tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68156144334498250472012-02-16T03:14:27.528-05:00Rev Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02786553238507326923noreply@blogger.comBlogger21100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6815614433449825047.post-11090917281772668392011-08-15T17:52:00.000-04:002011-08-15T17:52:03.947-04:00This summer in worship we have been revisiting the early chapters of Genesis, the Biblical book of "beginnings". Yesterday we reviewed chapter 5, a genealogical list of 10 generations, purporting to be from Adam to Noah. The chapter fast-forwards from creation to the flood account by attributing extreme old age to those early folks, culminating in Methuselah, the Bible oldest human at 969 years.<br /><br />Is it really still possible to accept these ancient ages? How are they to be explained? Common explanations are that this was before the Great Flood, which changed everything, or that the time was closer to the expulsion from Paradise, so sin, though it had begun to do its damaging work (witness the story of Cain and Abel), had not prevented the possibility of such long life. Could they also be symbolic in some way, or just allowing whoever wrote the list to jump so quickly from Adam to Noah?<br /><br />All of the early chapters of Genesis run headlong into our modern knowledge of evolutionary processes, if taken literally, at face value as "history". Not being of such a literalistic bent when it comes to scriptural interpretation, I have no problem seeing these opening Genesis stories as folk tales or legends, perhaps morality tales, rather than journalistic accounts of "what really happened".<br /><br />Do people really believe that Adam and Eve conversed with a talking snake? Not many Presbyterians I know of.<br /><br />Up next is the Great Flood. That's a tough one. Is the God of Noah's flood the God we love and serve through Jesus Christ our Lord? Would we view the story differently if it wasn't between the gilded pages of the Good Book?<br /><br />To be continued...<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6815614433449825047-1109091728177266839?l=revopp.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Rev Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02786553238507326923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6815614433449825047.post-82255830974023879772011-08-04T16:44:00.000-04:002011-08-04T16:44:26.792-04:00That's been the theme at our Vacation Bible School that concludes tomorrow. Using the theme "Pandamania" over 130 kids have experienced numerous ways God loves them and cares for them. As usual the sanctuary is all decorated in wild animal regalia, extending down the hall and into the CE wing. I never ceased to be amazed at the VBS program our committed volunteers pull together year after year.<br /><br />I can't think of anything more fitting than for our children and youth to know in the depths of their being that God really is "wild" about them, that God loves them with an eternal love that will never let them go, with a love that passionately desires relationship with each and every one of us. Would that the Church was better at emphasizing God's wild love for us. Perhaps fewer would be&nbsp;as turned off to institutional Christianity as they are these days, particularly our emerging adults. (Witness the ongoing furor over Rob Bell's latest book "Love Wins").<br /><br />I like the way somone has characterized the concept of "grace": "Grace means there is nothing you can do to make God love you more; and there is nothing you can do to make God love you less".<br /><br />That about says it all. Grace wins! Love wins!<br /><br />Til next time...<br /><br />Rick<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6815614433449825047-8225583097402387977?l=revopp.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Rev Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02786553238507326923noreply@blogger.com0