Category: Faith

An Overview of the Genesis Story

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

Sometimes we get lost in the forest and miss the trees. Below is a take on Genesis from 30,000 feet as told by some creative folks at www.http://jointhebibleproject.com/  I enjoyed and the fresh look at age old stories put together in an overview. Below is my breakdown. At the end of this article is a link to the entertaining video.

God & the World

God made the world and declared it is good

God made man in God’s image: Adam is the Hebrew word for humanity; and Eve is the Hebrew word for life. Representative of God’s character in the world God made.

God sends them out into the world to be creative, as God was, but he gives them a moral choice about how they do it.

The moral choice is what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is all about

God tells them not to eat of it or they will die.

Up to that point God provided and defined what is good (His creation)

God has the knowledge of good and evil and made it attainable for humans (the choice)

The tree represents that choice: will humans accept God’s definition of what is good, or will they define what is good for themselves.

This sets the stage for sin – the desire and act of defining and controlling what is good for me and my tribe, even at the expense of you and your tribe

People are not good at defining good and evil without God – Genesis 3-11

Downward spiral

Adam & Eve can no longer trust each other – they were naked and felt fine about it before, but now they feel shameful after eating the forbidden fruit and hide from God and each other

Cain becomes jealous of Abel and kills him

Lemak accumulates wives, property and sings songs of being more violent than Cain and is proud of it

Things get so bad that God proceeds to wipe out humanity except for Noah and his family

We think of God as angry, but he is sad and grief stricken; to save the world He washes it clean with the flood

But even Noah takes a turn – he plants a vineyard, gets wasted and things get sketchy

Babel ends this portion of Genesis – God knows that men, if unified, will seize the opportunity to seek to become like God and that will be bad

God scatters them so they can not wreak anymore havoc

When humans seize autonomy from God and define good and evil themselves it results in corruption, tragedy and death

Abraham & His Family

Begins God’s mission to rescue and restore humanity

Before the video link, I want to make a few comments. First, it seems elemental to me that God creative Adam and Eve to be creative beings like God (in the image of God), but the link between that and the tree of knowledge of good and evil I find interesting. God gave them a choice to accept what God provided them and defined as good or to eat of the tree and define what is good for themselves. I have not heard things put exactly that way before.

Building on that, the choices that humanity makes are awful. Cain kills Abel. The strong become boastful of violence and domination over others. Even after the flood “cleanses” the world for a fresh start, Noah, himself, stumbles into weirdness. And when humankind repopulates, they become unified in an endeavor to reach the heavens for themselves, which will only allow them to cause more trouble and damage than they would otherwise be able to do; so God divides them by language and scatters them. In doing that, He creates some checks and balances that minimize the trouble they can cause.

The beginning of Genesis is the story of the moral choice that humanity made, to seize control of defining good and evil for themselves, and rejecting God’s definition. It does not go well. We do not do well with the choices we make.

While the video ends here, the next portion of Genesis is summarized as the beginning of God’s rescue mission to save and restore humanity through Abraham and his family. We will have to wait for the summary of the rest of Genesis.

I am certain that the overview can be done in different ways and emphasize different aspects of the Big Picture. I think this overview is compelling. The fundamental choice that we all make is whether we will “do it my way” or submit ourselves to God’s way. Will define good and bad for ourselves or accept how God has defined it?

Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOUV7mWDI34

What is your take? Is this a good overview?

Creepy Little Lies

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

This is good. We all wrestle with different things. Patterns of thought we have fed keep coming back. We often don’t see them for what they are – LIES! We need to be vigilant and expose them for the lies they are. Gossip comes in this way, and we think it is ok; but it is not! We struggle most with the lies about ourselves or what others think of us. We need to be ready to zap them like the creepy bugs they are and let God fill us with “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (Phil. 4:8)

Annie B's avatarEyes Wide Open

head-196541_640

It really is true: We must be vigilant and ever-ready to lock up those wayward, yet powerful thoughts that try to infiltrate our minds and hearts.

Every. Single. Day.

We also must remember that we can’t do it in our own power. We have to be on-guard and armed with the power of the Holy and Mighty One; the Loving and Redeeming, Sovereign One.

