift of Sabbath rest is an experience of God's eternal presence with His people.
We believe that in obedience to God and in loving response to His grace in Christ, the Sabbath should be faithfully observed as a day of rest, worship, and celebration. Genesis 2:2-3; Exodus 16:23-30; Exodus 20:8-11; Matthew 5:17-19; Mark 2:27-28; Luke 4:16; Acts 13:14, 42-44; 16:11-13; 17:2-3; 18:4-11; Ezekiel 20:19-20; Hebrews 4:9-10; John 14:15; Isaiah 58:13-14; Luke 23:56.
The Statement is simple enough but then the controversy begins that I am trying to avoid. I am not alone in this avoidance of conflict. Paul exercised it as well. Colossians 2:16 written by him states, ‘Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day’. He also writes in Romans 14:5, ‘One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind’.
In each one of these ‘day’ blogs I have tried to demonstrate the lesson being taught by the Lord. Abraham Heschal teaches this best. However I want to add my two cents even if I have to borrow a penny from Abraham. The lesson that is taught to man through the Sabbath is the lesson of continuity. Jesus calls himself the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He says that he himself is the Lord of the Sabbath. In other words he is above time. He is the same yesterday today and forever, time does not change his nature. When we celebrate the Sabbath (however defined) we are communicating a trust in God over time. We are trust him not only to complete his work but that we can trust him that our work is complete as well. He who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it until the end. This is not just a statement about task completion, but a statement about how God rules over eternity, time and the task he has called us to. He has placed us within a generation. Distinct and separate and subject to judgment collectively for the work it did in time. Matthew 11:15-17 read “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: ‘We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.” Jesus is describing a generation in time not fulfilling its call because it did not discern the hour of its visitation. Each generation has a ‘hour of visitation’ each is part of the continuous story of God’s grace demonstrated in history and in time. The Sabbath is a constant, it is an anchor, reminding us, that not only does he hold the whole world in his hand, but that we can face tomorrow because the Lord of the Sabbath lives.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24476815/ABRAHAM-JOSHUA-HESCHEL-The-Sabbath
http://www.seventhdaybaptist.org/content/believes-history/statement-belief
A Pet or a Person, the Modern Family Dilemma
There are two tasks that I would like to address now. The first is the myth of overpopulation. My second task is to define children as assets and not deficits within our modern family system and especially the church. In a church that increasing preaches that God prospers in all things it is clear we have more faith to believe for a Cadillac in the driveway than we do for a potato in the soup, a chicken in the pot, or college education for the kids.
Let us consider the follow quotes from the Freeman Ideas on Liberty.
“As any population graph clearly shows, the world has and is experiencing a population explosion that began in the eighteenth century. Population rose six-fold in the next 200 years. But this explosion was accompanied, and in large part made possible, by a productivity explosion, a resource explosion, a food explosion, an information explosion, a communications explosion, a science explosion, and a medical explosion.
The result was that the six-fold increase in world population was dwarfed by the eighty-fold increase in world output. As real incomes rose, people were able to live healthier lives. Infant mortality rates plummeted and life expectancies soared.”
All the above is true because God wants children born to people groups that have redemptive gifts that can contribute to the betterment of mankind. The author of this article Dr. Osterfeld is Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, Indiana. He further states.
“Our knowledge is even more important than the physical substance itself, and this has significant ramifications: More people mean more ideas. There is no reason, therefore, that a growing population must mean declining resource availability. Historically, the opposite has been true. Rapidly growing populations have been accompanied by rapidly declining resource prices as people have discovered new ways to use existing resources as well as uses for previously unused materials.”
Does the command to, “be fruitful and multiple and replenish the Earth,” Genesis 1:28 still apply to the church? If the church is going to have a legitimates voice against the evils of abortion, and birth outside the context of marriage we have to communicate that children are a blessing, lots of children. Most people believe that money is a blessing. They do not set a limit on how much they can be blessed with. However that is not the churches practice around children. Two are a blessing for sure, and three maybe, but five or seven or twelve. “You are out of your mind,” most saints would say. It is because we don’t understand the value of life and the redemptive gift of children. When writing on this topic to modern generation I am reminded of the words of Jesus. “This is a hard saying who can accept it.” John 6:60. However, these are important Biblical precepts that relate to God’s purposes for “teaching the nations” Matthew 28:19. We are called to teach the Nations to be Biblical not American.
Our culture is being lead by its emotions and not by biblical precepts; we are walking by sight and not by faith. We have a one generational mindset. We can no longer see that we have a lineage that we are to honor and a family legacy for which we must pray and train and teach. We have lost sight of the idea that children are and inheritance for each family and each community at large. My position may seem radical to the modern believer however it was the stated position of every Christian denomination until 1930.
The most common reason that families sight for not having children is that they can not afford them. However consider these statistics related to pets. The American Pet Product Manufacturers Association recently released its 2007-08 National Pet Owners Survey, It found that expenditures on pets in this country will top an estimated $40 billion in 2007. This is almost double the $23 billion spent a decade ago. Sixty-three percent of American homes include a pet. The following statistics were compiled from the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association 2009-2010 National Pet Owners Survey. Statistics for dogs are that, there are approximately 77.5 million owned dogs in the United States, Thirty-nine percent of U.S. households own at least one dog, On average, owners have almost two dogs (1.7), and they spent on average $225 on veterinary visits (vaccine, well visits) annually. Statistics are similar for cats.
I would argue that we are well able to afford children. I would further state that our desire for pets in just a substitution for a God given desire to care for and love children. The average life expectancy of dogs is 12 years but some breeds live 16-20 years. Indoor cats live 12-18 years. Just about the span of childhood. Might our love affair with pets be a cheap replacement for the love we are conditioned to have for children?
Our culture has minimized the value to children because we have been convinced that children will cost us more than they will bless us. This is a lie for the pit of hell. It is clearly an unbiblical precept. What would happen if Christian families began to believe God for the blessing of children? Our families would be larger on average, they would be more visible in the community, and likely our influence on the culture would grow. It seems to me that our outrage at abortion would be more legitimate before a watching world if we were raising healthy and Godly families larger above the 2.5 children norm of the world.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/overpopulation-the-perennial-myth/
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/overpopulation-the-perennial-myth/
O’ Grady, Kathleen, ”Contraception and Religion, A Short History.” Copyright Kathleen O’ Grady, 1999. http://www.mum.org/contrace.htm
http://articles.sfgate.com/2007-10-10/news/17264234_1_pet-owners-bob-vetere-cat-owners
http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/pet_overpopulation/facts/pet_ownership_statistics.html
http://pets.webmd.com/dogs/features/dogs-and-life-span-which-breeds-live-longest
http://www.petplace.com/cats/life-expectancy-in-cats/page1.aspx
Let us consider the follow quotes from the Freeman Ideas on Liberty.
“As any population graph clearly shows, the world has and is experiencing a population explosion that began in the eighteenth century. Population rose six-fold in the next 200 years. But this explosion was accompanied, and in large part made possible, by a productivity explosion, a resource explosion, a food explosion, an information explosion, a communications explosion, a science explosion, and a medical explosion.
The result was that the six-fold increase in world population was dwarfed by the eighty-fold increase in world output. As real incomes rose, people were able to live healthier lives. Infant mortality rates plummeted and life expectancies soared.”
All the above is true because God wants children born to people groups that have redemptive gifts that can contribute to the betterment of mankind. The author of this article Dr. Osterfeld is Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, Indiana. He further states.
“Our knowledge is even more important than the physical substance itself, and this has significant ramifications: More people mean more ideas. There is no reason, therefore, that a growing population must mean declining resource availability. Historically, the opposite has been true. Rapidly growing populations have been accompanied by rapidly declining resource prices as people have discovered new ways to use existing resources as well as uses for previously unused materials.”
Does the command to, “be fruitful and multiple and replenish the Earth,” Genesis 1:28 still apply to the church? If the church is going to have a legitimates voice against the evils of abortion, and birth outside the context of marriage we have to communicate that children are a blessing, lots of children. Most people believe that money is a blessing. They do not set a limit on how much they can be blessed with. However that is not the churches practice around children. Two are a blessing for sure, and three maybe, but five or seven or twelve. “You are out of your mind,” most saints would say. It is because we don’t understand the value of life and the redemptive gift of children. When writing on this topic to modern generation I am reminded of the words of Jesus. “This is a hard saying who can accept it.” John 6:60. However, these are important Biblical precepts that relate to God’s purposes for “teaching the nations” Matthew 28:19. We are called to teach the Nations to be Biblical not American.
Our culture is being lead by its emotions and not by biblical precepts; we are walking by sight and not by faith. We have a one generational mindset. We can no longer see that we have a lineage that we are to honor and a family legacy for which we must pray and train and teach. We have lost sight of the idea that children are and inheritance for each family and each community at large. My position may seem radical to the modern believer however it was the stated position of every Christian denomination until 1930.
