Genesis 5:1-32 – From Adam to Noah

“3D”

So here were have a very perplexing chapter of Genesis, full of things leaving the reader with questions unanswered.

This chapter gives us a genealogy of 10 people from Adam to Noah.
The purpose is to introduce a ‘new Adam’, and so it lists who gave birth to whom, when they gave birth, and how long that person lived. Famously of course, it is this last bit that causes a lot of raised eyebrows because the Bible tells us that these people lived for hundreds of years each.

For me, this chapter underlines a common problem. (Although most of the time, when appropriate study methods are applied, they are not problems)

A lack of cultural context.

It is clearly obvious that there are things being communicated here that we do not understand because we no longer are aware of the author’s context. The author of Genesis is using literary terms we do not comprehend. These literary terms do not exclude the possibility of the lengthy timelines being true, but discovering them would certainly help us make sense of them. We do know for instance, there are other very similar lists in other ancient documents such as the ‘Sumerian Kings List’ which has people living before a flood for not hundreds, but thousands of years! Interestingly, both the Bible and the Sumerian Kings list mention that people lived significantly longer before a flood than they did afterwards. Why? We don’t know.

The problem with a lack of context is this… when we miss His context, we can miss His point. I have found this very true and have loved the opportunity I have created for myself in recent years to get to know the context of Jesus much more.

Understanding the traditions, culture and etiquette of His time has turned the Bible from a 2D to a 3D experience for me. This third dimension of context added to the first two dimensions of Word and Spirit has taken studying the Bible to an exciting level for me. So reading today’s chapter, where all my study tools are bereft of any real answers, I am forced to remember my old 2D experiences. It feels a little dissapointing.

There’s little I can do about today’s passage.

There’s a lot you can do, however, about almost every other passage in Scripture!

May I encourage you to not simply read the Bible, but study. Either find some commentaries that concentrate on culture and context or go the whole hog and find a Pais HD group. ‘Haverim’ is the new book I will be writing this summer that outlines a new way to approach the Bible, but you can get its teaching from the Pais new resource website as well.

For now let me remind you of something:how you enter the Bible will determine how you leave it. If you leave it unchanged, bored or confused, it may be your fault. You can also choose to read it in 3D.

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Genesis 4:1-26 – Cain and Abel

“The root of all* anger”

This passage is about process.

Both Cain and Abel present their sacrifices to God. Why? We do not know for sure whether this was an instinctive human drive or because, somewhere, unrecorded, God had asked them to. We also do not know for sure why God favored Abel’s offering over Cain’s. We can drash and make an informed guess, but we do not know for sure. All we know is that God’s favor most likely had something to do with faith.

“By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did.” Hebrews 11:4

The story is not told to help us understand what makes a sacrifice good, it is told to warn us about the consequences of one of the two most powerful emotions in this world. Fear.

Cain is obviously angry, either at Abel, himself, or God. Maybe he is angry at all three? Anger, unlike love or fear, is not a strong, commanding emotion. Instead, anger can be seen as more of an outward display of a deep-seeded more powerful emotion.

From love come the greatest acts a man can accomplish, especially love for God. Fear, not hate or anger, is what destroys us and others. When you see someone angry, understand, as it was with Cain, the anger is likely stemming from fear.

Cain is afraid, and his fear, as all fear does, has some typical consequences.

Fear is often a self-fulfilling prophecy because we usually react in a way to protect ourselves, and that reaction often causes the very thing we were worried about to come to pass. How often have you seen someone’s insecurity lead them to oppress another? This can happen either aggressively or with passive aggression–the person they were oppressing suddenly has a reason to rise up against them when they previously had no desire to. Cain kills Abel possibly because he is worried that he will lose his relationship with God to Abel and yet his reaction causes the very thing of which he was frightened to happen.

Fear is passed on and built upon. Our beliefs don’t transfer–our passions do, and fear is a powerful passion. This passage shows us how one of Cain’s descendants, Lamech, not only kills someone he is frightened of yet instead of displaying shame as Cain does, he boasts about it!

“Lamech said to his wives, “Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed[h] a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me.” Gen 4:23

The process of Cain’s downfall goes like this:

Fear creates anger.

God warns Him to master it with love or be mastered by it.

He reacts to his fear, not God’s love.

It masters Him.

It transfers to His descendants.

Today we have the opportunity to recognize that whatever is making you angry is just your fear of what may or may not happen. Master fear, and it will not overcome you, but let fear master you, and you may bring a dreaded thing to pass.\

*NB: The only anger that is good is righteous anger which has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with love.

