Breath of Life

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Man is created out of the dust.

Today, we know how to specifically identify the various components that make up a living body—carbon and hydrogen and oxygen, etc.—but the Bible’s ancient words still suffice: we are made of dust.

It’s not what our bodies are made of, however, that gives them life; what gives us life and sustains our lives is the breath of God himself.

Every time you take a breath, you are receiving God’s breath. Yes, the air you inhale contains oxygen, but oxygen alone won’t make a dead body live—it’s God’s Spirit that does that.

This is why praise is therefore such an appropriate act: when we praise God it is the very breath we receive from God that makes our praises possible. God gives to us, and then we give back to him.

Take time today to breathe. And praise God for it.

 

Today’s Scripture

Genesis 2:4-14

The Seventh Day

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The keeping of the Sabbath made Israel distinct, but the Creation account tells us clearly that the Sabbath day actually precedes Israel: there is a Sabbath from the very beginning of everything.

The Sabbath does not depend on a celestial calendar; the cycles of the moon or the stars have no bearing on the Sabbath: it just comes every seven days, no matter what.

On the Sabbath, the people of God rest, because God rested, and when the people of God rest, they are showing with their lives that they trust God to provide for them. Every seven days there is a reminder: God provides, and he can be trusted.

Keeping Sabbath Today

There is much more to discuss about this topic than I have time for in this post, but I would like to say something provocative: I’m beginning to think Christians should keep the Sabbath today. I don’t think Sunday worship is the same as Sabbath, and though I understand why the early Christians got away from the Sabbath—they wanted to show that a person is saved because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and not in the keeping of the Jewish Law—I think we should think hard about reclaiming it.

In practice, keeping the Sabbath would mean that Christians would deliberately structure their Saturdays to be about family and friends and celebration. No work would be done—no emails, no shopping, no yard work, no tax returns. Instead, we would have folks over for dinner, go to the park, read, play board games, go for walks, etc.

Can you imagine how America would change for the better if the Christians started keeping Sabbath?

Just as an experiment, why don’t you try it this Saturday?

Let me know how it goes.

 

Today’s Scripture

Genesis 2:1-3

The Sixth Day

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In Genesis 1, something is “good” when it is fit for its purpose and able to function properly, or when it is complete. Therefore, the seas are not declared good on Day Two because God isn’t finished with them until Day Three, when, after they are gathered together and the dry land has been uncovered, he declares them good.

On Day Six, after God has created everything, we read:

“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” [Genesis 1:31]

All of creation is “very good” because every part works together—it is complete. I like how Umberto Cassuto puts it:

“An analogy might be found in an artist who, having completed his masterpiece, steps back a little and surveys his handiwork with delight, for both in detail and in its entirety it had emerged perfect from his hand.”

—Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Part 1: Adam to Noah, 59

However, as I pointed out on Sunday, man himself is NOT specifically declared good after his creation on Day Six. Why? Because he is not yet complete or fit for his purpose.

I would like you to reflect on what Leon Kass has to say about this. It is dense, but worth it.

“A moment’s reflection shows that man as he comes into the world is not yet good. Precisely because he is the free being, he is also the incomplete or indeterminate being; what he becomes depends always (in part) on what he freely will choose to be. Let me put it more pointedly: precisely in the sense that man is in the image of God, man is not good—not determinate, finished, complete, or perfect. It remains to be seen whether man will become good, whether he will be able to complete himself (or to be completed).

“Man’s lack of obvious goodness or completeness, metaphysically identical with his freedom, is, of course, the basis also of man’s moral ambiguity. As the being with the greatest freedom of motion, able to change not only his path but also his way, man is capable of deviating widely from the way for which he is most suited or through which he—and the world around him—will most flourish.

“The rest of the biblical narrative elaborates man’s moral ambiguity and God’s efforts to address it, all in the service of making man ‘good’—complete, whole, holy.”

—Leon Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis, 39

Now, go back and read that long quotation again. It’s important.

It is precisely our freedom that makes us incomplete. Unlike all the other creatures, we are free to choose good or choose evil, and, left to ourselves, we will inevitably make the wrong choice. We are not yet fit for our purpose, i.e., to rule over the earth and to reflect God’s image.

The rest of the story of the Bible is about how God plans to fix us.

 

Today’s Scripture

Genesis 1:24-31

The Fifth Day

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The NIV translation lets us down a bit in its translation of Day Five. In v. 21 in our translation, we read of “the giant creatures of the sea.” However in Hebrew, the text literally speaks of “sea monsters.”