The most common reason that families sight for not having children is that they can not afford them. However consider these statistics related to pets. The American Pet Product Manufacturers Association recently released its 2007-08 National Pet Owners Survey, It found that expenditures on pets in this country will top an estimated $40 billion in 2007. This is almost double the $23 billion spent a decade ago. Sixty-three percent of American homes include a pet. The following statistics were compiled from the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association 2009-2010 National Pet Owners Survey. Statistics for dogs are that, there are approximately 77.5 million owned dogs in the United States, Thirty-nine percent of U.S. households own at least one dog, On average, owners have almost two dogs (1.7), and they spent on average $225 on veterinary visits (vaccine, well visits) annually. Statistics are similar for cats.
I would argue that we are well able to afford children. I would further state that our desire for pets in just a substitution for a God given desire to care for and love children. The average life expectancy of dogs is 12 years but some breeds live 16-20 years. Indoor cats live 12-18 years. Just about the span of childhood. Might our love affair with pets be a cheap replacement for the love we are conditioned to have for children?
Our culture has minimized the value to children because we have been convinced that children will cost us more than they will bless us. This is a lie for the pit of hell. It is clearly an unbiblical precept. What would happen if Christian families began to believe God for the blessing of children? Our families would be larger on average, they would be more visible in the community, and likely our influence on the culture would grow. It seems to me that our outrage at abortion would be more legitimate before a watching world if we were raising healthy and Godly families larger above the 2.5 children norm of the world.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/overpopulation-the-perennial-myth/
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/overpopulation-the-perennial-myth/
O’ Grady, Kathleen, ”Contraception and Religion, A Short History.” Copyright Kathleen O’ Grady, 1999. http://www.mum.org/contrace.htm
http://articles.sfgate.com/2007-10-10/news/17264234_1_pet-owners-bob-vetere-cat-owners
http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/pet_overpopulation/facts/pet_ownership_statistics.html
http://pets.webmd.com/dogs/features/dogs-and-life-span-which-breeds-live-longest
http://www.petplace.com/cats/life-expectancy-in-cats/page1.aspx
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Friendship and the Kingdom of God:
It has been said that an expert is always someone from someplace else. Jesus did not have that approach. He called and trained men from his own part of the world to work with him. These men were family, friends, and normal local dudes. We meet Andrew first, such an average a guy that he is referenced by association to his big brother. Andrew leaves to find Peter, that big brother, while Phillip the other cohort set off to find their friend Nathanael. These friends would work together to change the world.
Nathanael confirms Jesus as Messiah immediately, maybe because he truly was and Israelite in which there was no deceit. Jesus promised him that he would see greater things! Friends help us to see more than we would ever see on our own! Nathanael was a good friend because he was not deceitful.
Friendship is a powerful tool in the hand of the Lord. He sends his disciples out two by two to reinforce the power of friendship. The Methodist revival of the 17th century was the result of two brothers, John and Charles Wesley and some friends getting serious about the things of God. Despite all the critics, the Word of Faith movement continues on in large measure because of the friendships of Kenneth Copeland, Keith Butler and Creflo Dollar, Jessy Duplantis, Jerry Savelle.
What are you accomplishing with your friends for the Kingdom of God? This is a sobering question for many of us. I hear people talk about hard ground to preach in, but who had it harder than Jesus and his friends. Well you might say that his friends denied him and ran away. That is true, but one also picked up a sword and cut a guys ear off.
Contemporary music is filled with references to friends, usually about ‘leaning on me’ or ‘getting by with a little help’ and promising to ‘come running whether it is winter spring summer or fall.’ These are not bad things of course but there is more to friendship than providing support.
Dr. Daniel Robinson in teaching on Great Ideas in Philosophy points that the Stoics linked wisdom, a commitment to moral excellence with involvement in community affairs to the title friend. In other words, friends got things done and for the betterment of everyone. That is a good model for Christians to follow.
Two friends of mine, Jimmy Winters and Al Angel sought to use their talents to capture the plight of the homeless in Newport, RI. There modest effort has resulted in 10 formerly homeless persons obtaining housing in that community. Al went home to be with the Lord yesterday. He and his wife Ellen were are great friends. She has been hanging out with Jesus for a couple of years now. They made their lives and friendships meaningful to each other and to the community. Al did it with his camera. Ellen did it in a smile and a joke. Like Al and Ellen, we will be hanging out with Jesus someday. What will your commitment to working with friends communicate when you are gone?
http://satucket.com/lectionary/Wesley.htm
http://www.weddingvendors.com/music/lyrics/b/bill-withers/lean-on-me/
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/j/joe_cocker/with_a_little_help_from_my_friends.html
http://skdesigns.com/internet/articles/lyrics/king/friend
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=660
Nathanael confirms Jesus as Messiah immediately, maybe because he truly was and Israelite in which there was no deceit. Jesus promised him that he would see greater things! Friends help us to see more than we would ever see on our own! Nathanael was a good friend because he was not deceitful.
Friendship is a powerful tool in the hand of the Lord. He sends his disciples out two by two to reinforce the power of friendship. The Methodist revival of the 17th century was the result of two brothers, John and Charles Wesley and some friends getting serious about the things of God. Despite all the critics, the Word of Faith movement continues on in large measure because of the friendships of Kenneth Copeland, Keith Butler and Creflo Dollar, Jessy Duplantis, Jerry Savelle.
What are you accomplishing with your friends for the Kingdom of God? This is a sobering question for many of us. I hear people talk about hard ground to preach in, but who had it harder than Jesus and his friends. Well you might say that his friends denied him and ran away. That is true, but one also picked up a sword and cut a guys ear off.
Contemporary music is filled with references to friends, usually about ‘leaning on me’ or ‘getting by with a little help’ and promising to ‘come running whether it is winter spring summer or fall.’ These are not bad things of course but there is more to friendship than providing support.
Dr. Daniel Robinson in teaching on Great Ideas in Philosophy points that the Stoics linked wisdom, a commitment to moral excellence with involvement in community affairs to the title friend. In other words, friends got things done and for the betterment of everyone. That is a good model for Christians to follow.
Two friends of mine, Jimmy Winters and Al Angel sought to use their talents to capture the plight of the homeless in Newport, RI. There modest effort has resulted in 10 formerly homeless persons obtaining housing in that community. Al went home to be with the Lord yesterday. He and his wife Ellen were are great friends. She has been hanging out with Jesus for a couple of years now. They made their lives and friendships meaningful to each other and to the community. Al did it with his camera. Ellen did it in a smile and a joke. Like Al and Ellen, we will be hanging out with Jesus someday. What will your commitment to working with friends communicate when you are gone?
http://satucket.com/lectionary/Wesley.htm
http://www.weddingvendors.com/music/lyrics/b/bill-withers/lean-on-me/
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/j/joe_cocker/with_a_little_help_from_my_friends.html
http://skdesigns.com/internet/articles/lyrics/king/friend
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=660
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Family: The Means to Generational Blessings
When men understand selfless love, and the singularity of attraction reflected in marital union, lifelong multi-generational commitments are created. We then begin to understand a God “whose ways are higher than our ways” Isaiah 55:9. This profound truth is then reflected in our most personal relationships. This insight leads to the development of our personal redemptive gifts and assist us in the cultivation of those gifts in our spouses, children, grandchildren. This generational blessing is evoked every time the scriptures declare a blessing from “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”Acts 3:13 The understanding of the blessing of family is not limited to the Judeo Christian cultures but is universal. Where it is most present, cultures prosper in their understanding of the divine nature of God. The opposite of selfless love is selfishness and is witnessed in the acts of the sinful nature. Faith demands that we see with a heart that understands “Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more.” (Romans 5:20) and it abounds everywhere and at all times.
Sexual immorality and impurity cause us to worship the creation instead of the creator. It represents the highest form of idolatry. The dominion mandate to be fruitful in multiple within the family system is replaced by personal sexual gratification completely separated from the process of family or procreation. Homosexuality is the predictable out come of this process. Men and women become unwilling to negotiate the difficulties of cross gender relationships and instead worship that which looks like them-selves. But it is the process of understanding these relationships that we understand the nature of God. Christ indicated that marriage reflects the union between himself and His church. Ephesians chapter 5 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. Ephesians 5:31-33 therefore makes marriage the most scared of God’s institutions.
The individuation of the culture free of the responsibility and rewards of family creates debauchery. It reflects the character of Satan that comes to kill, steal, and destroy. On a national scale it leads to rape and pillaging in war zones and the destruction of millions of lives. It is a type of idolatry and witchcraft that seeks to replace God with things we make and things that we do. They replace faith and trust in God who would bless us with living vibrant spouses and children with lifeless objects like cars and houses. It is partnership with the devil. Fighting over things instead of raising children or caring or aging parents leads to discord, jealousy, fits of rage. It separate us from each other like Adam and Eve were separated from the Garden. They cause us to assign blame instead of being accountable for our sin. It leads us into situations in which we avoid or hide from responsibility for our own behavior. (Genesis 3:11-12) Selfish ambition, dissensions, factions systematize the above works of the flesh. It is what happened in the days of Noah when men grew in violence toward each other. Envy; drunkenness, orgies, are the dregs from the table of the above meal served to the flesh. It is wantonness without direction. It is anarchy. It is often spring break. It is frequently Bourbon St. New Orleans. It is normalized in advertisement that states, “What happens is Vegas stays in Vegas”.