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Genesis 1:3:1-21 – The Fall of Man

“Addition = Subtraction”

There are so many different routes of thought in this passage that we could unpack.

For instance, what do we make of the fact that Genesis does not in any way describe the serpent as Satan or the devil and notes that it was specifically a created animal, just a bit craftier than the other animals? What do we make of the lack of mention in this book of Adam initially being meant to live forever? How do we know that Adam would have lived eternally? Why does one commentator point this out, saying that Adam was not born eternal but that God denied him the ability to become eternal now that he had eaten the fruit of the tree of life?

It is not that I doubt God introduced death through the fall or that the serpent represents Satan in some way. My questions are simply, how and why do we not get these ideas from the p’shat of Genesis, yet find the questions clearly mentioned elsewhere in scripture?

These things are not what really hit me, however. The message and thought from this chapter that really jump out to me today are based more on what Eve said than what she did.

The serpent cleverly, is ambiguous with its question… “did God really say…”. He adds something to the words of God… ” ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman immediately tells the serpent that God did not say ‘every tree’ only that particular tree. Some commentators propose that she cut the serpent off mid-sentence, noting that the hebraic structure of the question was only the pre-cursor to another part of the serpents’ question we never get to hear.

So if the woman was so quick to correct the serpents addition to God’s Word, why did she immediately do the same thing?

[She] “Said to the serpent, “… but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

No He didn’t!

God never said that Adam could not touch the tree. For some reason Eve added this. Or perhaps Adam had added this when he informed Eve about the tree’s conditions. Either way… something was added to God’s commandment and this is always a problem! One rabbi uses this passage to sum up the danger of adding to God’s Word by saying;

“He who adds, subtracts” b Sanhedrin 29a

This is a thought worth thinking deeply about.

It is a problem that the Jews and later the Christians fell into time and time again. The Jews call it ‘fencing’, even commanding its teachers to do it…

“Be deliberate in judgment, raise up many disciples and put a fence around the Torah” Avot 1.1

We add to God’s commandments and by doing so we detract from their power.

So why do we do it? Well, not surprisingly, because of the same emotion as the first emotion Adam and Eve experienced after they fell… fear. We are afraid of breaking God’s law… actually more often than not, we create fences because we are afraid that other people may break His law. We are afraid that one thing will lead to another and so we make this “one thing” the thing.

We are afraid that people will get drunk so we ban alcohol. We are afraid that people will get drawn into magic so we ban conjuring tricks. We are afraid that people will do who knows what, so our immediate reaction is to add to God’s word and create an auxiliary list.

But this practice of ‘adding to’ brings with it many problems. A classic one is demonstrated here. Eve first touched and then ate. I wonder if when she touched, she did not experience anything too bad, because of course touching was not forbidden, but once experiencing nothing bad, she was deceived and went on to committing the real sin.

For other reasons that ‘addition equals subtraction’ see by blog on March 17th 2011 by putting ‘Fence’ into my blog’s search engine. And for much more on this read my book ‘The Line and the Dot”.

For now, can I suggest we don’t play God?

Let us affirm His Word and Warnings, even adding our own, but let us not make our warnings, His warnings.

He got it perfectly right, and every time we add something of our own, we make His Word a little less perfect.

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Genesis 1:1-31 – Adam and Eve

“Emptiness”

Have you ever wondered how you, like God, can be more creative? If we are made in His image, then should we not also be wildly creative? Why is it that most of us feel like we’ve missed out on that characteristic of God?

In this second chapter of Genesis, we see the ongoing creativity of God. There is a bit more detail given and significantly the theme moves from ‘Heaven and Earth’ to ‘Earth and Heaven’.

In the first chapter we see Him desiring more opportunity to show His love. In this second chapter He creates man. Why? because He does not yet have man. I know that sounds simple, but it is the most fundamental reason for God creating anything… He does not have it and wants it, and what He creates is exactly what He wants. This is important to remember because it has an implication for you and me.

Why do you exist?

Because He wanted someone exactly like you, and He did not previously have one. You were made to order.

Then He creates woman. Why? Because man needs a friend and the animals are not exactly what He wants for Him. God ultimately gets exactly what He wants! (something to remember when you are arguing with Him)

There is a pattern here; there is an emptiness God wants to fill. God has always been drawn to emptiness. I don’t mean laziness, apathy or purposelessness–but a lack of fullness. Emptiness has lead to His greatest creativity…and His greatest miracles!

The biggest hindrance to our creativity is not a lack of resource, but a lack of fullness.

Our personal agenda.

Our demand for the next step.

