Creation has to be one of the coolest stories ever. #1, it's totally unbelievable. Example of that would be that much of the scientific community still will not believe it. I mean, there is something that is coming out of nothing. As I've continued to study the word bara' I've found that it really indicates that something was created where nothing was before. So when You bara' the heavens and the earth, You weren't taking pieces of something and fashioning it into another thing. You were making matter, brand new. That's not possible. That's why it's so awesome.
The Spirit of God (Elohim) is a really interesting thing to me today. It's not something big that I noticed in my study, just small. It's really just one line. The Spirit of God hovering over the waters is meant to indicate that it is God ready for action.
That's just a cool image to me. I relate to sports I guess. As I've coached tennis I continue to preach to the players the importance of ready feet. It's something inspiring to me to see a confident tennis player standing on the baseline, staring down his opponent and bouncing those feet around, ready for the point, ready for the battle. That's the sense I get when I read this. You're there, kind of like stretching out, cracking Your knuckles, rolling up Your sleeves, sly grin on Your face. You know what You're about to do, and You know it's going to be amazing.
Then BOOM! The action comes and its...what? God speaking? That's not very exciting. Why not a God fight, You like the Babylonians. The gods stab each other and the blood falls to the earth and begins creation. That, that is awesome! That is spectacular! That is false.
LORD, You are amazing at flipping things on their head. I know that if You asked my middle schoolers what the most boring lessons are, they would say it is when we just talk. But I've always felt differently. I can feel my heart move when we talk. And You have always defined action differently. There is action and power in speech.
And so there You are, ready for action, hovering over the deep, and You speak. And it is gorgeous. You speak creation. It flows out and covers the earth. You speak and You separate, You speak and the lights shine, You speak and creatures appear, You speak and decide to create us.
Let Your words fall afresh on me today LORD, creating a new spirit and new dedication.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
I Don't Have Time/Didn't Want To...
Frustrating when all the things that I have to do get in the way of the things that I want to do, then when I get done with the things I have to do I don't want to do the things that I wanted to do before. So, maybe today I'll get back to posting.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Light and Darkness
So Lord, I'm picking up my study from where I left off yesterday, which was basically just the first verse of Genesis. I've already explored how You are pure creation and creativity, the genesis of all inspiration. Also, I've looked at the question of what was happening before creation of the earth, and found one rabbi who would say I'm not to speculate on that.
My second thought upon diving into Genesis 1 is about light. Genesis 1, verses 3-4 read:
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
So, the question is, You saw that the light was good, but what about the dark? Are we to assume that the dark is good because in verse 2 darkness was over the surface of the deep. Maybe a better question, is darkness natural and light simply better? Why does the author of this opening creation poem take the time to say that You saw the light was good, but not to say that the darkness was good as well.
It becomes even more interesting as we look at the images of light throughout the rest of Scripture. Darkness is portrayed as lack of knowledge, evil...while light is certainly a continued metaphor for goodness. Light of the world, the pillar of fire bringing light to the Israelites, that You will dwell with us and be the light, etc. So is darkness evil?
Maybe an even better question is where did darkness come from? Because at the beginning of the story, darkness is already there. What the text in Genesis 1 indicates is that God spoke light into creation, and then separated light and dark. There is no indication that You created the darkness. So was that just something previous to the story that we don't need to speculate about? A creation that came from You, just earlier than this account? Or might there be another creative force in the world creating darkness?
Some rabbis I found discussing this on the net note that darkness is simply the absence of light. It is not created but caused. When there is no light, there is darkness. It's an effect not something that is made ("What Creation and Darkness Have in Common," Believing is Knowing)
What is interesting there is the discussion of language. In Isaiah 45:7, we have this on the creation of light and darkness (You are the speaker):
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.
The Hebrew word for create in this passage is bara'. This, very interestingly, is the same word used in the creation narrative: In the beginning, God bara' the heavens and the earth. Now this is suddenly disturbing to me Lord. You created darkness, okay I can deal with that. But on the flip side of this passage is that You create disaster, or evil as other translations have it.
