1. The Bible is God's Word. God is the hero of the story - namely Jesus. If Jesus isn't the hero of the story, and somebody else is - you probably got the interpretation messed up somewhere. For example: When we read the Old Testament Laws, a general flow of logic would look like this:
a) God is Uber Holy
b) the commandments are good but I am wicked
c) God save me
A not so good flow is like:
a) OT Law is so holy
b) I shall attempt to obey it and be a noble Christian
2. The Bible is a book. There is a continuity to it. Whenever we read a passage, look verses top and below it - it should help you to understand what the middle is saying. Look up other passages that look like it, it should help you clarify certain things.
3. The Bible is consistent. If you come up to a wild conclusion that contradicts with other thoughts you know, it is worth re-examining.
4. The Bible is firstly about God, His Dealings with mankind, His instructions. It would be helpful to keep these 3 things when we use the Bible for application.
a) God - how does God's heart tell us about our heart and how it ought to be like?
b) His dealings - What does His dealings reveal about Him, and what then should our response be?
c) Instructions - What should we do, and how are these instructions consistent with His Character and His dealings in the past
A danger we can face is to misapply God's character to our character, His dealings to become our dealings, and instructions to be obeyed legalistically.
5. The Bible is a living historical document. It is living. It is historical. Careful not to read narrative as an instruction. Jesus walking on water does not mean that we should step out of a boat in the middle of the ocean. It is a historical narrative - it tells us more about Jesus than about us. It is living in the sense that it does very active work in us as the Holy Spirit convicts our hearts in a very "present" way.
6. Application of the Bible starts from the heart and the mind - then to the hand. Jesus is not legalistic. If Jesus has very difficult disciplines, there is a much tougher heart and mind behind it all - look for it in His words.
7. Jesus is the Fulfillment of the OT. While certain things in the OT doesn't look like it is relevant about Jesus fulfilling them - generally most of them are fulfilled in Jesus. Unclean food in the OT is the reception of Gentiles in Acts, Sabbath is fulfilled in Heb 3-4, Jesus is the sacrificial Lamb, the King, The Prophet, The High Priest, The Judge, The Second Adam. Look out for them, and the Bible makes more sense.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Genesis: A Paraphrase and Commentary - The Creation
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. There was nothing in the world and Time just opened its eyes, but God has been around from eternity to eternity.
With the power of His Word, God spoke - and all creation came into existence.
On the 1st day, He said: Let there be light - and God separated light and darkness. On the 4th day, God filled light and darkness with the sun, the moon, and all the stars in the heavens. God is pleased with His work and said that what He created was good!
On the 2nd day, He said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, separating waters from waters" - and God separated between the seas, oceans, rivers and the clouds in the sky. On the 5th day, God filled the skies above with birds, and the waters below with fishes and all the creatures in the sea. God is pleased with His work and said that what He created was good!
On the 3rd day, He said, "Let the water under the heavens be gathered to one place, and let dry land appear". But this time, it was slightly different, God also said "Let there be plants, with seeds and fruits, each according to its kind" - He said this because on the 6th day, the last day of Creation, He filled the earth with living animals and a human.
On the 7th day, God saw all He created and it was good. So He rested on the 7th day and for that reason, He blessed it and set it apart as holy.
All things came into creation by God's Word - He spoke, and it came into existence! And everything was just "good", "good", and "good". However, the creation of man was different. God said to Himself, "Let us make man like Ourselves".
God made a man, and called him Adam. Then God looked at Adam and said, "It is NOT good that you are alone, I will make a helper that is suitable for you. And so God brought all the animals to Adam to have Him give them names just as God gave Adam his name. And so all the animals big and small were named by Adam, but Adam couldn't find anybody that looked suitable.
So God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep, and made a woman out of his rib. When Adam awoke to see his wife, he broke out into poetry and said,
"This AT LAST is bone of my bones, and the flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man!"
Because of this, a man shall leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and they shall become ONE flesh. The man and his wife was naked for there was nothing to hide, and they felt no shame.
Thus in an orderly way, God laid the foundations of the universe. And so God made man in like Himself - He was different from all other creation: God took common dust from the ground and formed the man, but breathed His very own breath into the man - and he became alive.
Then God gave power to him to rule over all Creation. God made man as male and female, and told them "Be fruitful and multiply - I have given you EVERYTHING, from the skies above to the earth beneath. God made all things in such a way that all living things ate the plants for food - there was no killing, and no shedding of blood and all the trees willingly bore their fruits for Adam and Eve.