Why does this matter? You and I know that what ancient peoples called “sea monsters” are only the marvelous and mysterious creatures that God put in the deep seas—whales and the like. The Israelites were not a seafaring people, and were terrified of the Deep, but even ancient mariners had only the briefest of glimpses of these majestic animals. The nations surrounding Israel spoke of dark powers at work in the seas and sacrificed to the sea monsters to keep them safe on their maritime voyages.

How foolish, says Genesis 1—everything in the seas was made by God, even the sea monsters. Don’t worship the sun, and don’t worship the sea monsters, says the Bible.

God is so creative: He even made the whales!

 

Today’s Scripture

Genesis 1:20-23

The Fourth Day

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The sun (and with it the moon and the stars) is not created until Day Four. But, how can this be, since we’ve already had light and morning and evening since Day One (not to mention plant life since Day Three)? Isn’t the sun required for these things to take place?

Ancient peoples knew more from personal experience about the sun, the moon, and the stars than we do—the movements of the heavenly bodies were part of their intimate, daily experience, whereas we spend very few nights of our lives out of doors—and they certainly understood that you can’t have morning and evening without the sun. The strange detail of God waiting to create the sun until Day Four is yet another indication that Genesis 1 is not trying to give us scientific knowledge as to how things were created, other than to say that God is clearly the cause and Creator of everything. Rather, one of the things Genesis 1 is trying to tell us is that nothing in all of creation is divine, and therefore nothing in all of creation should be worshipped. The sun has been worshipped widely since the earliest days of humanity; Genesis 1 makes it clear that this is foolish idolatry: only God is worthy of worship.

I doubt very much that any of us literally worships the sun, but I am certain that many of us struggle with idolatry, which is the sin of thinking that the things God made (money, sex, power, possessions) are more important to our lives than God himself.

 

Today’s Scripture

Genesis 1:14-19

The Third Day

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As we read yesterday, on the Second Day God separates the upper waters from the lower waters, but the day ends with the lower waters still covering what will turn out to be the land. On the Third Day, God commands all of the lower waters to be gathered into one place; the gathered waters are called “seas,” and the exposed ground is called “land.” Imagine holding in your hands a plastic basin, halfway filled with water, and then tilting it slightly so that the water moves toward one end of the basin, leaving the other end high and dry. This is what’s happening here on Day Three.

Then, once the dry land has been uncovered by the waters, God commands it to be fruitful and it begins to produce seed-bearing plants and fruit-bearing trees. The reason the seeds and fruit are mentioned is because these sorts of plants can continue to reproduce and perpetuate themselves on their own, without requiring cultivating by humans.

Jesus told his followers to “consider the lilies.” I wonder today if we should take him literally and really contemplate the flowering plants and fruit trees (or their produce) that will come across our paths today.

If you come across an apple or an orange or a tulip today, really look at it and then praise God for it. It will be good for your soul to do so.

 

Today’s Scripture

Genesis 1:9-13

The Second Day

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When God begins to create, all that’s there is a watery mess of nothingness—chaos. So, after he creates Light on Day One, God begins to bring order to the waters of chaos, and he does so by first separating the waters into upper waters—”sky” or “heavens”—and lower waters, which (we learn on Day Three) are covering the land. He separates the waters above and the waters below with a “firmanent”—a strange Hebrew word that means a hammered-out, flat, hard thing. (Think huge manhole cover or piece of hard glass, like a gigantic car’s windshield.)

So, the ancient Israelites believed that the sky was this hard firmament which got its blue color from the waters above it. From time to time, the firmament’s windows would open and would release the waters above onto the land below (which is uncovered on Day Three)—in other words, rain.

Now, we “know” that the sky is not hard, and that the space beyond our atmosphere is not actually liquid, but Genesis is not trying to provide a scientific understanding of reality, but a moral and theological understanding. So, think about it: the amazing thing about the universe is not only that it exists, but that is has a form and a shape and is intelligible—it has meaning. That’s what God did—he made something out of nothing, and gave it a meaningful order. Today, no matter where you are in the universe, the laws of physics still apply. That consistency and intelligibility doesn’t have to be there, but that’s how God made things to be.

Today, he still does that. Why not pray that God makes this day meaningful to you?

 

Today’s Scripture

Genesis 1:6-8

The First Day

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There is one God, and he made everything.