The rabbis that I found discussing this language, this usage of bara' say that bara' is used when something comes from nothing. You bara' the heavens and the earth because they were pure creation, they didn't come from anywhere. You bara' darkness and disaster because they suddenly appear when there is nothingness, in other words when there is a lack of light or a lack of goodness.
I don't know. I am certainly intrigued by the lack of light makes darkness, the lack of goodness creates disaster argument. Mainly it is interesting because it puts the emphasis back upon being a light and being a blessing in order to prevent darkness and disaster. But even if this is the case, then light and goodness should have been first, and then when they were gone we would discover darkness and disaster. The nothingness shouldn't come first, should it? And we know that darkness was first over the deep in Scripture.
Well, this has been an interesting study for now. Maybe this is why I'm not supposed to speculate about things before the story starts, it's too hard. I know this must have been a confusing read for anyone trying to. Sorry, that's how my thoughts have gone today. Back to the text tomorrow!
My second thought upon diving into Genesis 1 is about light. Genesis 1, verses 3-4 read:
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
So, the question is, You saw that the light was good, but what about the dark? Are we to assume that the dark is good because in verse 2 darkness was over the surface of the deep. Maybe a better question, is darkness natural and light simply better? Why does the author of this opening creation poem take the time to say that You saw the light was good, but not to say that the darkness was good as well.
It becomes even more interesting as we look at the images of light throughout the rest of Scripture. Darkness is portrayed as lack of knowledge, evil...while light is certainly a continued metaphor for goodness. Light of the world, the pillar of fire bringing light to the Israelites, that You will dwell with us and be the light, etc. So is darkness evil?
Maybe an even better question is where did darkness come from? Because at the beginning of the story, darkness is already there. What the text in Genesis 1 indicates is that God spoke light into creation, and then separated light and dark. There is no indication that You created the darkness. So was that just something previous to the story that we don't need to speculate about? A creation that came from You, just earlier than this account? Or might there be another creative force in the world creating darkness?
Some rabbis I found discussing this on the net note that darkness is simply the absence of light. It is not created but caused. When there is no light, there is darkness. It's an effect not something that is made ("What Creation and Darkness Have in Common," Believing is Knowing)
What is interesting there is the discussion of language. In Isaiah 45:7, we have this on the creation of light and darkness (You are the speaker):
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.
The Hebrew word for create in this passage is bara'. This, very interestingly, is the same word used in the creation narrative: In the beginning, God bara' the heavens and the earth. Now this is suddenly disturbing to me Lord. You created darkness, okay I can deal with that. But on the flip side of this passage is that You create disaster, or evil as other translations have it.
The rabbis that I found discussing this language, this usage of bara' say that bara' is used when something comes from nothing. You bara' the heavens and the earth because they were pure creation, they didn't come from anywhere. You bara' darkness and disaster because they suddenly appear when there is nothingness, in other words when there is a lack of light or a lack of goodness.
I don't know. I am certainly intrigued by the lack of light makes darkness, the lack of goodness creates disaster argument. Mainly it is interesting because it puts the emphasis back upon being a light and being a blessing in order to prevent darkness and disaster. But even if this is the case, then light and goodness should have been first, and then when they were gone we would discover darkness and disaster. The nothingness shouldn't come first, should it? And we know that darkness was first over the deep in Scripture.
Well, this has been an interesting study for now. Maybe this is why I'm not supposed to speculate about things before the story starts, it's too hard. I know this must have been a confusing read for anyone trying to. Sorry, that's how my thoughts have gone today. Back to the text tomorrow!
Monday, September 17, 2007
Torah Study
A good place for a new beginning, right? So instead of reading straight through the Bible, or going through in chronological order in a year, I've decided to slow the pace of my Bible study for a time. I'm going to take one section of books and try to delve a little bit deeper into my questions, make a little analysis, etc. I figured the best place to start would be the books of Moses, so here we go. Well, actually, You saw that I kind of started musing about this on Friday, wondering at what a pure creator You are, but anyways...
