City of God Church: Lafayette, IN

Through the Bible Update 1/7/10 (and 1/6/10)

Yesterday's Readings: Psalm 5; Genesis 6; 1 Chronicles 6; Luke 3:1-22
Today's Readings: Psalm 6; Genesis 7; 1 Chronicles 7; Luke 3:23-4:13

Sorry about the lack of update yesterday.  I had the chance to take my beautiful wife away on an overnight get away.  I'll combine comments on today and yesterday's readings.

Psalm 5-6

There wasn't one particular issue or verse that stuck out to me.  Rather, there are several points from all of the prayers so far that I've been impressed with.  Several themes run through our reading from Psalms so far that I think are helpful for your own prayer life.

1.  David was brutally honest with God

He did not sugar coat where he was in life.  David was hurting, broken, and scared and he let God know what he was honestly feeling

2.  David had a deep trust in God in the midst of pain

Even though David was in the midst of incredible pain he was constantly going to God for comfort and help.  I hope that I can have David's confidence in going to God no matter what trial is being faced.

Genesis 6-7

There are actually a couple of tricky questions with these two passages.  First, who were the "sons of God" that took wives from the daughters of men?  Were these sons of God some type of spirit being?  Possibly they were a corrupt individual on earth from royal lines (many kings believed they were in some senes divine).

I lean toward these being some kind of being comparable to angels (every other time this phrase is used in the OT it refers to an angelic being.  The Nephilim were the product of these beings having sex with ordinary human women, and they were well known in the ancient world.

The main issue many have with the Noah story is how a loving God could destroy everyone on the earth.  How can God's actions here be the God of John 3:16 that loves the world?  We are helped on this issue by a couple of verses in this passage.

Genesis 6:5 says, "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was geat in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."  Later 6:12 reads, "And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their wa on the earth."

God did not decide to destroy a morally neutral world.  This was, and still is, a world in which people rebel against God continually.  I personally have rebelled against God, and had I been alive at the time of Noah God would have been justified in destroying me.  Because we have all disobeyed our creator he has the just right to punish us.

What really is highlighted in Gen. 6-7 is the grace of God.  God had no obligation to save Noah and repopulate the earth.  He could have simply ended the world at this point.  However, out of his loving grace he decided to save Noah so that ultimately he could save many more.

1 Chronicles 6-7

More names.  As an encouragement the story picks up in 1 Chr. 10.

Luke 3:1-4:13

1. As John the Baptist is preparing for the coming of Jesus he preaches to the people, "Bear fruit in keeping with repentance" (Lk. 3:8).  Repentance has become a weak word to many Christians that simply means saying your sorry.  John makes clear, and Jesus will as well, that true repentance is a changing of allegiances.  It is changing the direction of your life.  If you say you love Jesus it should impace the way you live.

2. 4:1-13 is the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness by Satan.  First, we see Jesus' deep dependance on the word of God to fent off spiritual temptation.  When Jesus was confronted with temptation he was able to speak some truth of God from his heart into the situation.  We would be wise to do likewise.  If Jesus needed to memorize scripture how much more should we?  Secondly, this is a passage on what type of Messiah Jesus would be.  Satan offered him the things that he would ultimately gain through the cross (glory and power).  However, Jesus knew that taking these things cheap and easy without the cross was not what God intended, and ultimately wouldn't deal with human sin.