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Tag: Genesis

  • Reflections: Eden

    Reflections: Eden

    Genesis 2 English Standard Version (ESV)

    15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying,

    “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

    18 Then the Lord God said,

    “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

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    Examine the Biblical text from ‘in the beginning;’ for before the beginning, GOD IS.

    The LORD יְהֹוָהYĕhovah GOD אֱלֹהִים‘elohiym

    made adam אָדָם ‘adam

    in his Image צֶלֶם tselem.

    First: LORD GOD, Yehovah elohiym; not Allah, not any other NAME. The LAW, or first five books of the Bible are a narrative written by Moses for the Hebrew people – God’s Chosen people. It is not an eyewitness account – Moses was not a reporter in the garden of Eden – yet Moses spoke directly with Yehovah elohiym. GOD told Moses!

    Second: The LORD God put Adam in Eden to work it and keep it.

    Third: The LORD God had not only created Man, God created everything in the heavens and the earth and made man in His Image in this place to glorify Him.

    God met with, spoke to and had a personal relationship with man in this special unspoiled garden. It was a place where the LORD God walked and talked with His beloved man of His creation, Adam.

    Think about it: the ALL-POWERFUL CREATOR of ALL, walking in a place with a creature of His creation – GOD carrying on a conversation with adam, enjoying the good of His creation with His personal friend, Adam.

    Would one made in the Image of a good God, a loving friend, not want to do all the Lord commands?

    Adam is an innocent sinless child of God! The first man and the first woman have no father and mother. They were both created by the LORD God!

    Does it matter if the LORD created them in His Image?

    Yes.

    Does it matter if the materials were dust or rib?

    Does it matter where an archaeologist might dig up this garden paradise?

    Could it possibly matter to a generation gorged on the tree of speculative knowledge when all of this took place?

    What, then, is important from the Biblical account of Genesis?

    The LORD raised Adam and raised Eve in the garden as a Father raises his innocent children.

    God provided. God gave them their purpose. God gave them love.

    And as a good father will do, God gave them a rule for their own continued good (as ones made in the Image of the God of Perfect Good).

    The LORD God did this for the perfect pleasure of the man, of the woman and of the LORD!

    (Note: If you haven’t followed the links to root definitions, you ought to – especially this last one.)

    To be continued…

  • Reflections: Before adam, I AM

    Reflections: Before adam, I AM

    creation-of-adamReflect though the window of time on the Person of God.

    touch of mirror

    For now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face.

    Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. – 1 Corinthians 13:12 

     John 1 English Standard Version (ESV)

    The Word Became Flesh

    1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

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    Without here debating the nature and essence of the One true God; without here dissecting God’s purpose and relationships of each Person of the Trinity of the One God: let us examine the Person to person relationship of the LORD to a few historic real souls, men and women of flesh and blood in a relationship with the Living GOD.

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     14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

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    Prior to the incarnation of God in the birth, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, God met man in many times, in many places and in several ways. Yet man sins; in every time, in all places and in many ways.

    Mankind sins again and again and yet again throughout the generations. Evil draws us further from the glory God has given to us; glory to worship the LORD in whose Image we are made.

    Any reflection of the mind of man cannot conceive even a mirror Image of the LORD GOD, HOLY AND ALMIGHTY, a loving Father to all He created.

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    Genesis 1:

     26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image…

    To be continued…

  • My Love – 5 – Sex

    My Love – 5 – Sex

    The lure of eros…

    as a bird rushes into a snare;
        he does not know that it will cost him his life.

    – Proverbs 7:23b

    When a Man Loves a Woman

    heart when a man loves a woman

    Then the LORD God said,

    “It is not good for the man to be alone.

    I will make a helper who is just right for him.”

    Genesis 2:18 NLT

    23 Then the man said,

    “This at last is bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
    she shall be called Woman,
    because she was taken out of Man.”
    24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

    25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. – Genesis 2 ESV

    Eros: sexual love of a man for a woman and of a woman for a man; often misleading us into sin, though God intends this most intimate love exclusively for a man and his wife to join them together as one.

    By sexual intercourse we become one in the flesh and in the spirit with another human being. It is a great and wonderful mystery.

    Genesis 4: Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.” And again, she bore his brother Abel… 25 And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.”

    In the beginning, a husband and wife and children.

    Do you recall that the controversy between Cain and his brother was over worship of God? Two kinds of love both dependent on the love of God.

    It’s all relational and Genesis continues with these themes of interconnected types of love which all affect our relationship not only to God, not only between a husband and wife, and not only between parents and sons and daughters; but all relationships within families and beyond the love and boundaries of family.

    These intimate relationships all become quickly complex. (Just take the love of Jacob for Rachel, for example.) At the middle of many intimate controversies we will often find eros, the sexual attraction between a man and a woman.

    We remain united in spirit to one we have engaged and known in the flesh. It is an unknowable mystery. The awesome connection of sex becomes even too weighty for our own hearts when we stray outside of God’s will.

    Yet Love Is a Many Splendored Thing within the boundaries, commitment and vows of marriage.

    Let your fountain be blessed,
    and rejoice in the wife of your youth. – Proverbs 5:18

    Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
    be intoxicated always in her love. 5:19b

     

    He who finds a wife finds a good thing
    and obtains favor from the LORD. Proverbs 18:22

    Man adam, and woman taken from man and given to man by God that they might be one. A godly wife for a godly husband to bear godly children, to keep boundaries of godly families… from this we have strayed far in these last days.

    Eros is a sensual soft linen of the marriage bed, perfumed with the nectars of passion between a man and a woman in love.

    How lightly does the world of the flesh misrepresent this beautiful love given to us by God.

    Song-of-solomon engagementThe Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.

    The Bride Confesses Her Love

    She

    2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!
    For your love is better than wine;
    3     your anointing oils are fragrant;
    your name is oil poured out;
        therefore virgins love you.
    4 Draw me after you; let us run.
        The king has brought me into his chambers.

    Solomon and His Bride Delight in Each Other

    He

    8 If you do not know,
        O most beautiful among women,
    …

    9 I compare you, my love,
        to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots.
    10 Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments,
        your neck with strings of jewels.

    song8_6-7Do you not know how the stallion and the mare mate in passion?

    The love song of Solomon for his bride becomes as sensual as any erotica or story of sexual love you will ever read. I commend it to you, lovers betrothed, husband and wife. God has intended our love for good and for our pleasure.

     Song of Solomon – read by Max McLean