Making the connection from ancient Garden of Eden to “Sin City” is vitally important. The modern world separates the beginning from the end, we as evangelical want to connect the beginning to the end in one continuous story. Adam and Eve’s rebellion and subsequent failure is identical to our own, “because we are their offspring, Acts 17:28. The world would have us evolving from primitive people to modern sophisticated people. This is a Darwinian thought not a Christian one. If men became more primitive through time it is because of sin and debauchery and not because they had failed to climb the evolution scale to modern times. It is because shame has ruled them and often their people and therefore violence, aggression, and sexually immorality become the fruit of their lives. They grow to hate children and the task of subduing the Earth through hard work and cooperative living with their fellow human beings in a family system. This was never God’s will. God actively pursues a relationship with all men born on the face of the Earth. He does so through eyes that sees his glory in creation. He does it through a conscience that is wounded when it sins. Creation is most clearly seen, conscience is most tender, and Christ is most highly exalted when men reflect upon the glory of new born children. The blessing of children is most appreciated in the context of life long committed families with multigenerational connections.
Sexual immorality and impurity cause us to worship the creation instead of the creator. It represents the highest form of idolatry. The dominion mandate to be fruitful in multiple within the family system is replaced by personal sexual gratification completely separated from the process of family or procreation. Homosexuality is the predictable out come of this process. Men and women become unwilling to negotiate the difficulties of cross gender relationships and instead worship that which looks like them-selves. But it is the process of understanding these relationships that we understand the nature of God. Christ indicated that marriage reflects the union between himself and His church. Ephesians chapter 5 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. Ephesians 5:31-33 therefore makes marriage the most scared of God’s institutions.
The individuation of the culture free of the responsibility and rewards of family creates debauchery. It reflects the character of Satan that comes to kill, steal, and destroy. On a national scale it leads to rape and pillaging in war zones and the destruction of millions of lives. It is a type of idolatry and witchcraft that seeks to replace God with things we make and things that we do. They replace faith and trust in God who would bless us with living vibrant spouses and children with lifeless objects like cars and houses. It is partnership with the devil. Fighting over things instead of raising children or caring or aging parents leads to discord, jealousy, fits of rage. It separate us from each other like Adam and Eve were separated from the Garden. They cause us to assign blame instead of being accountable for our sin. It leads us into situations in which we avoid or hide from responsibility for our own behavior. (Genesis 3:11-12) Selfish ambition, dissensions, factions systematize the above works of the flesh. It is what happened in the days of Noah when men grew in violence toward each other. Envy; drunkenness, orgies, are the dregs from the table of the above meal served to the flesh. It is wantonness without direction. It is anarchy. It is often spring break. It is frequently Bourbon St. New Orleans. It is normalized in advertisement that states, “What happens is Vegas stays in Vegas”.
Making the connection from ancient Garden of Eden to “Sin City” is vitally important. The modern world separates the beginning from the end, we as evangelical want to connect the beginning to the end in one continuous story. Adam and Eve’s rebellion and subsequent failure is identical to our own, “because we are their offspring, Acts 17:28. The world would have us evolving from primitive people to modern sophisticated people. This is a Darwinian thought not a Christian one. If men became more primitive through time it is because of sin and debauchery and not because they had failed to climb the evolution scale to modern times. It is because shame has ruled them and often their people and therefore violence, aggression, and sexually immorality become the fruit of their lives. They grow to hate children and the task of subduing the Earth through hard work and cooperative living with their fellow human beings in a family system. This was never God’s will. God actively pursues a relationship with all men born on the face of the Earth. He does so through eyes that sees his glory in creation. He does it through a conscience that is wounded when it sins. Creation is most clearly seen, conscience is most tender, and Christ is most highly exalted when men reflect upon the glory of new born children. The blessing of children is most appreciated in the context of life long committed families with multigenerational connections.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Freedom the Covenant of Marriage & the Redemptive Gift of Children
I have been building the case for each individual being a redemptive gift from God. This is accomplished through redemptive families, who are engaged in redemptive marriages. Eve in Genesis 2 is called Adam’s wife. God did not give Adam a concubine, nor did he give him several wives. Jesus references the passages in Genesis when speaking in Matthew 19. He states, “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Matthew 19:4-5.
It is through the family system that God was determined to redeem the Earth. Adam and Eve cooperated with this process. They are banished from the Garden but they never banish themselves one from another. Each child we see born to them in the scriptures is celebrated. The fruit of the womb is a blessing.
Marriage becomes covenantal through a number of different processes. In the case of first time brides it is through the blood-shed during the first marital union. In many cultures marriage is not just the joining of a man to a women but a family to a family. Its purpose has been to bring together kingdoms during various times in history. It is the first and greatest institution established by God. He tells us in the book of Ephesians that marriage reflects the union of the Jesus to the Church. Every step away from the God ordained pattern of this institution is a step away from the redemptive gifts God established himself. “for we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” Ephesians 5; 31-32
Prior to the fall men and women lived together without shame without condemnation. They were naked but unashamed. Some commentators have tried to explain their lack of shame based on a covering of Glory. This may be true but what is certain is that Adam and Eve did not have knowledge of shame. We can see this lack of shame in contemporary times in different individual’s lives. One thinks of the naked newborn babe. Life is glorious and shame is not present when one rejoices at the site of a bear bottomed baby. Some have been privileged to minister to the infirmed the ill and the weak. They carry in them the gift and anointing to aid the sick. These individuals, Certified Nursing Assistants, Nurses and others like them cover shame with compassion.
Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
Genesis 3:20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
Genesis 4:1 Adam] lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, "With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man."
Eve the Mother of All Living
God’s intension to grant Adam and his progeny a life of freedom is intricately tied to the family structure and the birth of children. It was a child that was to crush the head of Satan. It is important to note that he was not born to the virgin within years, or decades, but millennia separated the prophecy and the birth of the child. What was mankind to be doing in the meantime? They were to have babies within a family structure, build communities, and filling the Earth. The Lord continues to expect us to be doing the same thing. The reason is that every life born on the planet has a redemptive purpose; every family has a redemptive purpose and every nation as well. Dr. Henry Morse makes the case that this patriarchal system and the family structure were the only form of governance that the Lord had established prior to the flood. He expected the family system to be strong enough and obedient enough to follow his simple command of being fruitful multiplying and filling the Earth.
The Seed of the Women
“When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” Matthew 2: 16-18.
In expectation of the redemptive event of Christ coming into the world both Satan and malevolent men partnered together to destroy the seed of the women. In one of the most deplorable moments in human history King Herod fulfills the prophecy of Rachel’s weeping. Here are the Magi searching for the Messiah to worship Him based on general revelation through a star in the sky. In contrast, a King in charge of the Jewish nation uses the scriptures as the source to commit genocide because he is concerned for an Earthly throne. Herod efforts were designed to destroy the seed of the women. Whenever men and nations fail to recognize the value of life redemptive gifts are destroyed. We will see several variations of this theme throughout this text. The genocide in Bethlehem is simply the most overt example.
Saved Through Child Birth 1 Timothy 2:15
David Guzik of the Blueletterbible.org provides the following commentary on this passage. His preferred approach to the passage is, “Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control. 1 Timothy 2:15
“based on the grammar in the original Greek language. In the original, it says she will be saved in the childbirth. This has the sense, “Even though women were deceived, and fell into transgression starting with Eve, women can be saved by the Messiah - whom a woman brought into the world.” Probably, the idea here is that even though the “woman race” did something bad in the garden by being deceived and falling into transgression, the “woman race” also did something far greater, in being used by God to bring the saving Messiah into the world.”
This interpretation I believe is correct and supports the idea the each child is a little promise from God that says, “The Messiah is (or has) come” It supports to point that each one of us have redemptive purpose on the Earth. Christ’s genealogical background is central to the promise. Every child is a gift to the genealogical background that God’s places them in, as Christ was a called to “the lost sheep of Israel” Matthew 15:24 and by extension to the world. We also are called to a people group and by extension to be a blessing to the world.
Water and Blood as a Sign of the Covenant 1 John 5:6
“This is the one who came by water and blood-Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 1 John 5:6.”
