Tag: Creation

Morning Musing: Psalm 19:1-2

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“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands. Day after day they pour out speech; night after night they communicate knowledge.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Some things, once you see them, are hard to imagine not seeing. Consider the average optical illusion. When you look at some of them, they initially look like nothing or else perhaps something totally other than they actually are. Once you have learned to see them for what they truly are, though, you can’t not them that way even if you try. Knowing things works the same way. Some truths, once you learn them, shape your view of the world so profoundly that you literally can’t fathom not knowing them any longer. I was reminded of this yesterday while checking out a bunch of bees. Let me tell you about it.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 20:12

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“Honor your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When scholars examine the Ten Commandments, they often group them together in two big sets. The first set has to do with our relationship with God. Those are the first four. The second set has to do with our relationship with people. Those are really the last five. This fifth command sometimes gets grouped with the second set, but it doesn’t really belong there. It definitely does not go with the first set, though. It’s really a transitional command to get from one to the next. Let’s talk today about why honoring parents was a big enough deal to God that He included it on this list.

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Morning Musing: Genesis 1:27-28

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“So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Last week I told you that I would be pursuing three different occasional series through the beginning of this year. The first I introduced you to was a walkthrough the prophetic record of Amos. The third will be focused on managing the resources God has put within our sphere of influence well. Today, I want to introduce you to the second one. For the next several weeks, we are going to be taking a look at several different places in the Scriptures to get a better sense of God’s heart for the weak, vulnerable, oppressed, and rejected members of society. These folks come in many different forms, but every culture has them. Very often they are the ones who weren’t born there, but have arrived later in life for a variety of reasons. We are going to examine several passages throughout the Scriptures that help us better understand God’s passion for them. For this first part, we are going to look at the passage that ultimately grounds God’s compassion and love for all people. We’ve seen this one before, of course, but never from quite this angle. Let’s take a look.

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Digging in Deeper: Hebrews 11:3

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“By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Where did we come from and how did we get here? There aren’t many questions of greater worldview significance than these. While it may not seem like it at first glance, there is incredible philosophical weight to the answer we embrace. For instance, if everything was created merely by chance, then there is no objective purpose to our lives beyond what we construct for ourselves. On the other hand, if an intelligent being created it all, then this being acted with a specific purpose meaning that while we may debate and search for what exactly it is, our lives definitively have meaning. Here, as he starts to offer a series of examples of what faith is, the author of Hebrews begins at the beginning. Let’s think about what we think about when we think about where we came from and why that matters.

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Digging in Deeper: Genesis 1:1-5

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“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘day,’ and the darkness he called ‘night.’ There was an evening, and there was a morning: one day.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I love reading epic fantasy novels. The longer, the better. In one series I’m working my way through as each new entry is released, The Stormlight Archives by fantasy master Brandon Sanderson, each book weighs in at about 1200 pages. I’ve read through book four, and he’s rumored to have planned it to be at least 14 books long. In any event, as I have been lately reading through one of Terry Goodkind’s last books before his untimely death, something occurred to me that I wanted to explore with you this morning. Let’s talk this morning about thousands of years of Middle Ages-like culture, worldview, and why Christianity is better.

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