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But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.

God is always gathering for himself a people, so he is constantly saving us from ourselves. God had a desire to make for himself a group to worship him, not like the angels do by their very nature, but through a covenant. He was always connecting with humanity and mankind was always breaking our relationship. Noah represents a major point in this salvation story of God’s expanding and deepening covenant to save his people. He affirms and establishes his covenant with Noah and Noah believes. This is not a fairy tail, it’s true.

It’s amazing to me that the latest genomic evidence is that our mitochondrial mother “Eve” appears to go back further in the genealogical record than does chromosomic “Adam.” Most people look at this evidence and say “see, the Bible is a myth and you can’t take the story of Adam and Eve seriously, our common female ancestor lived thousands of years before our earliest common male ancestor” This is a criticism from people who don’t know the Bible very well and would be exactly what one would expect if the Bible were, in fact, absolutely true! Noah and his biological sons all went onto the ark. Noah is our earliest male ancestor according to the Bible, not Adam. However, Noah’s wife, and his three daughters-in-law all had different parents. Thus, our common female ancestor would predate Noah by something like thousands of years, depending on how diverse these girls were.

I’m constantly amazed by how confident people are when they come out with new evidence to “refute” the Bible, and it always turns out to affirm what the Bible has said for thousands of years. God’s word is true, and you know what, it’s not just so we get our history correct. He is still in the covenant business.

The New Covenant (as Paul calls it) came through Jesus’ blood. Though God spoke to our spiritual ancestors in various ways, he has spoken finally and for all in his son Jesus Christ. Do you know him? You too can be saved while all others are taken away to judgment. Trust Jesus today.

…sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.

Adam and Eve sinned. As Paul tells us in Romans 5, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” This means we are all in trouble because of our great, great, great, great… ancestor. We’ve all inherited a “human nature” which not only is bent towards sin, it inevitably leads us to sin. All of us are, thus, “condemned” (Rom 5:18) because we will all sin. But there is hope! Jesus Christ came and paid the penalty for our sins so that those who trust in Him will have His righteousness exchanged for our unrighteousness (Rom 5:19). So now, we who are forgiven, must rule over our sin. It is no longer master over us, Jesus is our Lord. Have you thanked Him for this gift lately? Hope to see you Sunday…

This year we begin a new Bible reading plan where we will read the entire Old Testament in rough chronological order.

To get a copy of the plan, click here.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

There’s no question who is the one at the center of the beginning of the Bible, it’s God. In the story of God’s creation, there are two main points to keep in mind. Don’t get caught up on chronology and timing, that’s not the point of this passage, nor does the Bible ever explicitly speak in terms of “when” this took place… the two points here in Genesis are (1) God did it and (2) man is a special creation, the crowning achievement of God’s creative activity. The universe (everything: space, matter, energy, and even time) did not simply come into being, God was already there (He always has been) and He created everything there is. People did not come into being through some undirected naturalistic process, no, God created us on purpose with a purpose. Look at the amazing poetry of creation as seen in the “6 Days” of Creation.

Day 1: Day & Night

Day 2: Waters & Sky

Day 3: Earth & Plants

Then the next three days correlate to the first three in that they “fill” what was created on days 1-3 with life and purpose.

Day 4: Sun & Moon

Day 5: Fish & Birds

Day 6: Animals & Humans

Isn’t God amazing! He deserves your worship and wants you to be part of His people. He’s been gathering us since the beginning, and He’ll do it until the end. Join us in worshiping Him this Sunday.

It’s a great thing social media didn’t exist when the Apostle Paul was preaching. I bet a whole lot of people would have been offended.

Can you imagine a preacher saying “you’re stupid!” in a blog post, and yet, Paul told they Galatians just that, twice. Or what if the pastor of a church started a Facebook poll “I want to test your love for God by comparing what you give at church to other churches” I’m pretty sure the deacons would have a talk with that pastor. Guess who did such a thing, yep you guessed it, Paul in 2Corinthians 8:7-8.

Paul was not afraid to speak his mind. Look at what he said about someone who tried to convince the government not to get mixed-up with this Jesus movement: “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?” (Acts 13:9–10). Or what if you heard him say ‘God will certainly strike you – you whitewashed wall! . . .’ (Acts 23)

Oh Paul, that’s not very kind. You can’t say that! Don’t be confrontational. Surely no one would call someone a harsh name like “you brood of vipers!” No, that wasn’t Paul, that was Jesus, twice (Matt 12 & 23) and His cousin John (Matthew 3).

Wow, are we overly sensitive today or what? I remember seeing Christian symbols on the wall in the rooms beside a Greek gymnasium as an indication that a church met there, by the gymnasium, where men exercised without clothing. Or how about the ancient practice of keeping men out of synagogues who’ve not been circumcised… let that sink in. How would they know? Boy, you think the door greeters at church make you uncomfortable when they want to give you a hug.

Maybe one of the good things about the next President is that perhaps he can help us get over our over-sensitivity. We get offended by too much too easy. If we lived in the first century world, we’d be truly shocked at life. Many of us live in a bubble. Let’s pop that bubble.

Just be glad you’re not friends with Paul on Facebook. “I wish those… would emasculate themselves!” (Gal 5:12). Oh Paul, that’s not very nice, that’s why I love you. 🙂

Is it okay for a Christian to celebrate a holiday that has pagan roots? Yes.

We can see a very similar principle in Romans 14 as well as Colossians 2. Paul was dealing with a church that was divided along the lines of those who came out of Judaism and those who had a Pagan background. Those with a Jewish background tended to be more “legalistic” (literally, wanting to follow the Old Covenant law), whereas the Gentiles (and Hellenistic Jews) didn’t really have that much of a hangup. The more conservative Jews were quick to say “do not touch, do not eat, do not drink” those things that were not sanctified.

This issue(s) came to a head because the church would eat together and then some of the more “liberally minded” Christians were bringing meat and wine that had been used in pagan temples or part of pagan worship practices. It was cheaper. This appalled the more strict Jews.

What was Paul’s response? Essentially, he said “keep it to yourself.” Here’s the summary. We are free in Christ to worship however we feel impressed by the Holy Spirit. There are not specific “holy days” and there are not specific “holy ways” to worship. It’s a matter of conscience. Idols are nothing, so it doesn’t matter if something you can benefit from was used previously in pagan worship, if it helps you, go for it, there’s nothing wrong with it!

However, there are some people who have a weaker faith who don’t yet live in that freedom. As a matter of personal conscience, they just can’t bring them to eat meat sacrificed to idols or drink wine used in pagan worship. They have a personal problem with it, so others with a better understanding of their freedom in the New Covenant need to still be sensitive to their brothers and sisters in Christ who aren’t quite there yet.

Those who are more mature need to defer to those who are less mature and think that appropriation of formerly pagan things can somehow hamper their faith.

So what does this say about Christmas? No, there’s no command to observe Christmas in the Bible… yet there was no Hanukkah in the Bible in Jesus’ time either, and yet he still celebrated that secular national holiday (see John 10:22-23). Why would we want to discourage people from celebrating the birth of our Savior?! I sure don’t. But, some do. So it’s fine to state your own convictions, but we also need to be sensitive to those who are under conviction.

Now… to those who would say “Christians should not celebrate Christmas” I would say that you are going too far. You are putting words in God’s mouth that you should not. Just as Paul encouraged the church in the first century, he encourages us as well, keep your convictions to yourself. Don’t hold other Christians to YOUR standards, hold them to God’s standards (i.e. “judge rightly”). And, I’d also say, have a Merry Christmas 🙂