This passage is a difficult one to interpret I would like to align my interpretation with one cited by David Guzik again. He states, that there are some theologians that: “believe the water spoke of Jesus’ first birth, being born of the “waters of the womb,” and blood speaks of His death. If this is the case, John would be essentially writing, “Jesus was born like a man and died like a man. He was completely human, not some super-spiritual being who had no real contact with the material world.” This passage becomes important to our discussion on the Redemptive Gifts of Children as it supports that Jesus was born in a natural manner. He is God communicating to us the importance of humanity by clothing himself in humanity. The incarnation of Christ communicates the Redemptive value of all humans on the Earth, “being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man,” Philippians 2:7b-8a. One of the miracles of the Scriptures is that Jesus becomes human eternally. It speaks to the value God places on humanity and therefore children. Holy men in every generation and in many different places have wrestled with the idea of the God’s work in the world and even his incarnation. They have made efforts to reach up to God. These efforts are often noble and profound; they serve as preparation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ when it is introduced by Apostles and Evangelist. George Lorimer, in his 1894 work The Argument for Christianity captures the nobility of man’s efforts to find God without the revelation of the Bible or the person of Jesus of Nazareth well.
“Men and women may fail to perceive that while only one religion can be true. There may be and must be something that is true in every religion. Unfortunately this simple distinction has been overlooked by multitudes of devout souls and consequently they have considered every other system than Christianity as and unadulterated mass of pernicious error… They have discerned in them no ray of light to relieve their blackness and hideousness and no way of deliverance for their multiplied adherents from the quenchless fires of perdition.”
“One thing already has been made perfectly evident: It can no longer be assumed that there are no flashes of heavenly light in the Eastern world, and that no stars glimmer in what may be considered as its canopy of night. However impotent for good the venerable cults of the East may be, they are not altogether destitute of wisdom, lofty longings, or some sound principle of morality. To denounce them as systems of lies and only lies is to betray either extreme ignorance or intolerance. The facts do not warrant the accusation and were it tenable there would be involved in it a very severe crimination both of God and man. It would imply that the largest portion of the human family was incapable of discovering or prizing truths, and that the Almighty had left it entirely to itself while he lavished his attention on a few million in the West.”
People in all places and in all times have sought God. In the Gospel of Jesus Christ we have God seeking man. His means of doing this was to send a child through the institutions that most reflects his nature, marriage that he created in the Garden.
Safe Haven, “Chasing the Glory of God”
http://www.safehavenonline.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=58&Itemid=59
Henry M. Morris, God of the Nations, (Master Books, 2002) pg 28
http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=2&contentID=8056&commInfo=31&topic=1%20Timothy
http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=2&contentID=8099&commInfo=31&topic=1%20John
http://www.gurusfeet.com/forum/veda-says-one-blessed-soul-sees-god-directly
George Lorimer, The Argument for Christianity, (American Baptist Publication Society, 1894) pg 414
George Lorimer, The Argument for Christianity, (American Baptist Publication Society, 1894) pg 416
It is through the family system that God was determined to redeem the Earth. Adam and Eve cooperated with this process. They are banished from the Garden but they never banish themselves one from another. Each child we see born to them in the scriptures is celebrated. The fruit of the womb is a blessing.
Marriage becomes covenantal through a number of different processes. In the case of first time brides it is through the blood-shed during the first marital union. In many cultures marriage is not just the joining of a man to a women but a family to a family. Its purpose has been to bring together kingdoms during various times in history. It is the first and greatest institution established by God. He tells us in the book of Ephesians that marriage reflects the union of the Jesus to the Church. Every step away from the God ordained pattern of this institution is a step away from the redemptive gifts God established himself. “for we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” Ephesians 5; 31-32
Prior to the fall men and women lived together without shame without condemnation. They were naked but unashamed. Some commentators have tried to explain their lack of shame based on a covering of Glory. This may be true but what is certain is that Adam and Eve did not have knowledge of shame. We can see this lack of shame in contemporary times in different individual’s lives. One thinks of the naked newborn babe. Life is glorious and shame is not present when one rejoices at the site of a bear bottomed baby. Some have been privileged to minister to the infirmed the ill and the weak. They carry in them the gift and anointing to aid the sick. These individuals, Certified Nursing Assistants, Nurses and others like them cover shame with compassion.
Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
Genesis 3:20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
Genesis 4:1 Adam] lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, "With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man."
Eve the Mother of All Living
God’s intension to grant Adam and his progeny a life of freedom is intricately tied to the family structure and the birth of children. It was a child that was to crush the head of Satan. It is important to note that he was not born to the virgin within years, or decades, but millennia separated the prophecy and the birth of the child. What was mankind to be doing in the meantime? They were to have babies within a family structure, build communities, and filling the Earth. The Lord continues to expect us to be doing the same thing. The reason is that every life born on the planet has a redemptive purpose; every family has a redemptive purpose and every nation as well. Dr. Henry Morse makes the case that this patriarchal system and the family structure were the only form of governance that the Lord had established prior to the flood. He expected the family system to be strong enough and obedient enough to follow his simple command of being fruitful multiplying and filling the Earth.
The Seed of the Women
“When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” Matthew 2: 16-18.
In expectation of the redemptive event of Christ coming into the world both Satan and malevolent men partnered together to destroy the seed of the women. In one of the most deplorable moments in human history King Herod fulfills the prophecy of Rachel’s weeping. Here are the Magi searching for the Messiah to worship Him based on general revelation through a star in the sky. In contrast, a King in charge of the Jewish nation uses the scriptures as the source to commit genocide because he is concerned for an Earthly throne. Herod efforts were designed to destroy the seed of the women. Whenever men and nations fail to recognize the value of life redemptive gifts are destroyed. We will see several variations of this theme throughout this text. The genocide in Bethlehem is simply the most overt example.
Saved Through Child Birth 1 Timothy 2:15
David Guzik of the Blueletterbible.org provides the following commentary on this passage. His preferred approach to the passage is, “Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control. 1 Timothy 2:15
“based on the grammar in the original Greek language. In the original, it says she will be saved in the childbirth. This has the sense, “Even though women were deceived, and fell into transgression starting with Eve, women can be saved by the Messiah - whom a woman brought into the world.” Probably, the idea here is that even though the “woman race” did something bad in the garden by being deceived and falling into transgression, the “woman race” also did something far greater, in being used by God to bring the saving Messiah into the world.”
This interpretation I believe is correct and supports the idea the each child is a little promise from God that says, “The Messiah is (or has) come” It supports to point that each one of us have redemptive purpose on the Earth. Christ’s genealogical background is central to the promise. Every child is a gift to the genealogical background that God’s places them in, as Christ was a called to “the lost sheep of Israel” Matthew 15:24 and by extension to the world. We also are called to a people group and by extension to be a blessing to the world.
Water and Blood as a Sign of the Covenant 1 John 5:6
“This is the one who came by water and blood-Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 1 John 5:6.”
This passage is a difficult one to interpret I would like to align my interpretation with one cited by David Guzik again. He states, that there are some theologians that: “believe the water spoke of Jesus’ first birth, being born of the “waters of the womb,” and blood speaks of His death. If this is the case, John would be essentially writing, “Jesus was born like a man and died like a man. He was completely human, not some super-spiritual being who had no real contact with the material world.” This passage becomes important to our discussion on the Redemptive Gifts of Children as it supports that Jesus was born in a natural manner. He is God communicating to us the importance of humanity by clothing himself in humanity. The incarnation of Christ communicates the Redemptive value of all humans on the Earth, “being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man,” Philippians 2:7b-8a. One of the miracles of the Scriptures is that Jesus becomes human eternally. It speaks to the value God places on humanity and therefore children. Holy men in every generation and in many different places have wrestled with the idea of the God’s work in the world and even his incarnation. They have made efforts to reach up to God. These efforts are often noble and profound; they serve as preparation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ when it is introduced by Apostles and Evangelist. George Lorimer, in his 1894 work The Argument for Christianity captures the nobility of man’s efforts to find God without the revelation of the Bible or the person of Jesus of Nazareth well.
“Men and women may fail to perceive that while only one religion can be true. There may be and must be something that is true in every religion. Unfortunately this simple distinction has been overlooked by multitudes of devout souls and consequently they have considered every other system than Christianity as and unadulterated mass of pernicious error… They have discerned in them no ray of light to relieve their blackness and hideousness and no way of deliverance for their multiplied adherents from the quenchless fires of perdition.”
“One thing already has been made perfectly evident: It can no longer be assumed that there are no flashes of heavenly light in the Eastern world, and that no stars glimmer in what may be considered as its canopy of night. However impotent for good the venerable cults of the East may be, they are not altogether destitute of wisdom, lofty longings, or some sound principle of morality. To denounce them as systems of lies and only lies is to betray either extreme ignorance or intolerance. The facts do not warrant the accusation and were it tenable there would be involved in it a very severe crimination both of God and man. It would imply that the largest portion of the human family was incapable of discovering or prizing truths, and that the Almighty had left it entirely to itself while he lavished his attention on a few million in the West.”
People in all places and in all times have sought God. In the Gospel of Jesus Christ we have God seeking man. His means of doing this was to send a child through the institutions that most reflects his nature, marriage that he created in the Garden.