There is nothing that God did not make. In ancient times people worshipped sun, moon, stars; in modern times we worship sex, money, success. This is foolish, because everything we can see has been created and is therefore not worthy of worship; only God should be worshiped. If you worship something created rather than the Creator, it will not go well with you. To worship something is to make it your source of strength and hope; that which you most admire—that’s what you worship.  As we begin 2020, what or whom do you need to put in its appropriate place in your life?

 

And what this God does is bring order out of chaos.

When God begins to create, note that the Bible starts to describe what God does, not with literal nothing—absolute non-being, which is impossible for humans to understand, both then and now—but with the basic building blocks of reality—a wild waste, a deep churning chaos, a swirling ocean of the blackest night. Even in the Bible, the true beginning of everything is shrouded in mystery. So here, it’s not that there is nothing but rather that what’s there is unformed. It’s like saying you are in the middle of nowhere—the something that’s there has not yet been turned into anything useful, so we call it nothing. God takes the wild waste of chaos and begins to make it into something. God’s activity is always to bring order out of chaos—think of the healings of Jesus, who brings order and stability into crazed, wild minds. God takes messes and brings meaning out of them. As we begin 2020, what mess do you need to ask God to make into something meaningful?

 

Please share these posts with anyone who will find them useful. We will read slowly through Genesis, weekdays only, finishing on Friday, April 10. I post each day’s devotional/commentary/thought at 3:30 AM on my blog, and send each post via email at 4:00 AM.

Sign up here to receive my daily commentary on Genesis—it’s free, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

 

Today’s Scripture

Genesis 1:1-5

Written That You May Believe

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We’ve been reading the Gospel of John for 2 months, and reading the Gospels since January 1. This is why:

“Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
— John 20:30-31

May God use your reading to bring you life in 2020!

P.S. I’m not going to write a post on John’s epilogue, which we read on Monday and Tuesday of next week. Check back Wednesday for our 1st post in reading Genesis,

 

Today’s Scripture

John 20:19-31

Why I Love Simon Peter

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When Mary Magdalene tells Simon Peter and the beloved disciple that she’s seen the Risen Jesus, he doesn’t believe her—would you?—but he runs to the tomb anyway.

That’s why I love Peter: if there is even the smallest chance it could be true, he wants to investigate it for himself.

 

Today’s Scripture

John 20:1-18

Christmas and the Cross

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Jesus was born to die. Christmas was always going to end on the Cross.

For Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, my thoughts on the Gospel of John are summed up in the sermon below.

Merry Christmas, everyone. May the knowledge Christ came to die make your Christmas celebrations all the more precious.

Scripture Readings for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

John 19

Barabbas

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The Greek word that John uses in 18:40 to describe Barabbas can mean “robber,” but it can also mean “revolutionary” or “insurrectionist.” We learn from Mark and Luke that Barabbas was a murderer as well. In other words, Barabbas had been arrested by the Romans because he was trying to overthrow Roman rule.

And what happens? Barabbas is freed, and Jesus is crucified.

Pontius Pilate releases a murderer and crucifies an innocent man.

 

Today’s Scripture

John 18:28-40

Jesus Walked Here The Last Night of His Life

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I filmed the video below earlier this year by the excavations of the high priest’s house in Jerusalem. Jesus actually walked on these stones!

(By the way, I’m going to be taking another trip to Israel in January-February 2021. [In an earlier version I wrote 2020!] Stay tuned for more info.)

 

Today’s Scripture

John 18:19-27

Gethsemane

John just tells us Jesus was arrested in a garden; Matthew and Mark tell us its name: Gethsemane.

The Garden of Gethsemane is at the foot of the Mount of Olives, just across the Kidron Valley from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. (I’ve been there.) In the cross-section map of Jerusalem below, Gethsemane is where the red X is.

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Gethsemane means “oil press” in Hebrew. It’s the place at the bottom of the Mount of Olives where the olives were pressed into oil to use in lamps, etc.

It’s also the place where Jesus was pressed, and his suffering produced light, too.

 

Today’s Scripture

John 18:1-18

One Prayer for One People

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I really believe that the most important thing that the people of Munger can do in our time is to be united in one heart, passionately praying and expecting for God to do something amazing.

(I believe the same for the larger Body of Christ.)

This, after all, was Jesus’s prayer on the last night of his life:

“Father, I pray that they might be one as we are one” (John 17:21).

So, for the last few months I’ve been pushing us to unite around a simple two word prayer:

Today, Lord!

For me, those 2 words sum up all I want to say:

  1. Lord, we know what you’ve done in the past—please do it again in our day, TODAY!

  2. Lord, we know you have your own timetable, but we’re boldly asking you to do it now, TODAY.

  3. Lord, we are grateful TODAY for all that you have done, are doing, and will do.

Today, Lord!