Our opinions.

Our resources.

Our strengths.

Our systems.

Creativity is a necessity brought on by purpose.

So it follows, if there is a lack of something in your life, it may be because God’s purpose for you is more profound that what the normal solution can create! What are you missing right now? What is God withholding? He would give you what you need if what He needs from you is the norm.

If He is not, then it is not!

Emptiness is something we can create. I teach others to mimic God in this way… when you have a purpose and need a new way to reach it, imagine you no longer have available the default solution to your problem. What other ways would you then reach your goal? Once you have discovered these new ways, add them to the traditional approach and see what the resulting synergy of the old and new now present to you.

Today, please remember that when the God of creation had a blank page and imagined the best thing He could imagine…He came up with exactly you.

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Genesis 1:1-31 – The Beginning

“A Hidden Why”

The Biblical story of creation is very different in various ways to other ancient creation stories. I want to mention two.

First, other creation stories go into much more detail as to how the world was created. The Bible however, poetically summarizes everything in order to make the main point, the main point.

Secondly, the main point of the Biblical creation story is different from the main point of most other creation stories. These other stories such as the famous ‘Enuma Elish’ are the tool that certain religions use to promote their particular god as being victorious over other gods and their particular shrine being the place where it all started. The Biblical creation story mentions no others gods, in fact it does not even call God ‘Yahweh, because it does not need to distinguish God from any other pretenders. Whereas in other creation stories, many things are seen as gods, such as the stars, everything apart from God is known to be a  created object… including the stars.

So if the Biblical story has a different point then what is it?

Well the p’shat, the intended, obvious and simple meaning of Genesis 1, is that God is the creator of everything and was there in its beginning.

However there is also a remez, a hint at an implied deeper message. In the very first sentence of the Bible there is a clue to God & community. Rashi was a 11th century Rabbi from France, famed as the author of the first comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud, Torah and Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). Acclaimed for his ability to present the basic meaning of the text in a concise yet lucid fashion, he noticed that the structure of the first word of the Bible is odd. ‘Bereishit means “in-beginning of” not simply ‘in-beginning”.  So if the intention of the author was to simply say “at the beginning,” or “at first,” the first Hebrew word would have been bari-shonah [b'rishonah] instead of bereishit.

So why was this word chosen and inspired by The Holy Spirit to be used?

It is implying that God was in the beginning of doing something when He created the world. In beginning of… what? wallpapering the living room? a game of monopoly? All the rabbis agreed that God was in the beginning of going beyond Himself.

But how can an omnipresent God go beyond Himself? Well, God is love and so the interpretation of this meaning can be that God was in the beginning of creating an opportunity to love. Put simply, He has so much love He needed to create more to love.

So what can I learn from this?

Most christian teaching is reactive when it comes to love. “Forgive”, “Give when someone asks you for something”, “turn the other cheek once you have been hit”.  Here, however, we learn a much deeper lesson… if we want to be like God, we need to create from nothing an opportunity to love where it did not exist before.

We need to therefore be creative because the whole point of creativity is not to compete. We do not create something to makes us look good but to help us love.

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Luke 24:50-53 – The Ascension

“When?”

Everything about the Kingdom seems upside down, back to front and inside out compare to worldly wisdom. For the followers of God therefore, it is really important we get our thinking re-wired. For instance… a question I like to ask leaders is… “when did the disciples first become ‘Christians’”?

It is an interesting question because we have clearly defined what a Christian is; someone who does not simply follow Jesus or seek to become like Jesus but a person who believes in Jesus. By believing in Jesus, we further define that as believing He was not only the Messiah but God. So in light of that… when did the disciples first become ‘Christians’?

At first many say that it was when they first met Jesus but as the think through their definition of Christian, a greater variety of answers start to trickle out; from “When they first followed Him” to “The day of Pentecost”.

Why?

Because we don’t really know for sure. It was possibly different times for different people. However, if we only had Luke’s gospel to go from, we could conclude that it could have been as late as the very last couple of sentences of Luke! In today’s passage, just as Jesus is about to ascend to Heaven the author reveals a monumental fact…

“Then they worshiped him…”

This is the first time in the gospels that it records that they did that. Now we have to understand that no Godly Jew in his right mind would worship anything other than God. Even the worship of angels is forbidden in scripture; Colossians 2, Revelations 19 & 22. Although, interestingly, others worshipped Jesus bore this time. So it seems Luke is telling us something really important; after Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and the day of Pentecost, moments before His ascension, the disciples fully believed in Jesus as God. Now this is just a thought. It could be argued that they believed and worshipped Him before this time but it would be very hard to argue that they did this years earlier.

