Latest / Relish: a Christian podcast / Hidden Gems of Genesis

Transcript

Hidden Gems of Genesis · Relish: a Christian podcast

0:03
You're listening to thursday mornings with alex and
0:06
don team ad don is a pastor with
0:09
40 years experience and alex is just as
0:11
curious as you are we look at the most important and
0:15
interesting questions about the bible and christian faith
0:18
so let's talk about it pastor don good
0:22
morning alex how are you doing well considering good
0:25
good good good good welcome everyone to
0:28
another episode of thursday mornings with alex and don
0:31
we're glad that you're here we got some good questions
0:34
do you yes oh my yes and just
0:37
so everyone's know we are getting tapped out on questions as far as what is
0:41
today and like we said before we try to kind of keep episodes you know in the
0:47
queue in case don's got to go on a trip or i'm not available or just something
0:52
happens that way we're not just doing it every week and maybe someone gets sick
0:54
or something like that right and we learned that
0:57
we had to kind of do that pretty early on because I just always had young kids during COVID.
1:02
So guess what? Yeah. They're always sick.
1:04
That's all they do. Can't happen. Life does happen even to us old farts, too. Okay.
1:11
So the question today is, both of these are kind of from Genesis.
1:16
Okay. One and two. So I feel like maybe, you know, you've probably read this
1:20
part a few times. A couple.
1:23
What I noticed was something interesting. You know, God creates everything, thing
1:26
every living creature in the
1:30
first chapter and then he gets to eden and it's
1:33
like he's making them again hmm yeah why is that well and it's almost as if
1:37
it's yeah and it's sometimes it's talked about as being two creation narratives
1:41
okay and there's a subtle difference between them and there's a little difference
1:47
in arrangement of them so it could be like like the book of
1:51
revelation you know where we have the seven sides of the same situation and so it could be.
1:57
Genesis looked from a different pov okay the
2:00
the immersion the the coming of everything
2:03
to be the difference in in
2:06
total is the fact that there's no garden in the first one right
2:09
there's a garden in the second one and so the
2:12
first one is a pretty much nuts and bolts this
2:15
is how it happened and he said it was good the second
2:19
one comes along and it creates sort of a moral lattice work
2:23
if you will that all these things are created and adam is in charge and then
2:29
there's this garden and this garden has two trees yeah and it provides everything
2:33
the guy needs except for the woman right and and so then this is all great and
2:39
then he's alone now he needs somebody right,
2:42
So God creates somebody. Right. And so it's a different point of view, if you will.
2:49
Sure. Same event. Okay. So at the second time, there's a garden,
2:55
you know, and God doesn't really, he says that there is a garden here and he
2:59
says, then he's, then there's Adam, right?
3:03
He makes Adam and then he makes some other creatures appear as well.
3:07
Right. Actually. And it seems like it's, they're saying the same words
3:10
as they're saying in the first chapter is he just like
3:13
doing that so adam can see but there's
3:16
a couple subtle differences okay is the
3:19
fact that you know while he made the earth a shrub no
3:22
heaven was no earth was there no plant and there was no man to work on the ground
3:27
okay and then god formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into
3:32
his nostrils the breath of life and so that's different in the fact that That,
3:38
yeah, everything's created, but it comes from God.
3:41
And we as men, as human beings,
3:45
have been given life from the breath of God, which to me as a Christian,
3:51
and especially someone who believes in the work of the Holy Spirit, that's significant.
3:58
That I share God's breath. God put it in me and I'm alive because of his breath.
4:04
That's sort of cool. Oh, yeah. And then that God planted the garden,
4:09
and it's a specific spot east of Eden. Right.
4:13
And there he put the man he had formed. So-
4:17
What I see when I look at Genesis 1 is this happened, and this happened,
4:22
and this happened, and this is the first day, this is the second day,
4:26
third day, fourth day, fifth day, sixth day, and he took the seventh day off.
4:30
Right. And so you've got this whole list in the first one. Yeah.
4:33
That's not in the second one. Right.