So here we really begin, at the true beginning. It is however, interesting to note that this is not where the Israelites begin counting the years of their existence, as we just saw in Exodus Community that this starts after the Passover event. My first question in coming to this text was this: What was going on before this? If You are from long ago, then what were You doing before You created the earth? Where were You hanging out in Your little three-in-one community of love? Even now, as I think back to Joel's sermon and Greg Boyd's teaching at Mars, You don't claim the earth as Your dwelling place alone. So where are You dwelling? Where were You dwelling?
Interesting rabbinical commentary that I found on the net. It notes that the first letter of the text, Bet or ב , is closed on three sides. According to midrash, a Jewish compilation of teachings, this is because we as humans should only worry about the story here going forward, not in the other three directions. Practically meaning that I shouldn't speculate about the Your beginnings or whatever preceded creation. That's a fascinating idea, looking at the very form of the letter itself to find some interpretation, but I'm not sure its enough to keep the thoughts from rolling around in my head.
So here we really begin, at the true beginning. It is however, interesting to note that this is not where the Israelites begin counting the years of their existence, as we just saw in Exodus Community that this starts after the Passover event. My first question in coming to this text was this: What was going on before this? If You are from long ago, then what were You doing before You created the earth? Where were You hanging out in Your little three-in-one community of love? Even now, as I think back to Joel's sermon and Greg Boyd's teaching at Mars, You don't claim the earth as Your dwelling place alone. So where are You dwelling? Where were You dwelling?
Interesting rabbinical commentary that I found on the net. It notes that the first letter of the text, Bet or ב , is closed on three sides. According to midrash, a Jewish compilation of teachings, this is because we as humans should only worry about the story here going forward, not in the other three directions. Practically meaning that I shouldn't speculate about the Your beginnings or whatever preceded creation. That's a fascinating idea, looking at the very form of the letter itself to find some interpretation, but I'm not sure its enough to keep the thoughts from rolling around in my head.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
A Re-Birth
I've been so frustrated lately with the lack of direction in my devotional times Lord. Alright, I admit that with the time crunch that is tennis season, I've had a difficult task in even making time for our daily chats (as is evidenced by my lack of posts). I want to start afresh and anew, but with every attempt to do that I've found that it's usually just words.
Last week, I did a teaching on Passover. It was an eye-opening teaching for myself, seeing all the ways You connecting this original event to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But the point that really was amazing to me was the idea of Passover as a re-birth. A new beginning. You instructed the Israelites to start counting their years from the day of Passover. They were given a fresh start.
When I come to You in repentance, I often don't feel like it's a fresh start. I feel like I've done something wrong and I owe You. For example, without consistent time in the Word, I am beginning to feel guilty. I feel like I owe it to You to spend that time in the Word. But just by feeling like I owe that to You, it all becomes a chore instead of a joy. When I fasted, when I started this online conversation with You, these times were a joy, not a chore, not something I had to do. Now even prayer seems difficult, even just reading is joyless.
So its with this shame and guilt that I come into repentance, and it is with shame and guilt that I leave. And shame and guilt are not a powerful motivator. I've learned at school, as we try to figure out a new direction for the school to go, that if you focus on the things that need to change, they actually don't change too much and the whole thing ends up dying. But if you keep attention on where you want to be, what it will look like if you change, that's a much more powerful motivation.
So what do I want to look like at the end of this week? At the end of the month? When Gideon is born? When the church grows a bit more? When I'm the Bible teacher (and not math) at Bethany? Where do I want my energy to truly flow from?
I know what I want to look like today. I want to be re-born. I want to be passed over, protected from the wrath I fear. I want to enter into safety by the blood-stained door and then be sent out in the morning into freedom. Give me this clean sheet, grant me the peace to rest in a re-birth.
