John F. Wall / Jr. Christian Stroll Through the Hebrew Bible

&quote;In the Beginning God...&quote;
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4835-3753-5
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 322 Seiten

A Christian Stroll through the Hebrew Bible will be a welcome resource for both Christians and non-Christians who feel that their grasp of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) is tenuous. John Wall walks the reader through the major stories and lessons of God's wonderful message. The story is one of God selecting Abraham to found a nation to be his own possession, but his chosen people prove to be stiff-necked and unfaithful. Nevertheless, the Lord demonstrates his love, compassion, patience, and forgiveness time after time over the ages.  The Hebrew Bible progressively reveals the nature of God and his love for all humanity.  The epitome of this love is that he would eventually send his only begotten Son-the Word of God, the Messiah, Yeshua of Nazareth-to die for us and bear our punishment as the only acceptable sacrifice for the sins of the whole world!

Autoren/Hrsg.

John F. Wall, Jr.

Jr.,

Leseproben

CHAPTER 1 IN THE BEGINNING GOD! Creation to Terah, Abram’s Father "In the beginning GOD created the heaven and the earth." Genesis 1:1 "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, honour, and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." Revelation 4:11 The Hebrew Bible commences in a startling manner, “In the beginning God...” which is a statement of fact, accompanied by no argument, but only that he, God, existed in the beginning and created everything—out of nothing! God spoke and it happened. Genesis tells us that the Spirit of God hovered over the expanse of the waters and that God said what he wished and it came into being.1 Eventually, after a long period of creation of all things, God, at the last second of the last minute of the sixth “day,” created man in his image. Since then, man has returned the favor by creating God in man’s image! “When” is an ongoing argument among scientists, and between evolutionists and creationists. • Classic creationists insist that an Intelligent Being created the planet earth in six days as told in Genesis; that evolution is a theory without convincing demonstrable scientific evidence; that only God can create new species; that the earth is approximately 6,000 years old, and that fossils could form in that short time. • Generally, evolutionists maintain that new species evolve through processes of nature, that is, by chance. One could generalize that there are two classes of evolutionists: those who believe that species evolve through happenstance and those who believe there is a God who uses evolution as a tool. Most scientists believe the earth alone is over four billion years old, and then one gets into the Big Bang theory and other hypotheses. In our own galaxy, the earth’s rotation relative to the sun defines a day, but according to the first chapter of Genesis, God did not create the sun until “day” four. This timing implies that the term “day” is relative and could be a period of time considerably more than twenty-four hours—perhaps thousands or even millions of years. All agree that man himself appeared very late in the creation process. “How” is a complicated and bitter theological issue. Some believe that the earth and the universe just happened. Those of a Biblical bent believe that a loving, omniscient and omnipresent God created the earth and the entire universe out of nothing (ex nihilo)! God spoke and it was so. All agree that the entire universe is expanding and will some “day” wind down, just as an unwound clock loses its energy, slows down, and eventually stops. Many people love the way the Hebrew Bible deals with the issue: “In the Beginning God...” 2 There is no argument or attempt to prove that there is a God, but a very simple and adamant statement, “In the Beginning God” created the heavenly bodies and the world! The idea of the Trinity, or one God in three persons, is implicit in the very start of the biblical story of creation. God, the Trinity, was at work: God, the Holy Spirit (Holy Ghost), was hovering over the waters. God, the Father, spoke the Word—God the Son—who was the agent (did the work) of creation.3 And it was so! The successive creation events over the six “days” agree with the scientific hypotheses of the successive development of the geological earth, the seas, the land masses, vegetation, and the various animal life species. Man appears even later than the last minutes of the twenty-third hour of the sixth “day.” The story continues with God saying: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”4 God created the first man Adam (From the Earth or Formed from Dust) and then God (the Holy Spirit) “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”5 The Bible describes Adam’s mate, the first woman (Created from Man or Womb-man). God announced, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall be one flesh.”6 Genesis describes the delightful Garden of Eden, the paradise that God gave the man and the woman so