The flood and Jesus sweating blood

     Of all the images in the Scriptures, I suppose I meditate upon Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane sweating blood the most. Luke 22: 44 says, “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” Researchers say that humans can sweat blood as a physical effect of fear, like some pilots about to crash have done. But I can’t see that Jesus sweat blood because he was afraid to be tortured and die. It doesn’t fit with his going voluntarily to Jerusalem.

Genesis 3, Peter, and Hebrews 12 discipline

     In Genesis 3 we see sin and its ramifications, but also that our Lord is in the business of healing and hope. There are two types of people’s actions in Genesis three and we can see both in Peter.

Learning from Adam how not to communicate

     Friends don’t let friends drive drunk . This old bumper sticker reminds us that as we allow the Word to make us like Himself we will not encourage our friends in ways that lead to death and sometimes we will even have to say something to them. Three of our children have experienced life and death situations with their friends—two they saved from death and one they didn’t.

Love tested--Adam, Cain, and Abraham

     The Bible’s first use of the word “love” is in Abraham’s journey to offer Isaac (see Thomas L. Brodie, Genesis as Dialogue). This doesn’t seem to make sense, though, if you think of God as love. But the God of love converses with us through the Bible that He himself permeates and if we haven’t found him in our reading of a passage, we’re missing something. Adam failed the test of his love for his wife. Cain failed the test of his love for his brother over himself. But Abraham did not fail the test of his love for God over his son.

The Spirit's loving desire for lifeless chaos in Gen 1:2

When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth then was welter and waste and darkness over the deep and God’s breath hovering over the waters, God said, “Let there be light.”

(Robert Alter’s translation from Genesis: Translation and Commentary)

     If anyone thought that a former-homeschooling, mother of five might read Genesis differently than academic male theologians, you will not be disappointed! From studying Genesis I see four scenarios overlaying each other--Genesis 1, Genesis 3, Deuteronomy 32 and Acts 2--and they all look like Jesus and the Church.

Biblical interpretation

It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out. 

Proverbs 25:2

         God conceals things. He hides himself on a donkey. We are to entertain strangers because they might be angels. Jesus taught in parables. Why doesn’t He just tell us what He wants us to know out rightly? Anglican theologian Ephraim Radner gets to this question in his book, Hope Among the Fragments.

The Genesis Jeopardy!

     The category is “Man’s Questions for God”
Man’s Questions for $600, Alex.
     Answer: God lovingly created man in his own image (1:27).
Question: Why am I here?
     Right!

Church fathers conversing together on Eden

     Irenaeus of Lyons was a disciple of Polycarp and Polycarp was a disciple of the apostle John of the New Testament. So Irenaeus is like John the apostle’s grandson and for that reason, along with the fact that he was recognized as a leader of the church, I find it interesting to read his writings. As bishop, Irenaeus’s goal was to expound the faith he received from his teachers. Also, you may notice that John Paul II’s Theology of the Body teaching appears to be based at points on his work. So here is the elaboration of Irenaeus’ views on Eden from Justo Gonzales’ church history textbook The Story of Christianity:

Honest communication

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, 
‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”  Gen 3:1-5

     The Scriptures can bite, but this is only to deliver us from the cancer that consumes us. God has to get it all out. The Scriptures can be many layered. One verse can have layers on top of layers of meaning; this is part of its beauty. But Scripture is never sarcastic, which is a form of lying. The foolish and cynical can be pitied. And the simple can be innocent. But the sarcastic are liars.