Safe Haven, “Chasing the Glory of God”
http://www.safehavenonline.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=58&Itemid=59
Henry M. Morris, God of the Nations, (Master Books, 2002) pg 28
http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=2&contentID=8056&commInfo=31&topic=1%20Timothy
http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=2&contentID=8099&commInfo=31&topic=1%20John
http://www.gurusfeet.com/forum/veda-says-one-blessed-soul-sees-god-directly
George Lorimer, The Argument for Christianity, (American Baptist Publication Society, 1894) pg 414
George Lorimer, The Argument for Christianity, (American Baptist Publication Society, 1894) pg 416
Monday, June 13, 2011
The Redemptive Gift of Work; The Garden and Early America Compared
Work is the first redemptive task that will be explored. Adam was given a job before he was given a wife. What was his work like? We get some indication of it by looking at the millennium kingdom where the trees of the healing of nations bloom every 30 days. (Revelations 22:2) It was without thorns, without the sweat of the brow, and it would be done in corporation with his wife. It was fruitful satisfying and free. It was Christ like, Jesus said, “I have come to do the will of the Father, He is always working and so I must work too.” John 5:17 As long as Adam was working as the Father instructed him he was working out the will of God in his time, place, and with his people. When we work in our time and place and with the people God has assigned to our lives we are doing the same thing. We are in the will of God and we are free. John 8:36 says, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
Agricultural Mindset to Work
The below quote from Sociologyguide.com touches upon agrarian cultures ability to enter into redemptive task and complete the dominion mandate in the areas of food production, political, economic and religious development as well as the arts, crafts and trades some of which were present in the first generations of man on Earth.
“Cultivation of land through the plough as this invention enabled the people to make a great leap forward in food production. It increased the productivity of land through the use of animals and bringing to the surface the nutrients of the soil. Combining irrigation techniques with the use of the plough increased the productivity and the crop yield. It also brought fallow land under cultivation. The size of the agricultural societies increased as it lessened the burden of large number of people who engaged themselves in other activities. Agricultural societies lead to the establishment of more elaborate political institutions like formalized government bureaucracy assisted by the legal system. It also leads to the evolution of distinct social classes -those who own the land and those who work on the other's land. Land is the major source of wealth and is individually owned.
This creates major difference between the social strata. Agricultural societies provide the basis for the establishment of economic institutions. Trade becomes more elaborate and money is medium of exchange. It also demands the maintenance of records of transaction, crop harvest, taxation, governmental rules and regulations. Religion becomes separate institution with elaborate rituals and traditions. The agricultural societies support the emergence of arts and cultural artifacts due to surplus food production people tend to divert their attention to other recreational activities. There is far more complex social structure. According to Ian Robertson the number of statuses multiplies, population size increases, cities appear, new institutions emerge, social classes arise, political and economic inequality becomes inbuilt into the social structure and culture becomes much more diversified and heterogeneous.”
The quote has implications for the entire pre flood era in regards to the development of thought life of humans. Psychologically agriculturalists have time to contemplate as they work. They form and shape the land as God shaped and molded man with his hands from the Earth. Ray Bakke in his work A Theology as Big as the City extends this rural analogy to urban environments when describing a “God whose hands are in the mud.” He does this in the context of describing God’s work to bring social order to urban environments. He stresses that Christians should be involved in the community. He cites William Temple,’s Christianity and the Social Order when describing a God who is involved in the daily lives of individuals. He compares that with god’s that would be developed later in human history such as those in Greek Mythology who do not want to be contaminated through involvement with man kind.
This work contends that the skill sets we see within the early generations
of mankind were taught to Adam by God and then taught by Adam to his progeny. The use of tools may have been one of these, the creation of cloths another, sacrifice would have been a very important task that God taught Adam.
Pre Industrial America the Hope of a Redemptive Nation
There is an interesting parallel analysis that can be made between the family farm of the pre-industrialized United States of American and the generations that lived between the expulsion from the Garden until the flood. There are several conditions that make this comparison legitimate. Power in the pre flood generation was paternalistic and local . The family farm would have been the same. Taxes would have been minimal in the United States, there was no government system in place prior the flood, land was fertile and had not previously been cultivated in both cases.
“Land policy made ownership of a relatively large amount of land possible for the common person in the United States. This was due to several factors. First, there was a relative abundance of agricultural resources in the United States. Some of the best soil and climate on the globe for agriculture had not been cultivated by the native Americans and thus virgin land was there in abundance, unlike soil in Europe which had been cultivated for a thousand years. Unowned land in the public domain expanded greatly over time: …Second, and more important, this abundant land was distributed in a relatively equal manner. Due to its political solidarity, the family farm community was able to win the struggle in Congress to continually liberalize land policy. … family farmers had a potential surplus beyond the needs of the family to sell on the market. The farmers had an incentive to work hard and produce a surplus because they received the full product of that effort. There was no absolutist state demanding heavy taxes, as there was in Europe. There was no aristocratic land-owning class demanding heavy rent, as there was in Europe. This policy of a wide distribution of ample land produced many farmers with sufficient surplus and incentive to purchase capital goods and produce for the market.”
The above quote is and extraordinary example of the kingdom mandate being fulfilled. Even in that generation it was called manifest destiny. Part of what made the colonization of the United States was that Christianity set the context for work, and worship in the land. However it was Darwinism and the sin of greed that drove Native People’s policies and African American policies. In these sins Americans may have much in common with the pre-flood generations; however you can hear the motivation to build a Godly community in the following 1839 essay by John L Sullivan on manifest destiny. It is lengthy but so full of redemptive hope and language that I believe its full inclusion is warranted.
"The American people having derived their origin from many other nations, and the Declaration of National Independence being entirely based on the great principle of human equality, these facts demonstrate at once our disconnected position as regards any other nation; that we have, in reality, but little connection with the past history of any of them, and still less with all antiquity, its glories, or its crimes. On the contrary, our national birth was the beginning of a new history, the formation and progress of an untried political system, which separates us from the past and connects us with the future only; and so far as regards the entire development of the natural rights of man, in moral, political, and national life, we may confidently assume that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity.
It is so destined, because the principle upon which a nation is organized fixes its destiny, and that of equality is perfect, is universal. It presides in all the operations of the physical world, and it is also the conscious law of the soul -- the self-evident dictates of morality, which accurately defines the duty of man to man, and consequently man's rights as man. Besides, the truthful annals of any nation furnish abundant evidence, that its happiness, its greatness, its duration, were always proportionate to the democratic equality in its system of government. . . .
What friend of human liberty, civilization, and refinement, can cast his view over the past history of the monarchies and aristocracies of antiquity, and not deplore that they ever existed? What philanthropist can contemplate the oppressions, the cruelties, and injustice inflicted by them on the masses of mankind, and not turn with moral horror from the retrospect?
America is destined for better deeds. It is our unparalleled glory that we have no reminiscences of battle fields, but in defense of humanity, of the oppressed of all nations, of the rights of conscience, the rights of personal enfranchisement. Our annals describe no scenes of horrid carnage, where men were led on by hundreds of thousands to slay one another, dupes and victims to emperors, kings, nobles, demons in the human form called heroes. We have had patriots to defend our homes, our liberties, but no aspirants to crowns or thrones; nor have the American people ever suffered themselves to be led on by wicked ambition to depopulate the land, to spread desolation far and wide, that a human being might be placed on a seat of supremacy.
We have no interest in the scenes of antiquity, only as lessons of avoidance of nearly all their examples. The expansive future is our arena, and for our history. We are entering on its untrodden space, with the truths of God in our minds, beneficent objects in our hearts, and with a clear conscience unsullied by the past. We are the nation of human progress, and who will, what can, set limits to our onward march? Providence is with us, and no earthly power can. We point to the everlasting truth on the first page of our national declaration, and we proclaim to the millions of other lands, that "the gates of hell" -- the powers of aristocracy and monarchy -- "shall not prevail against it."
The far-reaching, the boundless future will be the era of American greatness. In its magnificent domain of space and time, the nation of many nations is destined to manifest to mankind the excellence of divine principles; to establish on earth the noblest temple ever dedicated to the worship of the Most High -- the Sacred and the True. Its floor shall be a hemisphere -- its roof the firmament of the star-studded heavens, and its congregation an Union of many Republics, comprising hundreds of happy millions, calling, owning no man master, but governed by God's natural and moral law of equality, the law of brotherhood -- of "peace and good will amongst men.". . .
Yes, we are the nation of progress, of individual freedom, of universal enfranchisement. Equality of rights is the cynosure of our union of States, the grand exemplar of the correlative equality of individuals; and while truth sheds its effulgence, we cannot retrograde, without dissolving the one and subverting the other. We must onward to the fulfillment of our mission -- to the entire development of the principle of our organization -- freedom of conscience, freedom of person, freedom of trade and business pursuits, universality of freedom and equality. This is our high destiny, and in nature's eternal, inevitable decree of cause and effect we must accomplish it. All this will be our future history, to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man -- the immutable truth and beneficence of God. For this blessed mission to the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving light of truth, has America been chosen; and her high example shall smite unto death the tyranny of kings, hierarchs, and oligarchs, and carry the glad tidings of peace and good will where myriads now endure an existence scarcely more enviable than that of beasts of the field. Who, then, can doubt that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity?