Today’s Scripture

John 17:1-26

How to Deal With Pain and Suffering--My Favorite Bible Verse

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It’s the last few minutes Jesus will have with his disciples before his death, and so he teaches them about how to deal with fear and suffering:

“Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.  A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.  So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” [John 16:20-22]

Suffering and fear are only temporary. God is at work, using pain for a purpose. I think Jesus’s metaphor of a woman in labor is a powerful one; when the future comes, we’ll look back on past pain and find it all was worth it: what God is going to do will be that good.

This is a great passage overall, but what Jesus has to say at the end has become my favorite Bible verse:

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
— John 16:33

Jesus is telling us two things about life:

  1. Trouble in life is inevitable, so don’t be surprised when it comes: just accept it;

  2. Trouble in life is temporary, so don’t lose heart!

 

Today’s Scripture

John 16:16-33

Why Are We Surprised?

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Jesus warned us it would happen, so why are we so surprised when it does?

“‘If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’”
— John 15:18-25

Don’t be surprised when you face opposition because of your commitment to Christ, and don’t believe the lie that if you were just more winsome they would accept you. Remember: they crucified Jesus, and he loved people perfectly.

When you face opposition, know that you are being conformed to the image of Christ and being given the gift of tasting—just barely—the sufferings of Christ himself.

And never forget that Christ was vindicated in the Resurrection, and you will be, too.

Keep going.

 

Today’s Scripture

John 15:18-16:15

Branches Don't Need Management Consultants

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[Sorry about the delay in posting and sending today’s post—I just forgot to do yesterday! —AF]

At the Last Supper, Jesus speaks to his disciples about vines, branches, commitment, connectedness, and fruitfulness.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower.… Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches.… If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.” —John 15:1-8

The branches don’t strain and they don’t strategize; the branches produce fruit naturally, effortlessly, because they are connected to the vine. Jesus promised his disciples that if they stayed connected to him, then their ministry would be fruitful.

My responsibility: to stay connected to the Lord.

His responsibility: producing cool stuff in my life.

I find that to be a life-giving idea: all I need to do is stay connected, and he will do the rest.

How can you let go of some of your stress today and let God do his work?

 

Today’s Scripture

John 15:1-17

How Can There Be Only One Way to God?

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Lots of modern folks take offense at the idea that Jesus is the only way to God. Here’s why I’m okay with the exclusive claims of Jesus.

Just because something is hard to believe or difficult to accept doesn’t make it false. The most important thing about an idea is not whether I like it or immediately understand it, but whether it is true.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
— Jesus of Nazareth

Jesus comes from God and Jesus is God. He died to reconcile the world to God. The world was in rebellion against God, but God came to save it anyway.

If you look around at the world, it is obvious what our problem is: Sin. Sin is why we have locks on our doors. In Christ, God condemned sin in the flesh, thereby removing it as a barrier. Because of Christ, sin no longer has the power to keep us from God.

Since God made life and is life, there can be no life apart from God. It is therefore not possible to decide that you are going to find life apart from God. God is life, and there is nothing else.

So, when Jesus says that he is THE way, I don’t see it as an offensively exclusive claim: I see it as a simple description of the truth about reality, in the same way that gravity describes reality. It’s just how things are.

And, note that the Jesus way is for EVERYONE. It has nothing to do with racial or ethnic boundaries. All are invited and all (if they choose to come) are welcomed.

As far as people who die without ever knowing about Jesus, I am content to give those folks over to the mercy of God. I’m not sure what God will do in those circumstances, but I know he’s merciful.

But, for the rest of us, the real question is not, ‘What about Person X?” The real question is, “What am I doing with what I’ve heard? How am I responding to Jesus?”

 

Today’s Scripture

John 14:1-31

The Prosperity Gospel

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Matthew, Mark, and Luke spend time talking about what Jesus has to say to the Twelve at the Passover meal, the last night of his life: “This is my body….This is my blood.”

John, however, characteristically chooses to tell us something different from that which the other Evangelists tell us, namely that Jesus, in the manner of a Roman slave, washes the filth off the feet of his disciples. It is an act of astounding servility, and Jesus intends it to shock the Twelve into showing them something important about following him.

Consider:

12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. [John 13:12-17]

I don’t think I’d noticed that before:

“Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.”

WHOA. Talk about the Prosperity Gospel.

Whom can you serve today by humbling yourself and imitating Jesus?

 

Today’s Scripture

John 13:1-38