Last week, I did a teaching on Passover. It was an eye-opening teaching for myself, seeing all the ways You connecting this original event to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But the point that really was amazing to me was the idea of Passover as a re-birth. A new beginning. You instructed the Israelites to start counting their years from the day of Passover. They were given a fresh start.
When I come to You in repentance, I often don't feel like it's a fresh start. I feel like I've done something wrong and I owe You. For example, without consistent time in the Word, I am beginning to feel guilty. I feel like I owe it to You to spend that time in the Word. But just by feeling like I owe that to You, it all becomes a chore instead of a joy. When I fasted, when I started this online conversation with You, these times were a joy, not a chore, not something I had to do. Now even prayer seems difficult, even just reading is joyless.
So its with this shame and guilt that I come into repentance, and it is with shame and guilt that I leave. And shame and guilt are not a powerful motivator. I've learned at school, as we try to figure out a new direction for the school to go, that if you focus on the things that need to change, they actually don't change too much and the whole thing ends up dying. But if you keep attention on where you want to be, what it will look like if you change, that's a much more powerful motivation.
So what do I want to look like at the end of this week? At the end of the month? When Gideon is born? When the church grows a bit more? When I'm the Bible teacher (and not math) at Bethany? Where do I want my energy to truly flow from?
I know what I want to look like today. I want to be re-born. I want to be passed over, protected from the wrath I fear. I want to enter into safety by the blood-stained door and then be sent out in the morning into freedom. Give me this clean sheet, grant me the peace to rest in a re-birth.
Friday, September 14, 2007
In the Beginning...
God created the heavens and the earth. Why?
That's a good question to ask. I've asked before about why You bothered creating man, especially with all the questions that the sin and fall of man brings to mind. But why even create in the first place?
Were You bored? I know in my teaching, some of the best doodling done is during my most boring lessons. But the boredom isn't really the cause of that doodling is it? No, the boredom is the opportunity. They don't feel like they need to pay attention to me or the lesson, so their minds are freed to roam, and become creative.
So what is the inspiration? I mean, when we create as humans, we often have some type of inspiration. I write a poem because of a thought that Scripture has given me, or a student has inspired me, or a dog ran across the road. But what inspired You? There was nothingness before You spoke...
Where did green come from? I see it in the trees, grass, hills, skies, and flowers all around me, but how did You come up with that shade? I know that You were full of love when creating, that You said it was all good but what gave You the idea for valleys, plains and mountains? For sunshine, rain, and lightning? What inspired Your design for cats, Gaby, Courtney, Gideon, anyone?
A.W. Tozer says that everything that You are, You are purely. You are the beginning of every trait and element.
At the beginning, You are amazingly pure creation.
That's a good question to ask. I've asked before about why You bothered creating man, especially with all the questions that the sin and fall of man brings to mind. But why even create in the first place?
Were You bored? I know in my teaching, some of the best doodling done is during my most boring lessons. But the boredom isn't really the cause of that doodling is it? No, the boredom is the opportunity. They don't feel like they need to pay attention to me or the lesson, so their minds are freed to roam, and become creative.
So what is the inspiration? I mean, when we create as humans, we often have some type of inspiration. I write a poem because of a thought that Scripture has given me, or a student has inspired me, or a dog ran across the road. But what inspired You? There was nothingness before You spoke...
Where did green come from? I see it in the trees, grass, hills, skies, and flowers all around me, but how did You come up with that shade? I know that You were full of love when creating, that You said it was all good but what gave You the idea for valleys, plains and mountains? For sunshine, rain, and lightning? What inspired Your design for cats, Gaby, Courtney, Gideon, anyone?
A.W. Tozer says that everything that You are, You are purely. You are the beginning of every trait and element.
At the beginning, You are amazingly pure creation.
Friday, August 17, 2007
It's Been a Long Time
It's been a long time since I've been in this space with the LORD. And I've seen the consequences. Less focus, less drive, less communion. What a sorrowful separation it has been. I think of the times when Court and I have been emotionally distant just because we're not involving each other in the day-to-day of life. That's where I am with You right now as well. You are not feeling the day-to-day of my life, and I am not feeling You in my day very often.