The above is written by a Christian in 18th century United States, far removed from the Garden of Eden and its nearest generations. However it has as its motivation the re-creation of a free nation that, if not reflecting Eden, with its absence of sin, reflects the kingdom of God on Earth that was available in the 18th century as well as the pre flood generations. God gave both generations the same mandate. He has made that mandate evident to the pre flood generation through the means of creation and conscience. 18th Century America had the revelation of Christ available to them but he is “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Hebrews 13:8.
http://www.sociologyguide.com/types-of-society/characteristics-of-Agricultural-societies.php
Ray Bakke,A Theology as Big as the City, (InterVarsity Press, 1997) pg 32
Ray Bakke,A Theology as Big as the City, (InterVarsity Press, 1997) pg 33
Henry M. Morris, God of the Nations, (Master Books, 2002) pg 28
Henry M. Morris, God of the Nations, (Master Books, 2002) pg 28
Questia Media America, Inc. www.questia.com Book Title: The Political Economy of the Family Farm: The Agrarian Roots of American Capitalism. Contributors: Sue Headlee - author. Publisher: Praeger. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1991. Page Number: 3.
O’Sullivan, John L. On Manifest Destiny, 1839, Excerpted from "The Great Nation of Futurity," The United States Democratic Review, Volume 6, Issue 23, pp. 426-430. The complete article can be found in The Making of America Series at Cornell University, http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/osulliva.htm
Agricultural Mindset to Work
The below quote from Sociologyguide.com touches upon agrarian cultures ability to enter into redemptive task and complete the dominion mandate in the areas of food production, political, economic and religious development as well as the arts, crafts and trades some of which were present in the first generations of man on Earth.
“Cultivation of land through the plough as this invention enabled the people to make a great leap forward in food production. It increased the productivity of land through the use of animals and bringing to the surface the nutrients of the soil. Combining irrigation techniques with the use of the plough increased the productivity and the crop yield. It also brought fallow land under cultivation. The size of the agricultural societies increased as it lessened the burden of large number of people who engaged themselves in other activities. Agricultural societies lead to the establishment of more elaborate political institutions like formalized government bureaucracy assisted by the legal system. It also leads to the evolution of distinct social classes -those who own the land and those who work on the other's land. Land is the major source of wealth and is individually owned.
This creates major difference between the social strata. Agricultural societies provide the basis for the establishment of economic institutions. Trade becomes more elaborate and money is medium of exchange. It also demands the maintenance of records of transaction, crop harvest, taxation, governmental rules and regulations. Religion becomes separate institution with elaborate rituals and traditions. The agricultural societies support the emergence of arts and cultural artifacts due to surplus food production people tend to divert their attention to other recreational activities. There is far more complex social structure. According to Ian Robertson the number of statuses multiplies, population size increases, cities appear, new institutions emerge, social classes arise, political and economic inequality becomes inbuilt into the social structure and culture becomes much more diversified and heterogeneous.”
The quote has implications for the entire pre flood era in regards to the development of thought life of humans. Psychologically agriculturalists have time to contemplate as they work. They form and shape the land as God shaped and molded man with his hands from the Earth. Ray Bakke in his work A Theology as Big as the City extends this rural analogy to urban environments when describing a “God whose hands are in the mud.” He does this in the context of describing God’s work to bring social order to urban environments. He stresses that Christians should be involved in the community. He cites William Temple,’s Christianity and the Social Order when describing a God who is involved in the daily lives of individuals. He compares that with god’s that would be developed later in human history such as those in Greek Mythology who do not want to be contaminated through involvement with man kind.
This work contends that the skill sets we see within the early generations
of mankind were taught to Adam by God and then taught by Adam to his progeny. The use of tools may have been one of these, the creation of cloths another, sacrifice would have been a very important task that God taught Adam.
Pre Industrial America the Hope of a Redemptive Nation
There is an interesting parallel analysis that can be made between the family farm of the pre-industrialized United States of American and the generations that lived between the expulsion from the Garden until the flood. There are several conditions that make this comparison legitimate. Power in the pre flood generation was paternalistic and local . The family farm would have been the same. Taxes would have been minimal in the United States, there was no government system in place prior the flood, land was fertile and had not previously been cultivated in both cases.
“Land policy made ownership of a relatively large amount of land possible for the common person in the United States. This was due to several factors. First, there was a relative abundance of agricultural resources in the United States. Some of the best soil and climate on the globe for agriculture had not been cultivated by the native Americans and thus virgin land was there in abundance, unlike soil in Europe which had been cultivated for a thousand years. Unowned land in the public domain expanded greatly over time: …Second, and more important, this abundant land was distributed in a relatively equal manner. Due to its political solidarity, the family farm community was able to win the struggle in Congress to continually liberalize land policy. … family farmers had a potential surplus beyond the needs of the family to sell on the market. The farmers had an incentive to work hard and produce a surplus because they received the full product of that effort. There was no absolutist state demanding heavy taxes, as there was in Europe. There was no aristocratic land-owning class demanding heavy rent, as there was in Europe. This policy of a wide distribution of ample land produced many farmers with sufficient surplus and incentive to purchase capital goods and produce for the market.”
The above quote is and extraordinary example of the kingdom mandate being fulfilled. Even in that generation it was called manifest destiny. Part of what made the colonization of the United States was that Christianity set the context for work, and worship in the land. However it was Darwinism and the sin of greed that drove Native People’s policies and African American policies. In these sins Americans may have much in common with the pre-flood generations; however you can hear the motivation to build a Godly community in the following 1839 essay by John L Sullivan on manifest destiny. It is lengthy but so full of redemptive hope and language that I believe its full inclusion is warranted.
"The American people having derived their origin from many other nations, and the Declaration of National Independence being entirely based on the great principle of human equality, these facts demonstrate at once our disconnected position as regards any other nation; that we have, in reality, but little connection with the past history of any of them, and still less with all antiquity, its glories, or its crimes. On the contrary, our national birth was the beginning of a new history, the formation and progress of an untried political system, which separates us from the past and connects us with the future only; and so far as regards the entire development of the natural rights of man, in moral, political, and national life, we may confidently assume that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity.
It is so destined, because the principle upon which a nation is organized fixes its destiny, and that of equality is perfect, is universal. It presides in all the operations of the physical world, and it is also the conscious law of the soul -- the self-evident dictates of morality, which accurately defines the duty of man to man, and consequently man's rights as man. Besides, the truthful annals of any nation furnish abundant evidence, that its happiness, its greatness, its duration, were always proportionate to the democratic equality in its system of government. . . .
What friend of human liberty, civilization, and refinement, can cast his view over the past history of the monarchies and aristocracies of antiquity, and not deplore that they ever existed? What philanthropist can contemplate the oppressions, the cruelties, and injustice inflicted by them on the masses of mankind, and not turn with moral horror from the retrospect?
America is destined for better deeds. It is our unparalleled glory that we have no reminiscences of battle fields, but in defense of humanity, of the oppressed of all nations, of the rights of conscience, the rights of personal enfranchisement. Our annals describe no scenes of horrid carnage, where men were led on by hundreds of thousands to slay one another, dupes and victims to emperors, kings, nobles, demons in the human form called heroes. We have had patriots to defend our homes, our liberties, but no aspirants to crowns or thrones; nor have the American people ever suffered themselves to be led on by wicked ambition to depopulate the land, to spread desolation far and wide, that a human being might be placed on a seat of supremacy.
We have no interest in the scenes of antiquity, only as lessons of avoidance of nearly all their examples. The expansive future is our arena, and for our history. We are entering on its untrodden space, with the truths of God in our minds, beneficent objects in our hearts, and with a clear conscience unsullied by the past. We are the nation of human progress, and who will, what can, set limits to our onward march? Providence is with us, and no earthly power can. We point to the everlasting truth on the first page of our national declaration, and we proclaim to the millions of other lands, that "the gates of hell" -- the powers of aristocracy and monarchy -- "shall not prevail against it."
The far-reaching, the boundless future will be the era of American greatness. In its magnificent domain of space and time, the nation of many nations is destined to manifest to mankind the excellence of divine principles; to establish on earth the noblest temple ever dedicated to the worship of the Most High -- the Sacred and the True. Its floor shall be a hemisphere -- its roof the firmament of the star-studded heavens, and its congregation an Union of many Republics, comprising hundreds of happy millions, calling, owning no man master, but governed by God's natural and moral law of equality, the law of brotherhood -- of "peace and good will amongst men.". . .
