Virtual Devotions

And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.” – Genesis 1:14-19

Dear Friends,

As we continue in our Bible study, I will try to point out important considerations in understanding the text.  One of the greatest challenges we have is the translation itself.  When we read the Bible in English, we are not reading it in the original language.  The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew and the New Testament was written in Greek.  So we are dependent upon the work of the modern day translators.

Take the word light for example.  On the first day of creation, God said, “Let there be light.”  On the fourth day of creation, God said, “Let there be lights…”   While the English translation “light” may lead us to think that these two concepts of light are the same, they are very distinct in the Hebrew.  In the Hebrew text, on the first day we have “or”, meaning light energy, and on the fourth day “maor”, meaning a light source or light bearer.

Personally, I prefer the translation of “light bearer”.   It fits the context best.   It applies the literary technique of personification, attributing human characteristics to inanimate objects. The sun and moon are made to serve.  They are to mark the passage of time, to give light to the earth and to govern the separation of day and night, light from darkness.

Which leads us to another challenge of translation, punctuation.  The original Hebrew and the Greek did not have punctuation marks, so you will find that some Bibles, such as the NIV above, begin a new sentence, “He also made the stars”, while other Bibles, such as the ESV, continue from the prior sentence so that the stars are included in the discussion of the moon governing the night sky.  I prefer this later translation because by tying it to the work of the light bearers it explains why God made the stars.  The stars aid the moon in marking the seasons.  As the earth rotates and tilts on its axis, the position of the stars change in the night sky.  The position of the stars is a more reliable indicator of the season than the sun or moon, thus a better marker.

Now you may be saying to yourself that this is all very interesting, but I don’t know Hebrew nor do I have a Hebrew Bible or a Hebrew dictionary.  My first response is if you want to be a serious Bible student, purchase a Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament, a Strong’s concordance and the accompanying Hebrew and Greek dictionaries.  This was how I started.  I had not taken a single language class, but I was able to work my way through it.  You can too.  And imagine the funny look you’ll get from your spouse when asked what do you want for Christmas?  “Gee honey, I was really hoping for an interlinear Bible in Hebrew, Greek and English and a Strong’s concordance with the accompanying Hebrew to English and Greek to English dictionaries.”   Talk about the gift for someone who has everything!

But if you do not choose to go that route, I will offer a simpler one.  There are many good Bible study websites.  The one I use most often is biblegateway.com.  With it you can simultaneously look up multiple English translations of the same verse or passage.  By doing this, you can look for the differences between translations and then study to decide which you believe is the most correct.

One final comment.   While you will find many different translations, please remember that it is the Holy Spirit who opens your heart and mind for the understanding of the scripture.  While I believe that some translations are truer to the original text than others, regardless of the translation it will be the Holy Spirit doing a work in you that will bring you to a greater understanding of His revelation in God’s Word.

In Christ,

David

And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.   Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

Dear Friends,

On the third day we see a shift in God’s creative work.  On the first two days, God spoke into existence light and the sky by proclaiming, “Let there be…” But now, God begins to fashion what has already been created into a world in which mankind can live.

However, there is still a common thread in God’s work on the first half of the third day – separation. On the first day, God separated light from dark.  On the second day, God separated the water above from the water below.  On the third day, God separated the water below from the dry ground naming them “seas” and “land,” respectively.  This continuing process of separation or “setting apart” is an indication that God is creating a special, holy place for His final creation – mankind.  Not only are we to be holy, but where we live is to be acknowledged as being holy as well.  This is further evidenced by God’s acknowledgement that it was good.

God then calls forth from the ground all plant-life.  Again, note that God does not say, “Let there be vegetation,” thus creating something out of nothing, but instead says, “Let the land produce vegetation,” thus creating something from something else.  This is a key distinction.  Within the land itself is the capacity to produce life.  It needs only the command of God.  This makes John the Baptist’s statement that God could bring forth sons of Abraham from the rocks all the more literal and gives greater understanding of Paul’s analogy that man can plant a seed and water it, but God makes it grow.

My final observation is that the author is very specific to say that each form of plant-life produces seed according to its own kind.  A daisy produces seeds that grow daisies.  An apple tree produces fruit with apple seeds to produce new apple trees.  This is an important point to note.  No where does the Bible give any indication that one species produced a new species.  As creation continues to be brought forth by God’s command, we will see that every king of flora and fauna is expressly created to produce only their own kind.

I have said before that it is wrong to try to impress into any writing an outside view.  Unfortunately, well-meaning individuals so often do this with the Genesis account.  In an effort to reconcile creation and evolution, they will suggest that evolution occurred, but God guided its progression.  This idea is absolutely not Biblical.

I encourage you to keep this is mind as you continue in your Biblical studies.  Read the Bible for what it says.  Do not impress outside ideas into it, but rather, understand that the Bible is an unfolding of God’s revelation of who He is and why you are here.

In Christ,

David

“God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.” – Genesis 1:5

Dear Friends,

When we study the Bible, we should strive to understand what the author intended and what the original readers or hearers understood was being said.     If you were a Jewish person in ancient Israel hearing the creation story for the first time, you would have heard this verse and understood that the “first day” was a day, a 24-hour period.

