I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 16-18.

There are several lessons to be learned from the story of Ishmael’s birth.  One of them concerns faith.  Abram and Sarai are held up for us as examples of people of great faith.  Yet, in this story, Sarai chose to give her maid servant to Abram so that he could have a son by her in order to fulfill God’s promise to Abram…and Abram agreed with her offer.  This in itself teaches us two lessons.  One, we do not need to figure our how to make God’s plan work, He already knows what is needed.  Two, even people of great faith sometimes have moments of doubt.

Ordinarily I try to avoid going over a lesson from a passage which I know I went over previously on this particular passage, but I think the lesson from the Lord’s discussion with Abraham about Sodom is worth reminding ourselves of every chance we get.  In a way, this story is a precursor to what Jesus said about the Kingdom of Heaven being like yeast.  Both this story and Jesus’ parable about yeast tell us that we as Christians have failed in Western Civilization.  If there had been as few as 10 righteous people in Sodom the city would not have been so wicked that God found it necessary to destroy it.  There will always be wickedness around us as long as we are in this world.  But, if we truly express God’s love in our lives, others will feel that love and show it to others around them, even if they continue to reject God.  If we remember that evil is the absence of good and that good drives out evil in the same way that light drives out darkness, we will see how this works.   As we do good there is that much less space around us for evil.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 12-15.

Last year when I read this passage I commented about the fact that Abraham’s father left Ur on his way to Canaan, but never got further than Haran.  When I did so I began exploring the idea of looking at the Genesis accounts as  true from a secular perspective.  One might wonder what led Terah to leave Ur, and Abraham some years later to leave Haran.  As I noted then, the Epic of Gilgamesh, which contains an account very similar to the account of Noah and the Flood, appeared in Ur about the time that Terah and Abraham left that city.  If those ruling Ur had begun using a retelling of the Flood story to consolidate their power (which appears to have been at least one of the purposes of the Epic of Gilgamesh), they would have made life very uncomfortable for anyone believing the original story.

I find several aspects of today’s passage interesting.  Today I want to look at the major changes in Abram’s fortune over the course of today’s passage.  Early on, when Abraham went to Egypt he was worried that the rulers there would have him killed so that they could take his wife.  Later, when the king of Elam, who was powerful enough to demand tribute from most of the cities in the area, sacked Sodom and took Lot captive, Abraham put together an alliance, tracked down the forces of the King of Elam, freed the captives and captured the loot which Elam’s forces had acquired.  At this point, Abram was wealthy enough and powerful enough to be a player in world affairs.  Certainly part of Abram’s ability to accomplish this came from the fact that he was a nomad and did not have to protect a specific location from attack.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

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

After the Flood, God made a promise to Noah that He would never again curse the ground because of mankind, that for as long as the earth continued to exist planting and harvesting would happen.  This means that I do not panic about environmental “crisis” when the press reports on the latest thing which will destroy our environment unless we take immediate action.  However, this does not mean that we can pollute at will and expect God to clean up after us.  It does mean that we have time to gather facts and do tests so as to find the best and most appropriate way to deal with environmental problems as they arise.  God’s promise means that there will be no global emergencies.  There are from time to time local emergencies.  As a practical matter, this means that if someone tells me that if the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to increase, at some point there will be problems, I believe them and think we should study ways to keep the amount of CO2 from reaching the problem level.  However, if someone tells me that if people don’t immediately reduce the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere we are all going to die, I dismiss them as crackpots who are trying to con people,  My faith means that while it is sometimes necessary to swerve to avoid the sudden appearance of an obstacle, major course corrections should be taken deliberately and only after careful thought.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

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

Before I continue with what my thought experiment means for understanding this passage there is something important I want to point out, actually two things.  At harvest time, Cain presented some of what he had harvested as an offering to God, while Abel presented the best portions of the firstborn lambs.  Cain then got upset because God was more pleased with Abel’s offering.  Why was God more pleased with Abel’s offering?  The passage does not make it clear, but I believe the difference was that Cain just offered some of his harvest, while Abel offered the best of his increase.  Then, when Cain was angry, God gave Cain a piece of advice we should follow ourselves.  If we do what is right we will be accepted by God.  As importantly, if we do not do what is right it will leave time for us to do what is wrong.  Let us fill our time doing what is right so that we do not have time to sin.

Now continuing my thought experiment, although now I will extend it to the idea that for the most part the Bible is true.  So, if the Bible is true, the flood story is true.  Which would mean that everything we know about what happened before that comes through Noah and his family.  It would also mean that the our oldest common male ancestor can be no further back than Noah, while our oldest common female ancestor could be Eve.   Interestingly enough, modern genetic science posits that the common male ancestor of all living humans was significantly more recent than the common female ancestor of all living humans.  I also find this interesting.  God had already established a list of animals which were the only ones approved for human consumption.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.  

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

And a new year begins.  I want to begin with a thought experiment I have referred to parts of from time to time.  Let us assume that God as described in the Old Testament exists (I may talk about if and how the New Testament changes our understanding of God later).  So, this God created the Universe and everything in it and takes a personal interest in humans.  And that interest is not just in humans in general, or just a few humans, but each and every human.  I will expand on this as we go along (unless God directs my thoughts in another direction).

Which brings us to my understanding of today’s passage and what I think it means for us.  Part of the above assumption means that God could communicate to humans what happened that they had not witnessed.  However, nothing in my understanding of God suggests that He had any reason for humans to know in detail what happened before He created them.  So, there is no reason to expect that the description of what happened before the creation of human beings is correct in the details.  But there are a couple of things to take from it.  Entropy and death happen because of mankind’s sin.  And what was that sin?  The desire to know the difference between good and evil so as to be like God.  Ultimately all sins come down to attempts to substitute ourselves, or our desires. for God.