4:35
So it's like it's, that's why I said it's sort of like a different motive to write. Okay, yeah.
4:41
A different point of view. Right. In the rendering. and
4:45
so it has more to do with god breathing
4:48
into us god making this garden providence of
4:51
god if you will and the reason and
4:55
some guidelines okay these
4:59
two trees are in there don't eat of those trees right
5:02
then you come up with chapter three and that
5:06
was squirrely little thing that has no know legs comes around and says well
5:08
did he really say yeah you know
5:11
satan does that so chapter two
5:15
and the way it's spoken of
5:18
by god creates the
5:21
foundation for three okay so it's
5:24
more of a moral moral interpersonal fabric
5:28
than than chapter one okay if
5:32
i would put it chapter one's the science chapter two
5:35
is the morality okay the way god
5:38
plays out so chapter one's the the answer to
5:41
the question you know where did all this come from chapter two is
5:44
the well what part do i play or.
5:47
Where's my where's my story in it yeah okay okay
5:51
where'd i get my start right right okay why is
5:54
this important to me right okay that makes sense and and
5:58
you hear a little bit more of god's heart in chapter two than you do in chapter
6:01
one right i mean god says it's good in chapter one but chapter two then he's
6:06
breathing in he's creating for he's providing he's asking the man to name things
6:10
and then when he finds out man's alone and sort of lonely that creates woman.
6:18
Cares cares yeah yeah okay chapter
6:21
two would say god cares okay and then
6:24
this would be the next part of this question okay created all
6:29
this stuff right allowed man to eat plants
6:33
vegetables yeah you know
6:35
stuff that you really love yeah uh-huh and fruits and
6:39
then i do eat fruit most fruit okay okay okay
6:41
and then it wasn't till after the
6:44
flood that we really see that they were saying it's
6:47
okay to eat meat were we not eating meat before then really why
6:52
good question okay in fact
6:55
when you get to chapter three that's when
6:58
the first sacrifice of animals was
7:02
okay because all of a sudden when adam and
7:05
eve are naked it's god that provides the
7:08
skins for their clothing oh yeah
7:12
and so where'd they come from it wasn't a do-do-do-do it's
7:16
god actually sacrificed for their benefit some
7:19
of his creation interesting to clothe so the
7:23
first spilt blood of sacrifice was done by the father himself god the father
7:27
himself and so that being the case then that becomes the groundwork for sacrifice
7:35
and a cane enable and why one sacrifice was was more acceptable than the other.
7:42
I'm off topic. That's okay. What was the question? The question was about why
7:47
were they allowed to eat the animals after the flood and not before?
7:49
Oh, okay. And so during all this time in between.
7:54
You had to propagate the earth. Okay. And so, you know, got to have these animals live.
8:00
Plants were around. Then the flood wiped it out. And then there was just two
8:04
of everyone. Right, yeah.
8:05
And then afterwards it's given the. You know, it's one of those things I can't
8:09
give a definitive answer. I can give you a biblical answer.
8:12
Okay. And so we see no evidence of it ahead of time except for sacrifice. Mm-hmm.
8:17
That people ate meat. Right. But it's very clear that when you get to chapter nine.
8:24
That you can that you can eat meat
8:27
right everything that lives and moves will be
8:30
food for you yeah just as i gave
8:32
the green plants gave you the green plants now
8:36
i give you everything yeah i mean
8:39
it couldn't be any plainer than that you can take that out
8:42
of context you can put it on his head but for some reason the
8:45
writer makes it very plain i gave you
8:48
everything before all the green plants before and now i give
8:51
you everything right it's interesting well it
8:54
is interesting now part of that could be the fact that
8:58
that that's been this whittling down okay okay
9:01
because there was no moral construct other than
9:04
chapter two okay and then you
9:07
have chapter three and adam does his
9:10
thing and sin comes into the world and then if you read
9:13
the rest of chapter four and five you realize
9:17
that there's some hinky stuff going on and
9:20
then you get to chapter six and you got the nephilimian mixed
9:23
in there and you've got all sorts of chaos being sewn into the human fabric
9:28
and so when when the flood happens it takes that back to square one with noah
9:36
and his family brought out as these people God saved from tragedy.