they could live in it as partners and work the ground. There was also a river running through this paradise that watered the garden. (One cannot help but imagine that trout filled the river!) In the last chapter of the Christian Bible, one encounters this river of life again. Initially, the first couple may have been completely innocent, but God had given them free will and the ability to make choices. The man and his wife were unashamed of their nakedness. They lived in a wonderful, green, lush paradise—the Garden of Eden. Rich vegetation grew in the garden; the growth of greenery included the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Living was easy. There were no laws (except one), no litigation, no poverty, no social or racial issues, no sadness, no illness, no wars, no death. Life was truly idyllic! God imposed only one single law: The couple could eat the fruit of any tree in the garden except for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.7 The penalty for breaking this rule would be death. Genesis 3 describes the first (original) sin of mankind. We know little about Satan (the Devil) other than at one time he was an angel in heaven, who had succumbed to pride and rebelled against God. God threw Satan and the other rebellious angels out of heaven and cast them “down” to earth. We know the Devil is evil and that he is a tempter, liar, and deceiver. One of his names is Lucifer, which means light, but it is a false deceptive light. THE FIRST OR ORIGINAL SIN8 In the garden, Satan assumed the guise of a serpent. The serpent was wilier than the other animals. He asked the woman, whom Adam had named Eve, if God truly had commanded them not to eat the fruit of that special tree. Here, Satan tempted the woman to doubt the very word of God. Eve, carrying on a bit, answered that they might eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden, even the tree of eternal life. However, if they even touched the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they would die. The serpent replied that this was not true; if they did eat of the fruit of that forbidden tree, they would become like God. When Eve, deceived by the serpent, saw that the forbidden fruit was pleasing to the eye and looked good enough to eat, she tasted it. Perhaps she succumbed to the temptation to be like God. Eve also gave some to Adam. Note that Satan had deceived the woman, but Adam deliberately and intentionally violated God’s command. After eating the fruit, the couple realized they had no clothes on and covered themselves with fig leaves. Innocence was gone forever. When one sins, the person loses innocence, and there are penalties to pay. Because of this original sin, we now have all sorts of strife and evil in the world! Praise God that he developed a long-range plan; the penalty each of us owes for our sins can be paid and wiped out. Now through Christ, each one of us can be forgiven for our many intentional and unintentional sins and brought home to the Father! Later, in the evening, Adam and Eve heard the Lord strolling in the garden and they hid from him. The Lord called out to Adam wondering where he was. Adam answered the Lord that he was naked and afraid so he was hiding. Then the Lord asked Adam how he knew he was naked and whether he had eaten fruit from the forbidden tree. One can visualize the man pointing accusingly at his wife saying, “This woman you gave me, invited me to eat and so I did.” The Lord then asked the woman why she had done this thing. Eve probably pointed accusingly at the serpent and said that the snake tricked her into eating the fruit. (We all have the tendency to blame others for our own misdoings, do we not?) The Lord cursed the serpent: It was to be inferior to any other animal; it was to crawl on the ground by wiggling on its belly; it was to be an enemy of Eve. Her offspring would strike snakes on the head, and snakes would bite the heels of people. The Lord told the woman her punishment would be that she and all women would suffer pain in bearing children, and husbands would rule their wives. Since Adam had listened to Eve and ate of the forbidden tree, he and all his male descendants would work the land, cursed with thorns and thistles, by the sweat of their brows. Then they would return to the ground “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”9 Then the Lord drove Adam and Eve out of the garden; he positioned cherubim with flaming swords in the garden to prevent re-entry. In relating this story, Father Terry Fullam quips that when Adam and his son, Seth, were later walking by the fenced-off garden, his son said, “What a beautiful place!” Adam replied, “Yes, it truly is; we used to live there!” Seth asked, “Why on earth did you leave?” Adam replied, “Well your mother ate us out of house and home!” THE MARK OF CAIN The story continues with the first two sons of Adam and Eve—Cain and Abel. Cain was a farmer and Abel a herdsman. One day, both made gifts to the Lord. Cain brought some of his harvest as an offering, but Abel carefully selected some firstborn animals. The Lord was pleased with Abel’s offering but not with...