The Only One ~ the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Why would you share such a thing today? Your blog is just always so deeep. People don’t want to read all of these deep and intense thoughts. You need to lighten up. How are you going to glorify Jesus with all this kind of stuff? Why can’t you be light and fun all the time? What’s the point of it all anyway?”

I had a good day today as compared to all the others over this past week…

View original post 1,105 more words

It is Well with My Soul: The Story

kevingdrendel13 Comments

It is Well with My SoulSometimes songs we know have so much more meaning and power when we know the story behind the song.

The song, It is Well with My Soul, is known by most people who have attended protestant church services.

Listen to the traditional hymn once before reading on.

It is Well with My soul

The song title belies the turmoil that led to the writing of it. Following is the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey used to say. Continue reading “It is Well with My Soul: The Story” →

How Were People Saved Before Jesus?

kevingdrendel1 Comment

Chinese home

One of the most asked questions about Christianity goes something like this:

If Jesus is the only way to heaven, what about the people who lived before Jesus was born?

A corollary question is: What about the people who never had an opportunity to hear about Jesus?

I am no biblical scholar, but I have wondered about these things myself.

Jesus seems to leave us little wiggle room when he says things like, “I am the way, the truth and the light, and no one comes to the Father but through me.”

Some say that Jesus was a good moral teacher, but he wasn’t God. A person who made the claims he made (like he is the only way to God), however, doesn’t allow us room to consider him just good moral person, or even a prophet. As C. S. Lewis famously said, a person who makes the claims Jesus made is either a lunatic, liar or God. He not just a good man.

So if Jesus was right about who he said he is, what about the people before Jesus came who knew nothing about Jesus?

Continue reading “How Were People Saved Before Jesus?” →

Putting the Anger of God in Perspective: Part 2

kevingdrendel1 Comment

Sun in the Clouds

Speaking of God’s anger, we experience things that we perceive to be God’s wrath, but they are not. When tragedy strikes – a natural disaster, a terrible accident, cancer – we feel that God is being angry or cruel.

We wonder how He could do those things to people … especially if it affects us!

In reality, God has created a neutral universe in which things happen, good and bad. From our perspective it seems personal, but it’s just the way God made the universe.

It is also the perfect soil in the exercise of free will is given its space to operate. As a general rule, the universe is a neutral ground where favorable and unfavorable things happen all the time (the rain falls on both the righteous and the unrighteous). The important thing is our reaction to those things.

We see the world from a finite, limited perspective. In fact, we tend to think or act as if this world is all there is. Just as the universe had a beginning, it will have an ending. The end of each of us will surely come before the world ends, but end it will – at least in its present form. When life as we know it is stripped away, and the universe as we know it comes to an end, there will remain only eternity with God or eternity without God.

We tend to feel that the bad things that happen to us in our lives are expressions of God’s anger toward us, but it isn’t..

In fact, God’s wrath is not yet revealed. The wrath of God is coming. Colossians 3:6 The day of judgment is still to come (2 Peter 2:9), and, we are told that day will “come like a thief in the night.” 1 Thessalonians 5:2

If we are in opposition to God, with stubborn and unrepentant hearts, God’s wrath is stored up for us “for the day of God’s wrath,” (Romans 2:5) but, that day has not yet come.

In the meantime, we experience God’s forbearance, patience and kindness, allowing us time to turn around and align with Him. Romans 2:4 As the writer of Hebrews exhorted, if you hear His voice today, do not harden your hearts! (Hebrews 3:15 quoting Psalm 95:7) There is still time to change.

The world we live in is the soil in which we grow toward the life that is yet to come. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” John 18:36

Indeed, none of us get out of this world alive. We have the opportunity, while we still live, to plant ourselves in God’s soil, to die to ourselves and to live for God.

The ways we respond to the happenings in our lives guides our growth in the soil of this world. We are either growing toward Him or away from Him. The end of our days is not this world, but the next. Jesus told us that we should not be storing up treasures on earth where things rot and rust; we should store our treasures up in heaven.

Peter reminds us that we look forward to a new heavens and a new earth. 2 Peter 3:13 He exhorts us,

“So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.” 2 Peter 3:14-15

The Lord’s patience means salvation. 2 Peter 3:16 Bad experiences remind us we are not immortal, that there is an end to this life, that we should be considering where our treasures are.