The Story is designed to help us travel through the timeline of Scripture at a fairly fast pace. It may feel like we are flying at 30,000 feet. We'll get a good view of the landscape but we may, from time to time, want to fly down to see more details in the story of the Bible.
On Tuesday mornings, we may not have time to hit all the questions that are raised with this study. So... here's a way for us to fly down during the week, ask some questions, find some answers and keep the discussion flowing.
Each Tuesday, I'll throw a comment, a question or an observation on this blog from our discussion that morning. Feel free to jump on, ask more questions and comment. Here's some guidelines.
1. Keep it positive.
2. Avoid asking questions that you know are unanswerable (no chain pulling).
3. Otherwise... there's no dumb questions.
God Bless,
Phil
7 comments:
Apparently, the comment function is hard to find on this thing. Click on "comments" below the post and you get a page to type a comment. It will have a number in front of the word comment. Still working out bugs!
Q1= When Adam and Eve knew they were naked, they reconciled with GOD via a statement, they never asked for forgiveness? What if they had asked for forgiveness? Is there any indication that GOD would have allowed them to stay in the garden or was this GOD's plan all along? It's kind of hard to think GOD wanted Adam and Eve to fail?
Q2= After the flood, GOD instructed Noah and his family to populate the earth? Did this happen by what is termed "incest" brother / sister)?
Q3= If GOD made everything, why would he instruct Jonah to bring [1] female and [1] male of every concievable animal, bird etc. onto the ARK to be saved from the flood, and then allow Jonah to use some of the clean animals as a scarifice in his honor? Is there indication or do I assume that those animals then became extinct? or does GOD remake them as they were?
Wow, Janson. Start with the easy ones. I'll take a shot.
1. No indication that God would have let them stay if they said, "sorry." No, he did not want them to fail but when they did, they hid and blamed. Adam said, "this woman you gave me..." No sign of a contrite heart. Your question is a big, "what if?" No way to really know.
2. Both times the earth was populated from 2 to millions, it had to have begun through brothers and sister, cousins etc. Seems creepy to us now because it is creepy now. But, then God seems to allow that for the purpose of starting the human race. Now, creepy and wrong.
3. I'm guessing some baby animals were born on the ark. It rained for 40 days but they were on that boat a long time. There had to be some gestation going on the boat.
No solid answer for each question- theories. Text doesn't say for sure.
Q1- I really like how Abraham showed up, I mean on the surface he was a caring person who loved GOD and yet he was willing to kick butt if you messed with his family? Did he ever get to see GOD or just hear his voice?
Q2- When Jacob sent his family across the river and began wrestling with a man? Was that GOD or is it a metaphor for something else?
Q3- When we talked about Abraham having faith, especially when he was asked to sacrifice his son?, do you think that there was an element of fear driving him to do exactly as he was asked, and that was how faith evolved?
Janson #1
1. When people experience God in the OT, they often hear his voice or they get to see things that represent God. When we get to the story of Moses, we'll learn that God can't be seen in his fullness. It's too much for fallen humans to physically absorb. God will speak from a burning bush, show himself in a pillar of fire and a cloud. There's a verse that says, "No man has seen God." He's a spirit. Better translated, "no man has seen God in his fullness." I think Abraham only heard his voice.
2. Some commentaries think Jacob wrestled with an angel sent from God. That's a real possibility as angel often show up looking like a man. Other commentaries say it was God himself in human form (not in his fully glory). When Jacob says he wrestled with God, he was speaking both physically and spiritually.
3.I think fear and faith can go hand in hand. Sometimes fear drives our faith, it leads us to have faith in circumstances wheree we don't understand what is happening..
I agree with the commentaries that it was probably an angel, though it could have also been Jesus as some pre-fully fleshed human physical form that must have been part of the 'Let US make man in OUR image' and also 'walked' in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve.
Super Deep Most Likely Unanswerable Question: Did God create evil if He, being fully omniscient, knew that Satan would sin and rebel, but created him anyway? And if God is by definition the only thing that is Eternal, meaning without beginning or end, (our translations get this wrong a lot) and nothing exist outside of His will or His having created it, then didn't He ultimately create the evil that Lucifer and ultimately Man chose?
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