Yes, we are the nation of progress, of individual freedom, of universal enfranchisement. Equality of rights is the cynosure of our union of States, the grand exemplar of the correlative equality of individuals; and while truth sheds its effulgence, we cannot retrograde, without dissolving the one and subverting the other. We must onward to the fulfillment of our mission -- to the entire development of the principle of our organization -- freedom of conscience, freedom of person, freedom of trade and business pursuits, universality of freedom and equality. This is our high destiny, and in nature's eternal, inevitable decree of cause and effect we must accomplish it. All this will be our future history, to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man -- the immutable truth and beneficence of God. For this blessed mission to the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving light of truth, has America been chosen; and her high example shall smite unto death the tyranny of kings, hierarchs, and oligarchs, and carry the glad tidings of peace and good will where myriads now endure an existence scarcely more enviable than that of beasts of the field. Who, then, can doubt that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity?
The above is written by a Christian in 18th century United States, far removed from the Garden of Eden and its nearest generations. However it has as its motivation the re-creation of a free nation that, if not reflecting Eden, with its absence of sin, reflects the kingdom of God on Earth that was available in the 18th century as well as the pre flood generations. God gave both generations the same mandate. He has made that mandate evident to the pre flood generation through the means of creation and conscience. 18th Century America had the revelation of Christ available to them but he is “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Hebrews 13:8.
http://www.sociologyguide.com/types-of-society/characteristics-of-Agricultural-societies.php
Ray Bakke,A Theology as Big as the City, (InterVarsity Press, 1997) pg 32
Ray Bakke,A Theology as Big as the City, (InterVarsity Press, 1997) pg 33
Henry M. Morris, God of the Nations, (Master Books, 2002) pg 28
Henry M. Morris, God of the Nations, (Master Books, 2002) pg 28
Questia Media America, Inc. www.questia.com Book Title: The Political Economy of the Family Farm: The Agrarian Roots of American Capitalism. Contributors: Sue Headlee - author. Publisher: Praeger. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1991. Page Number: 3.
O’Sullivan, John L. On Manifest Destiny, 1839, Excerpted from "The Great Nation of Futurity," The United States Democratic Review, Volume 6, Issue 23, pp. 426-430. The complete article can be found in The Making of America Series at Cornell University, http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/osulliva.htm
Friday, June 10, 2011
John 1: 15-34 The sign from John
“John testifies concerning him. He cries saying, this was he whom I said. “He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.” From the fullness of his grace we have received on blessing after another. For the law was given through Mosses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the one and only, who is at the Father’s side has made him known. “ John 1:15-18
In the passage above John the Baptist is speaking not John the Gospel writer. John’s ministry is young vibrant and at the pinnacle of success. He is popular and moving in revelation. The greatest revelation that he is sharing with his listeners is the eternal nature of Christ. He is not deal with chronological questions. We know that John was older than Jesus from the scriptures and we know his ministry started before Jesus’ as well. He is speaking to an audience of Jews and Gentiles and saying that we have received one blessing after another, but he is saying that in the context of being a Jewish prophet pointing to a Jewish Messiah. Therefore he makes reference to one who knew God intimately. When referencing Mosses the Lord says “I speak to him face to face” as a friend. However when John makes reference to Jesus he is speaking about a son. He is a son who came to make his father known to his brothers from every tribe nation and tongue, first the Jew then the Gentile.
His revelation and popularity were such that the Jewish leaders came to see if he were the Messiah. They made room in their heart for this possibility, ‘though he had done no miracle.’ When answering the question of these leaders John references their source documents, the scriptures. He quotes Isaiah 40:3. He is a voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for the Lord and makes the path straight for all men. First to the Jew, ‘comfort my people’ ‘speak tenderly to Jerusalem’ ‘her sins has been paid for’ later the passage says ‘and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all mankind will see it together.’
Mosses took off his sandals before The I am; John says he is not worthy to untie his sandals. The God Mosses saw was a life giving Spirit. The God that John was pointing to was God in the Flesh, the Emanuel or God with us. When speaking with a similar and possible the same group as recorded in John 8:58 Jesus said ‘I tell you the truth… before Abraham I am.’ ‘They picked up stones’ but John the Baptist is declaring it openly for those who have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying. John did not do it without a sign he was told by the Lord, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit’ John then said, “I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God’
We too are given a sign that we might know that Jesus is the Son of God. ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you know that I am the one I claim to be, and I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.’ In reference to all that the law of Mosses taught and the glory of the temple and it role in the atonement of sins, Jesus said, destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three day’ and the temple he spoke about was his body.
In the passage above John the Baptist is speaking not John the Gospel writer. John’s ministry is young vibrant and at the pinnacle of success. He is popular and moving in revelation. The greatest revelation that he is sharing with his listeners is the eternal nature of Christ. He is not deal with chronological questions. We know that John was older than Jesus from the scriptures and we know his ministry started before Jesus’ as well. He is speaking to an audience of Jews and Gentiles and saying that we have received one blessing after another, but he is saying that in the context of being a Jewish prophet pointing to a Jewish Messiah. Therefore he makes reference to one who knew God intimately. When referencing Mosses the Lord says “I speak to him face to face” as a friend. However when John makes reference to Jesus he is speaking about a son. He is a son who came to make his father known to his brothers from every tribe nation and tongue, first the Jew then the Gentile.
His revelation and popularity were such that the Jewish leaders came to see if he were the Messiah. They made room in their heart for this possibility, ‘though he had done no miracle.’ When answering the question of these leaders John references their source documents, the scriptures. He quotes Isaiah 40:3. He is a voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for the Lord and makes the path straight for all men. First to the Jew, ‘comfort my people’ ‘speak tenderly to Jerusalem’ ‘her sins has been paid for’ later the passage says ‘and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all mankind will see it together.’
Mosses took off his sandals before The I am; John says he is not worthy to untie his sandals. The God Mosses saw was a life giving Spirit. The God that John was pointing to was God in the Flesh, the Emanuel or God with us. When speaking with a similar and possible the same group as recorded in John 8:58 Jesus said ‘I tell you the truth… before Abraham I am.’ ‘They picked up stones’ but John the Baptist is declaring it openly for those who have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying. John did not do it without a sign he was told by the Lord, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit’ John then said, “I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God’
We too are given a sign that we might know that Jesus is the Son of God. ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you know that I am the one I claim to be, and I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.’ In reference to all that the law of Mosses taught and the glory of the temple and it role in the atonement of sins, Jesus said, destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three day’ and the temple he spoke about was his body.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Day Six: The Glory of Man
“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.” Genesis 1 27 & 31
The culmination of all creation, the thing that God saw as very good was and is man. The words are the King David’s but I wonder if the angels quoted words similar to psalm 8, after creation was complete.
LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. …When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
You have made them[d] a little lower than the angel and crowned them[f] with glory and honor. 6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their[g] feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
In the 1968 prophetic film In the Shoes of a Fisherman there is a character named Father Telemond. He gives a speech in the film to a church tribunal. It is a heretical speech, however as he ponders his faith he says these words, “If I were to some how lose my faith in God in Christ and the Spirit, I would still believe in the world and the goodness of the world.” . In that sense he takes the seat of the angels who look upon creation externally and removed and are in awe. They long to understand how Christ would become a man. 1 Peter 1:12.
When God made man in his image he created the means for God to become man. It paved the way for eternal life either in the success or failure of mankind. Romans 5 18-19 reads, “Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.”
I tell you my friends that even as I consider these scriptures I feel like I should take my shoes off because we are standing on holy ground. I live my life so casually in this flesh, this clay, in which I am made, but it is filled with the breath of God. Each of us, “live and breathe and have our being in him” We are made in his image. We are brothers and sisters conceived in sin because of Adam, but able to be born of the Spirit because of Christ. John 1:13 tells us we can be “children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” I pray that we will understand the profound nature of the Gospel. For indeed Jesus, the Son of God “became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” See his glory today, see the glory of man today, and see the glory of who he made you to be today! On the sixth day God made man in his image and ‘it was very good’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpR9pFtDm08
The culmination of all creation, the thing that God saw as very good was and is man. The words are the King David’s but I wonder if the angels quoted words similar to psalm 8, after creation was complete.
LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. …When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
You have made them[d] a little lower than the angel and crowned them[f] with glory and honor. 6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their[g] feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
In the 1968 prophetic film In the Shoes of a Fisherman there is a character named Father Telemond. He gives a speech in the film to a church tribunal. It is a heretical speech, however as he ponders his faith he says these words, “If I were to some how lose my faith in God in Christ and the Spirit, I would still believe in the world and the goodness of the world.” . In that sense he takes the seat of the angels who look upon creation externally and removed and are in awe. They long to understand how Christ would become a man. 1 Peter 1:12.
When God made man in his image he created the means for God to become man. It paved the way for eternal life either in the success or failure of mankind. Romans 5 18-19 reads, “Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.”
