Starting on New Year’s Day (well, technically, on New Year’s Ever), I switched from using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible reading to the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net”.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 11:27-15:21.

    At the end of chapter 11 we read that Terah, Abram’s father, left Ur and started to move to Canaan. However, he stopped in Haran and settled there. We are not told why he began the move, nor why he settled in Haran. The only clue we have is that his son Haran died in Ur before Terah left Ur, which suggests it might have been related to his motive to leave Ur. Despite the fact that the name of Terah’s son who died in Ur and the town where he settled are the same in English, they are actually completely unrelated in the original Hebrew. Whatever the reasons, upon Terah’s death God instructs Abram to complete the migration which his father began. When Abram arrived in the land of Canaan, God promised him that his descendants would possess the land.

    Sometime after Abram arrived in Canaan there was a famine. As a result, Abraham moved to Egypt. When he got to Egypt, Abram was afraid that someone would kill him because they desired Sarai, his wife. So, he got her to agree that they would tell everyone that she was his sister. As a result of this lie, the Pharaoh gave Abram great wealth in order to take Sarai as his wife. The result was that God sent plagues on Pharaoh and his household. It is worth noting that Abram had sufficient faith in God to leave the land of his father’s family, but not sufficient faith to trust God to protect him from those who wanted to take his wife. God punished those who took his wife anyway.

    When Abram returned to Canaan, he realized that between them he and Lot had too many flocks to stay together. So, they chose to go separate ways. Abram gave Lot first choice and Lot chose the plains of the Jordan valley. Lot settled near the city of Sodom. Shortly after this war broke out between the kings of the Jordan valley, including Sodom, and kings from the vicinity of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The kings of the Jordan valley lost and their enemies plundered the region. Among the plunder was Lot and his household. When Abram learned that Lot had been taken captive, he mobilized his men, and his allies. He overtook the force which had plundered the Jordan valley and taken Lot captive. He defeated the army and recovered the goods which had been taken. Reading this account we realize that Abram was a force to be reckoned with in the region. The army which he defeated was one which had been able to successfully demand tribute from the local kings, taking that tribute by force when they refused to give it.

Starting on New Year’s Day (well, technically, on New Year’s Ever), I switched from using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible reading to the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net”.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 8-11.

    Noah and his family were in the Ark for over a year. When they were finally able to leave the Ark, the first thing Noah did was make an offering to God. The account tells us that this offering so pleased God that He vowed never again to destroy all life on earth, as long as the earth remains. There is a lesson here for us. We, also, should make serving God a priority. When troubles end for us, the first thing we should do is offer thanks to God, and offer to His use from our material possessions.

    I think it is worth looking at God’s promise to Noah a little more closely. He promised that He would never again curse the ground on because of mankind. As long as the earth remains there will be planting and harvesting, cold and heat, summer and winter, night and day. Mankind will never again trigger devastation over the whole earth similar to the flood. As a Christian, this promise tells me all I need to know about those who claim that human emissions of CO2 will destroy the earth. Let me be clear, it is our responsibility to act wisely and not cause unwanted destruction around us. That includes not wastefully generating CO2. Each and every one of us is called to be good stewards of the resources which God has given us. However, God has set this earth up such that He will not allow mankind to destroy it. Each and every one of us will answer to God for how we use the resources He has given into our control. Let us choose our actions so that we will maximize those resources for God.

Starting yesterday I switched from using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible reading to the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net”.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 4-7.

    Today’s passage covers from the birth of Cain to the Flood. I have always struggled with what Cain did wrong in his offering. I think the wording in the New Living Translation makes it clear. Cain presented “some of his crops” to the Lord. On the other hand, Abel brought the “best portions” of the firstborn of his flocks. The difference here was that Abel chose the best parts to offer to God, AND he made that offering from the first-born. Cain on the other hand offered some out of his total harvest. Cain was jealous of the blessings his brother received. Rather than change his behaviors so that he could get similar blessings in the future, Cain killed his brother. This is how sin works in us so often. We commit a lesser sin, one which can be made good with a little effort. Then, rather than admit our mistake and change our behaviors, we commit a greater sin, which cannot be made right no matter what we do.

    The account of the flood begins with the following sentence, “The sons of God saw the beautiful women and took any they wanted as their wives.” I am not sure what is meant by the “sons of God” in this sentence. However, the sentence reads to me that when they saw a beautiful woman, they took her as a wife, without her having any say in the matter. Which further suggests that men stopped viewing women as their partners and started viewing them as objects for their own pleasure. Further, the offspring of these unions were men who used violence to get what they wanted from others. As I read this, everyone became obsessed with sexual immorality and greed, using violence to get what they wanted from others. When things got bad enough, God chose the one man who was righteous, Noah, and wiped the slate clean.

    We can look at this passage and see a trajectory which sin takes. First, sin is just between us and God: Cain’s offering was not acceptable to God. Then, it is between us and our “brother”: Cain killed Able. Finally, sin corrupts all of society: everything people thought or imagined was evil. Sin never remains a small, private thing. It spreads and infects everything it touches.

Starting today I am switching from using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible reading to the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net”.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 1-3.

    This passage is really three stories. The first is an account of how the Universe came to be and stands alone, separate from the other two. This account of the creation of the Universe is clearly poetic. It is written to show that everything was created in an orderly, planned fashion. I struggle with describing this story as literally true. On the one hand, declaring that this story is literally true leads to a much more rigid interpretation of what it has to say than I believe God intends. On the other hand, declaring that it is not literally true makes it much too easy to reject the truths which it teaches. Among the truths which this story teaches is that God created the Universe in an orderly, understandable fashion. Further, He did so by declaring it to be so. The Universe, and everything in it, was created by the word of God. One of the key factors here for me is that my theology says that death did not enter into the world until the first man sinned. Which is discussed in the third story.

    The second and third stories are linked and there are several points that fit them together. The second story is about the origin of man and woman, family, and society. Once again this story is composed in a very poetic manner, but I have the same issues with making a declarative statement as to whether it is literally true as I did with the first story. The first truth of this story is that it is not good for a man to be alone in this world. The second truth is that man and woman are created to be partners and to help each other. There are two things about this that are important. First, human sexuality is designed to form a bond between a man and a woman. When sexual pleasure is obtained outside of that scenario it is a distortion of what God intended. Second, that bond is intended to be for the rest of the lives of those involved. Once again, when sexual pleasure is obtained outside of that scenario, whether because of infidelity, or divorce, or some other reason, it is a distortion of what God intended and is less than the joy which God intended for us.

    The third story tells us how sin came into the world, and about how we react to our having sinned. First, Eve ate of the fruit, contrary to God’s command, because she sought knowledge and wisdom. Seeking knowledge and wisdom is, in and of itself, a good thing. However, the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom does not justify doing wrong. Eve was seeking a shortcut to knowledge, further she wanted to be God-like. She was not satisfied with being made in the image of God, she wanted to be God. In many ways this is the original sin, the desire to be able to determine right and wrong independently of God, the wish to be able to declare something to be right because we desire it to be so. I want to point out that Adam was standing right there. He failed to offer any counter arguments to those made by the serpent because he, also, wanted to be God-like. But Adam wanted to be able to blame someone else if things went wrong. There is an important lesson here. When you do wrong, you will pay the consequences, even if you were following someone else’s lead.