The Hebrew word for day is “yom.”  It is used throughout the Old Testament and in the vast majority of cases, it means a day, a 24-hour period.   But most importantly, as we read through the creation account, we see the passing of day and night repeatedly for six complete days until the Sabbath, the day of rest.  This is the best indication that the author intended a 24-hour period –    remember, in literary studies context is king.

However, many people today will read Genesis and instead of trying to understand what the original author and readers understood to be true, they will attempt to impress their own worldview into the story.  Unfortunately, when someone does this, they distort the true meaning of the text.

That’s not to say that an individual has to believe everything thing that they read.  If I were to read a passage from the Quran, I could read it and understand    what the author intended, yet not necessarily agree with it.  But it would be wrong for me to impress my Christian worldview into that text.

Yet people do this all the time with Genesis.  They want to reconcile their belief that the world developed over millions or billions of years, so they claim that “yom” in this instance means many years, possibly the billions of years they are trying to jam into the story.  They will even use other Scripture - out of context mind you – to “prove” their interpretation.  They may quote 2 Peter 3:8, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”

But in this passage, Peter is arguing against those who claim the promise of Christ’s return isn’t true.  As their evidence, they say it has been a long time    and He still hasn’t appeared.  Peter is trying to help them understand that while from their human perspective it has been a long time, from God’s perspective it hasn’t been long at all because God is eternal.

In the end, it comes down to one thing, the authority of the Bible.  Either you believe the Bible is authoritative and when it is in conflict with outside sources you still trust it or you believe outside sources are authoritative over the Bible and when there is a conflict you trust them.  This is how Jesus handled the question of divorce in Matthew 19.  The Mosaic Law allowed for divorce, but that was not the way God intended it.  Jesus said, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard, but it was not this way from the beginnning."  In the context, Jesus is referring to the creation account and using the authority of Scripture over man's understanding.  We should do the same.

In Christ,

David

Dear Friends,

When we read Genesis 1:3, we saw that it is the power of God’s word that brings light into the world.  But as we conjure a mental picture in our minds of this event, we may subconsciously think to ourselves that the source of the light is the sun or the stars or some other naturally occurring phenomenon.  But neither the sun nor the stars nor any other celestial body have yet to be created.  As we try to imagine this light, we must remember this important aspect of it; that it has no source other than God Himself.

Light is the very nature of God.  Much of the Scripture speaks to this fact that God is light and in the opening verses of the Gospel of John, which is written in parallel to the opening verses of Genesis, John proclaims that Jesus Christ is the Word and the Light, which gives further evidence to the divine source and nature of the light. 

Being the very nature of God, the light is completely and perfectly aligned with His will, it is pleasing to Him and affirmed by Him and this is how we should understand the meaning of the word good in this context.  Also because the light is the very essence of God, it is holy.  If you recall my discussion some months ago about holiness, you will recall that the word holy means to be set apart.  So it is no surprise that when God floods the universe with His light, He immediately separates His holy light from the darkness. 

When Christ told his followers that they are the light of the world, I believe it was an indication to them that they were to demonstrate these same characteristics of goodness and holiness.  They were to live their lives in complete and perfect alignment with the will of God, being pleasing to Him in all that they do and striving for God’s affirmation.  And they are to be holy, to separate themselves from all that is not aligned with the will of God, not pleasing to Him and not worthy of his affirmation.

And this holds true for us as believers today.  As we examine ourselves in God’s light against the backdrop of His divine nature, we should ask ourselves if our goals and aspirations are aligned with God’s intentions for ourselves and not with our own, if our actions and thoughts are pleasing to God, if we are striving for God’s affirmation and if we have separated ourselves from the darkness of this world?  This is our call, to be the light of the world and to walk in the light as He is in the light.

In Christ,

David

“Now the earth was formless and empty….” – Genesis 1:2a

Dear Friends,

Before I go further in my discussion of Genesis, I want us to pause and consider the beginning of God’s rebuke to the self-righteousness of Job, “Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?  Tell me, if you understand” (Job 38:4).  With this verse in mind, who’s understanding are we to trust; man’s or God’s?

Man’s understanding goes something like this.  All the energy in the universe was compressed into a little ball, which spontaneously exploded and spread throughout space and over time settled into an orderly system of stars and planets, etc.  After billions of years, life came into being from inanimate substances by an astronomically improbable accident.  Over billions of more years, life became more and more advanced until we have what we have today.

Unfortunately, this theory flies in the face of man’s understanding of the physical world.  The second law of thermodynamics is called the law of entropy.  Simply stated, all physical systems move toward a state of equilibrium.  For example, a glass of cold water will warm if left at room temperature.  The water comes into equilibrium with its surroundings.  If this is a true physical law, then the Big Bang should never have happened.  Why would a system that is in apparent equilibrium suddenly explode into chaos?  Along the same lines, why did life start in the first place and why does it advance into more complex forms?  This is a specific move away from equilibrium.

