Generational propagation includes more than just physical procreation. The natural order, however, gives the model upon which the others are established. The generations that follow us are a testimony of our faithfulness, our training for and test of our leadership, and are to be the triumph of our warfare.
God’s warning to Adam contained no ambiguity. Biting into the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and …
One of the hallmarks of American culture is individualism. As with all “isms,” individualism carries with it a mixed load of baggage. Among the pieces of useful luggage are individual responsibility, personal merit, and unrooted freedom. Its millstones include selfishness, pride, and generational blindness. I wonder how many reading this could name their great-great grandparents. I know I would have to look it up.
If you have ever been bogged down in the begats of Genesis while following a read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan, I have encouraging …
Warning: Serious consideration of the thoughts that follow may induce temporal vertigo and cause the reader to lose his or her sense of place in time. Making plans for the future is highly recommended while under the influence of these symptoms.
Though decay and increased chaos can be used to see that time moves forward, they are not why it does so. The Day approaches. Time is taking us to a destination. It’s not simply carrying us downstream into the depths of pointless despair. We are to gather together to exhort and provoke one another to love and good works because what we do matters and has eternal consequence.
Our Father’s default setting is dynamic progression. Life moves forward from seed to body, blades of grass to fields of green, trees to forests, fish to schools, fowl to flocks, heifers to herds, one flesh to families, families to tribes, and tribes to nations. His blessing brings increase in quality and quantity.[1] Conversely, wicked disobedience brings the curse of caustic decay. Though many other examples of this principle can be found, Genesis 1-3 and Deuteronomy 28 are sufficient to illustrate the point.
Onward, forward, and go are imperatives intrinsic in the kingdom of God; flinching, backsliding, and turning away win no commendations from the King.[2]
Time is the first thing that God explicitly sanctified.[1] God’s primary sanctuary wasn’t matter (an idol), space (a temple), but time. Matter, space, and time conceptually correspond with body, soul, and spirit.[2] Scripture attests to the difficulty of differentiating between soul and spirit.[3] Time and space are equally intertwined, which is why physicists often refer to them as the space-time continuum.[4] The introduction of time into our universe and spirit into Adam follow a similar pattern.
Jesus shined the spirit of the law into every dark corner of religiosity, threatening the power base and sensibilities of the establishment from the temple to grain fields. Of all His iconoclastic behaviors—feasting with publicans, befriending prostitutes, touching lepers, flipping tables—none upset them as much as His deliberate actions on the Sabbath. His favorite activity on the seventh day of the week was healing people, but on this particular occasion His disciples were helping themselves to a snack.
Day One measures a definite value of time. We know time is there because it is being measured for us. One way time has been classically defined—or qualified through measurement— has been “matter in motion through space.” But if the Bible is true, then this cannot be what time is because time came to be on Day One and space shows up on the second day.
The Bible Philes 