God put Adam in the garden of Eden to take care of it, where the land was rich with precious stones, and it was fertile with streams flowing out of it. Now God placed 2 trees in the garden .. The first tree was called the "tree of Life". The second tree was known as the tree of"the knowledge of good and evil".
God told Adam "You can eat from every tree in the garden, EVERY tree; however, do not eat from the tree of "the knowledge of good and evil" - the day you eat of it you will surely die.
So this is what the Bible writes about God creating the whole world, fills it up with good, and put mankind to work it. Feel free to ask any questions. The next post in this 2 part series will be entitled as "The Fall".
Consider:
1. This paraphrasing business is really not "good". The original passage is so much more poetic. Here lies the ruin of Creation in the hands of an engineer who wants to "set forth the points"
2. Mankind being made after God's likeness is a pretty interesting thing. How was it that man is "like God" and not "God" Himself?
3. The orderliness of God
4. The distinction of man
5. The "first marriage" was by God - becoming one, a man and a woman, naked and not ashamed. The conditions, the woman who came out of the man and is to be united again WITH the man.
6. The 2 trees with special names among the many trees around. The riches and the exception.
7. The origin of all things
8. Reading the original thing at Genesis Chapter 1 and Genesis Chapter 2
With the power of His Word, God spoke - and all creation came into existence.
On the 1st day, He said: Let there be light - and God separated light and darkness. On the 4th day, God filled light and darkness with the sun, the moon, and all the stars in the heavens. God is pleased with His work and said that what He created was good!
On the 2nd day, He said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, separating waters from waters" - and God separated between the seas, oceans, rivers and the clouds in the sky. On the 5th day, God filled the skies above with birds, and the waters below with fishes and all the creatures in the sea. God is pleased with His work and said that what He created was good!
On the 3rd day, He said, "Let the water under the heavens be gathered to one place, and let dry land appear". But this time, it was slightly different, God also said "Let there be plants, with seeds and fruits, each according to its kind" - He said this because on the 6th day, the last day of Creation, He filled the earth with living animals and a human.
On the 7th day, God saw all He created and it was good. So He rested on the 7th day and for that reason, He blessed it and set it apart as holy.
All things came into creation by God's Word - He spoke, and it came into existence! And everything was just "good", "good", and "good". However, the creation of man was different. God said to Himself, "Let us make man like Ourselves".
God made a man, and called him Adam. Then God looked at Adam and said, "It is NOT good that you are alone, I will make a helper that is suitable for you. And so God brought all the animals to Adam to have Him give them names just as God gave Adam his name. And so all the animals big and small were named by Adam, but Adam couldn't find anybody that looked suitable.
So God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep, and made a woman out of his rib. When Adam awoke to see his wife, he broke out into poetry and said,
"This AT LAST is bone of my bones, and the flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man!"
Because of this, a man shall leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and they shall become ONE flesh. The man and his wife was naked for there was nothing to hide, and they felt no shame.
Thus in an orderly way, God laid the foundations of the universe. And so God made man in like Himself - He was different from all other creation: God took common dust from the ground and formed the man, but breathed His very own breath into the man - and he became alive.
Then God gave power to him to rule over all Creation. God made man as male and female, and told them "Be fruitful and multiply - I have given you EVERYTHING, from the skies above to the earth beneath. God made all things in such a way that all living things ate the plants for food - there was no killing, and no shedding of blood and all the trees willingly bore their fruits for Adam and Eve.
God put Adam in the garden of Eden to take care of it, where the land was rich with precious stones, and it was fertile with streams flowing out of it. Now God placed 2 trees in the garden .. The first tree was called the "tree of Life". The second tree was known as the tree of"the knowledge of good and evil".
God told Adam "You can eat from every tree in the garden, EVERY tree; however, do not eat from the tree of "the knowledge of good and evil" - the day you eat of it you will surely die.
So this is what the Bible writes about God creating the whole world, fills it up with good, and put mankind to work it. Feel free to ask any questions. The next post in this 2 part series will be entitled as "The Fall".
Consider:
1. This paraphrasing business is really not "good". The original passage is so much more poetic. Here lies the ruin of Creation in the hands of an engineer who wants to "set forth the points"
2. Mankind being made after God's likeness is a pretty interesting thing. How was it that man is "like God" and not "God" Himself?
3. The orderliness of God
4. The distinction of man
5. The "first marriage" was by God - becoming one, a man and a woman, naked and not ashamed. The conditions, the woman who came out of the man and is to be united again WITH the man.
6. The 2 trees with special names among the many trees around. The riches and the exception.
7. The origin of all things
8. Reading the original thing at Genesis Chapter 1 and Genesis Chapter 2
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