Seeing that this was a problem, in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, right on the heals of the Enlightenment when men first began to remove God from our understanding and instead look for natural explanations for all things, scientists came up with various proposed fourth laws of thermodynamics.  These fourth laws have never been universally accepted, but they did attempt to explain away the problems with the second law and creation by saying that on the micro level there can be a movement away from equilibrium if at the macro level there is an overall movement toward equilibrium.

If this is beginning to hurt your head, then let’s turn to the alternative.  Accepting that there is a God (we’ll tackle that one later), the Bible tells us that He was there in the beginning, that He was not only a witness to the event of creation, but the cause, that He spoke all things into being and the order of creation is held together by Him.  His eyewitness account is given to us in His Holy Word, the Bible, which I believe was written under His direct inspiration and therefore is trustworthy.

To trust in either man’s understanding or God’s understanding is a matter of faith.  Theories such as the Big Bang and evolution are neither observable nor repeatable consequently they are not true science.  So if you are intellectually honest with yourself, you will accept that these are two faith-based systems; one with faith in man and one with faith in God.  The question is which one will you choose to believe?

In Christ,

David

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” – Genesis 1:1

Dear Friends,

Last week we discussed the infinite power and nature of God as interpreted from the first half of the opening sentence to Genesis.  Today, I want to tackle the second half starting with the Hebrew word for created, bara.

Again, translations don’t do justice to the underlying meaning of the verb bara.  Bara is used 44 times in the Old Testament and it is only used in reference to God’s activity.  You will never find the word bara used in conjunction with human activity.  Why?  Because bara means to create something from nothing, known theologically as creatio ex nihilo.  God didn’t have a swirl of cosmic dust or any other material to work with.  He didn’t even have time or space.  Everything that exists, He created, which leads us to “the heavens and the earth.”

We must first consider verse one as a whole and in context.  We are being told that an all-powerful God created everything out of nothing.  Then, in the subsequent verses, we see a day-by-day account of the order in which He did it.   Because of this and in keeping with ancient Hebrew literary form, I believe this first verse is meant to be read like a headline of a newspaper.  It’s the big, eye-catching statement that leads you on to read more detail.  Consequently, when we read “heavens and earth,” I’d suggest it is all inclusive of creation.

Additionally, there is the question of heavens.  Why is it plural?  Isn’t there just one heaven?  Yes, but what we find in Genesis is the word heaven used in three different ways.  As we read on it is used as the sky or atmosphere where the birds fly (Gen 1:9, 20), outer space where the sun, moon and stars are (Gen 1:14, 16), and as our common understanding of the place where God dwells (Gen 28:12).  This understanding also explains Paul’s comment in 2 Corinthians 12 where he speaks of “the third heaven.”

So that is the first verse, the big headline enticing us to read onward.  I hope that you continue to read onward with me and we get into the first day of creation next week.

In Christ,

David

“In the beginning God created...” – Genesis 1:1a

Dear Friends,

It’s been weighing on my heart to do a series on the creation story and the fall of man so I am kicking it off today with the first verse of the Bible.  There is so much packed into this first verse and it is so easily passed over as we continue to read into the full creation story.  So I am going to stop here and unpack it a little bit.

Let’s start with breshit, the Hebrew word for “In the beginning.”  What makes this distinctive is that it introduces the concept of time.  In eternity, there is no beginning or end, but there is with time.  So when we read “In the beginning,” I believe we should take this as the creation of time.  Yet already present at the beginning of time was God.  God is eternal, not temporal.  He was already there when time began. 

Unfortunately, the English language loses much of the meaning of the original Hebrew word used here for God, Elohim.  Elohim is significant.  First, it is one of the many Hebrew words for God, but this one characterizes the majesty, greatness and power of God.  This is something we would expect considering we need a God of great power to fulfill the rest of the story of redemptive history.

Second, and along similar lines, it is presumptive.  There’s no discussion of how God came to be or why God is there in the first place.  It’s the basic presupposition of the Bible.  There is a God.  It requires no further explanation.

Third, the word itself is a bit of a paradox.  It comes from the Hebrew word, Eloah, which is the Hebrew name of God, but it has a plural ending to make it Elohim.  The writer gives us a word that is plural in form, but singular in meaning.  We know that it is singular in meaning because the Hebrew word for created, bara, is singular.

Let me step out and explain this briefly.  In many languages, verbs have both gender and number.  In English, we say, “He ran, she ran, we ran.”  The verb ran has neither gender nor number.  It can be used with the masculine, he, the feminine, she, or the plural, we.

But bara is masculine singular.  And the grammatical rule is that the verb must agree with the subject.  It can only be used with a singular, masculine subject.  Consequently, the noun, Elohim, represents one God who is masculine in nature.  That’s why He is referred to as Father.

So just in these first three words breshit bara Elohim, we are introduced to an eternal, majestic, mighty, creator God who has both plurality and singularity and is masculine in nature.  As the revelation of the Bible unfolds, we will learn that these first three words introduce us to a God who is three in one (plurality and singularity), Father, Son (masculine) and Holy Spirit thousands of years before anyone ever uses the term Trinity.

In Christ,

David