So what is my point?

Well my follow up question is the one that I am really interested in…

“When Jesus Jesus first start to disciple the disciples?”

That question gets a unanimous answer… “when they first stated to follow Him!” Which leads to my third question… “So if Jesus discipled people and then afterwards they believed, why do we do the opposite? Why is that do you think? Why do we get people saved and then perhaps disciple them? And is what we mean by discipleship what Jesus did?

I think it is appropriate to close my commentary on Luke’s Gospel with a question… don’t you?

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Luke 24:36-49 – Jesus Appears to the Disciples

“Sod & ‘it’”

After appearing to the two disciples on the road, Jesus now appears to the rest of the disciples back in Jerusalem. First of all, He talks to them and shows them proof of His bodily resurrection by pointing to His wounds and also eating some grilled fish.

Yet this was not enough. They just did not understand. They did not get ‘it’.

And so the Bible tells us this…

“Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.” Luke 24:45

What does this mean? Well the Hebrew word ‘Sod’ means mystery or secret and is also used to describe the certain type of understanding that I believe Luke is referring to here. It is where we learn something through revelation rather than research.

The Apostle Paul referred to his knowledge of God in Messiah as the revelation of a sod more than any other New Testament writer. Our English Bibles translate the Hebrew word sod as “mystery,”

“I want you to know the mystery [sod] of God, namely, Messiah, in whom is hidden all the treasures of wisdom & knowledge.” Colossians 2:3:

 

“We speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden [sod] and that God destined for our glory before time began” 1 Cor 2:7

There are times when we need the Holy Spirit to just open our minds and hearts because no matter how much we study something we just cannot get it.

The early gnostics and other false teachers often preached that there was certain hidden knowledge only available for a certain few and that this knowledge was in some way needed for salvation. But that is not what the Bible teaches. Salvation is for all and does not come through secret knowledge but open faith in Christ. It is true, however, that we do need the Holy Spirit to give us revelation so that we can grow in our understanding of God.

Why is that important?

Well someone once said that if you want something you have never had before, then you must do something you have never done before. I contend however, that if you want to do something you have never done before, then you will have to believe something you have never believed before.

It is a myth to say that our methods must change but our message must not because in two thousand years of Christianity, our methods have never changed before our message has. As we understand the gospel more fully, it has shaped our message and therefore our methods.

Can I encourage you to not go to church hoping for simple proofs to give your faith a boost in the arm, instead wrestle with God to gain revelation. Pray that the mysteries of the Gospel will be revealed to you as gifts from the Holy Spirit. As He opens your mind as Jesus did in today’s passage, then you will be inspired to leave your Jerusalem and move out in faith to do new things in new ways and for new reasons. This will change your world.

Because as one Rabbi wrote…

“We walk around in pursuit of the simplest truth and afraid of ‘sod,’ thinking that we know all we must to make life work as it should, and then wonder why it doesn’t. It is ‘Sod’ that is closest to God in the hierarchy of learning, and though you can’t soar in the clouds until you learn to first walk on earth, you must learn to walk on the earth with the goal to one day soar in the clouds.”

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Luke 24:13-34 – On the Road to Emmaus

“Identity Theft”

Jesus appears to two of His disciples, although these were not two of the twelve key guys. For some reason He hides His identity from them. I suspect this ‘identity theft’ was in order for them to listen to what He wanted to say to them. If they had immediately realized who He was perhaps they would have been too excited and agitated to have listened to what He had to say. Sometimes God takes away our answers in order for us to be open to a greater understanding.

At this point in time they have had their hopes dashed, they thought He was the Messiah but concluded from His death that He must have simply been a prophet.

Jesus then challenges them to push past their personal hopes and dreams and actually seek the truth; He does this by sharing the descriptions and prophecies of the Messiah from the Tanakh, the Jewish Old Testament.