I tell you my friends that even as I consider these scriptures I feel like I should take my shoes off because we are standing on holy ground. I live my life so casually in this flesh, this clay, in which I am made, but it is filled with the breath of God. Each of us, “live and breathe and have our being in him” We are made in his image. We are brothers and sisters conceived in sin because of Adam, but able to be born of the Spirit because of Christ. John 1:13 tells us we can be “children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” I pray that we will understand the profound nature of the Gospel. For indeed Jesus, the Son of God “became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” See his glory today, see the glory of man today, and see the glory of who he made you to be today! On the sixth day God made man in his image and ‘it was very good’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpR9pFtDm08
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Adam's Laws
Students of the Bible often neglect to understand that there was more than one law in the garden and they often do not understand the reason for the law. Law provides the mechanism for volitional Love. “if you Love me you will obey my commandments, (John 14:15)” and my commands are not burdensome.”(1 John 5:3) The writing and enforcement of law is still supposed to be motivated by love. When false motives enter into the development or enforcement of law it starts to lose its redemptive value. There were several legal areas in the Garden that the Lord established for Adam. They will be elaborated on in the context of freedom within these articles but can be thought of in the context of law as well.
The Law of Self Denial, “you shall not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat of it you will surely die."(Genesis 2:17) This law was the clearest and the one the most serious consequence. It was Adam’s figuratively cross in which he was to deny himself the fruit of a specific tree.
The Law of Work The Lord called Adam to “have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air” (Genesis 1:28)
The Law of Multiplication Adam was to be fruitful and multiple and fill the Earth.
The Law of Rest This law is not clearly delineated for Adam but it is seen in the example of the Lord himself and the Sabbath rest he would establish in the future. “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27) Adam was called to trust God for increase and enjoy the fruit of his labor.
The Law of Sacrifice
“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.” (Romans 5:12-14)
We know from scripture that Jesus was the “lamb slain from the foundations of the world.” Yet it is in his original sinless state that Adam was most like God. There was not a need for anything redemptive. There were simply commands that manifested the goodness of God.
“The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Genesis 2:15 -18
Adam’s Freedom In the Garden
The Lord put Adam in the Garden. He put him there because He wanted him there. He did not want him anyplace else. Adam was not born or fashioned in the Garden but was put in the Garden. This is the theme of the Great Commission. Men born in one place are called to another place, not to build it from scratch but to perfect it in the beauty that is inherent in that foreign place. When the term Redemptive Gift is used throughout these articles that will be its definition, it is the inherit beauty that God has placed in an individual, tribe and place, and time that the Gospel perfects through redemption.
The plain English meaning of the word, redeem, or redemption means to buy back or to repurchase. Therefore when our Lord Jesus Christ redeems us He is buying back or repurchasing that which is his own. He valued us when He created us and therefore He redeems us through His very own blood. He created us in a generation; we were born in a specific geography of His choosing. He placed us in a genealogy that he determined. Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.” This is not only true of Jeremiah it is true of all men everywhere in all times.
“From one man he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:26-28
The implication of Acts 17:26-28 is that the best place for Adolf Hitler to find Christ was World War II Germany. The best place for Idi Amin to find Christ was 1970’s Uganda. The best place for the Lakota, Sitting Bull to find Christ was in 19th century America. No matter the time or the place, God has placed us where we can find him. “Because He is not far from anyone of us, in him we live and move and have our being.”Acts 17:28 The best place for Adam to find Christ was in the Garden of Eden.
Freedom and the Indispensable Place
The Garden was Adam’s “determined time and exact place.” He was given a job to do. That job was more than a job however it was a redemptive task, more commonly we might define it as vocation, more accurately we would say it was a calling. He was doing the thing God had determined for him to do. That is why his work becomes a redemptive task. I would attest that a major portion of true personal freedom is found in the work we are called to do! Doctor Henry Morris of the Institute of Creation Research uses the term “dominion mandate” to describe what I am calling redemptive task in his book God and the Nations. God told Adam he was free, but free within limits. The limits were built around his task and his time. No man can volitionally jump generations, or choose what family or race he is be born to. Adam was predetermined by Triune God to be the first man and to work that Garden in Eden.
There has never been a place like Eden since the fall. It was a place of perfect freedom. It was a place of communion between God and man. God walked with Adam in the cool of the Garden. Many believe God’s presence was tangible and physical as we see in the many per incarnate appearances of Jesus throughout the Old Testament. (Gen. 12:7, 32:24-30 Exodus 34:5-28) Eden was a place of perfect health and of immortality. However, The Garden of Eden had an enemy. Jesus said,” “I saw Satan fall to Earth like lightning.” Luke 10:18 . Satan was present. He affected the animal kingdom and ultimately would be instrumental in the fall of man. Adam had only one restriction to his freedom. “You may not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat it you will surely die.” Genesis 2:17 Satan used this restriction for his own malevolent purposes but God continued to have a redemptive plan. It included, a specific person, born in specific generation, in a specific geography, and to a specific genealogy that was of the line of Adam and the seed of Eve. (Luke 3) In other words God’s Redemptive Gift was already prepared in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who would also be called to a redemptive task.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/redeem
Henry M. Morris, God and the Nations (Master Books, 2002) pg 27
http://www.theopedia.com/Theophany
The Law of Self Denial, “you shall not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat of it you will surely die."(Genesis 2:17) This law was the clearest and the one the most serious consequence. It was Adam’s figuratively cross in which he was to deny himself the fruit of a specific tree.
The Law of Work The Lord called Adam to “have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air” (Genesis 1:28)
The Law of Multiplication Adam was to be fruitful and multiple and fill the Earth.
The Law of Rest This law is not clearly delineated for Adam but it is seen in the example of the Lord himself and the Sabbath rest he would establish in the future. “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27) Adam was called to trust God for increase and enjoy the fruit of his labor.
The Law of Sacrifice
“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.” (Romans 5:12-14)
We know from scripture that Jesus was the “lamb slain from the foundations of the world.” Yet it is in his original sinless state that Adam was most like God. There was not a need for anything redemptive. There were simply commands that manifested the goodness of God.
“The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Genesis 2:15 -18
Adam’s Freedom In the Garden
The Lord put Adam in the Garden. He put him there because He wanted him there. He did not want him anyplace else. Adam was not born or fashioned in the Garden but was put in the Garden. This is the theme of the Great Commission. Men born in one place are called to another place, not to build it from scratch but to perfect it in the beauty that is inherent in that foreign place. When the term Redemptive Gift is used throughout these articles that will be its definition, it is the inherit beauty that God has placed in an individual, tribe and place, and time that the Gospel perfects through redemption.
The plain English meaning of the word, redeem, or redemption means to buy back or to repurchase. Therefore when our Lord Jesus Christ redeems us He is buying back or repurchasing that which is his own. He valued us when He created us and therefore He redeems us through His very own blood. He created us in a generation; we were born in a specific geography of His choosing. He placed us in a genealogy that he determined. Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.” This is not only true of Jeremiah it is true of all men everywhere in all times.
“From one man he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:26-28
The implication of Acts 17:26-28 is that the best place for Adolf Hitler to find Christ was World War II Germany. The best place for Idi Amin to find Christ was 1970’s Uganda. The best place for the Lakota, Sitting Bull to find Christ was in 19th century America. No matter the time or the place, God has placed us where we can find him. “Because He is not far from anyone of us, in him we live and move and have our being.”Acts 17:28 The best place for Adam to find Christ was in the Garden of Eden.
Freedom and the Indispensable Place
The Garden was Adam’s “determined time and exact place.” He was given a job to do. That job was more than a job however it was a redemptive task, more commonly we might define it as vocation, more accurately we would say it was a calling. He was doing the thing God had determined for him to do. That is why his work becomes a redemptive task. I would attest that a major portion of true personal freedom is found in the work we are called to do! Doctor Henry Morris of the Institute of Creation Research uses the term “dominion mandate” to describe what I am calling redemptive task in his book God and the Nations. God told Adam he was free, but free within limits. The limits were built around his task and his time. No man can volitionally jump generations, or choose what family or race he is be born to. Adam was predetermined by Triune God to be the first man and to work that Garden in Eden.
There has never been a place like Eden since the fall. It was a place of perfect freedom. It was a place of communion between God and man. God walked with Adam in the cool of the Garden. Many believe God’s presence was tangible and physical as we see in the many per incarnate appearances of Jesus throughout the Old Testament. (Gen. 12:7, 32:24-30 Exodus 34:5-28) Eden was a place of perfect health and of immortality. However, The Garden of Eden had an enemy. Jesus said,” “I saw Satan fall to Earth like lightning.” Luke 10:18 . Satan was present. He affected the animal kingdom and ultimately would be instrumental in the fall of man. Adam had only one restriction to his freedom. “You may not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat it you will surely die.” Genesis 2:17 Satan used this restriction for his own malevolent purposes but God continued to have a redemptive plan. It included, a specific person, born in specific generation, in a specific geography, and to a specific genealogy that was of the line of Adam and the seed of Eve. (Luke 3) In other words God’s Redemptive Gift was already prepared in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who would also be called to a redemptive task.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/redeem
Henry M. Morris, God and the Nations (Master Books, 2002) pg 27
http://www.theopedia.com/Theophany
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