I know it is because my eyes and heart are not open. I know it is because discouragement has crept up and into my mind. I know it is because I pursue the things where I feel I am having success instead of addressing the areas that obviously need change. I know it's because I've adopted a comfortably outward theology while still living a comfortably inward lifestyle.
It's amazing the damages that my life feels from the distance. I haven't written a poem since last May, with all the inspiration of summer I am lacking inspiration from You. I haven't finished a book since early Spring, my knowledge and my thirst for it have all been sufficiently stifled. This is not the image I wish to see myself as. I want to be relentlessly pursuing You. I have not been.
How do I become relentless? That's an interesting quality that I would not pick to describe myself as in the least. It sounds somewhat negative. And yet...You are very good at taking negatives, weaknesses and turning them upside down. Perhaps my heart's desire is to be relentless.
When I think of my son, coming in only four more months, and I think of the model that I want to set for him, what does it look like? When he is 25, what will he say his dad was like? What do I want him to say?
Well, loving I suppose is the obvious one...but not to sound arrogant, I know I am going to be a great lover of my children. But that's not all I want to be. Relentless in my pursuit of God, my Lord, the LORD. You. I hope that my son's model for being a man is one defined, wrapped in, dripping with a relentless pursuit of the one and only LORD.
How can I be more relentless? Well...priorities. You and Your way must be in the forefront. Not tennis, not Exodus, not Gideon, not school, not sin. But again, defining myself by what I shouldn't do doesn't always work all that well. So enough not's, as true as they are. What are the do's? What should I pursue?
It's always good to start with the Word, for my journey with Christ starts with those texts. But prayer is always right behind. Yet, I think the key definitely lies in creation and action. It is creation now that I'm lacking, and that holds the spice. I need to honor You with my creativity and with my thoughts. I must hold You there first. So back to the poems, back to the creative Bible lessons, sermons, chapels. Now I am getting excited once again!
I know it is because my eyes and heart are not open. I know it is because discouragement has crept up and into my mind. I know it is because I pursue the things where I feel I am having success instead of addressing the areas that obviously need change. I know it's because I've adopted a comfortably outward theology while still living a comfortably inward lifestyle.
It's amazing the damages that my life feels from the distance. I haven't written a poem since last May, with all the inspiration of summer I am lacking inspiration from You. I haven't finished a book since early Spring, my knowledge and my thirst for it have all been sufficiently stifled. This is not the image I wish to see myself as. I want to be relentlessly pursuing You. I have not been.
How do I become relentless? That's an interesting quality that I would not pick to describe myself as in the least. It sounds somewhat negative. And yet...You are very good at taking negatives, weaknesses and turning them upside down. Perhaps my heart's desire is to be relentless.
When I think of my son, coming in only four more months, and I think of the model that I want to set for him, what does it look like? When he is 25, what will he say his dad was like? What do I want him to say?
Well, loving I suppose is the obvious one...but not to sound arrogant, I know I am going to be a great lover of my children. But that's not all I want to be. Relentless in my pursuit of God, my Lord, the LORD. You. I hope that my son's model for being a man is one defined, wrapped in, dripping with a relentless pursuit of the one and only LORD.
How can I be more relentless? Well...priorities. You and Your way must be in the forefront. Not tennis, not Exodus, not Gideon, not school, not sin. But again, defining myself by what I shouldn't do doesn't always work all that well. So enough not's, as true as they are. What are the do's? What should I pursue?
It's always good to start with the Word, for my journey with Christ starts with those texts. But prayer is always right behind. Yet, I think the key definitely lies in creation and action. It is creation now that I'm lacking, and that holds the spice. I need to honor You with my creativity and with my thoughts. I must hold You there first. So back to the poems, back to the creative Bible lessons, sermons, chapels. Now I am getting excited once again!
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