To help us understand the kind of things He would have shown them, I have listed  just a random few of the prophecies He fulfilled here:

• Messiah would be born of a woman. Genesis 3:15 Matthew 1:20
• Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Micah 5:2 Matthew 2:1
• Messiah would be born of a virgin. Isaiah 7:14 Matthew 1:22-23
• Messiah would come from the tribe of Judah. Genesis 49:10 Luke 3:33
• Messiah would be called Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14 Matthew 1:23
• Messiah would spend a season in Egypt. Hosea 11:1 Matthew 2:14-15
• Messiah birthplace would host a massacre of children. Jer 31:15 Matt 2:16-18
• Messiah would be rejected by his own people. Psalm 69:8 Isaiah 53:3 John 1:11
• Messiah would speak in parables. Isaiah 6:9-10 Matthew 13:10-15, 34-35
• Messiah would be betrayed. Psalm 41:9 Zechariah 11:12-13 Luke 22:47-48
• Messiah sold to buy a potter’s field. Zechariah 11:12-13 Matthew 27:9-10
• Messiah would be silent before his accusers. Isaiah 53:7 Mark 15:4-5
• Messiah would be crucified with criminals. Isaiah 53:12 Mark 15:27-28
• Messiah’s hands and feet would be pierced. Zechariah 12:10 John 20:25-27
• Messiah’s bones would not be broken. Exodus 12:46 John 19:33-36
• Messiah would resurrect from the dead. Psalm 49:15 Matthew 28:2-7

Believe me, there are many more!

So here is the question that  jumps out to me as I read this passage today, I find it interesting that it was only when Jesus did something they had seen Him do before, breaking bread, that they recognized Him.

There is a lesson in here for me… I have just not figured it out yet… any ideas?

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Luke 24:1-12 – The Resurrection

“Nonsense”

Several women go to Jesus’ tomb with the spices for His burial but when they get there He has gone. So they return to the disciples with the good news but the disciples think they are talking nonsense… that is until Peter checks out the tomb himself.

In both the case of Peter and the women, when they realize Jesus’ body has gone, they are initially confused and wonder what it all means and what might have happened. That is until, at least for the women, they hear the message…

“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” Then they remembered his words.

Sometimes what God says at the time does not make sense, in fact it sounds like nonsense. The Jews even had a name for commands that He gave them that did not make sense… ‘hukim’.

‘Mishpatim’ is the name for commands that makes sense and have an obvious purpose; laws and teaching about idolatry, adultery, bloodshed, robbery, and blasphemy etc. ‘Hukim’ are those that are not obvious and do not rrally make sense. For instance one of the hukim was the command to refrain from breaking the bones of the Passover Lamb during the passover meal. This had been adhered to “blindly” for centuries. Only now does it make sense. Suddenly for those that are attentive to God things that made no sense no make complete sense and act as confirmation that Christ is the Messiah.

“A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all; he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.” Psalm 34:19-20

If we look back to when Jesus told the disciples that He would die, Peter rebukes Jesus. Unbelievable I know. He tells Jesus that this can and will never happen. He finds it impossible to believe.

Why?

Well the answer lies in what Jesus then says to Peter…

“Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

Only now, looking at an empty tomb does it all start to make sense to Peter. Sometimes God asks us to do things that seem like nonsense but later acts as proof of His eternal plan by making complete sense at a later date.

It poses the question: what hukim has God put in your life? What commands has He given me that make no sense now but could unlock a future mystery? What commands has He given me now that will help me identify His direction in the future?

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Luke 23:50-56 – Jesus’ Burial

“chutzpah!”

Sometimes the Bible mentions a simple action in passing and yet that simple action must have been a major event in someone’s life. That is surely the case with the decision That Joseph of Arimathea to approach Pilate!

Bodies of criminals, especially traitors were normally left to rot or sometimes out in an unmarked grave. For Joseph, a member of the Sanhedrin, to have gone to Pilate to ask for the body of Jesus must surely have been a remarkable act of bravery.

Asking for the body showed that in some way He cared about Jesus, putting it in an expensive, previously unused tomb showed even more than that. He was associating himself with Jesus. His request must have provoked some awkward questions from Pilate about His stance on Jesus. At the very least was he not in danger of committing political suicide with the rest of the council by so clearly making a statement?

Chutzpah is the kind of faith that goes against the normal expectations of those around you, it is shockingly courageous.

Joseph was not the man to stay some kind of secret believer. He stood up for Jesus, when in his mind, Jesus would never know about it. I find that interesting must that is often the very time when we don’t stand up for people. For me the actions of Joseph are a challenge to always stand up for those who are not around to help themselves.

His decision to ask for the body and then sacrifice a tomb that was probably set aside for his own death, brought about the possibility to clearly state where Jesus’ body was laid and what happened to it. This meant that when Jesus rose from the dead there were witnesses. Joseph’s public courage therefore led to the public being able to see and speak to witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection.

if you are wondering what it takes to display love to a community in a way that they can begin to see Jesus for who He truly is. If you are asking how your love can be shown and understood. It takes chutzpah!

Is my courage public? Or is it just reserved for the times when I am with those who agree with me? And if so… Will I ever be able to be a true witness to those who do not yet believe?