Read Genesis 16

Genesis 16:8-13

⁸  And He said, "Hagar, Sarai's maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?" She said, "I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai."
⁹  The Angel of the LORD said to her, "Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hand."
¹⁰  Then the Angel of the LORD said to her, "I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be counted for multitude."
¹¹  And the Angel of the LORD said to her: "Behold, you are with child, And you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, Because the LORD has heard your affliction.
¹²  He shall be a wild man; His hand shall be against every man, And every man's hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren."
¹³  Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, "Have I also here seen Him who sees me?"

Note:  The name of the place commemorates that God sees, furthermore, that God actually cares about a young mother and her infant son journeying through the Sinai.  Verse 11 mentions that He hears the affliction of Hagar, and again, cares.  Perhaps that is what we should think about when we need to do what Hagar was commanded by the Angel of the Lord, to submit.  Hagar returned to the house of Abraham and Sarah and submitted to her.  We hear of her again in Genesis 21, 25 and in the New Testament (Galatians 4:21-31). 

"Submit", as I understand it, does not mean "blind obedience" but rather to respect and cooperate with someone.  Wives are to respect and cooperate with their husbands and Christians are to respect and cooperate with each other in general (Ephesians 5:21-22)  The ability to submit comes from a deepening understanding that God hears and sees, not just that He is capable of doing so, but that He does.  He pays attention.  He pays attention to us, even in our everyday lives.  This can be challenging in business setting where someone is trying to take credit for your work or your idea.  Stand up for yourself, but take care not to stoop to their level of dishonesty.  The Lord sees.  He will take note of who does what and will take action.

The Lord Who Calls Us to Be Humble is Humble Himself

Genesis 15:6-17

And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.  Then He said to him, "I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it."  And he said, "Lord GOD, how shall I know that I will inherit it?"  So He said to him, "Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon."  Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in two.   And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.   Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him.  Then He said to Abram: "Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years.  And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions.  Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age.  But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete."  And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces.

Note:  The surprising portion of this situation is that it is a covenant ceremony involving unequal partners.  When this type of covenant is enacted between two kings, the one passing between the sacrifices the weaker participant, pledging allegiance to the other, superior king.  One makes the promise and the other receives the promises.  Similar to a vassal king, Almighty God takes the debtor position to Abraham simply to prove that He can trust God to keep His promise.  From what I read, the smoking oven and burning torch are the same thing.  The repetition is for emphasis.   This is the burning presence of God, humbling Himself before a human.  What excuse do we have not to be humble?  How extraordinary the dedication of the Lord to the covenant. 

Genesis 15:5-6

Then He brought him outside and said, "look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them."  And He said to him, "so shall your descendants be."  And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.

What to do when the promises of God and the circumstances of your life don't match

Trust in the Lord has, I believe, more to do with confidence in the trustworthiness of the Lord and with answers to all questions.  The context of these verses indicate that Abram (this was before his name was changed to Abraham) had a vision of the Lord regarding a child.  He and his wife were beyond the years of childbearing.  They had waited for the fulfillment of a promise to the point that there was no path clear to seeing the promise come to pass.  

The Lord, in this vision, after years of waiting to no avail, repeats His promise and tells Abram not to be afraid, that He is his shield, his very great reward.  Abram, for his part, is full of questions.  "I am an old man, and the heir to my house is Eliezer of Damascus, the son of his servants.  He has no children.  He has questions and concerns.  The Lord is not making any sense and Abram sees no way how this will work out.

The Lord responds by making a statement and saying very little about Abram's questions.  He says that Eliezer will not be the heir (I'm not sure if we every hear about him again) but that Abram and Sarai will have a child, and their descendants will rival the stars in number.  Abram believes the Lord, and it is accounted as righteousness.

The verb for "believe" means "to consider trustworthy".  It's used also in 2 Chronicles 20:20, if you want to look that up.  Abram wasn't afraid to give voice to his concerns and questions, and speak to the Lord about them.  That was not held against him.  Abram, for his part, heard the promise of the Lord again after sharing his concerns, and even though his still did not have answers to his questions, he decided that the Lord is trustworthy, and he was accounted righteous before the Lord.

Followers of Jesus Christ, the Messiah and Son of God, make up those descendants whose number rivals the stars.  (cf. Romans 4:13-25)  There will be times in which the Lord does not seem to make sense, in which the promises of God seem far away with no clear path to them.  Our life settings seem bleak and hopeless.  The question for any one of those "stars" in that moment is not "can I ignore questions or concerns?" or "how can I make this work?" but "do I count my Lord as trustworthy?"  That is faith, and it counts as righteousness before the Lord.  

Genesis 5:24

And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.

Cf. Hebrews 11:5  By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, "and was not found, because God had taken him", for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

Cf. 2 Kings 2:11  Then it happened, as they continued on and talked, that suddenly a chariot of fire appeared with horses of fire, and separated the two of them; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

Note:  Here are two episodes of people taken bodily and alive into heaven, and did not return.  There is, I'm told, an ancient church tradition that Enoch and Elijah (some versions of this tradition identify Moses and Elijah) are the two witnesses who trouble the Antichrist when he is at the height of his power.  Their story is in Revelation 11:1-15.