9:43
And so he gives them everything.
9:47
You think there might have been a little bit of scarcity there,
9:49
too, to, like— Might have.
9:51
—of plants and stuff like that?
9:52
Yeah, the plants wouldn't have been very plentiful right then. Right.
9:57
Part of it is, I think, God had winnowed out and was— I mean,
10:03
this is sort of the first phase of him carving out a people for himself.
10:07
Right, yeah, yeah. And Noah would have been—he would have been Abraham's great-grandfather.
10:14
One two noah came within i think
10:18
25 years of adam
10:21
oh really of abraham excuse me of
10:24
abraham so say okay and so because
10:27
noah's life was long enough yeah he
10:31
could have been known by abraham's dad okay okay
10:35
and definitely by his grandfather right yeah for sure i mean when you put the
10:39
numbers together that's how it comes out so noah could have been sharing this
10:43
story the first part of genesis and all the things that happened to him on the
10:47
boat he could have been telling about you know when it landed and how all that
10:52
went because noah was alive and well right.
10:55
And then it's sort of wild to think
10:58
that he could have been telling this the story to abraham's
11:01
dad and grandpa yeah yeah yeah you look at the just how
11:04
long they lived back then it was
11:07
you could be be able to pass down generations of stories much easier by going
11:12
back to the original context yeah or the original story maker and and why and
11:18
you could tell why god did it yeah so i think it's part of that winnowing process
11:21
that god was doing to create a people for himself yeah yeah i agree.
11:27
That's all the questions for the flood stuff or the and then genesis stuff and
11:31
there was something that i i remember us talking about yeah we got time for
11:34
another one and this kind of for you is when did you know that you were going
11:41
to be pastor here at Westchester?
11:44
Oh, wow. Yeah. And that was such a neat process because Charlene and I had left
11:49
a congregation and were in sort of an isolated time.
11:53
It was really scary. It'd been a long time since I preached and I really was
11:57
ready to preach. How long?
11:58
I had taken a course. It was November 15 from June 15 to June 1 that I didn't preach at all.
12:06
And you can tell when I get all these sermons packed up, I mean,
12:11
we end up with a long one somewhere.
12:12
And I had taken a course, a John Maxwell course in public speaking.
12:16
And I was just anxious to start preaching again. And so.
12:22
How was it? I was, I was, I was in my office. In fact, I was finishing up some
12:27
of these classes and I was actually in the office at the house when I got this
12:32
call from a fellow here in the church. And I will leave names.
12:36
He knows who he is. Yeah, he does. And it was out of the blue because I hadn't
12:41
talked to this guy for years except about corn burners.
12:44
And I think that was maybe 20 years before that. Yeah.
12:48
And he said, I heard that you had left your church and wondered if you'd like
12:56
to preach over at our church. Yeah.
12:58
And I said, it was worth talking about. Okay. And so then we had a conversation
13:03
with the spiritual life group here and hit it off quite well.
13:09
And then that was the first layer. And so we knew we had two churches that we
13:17
were going to look at that had already asked to look at us.
13:19
And we needed to do that discernment process because this was part-time.
13:25
And I was young back then, three years ago. And I was looking for full-time work. Yeah.
13:32
So then we prayed about it. This felt good, but we said, you know, it's temporary.
13:38
Right. And so we then continued to have the conversations with the congregations we were looking at.
13:44
And one, we sort of wrote off fairly quickly. The other one was,
13:48
I mean, these were good churches that we were looking at.
13:52
And I remember it actually ended up being, Charlene and I were very positive
13:57
and they were very positive and we were ready to move ahead.
14:00
And Charlene and I got a dream that made us say, wait a minute,
14:07
we got to second think this.
14:08
And so, you know, one night with a dream, maybe you had something for supper,
14:13
you didn't agree with you.
14:14
The second night was equally so and the trouble in our heart.
14:20
And finally we entertained the thought of maybe we shouldn't go.
