I am sure you are wondering why I am talking about Tootsie Pops on a post that is suppose to be about our study of the Chronological bible. Here is the connection: The first year my group read through the bible we began to realize just how much of God's word we really did not know. So we spent that year just trying to wrap our mind around it all. Come December of that year we realized that we wanted to know more.
We went into the next year just hungry and thirsty for so much more. We would read all week long but then when we would came together and began discussing/sharing what God had been revealing to us we did not have enough time. Every year God would show us more through our study but just like the owl with the tootsie pop we wanted more.
I explained in my last Wednesday in the Word post how we plan on going slower this time around even if it takes us 3-7 years.
Following are a few of the notes from last Sunday night :
Before we can even began to understand and trust in God then we must decide in our hearts why we believe the words of the Bible. As I have pondered this question I came across this video by Pastor Voddie Baucham that explains in detail why we can believe the Bible it true.
We do not know who wrote the Book of Genesis. And we do not know when that person wrote the book. There is an ancient tradition that Moses was the author. Modern Bible students have many other ideas. But we can see that Genesis is a very old book. Even the oldest books in the Bible refer to it (for example, Exodus 3:15; Job 28:25-29).
The book of Genesis begins with three different accounts of one creation. Chapter 1, verses 1&2, sum up the whole of creation. Chapter 1, verse 3 through Chapter 2, verse 3, speaks of the seven days of creation. Chapter 2, verse 4 through 25, speaks of the creation of man. It is an expanding summation of the same occasion
Genesis is a very careful account, which teaches the main principles in the Bible. The author describes the nature of God. The author explains God’s plan for a perfect world. The author describes *sin and *sacrifice. He speaks about God’s promise to forgive. And, he speaks about God’s promise to send Jesus. The Bible teaches that the author was not merely setting out his own ideas. Instead, he wrote inspired by the Holy Spirit of God.
Genesis is important to the New Testament. There are at least 165 passages in Genesis either directly quoted or clearly referred to in the New Testament; many of these are quoted more than once, so there are at least 200 quotations or allusions to Genesis in the New Testament
In Genesis’ 1:1-25 – God proved both his power and his love by creating. With just a simple spoken word he brought into existence all that we see and know around us
Sunday January 6, 2013 we just cover Genesis 1:1-19 - The first four days of creation.
A few of the 'new' things we learned are:
V1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth:
- This tells us that God used no pre-existing material to create the earth. The ancient Hebrew word bara (created) is specific. It means to create out of nothing, showing that that God created the world out of nothing, not out of Himself. God is separate from His creation. Unlike Eastern and pantheistic perceptions of god, the Bible teaches the universe could perish yet He would remain.
- Men cannot “create” in the sense the term is used in Genesis 1:1. We can only “fashion” or “form” things out of existing material. When we paint a picture, make a pottery jar or any type of say art then we may use the phrase “I created that.” When actually we should say I formed that or I put these things together to make a final product.
- God created: This summary statement will be detailed in the following verses, but the Bible simply and straightforwardly declares the world did not create itself or come about by chance. It was created by God, who, by definition, is eternal and has always been.
- God created the heavens: The simple fact of God’s creation is even more amazing when we consider the greatness of God’s universe. A typical galaxy contains billions of individual stars; our galaxy alone (the Milky Way) contains 200 billion stars. Our galaxy is shaped like a giant spiral, rotating in space, with arms reaching out like a pinwheel, and our sun is one star on one arm of the pinwheel. It would take 250 million years for the pinwheel to make one full rotation. But this is only our galaxy; there are many other galaxies with many other shapes, including spirals, spherical clusters, and flat pancakes. The average distance between one galaxy and another is about 20 million trillion miles. Our closest galaxy is the Andromeda Galaxy, about 12 million trillion miles away.
Louie Giglo spends about 40 minutes walking us through the details how awesome our God is by detailing our galaxy: In order words the universe as we can now see it through things like the Hubble telescopes show the imprint of God on every star.
V2. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the water.
- It maybe that God first created the elementary principles of things; and this formed a grand mass of matter, without arrangement : a vast collection of indescribably confused materials, of nameless entities strangely mixed
V3-5. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the first day.
- There was light: Genesis tells us that light, day, and night each existed before the sun and the moon were created on the fourth day (Genesis 1:14-19). This shows us that light is more than a physical substance; it also has a supernatural aspect. In the new heavens and the new earth, there won’t be any sun or moon. God Himself will be the light (Revelation 22:5).
- We realized that this light was created before the sun, the moon or the stars. So we discussed what this light could have been. One of the explanations we came up with was this light was simply a word that God gave the author to explain that he was adding order to the Earth, Just like when you turn on a light switch when you first walk into a dark room
- I personally had never really notice the wording 'waters of the heaven' in these verses. After some studying I realized that since there was no rain until Noah these 'waters of heaven' was a heavy water vapor above the earth. It basically served like a global greenhouse.
V9-13. 9 Then God said, “Let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place, so dry ground may appear.” And that is what happened. 10 God called the dry ground “land” and the waters “seas.” And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the land sprout with vegetation—every sort of seed-bearing plant, and trees that grow seed-bearing fruit. These seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came.” And that is what happened. 12 The land produced vegetation—all sorts of seed-bearing plants, and trees with seed-bearing fruit. Their seeds produced plants and trees of the same kind. And God saw that it was good.
- God does not call the earth good until it has become habitable, a place where man can live
19 And evening passed and morning came, marking the fourth day
Let them be for signs and seasons: We often look to the trees and flowers to show us signs of the seasons changing but I never knew that the stars changed with the seasons
This is just a few of the 15+ pages of notes that I had. I hope that going forward you will read along with us. I would love to hear what God reveals to you through our readings. Just post in the comments below.
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