For us there is the promise of 1 Thessalonians 4:17  Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

People debate the timing of this event, and we'll leave consideration of that for another time, but practically speaking, Christians must always live as if they would meet with Jesus on any given day, with no advance warning.  It is a good question to ask oneself, "if I met Jesus this day, would I be ready?"  "What would I say to Him?"  Any day can be the day. 

Genesis 2:4-7

⁴  This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,
⁵  before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground;

⁶  but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.

⁷  And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Hello, everyone.  Sorry it has been so long since my last entry.  Since then, I've finished with the Gospel of Luke for now and have turned my attention to the Hebrew Scriptures.  I was reading the passage in Genesis 2 that was often described to me as a second account of creation; one that contradicted parts of Genesis 1.  For instance, plant life comes upon the scene on the third day (Genesis 1:12-13).  Adam and Eve do not show up until the sixth day (Genesis 1:26-31). 

One interesting explanation for the apparent contradiction comes from a couple of Nineteenth Century German theologians (Keil & Delitzsch) who offer this interpretation.

As they see it "the field" (in Genesis 2:5) does not refer to the whole earth, but a specific plot of ground that the Lord chose as the site of His most important creative act, that of the human race.  This is not a competitive, differing account of the creation of earth with a contradiction regarding plant life, but the creation of the Garden of Eden, the field in which the first man and woman shall live.  In doing so God set aside humanity from the rest of creation by preparing a special place for them first.  It kind of adds a new twist to the promise of our Lord Jesus to "prepare a place for us" in John 14:3. 

Have a good day.  I'll try to write again soon.

Saturday, December 2, 2017

Hello, everyone.  Sorry for such a delay.  I've had some trouble with bronchitis this Fall.  Here's my latest thoughts on Scripture...

^{Luke 23-Right After the Death of Jesus on the Cross}

⁵⁰Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, ⁵¹who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea and he was waiting for the kingdom of God. ⁵²Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body. ⁵³Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid. ⁵⁴It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin.

⁵⁵The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. ⁵⁶Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.

  When I read this sad passage I was struck by the last sentence.  "But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment."  Even though the Lord Jesus told them that He would rise from the dead, they seemed to miss that point and they lacked our historical perspective.  For these disciples, I would imagine the death of Jesus was as if their whole lives came crashing down upon them.  Still, they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.  They were still willing to let God be God.

The verb translated, "to rest" is in four other verses of the Christian Scriptures.

Luke 14:4  But they kept silent, and He took him and healed him, and let him go.  (This done after Jesus silences critics who complain about healing on the Sabbath.)

When they heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, "Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life."  (This after they heard Peter testify about the Holy Spirit coming upon Gentile men.)

Acts 21:14  So when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, "The will of the Lord be done."  (The response of people who fail to persuade Paul to avoid Jerusalem after a prophet predicted that he would be arrested there.)

1 Thessalonians 4:11  "...that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you,...  (General advice to the Thessalonians.)

The word means "to rest from labor" but its use in the other four verses of the Christian Scriptures smacks of submission.  They relent, or submit or give up and leave the matter to God.  Even though the idea of submission does not rest lightly with us, I think there is a wisdom and strength in being able to trust God and leave matters in His hands.  It is hard to do when life is going well, but these people at the end of Luke have experienced, for them, the ultimate disaster.  Their whole world, I would imagine, had come falling down upon them.  How hard it must have been to see all that happened the Jesus Christ, watch His dead body be laid in a tomb, and then take a Sabbath's day of rest according the commandments.  I wonder how restful that day was?t Yet that was the best thing for those people to do.  They rested, in obedience to command, and acknowledged that God is still God. 

This sets a powerful example of us, who in the midst of the constant changes of life may find ourselves going through seasons in which some, or many, of the changes we experience are unwelcome.  The good news of life is that everything changes.  The bad news is that things we wish would never change, change as well.  I think a good prayer to pray is that we would have the wisdom and strength to rest, to let God be God, when changes come that are unwelcome and we cannot stop.  There are no life changes that stretch beyond the reach of Christ, whose promises and love cannot be cut off from us by no change, in life or in death.

Hello, everyone.  Hope all is well.  This is a note from my personal Bible study that finds grace in the contrast between two sentences Jesus spoke to Peter and the disciples during the Last Supper.

Luke 22

²⁹  And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as My Father bestowed one upon Me, 

³⁰  that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel."
³¹  And the Lord said, "Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat.

The contrast is astonishing.  Jesus, in the face of betrayal and disaster, speaks of the Kingdom the Father has given Him.  He grants to the disciples the honor of judging the twelve tribes of Israel.  (There are some who believe that we will be assigned a tribe when we enter heaven.  I don't know that for sure, but it is interesting.)  The very next verse, Jesus warns Peter that Satan has asked for him in order to "sift like wheat".  Apparently, Satan, having successfully tempted Judas, wanted to go for the rest of the disciples.

Jesus predicts Peter's soul-crushing failure, yet does not retract the honor of judging one of the twelve tribes.  In the Book of Hebrews (12:25-29) the followers of Christ are promised a Kingdom, one that will never be shaken (it assumes that everything else in this life will be shaken), and if Peter is an example, such grace is not withdrawn even when we fail, and fail miserably.  There is a comfort and a confidence in that grace, that I am still privileged to be part of this Kingdom, even though I can get discouraged, be weak, make foolish choices.  I'm not saying there is no place for repentance, I just find great grace in the contrast of these words.