14:24
And that's when our hearts had peace.
14:28
And so then- Yeah. That's kind of cool.
14:32
And so then we found a rhythm that sort of was, could pay the bills. Right.
14:37
And then decided, well, we can preach here. Yeah. We can do that. That's cool.
14:43
Yeah, I was wondering how much, was there a listening or listening to God, or was there a...
14:52
Listen up yeah from god yeah i always give
14:55
god the opportunity if you if i if you
14:58
haven't got my attention lord you can use it too before yeah
15:01
and and he hasn't had to do it he's come very close i'm sure but it is interesting
15:07
how god has availed to us his his understanding and what we need yeah yeah that's
15:15
really awesome yeah i'm certainly glad you stayed well and you know look
15:20
at where we're at today right then it's also
15:23
created some bridges that we're connecting
15:26
with other congregations that we wouldn't have connected to before yeah
15:30
and i feel guilty that i'm one of the pieces that does that connecting but it's
15:35
working yeah and it's it's got my mind out of these silos of congregational
15:42
silos of gifts to where hey can we work together and how does this
15:47
work for you and you can do this for us and we can do this for you.
15:51
And even though we're a small congregation here at Westchester,
15:54
we do have things that are going outside our doors and blessing others.
15:59
And yeah, God's at work.
16:03
I'm going to give him all the glory. Yeah. It's awesome to
16:06
see it and to not just keep praying for it
16:09
when you actually see see god working and doing
16:12
good and seeing such a powerful
16:15
movement that is for his glory alone but blesses
16:20
us in so many ways it's so awesome yeah it's so awesome and things are happening
16:25
oh yeah mm-hmm yeah i i remember back for covet it felt like uh boy that was just a hard time it was.
16:36
And now there's just so much hope and it's so great. Yeah. Yeah.
16:41
Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Will you pray us out? I can do that. All right.
16:45
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your great love, your immense mercy.
16:50
We thank you, Lord, for your son. And we thank you, Lord, for your love.
16:55
And we thank you, Lord, not only that your love is from you to us,
16:59
but in your love, you allow us to walk with one another and care for one another.
17:04
Yea, even love one another.
17:07
Thank you, Lord. May your name be eternally praised.
17:12
We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
17:15
Well, everyone, thanks for joining us. If you've got some stories that are kind
17:19
of like Don's, send it to us. Oh, cool.
17:22
We'd love to read them. How would we highlight them? Well, give us permission
17:27
if we can have them on the broadcast, and we'll share them as much as we can.
17:31
Yeah, word it in a way if you want it to be a certain way, if we are able to
17:36
read it. or if you just want to share it with us to bless us, thank you.
17:41
Yeah, and I'm really thinking God's sowing the seeds of revival,
17:45
revitalization of churches. Oh, yeah.
17:49
And I think we need to share that and make it happen.
17:52
I guess I was thinking as we shared this, the number of healings and interactions
17:56
that God has had here at Westchester.
18:00
And I just think, boy, have we made enough of it, what God has done?
18:06
And there's a piece of us that went
18:08
you know it's private there's there's some things to
18:11
that but there's also places we need
18:14
to glorify god in it absolutely yeah yeah yeah you got it you don't ask you
18:20
don't get to know you don't know so if you have those stories that exhibit what
18:26
god's doing in your life and your church hey let's do it let's share it let's
18:31
get the get the momentum moving
18:33
forward, that God is at work in his churches.
18:35
God is at work in his people and he's coming. Yep. He's getting us ready. That's right.
18:42
All right, everyone. Like I said before, running low on questions,
18:46
please send some questions in so we can start cooking with some more stuff. Oh, yeah.
18:51
Don's ready for some more challenges. Might have to go to Hillcrest again,
18:54
you know. Might have to go to Hillcrest.
18:55
So everyone, thanks for joining us and we will see you all next week. Lord willing. Bye.
19:00
Thanks again for joining us for this week's episode we are both having a ton
19:05
of fun making these videos and episodes and if you're having fun too please
19:10
tell a friend about this and help us to grow this mission thank you and god bless.