The Gospel Of John

 It has been some time since I have posted here. But I want you  to know I am still alive.

  During the pandemic most churches have been doing on-line services, if at all. I have found a church that livestreams and does have in-building services.

 The pastor there is going through the Gospel according to John. He was the one Jesus loved.  

  Slowly we are moving through the story-verse by verse. . It is interesting to view the story and actually seeing the God/man. Fully God and fully man. United into one-- not mixed but equal parts. A unity..

   And I am blessed by being one of those who each week opens the service. My wife and I co-team. One week I do it. The next, she does. We get up and read the psalm of the day, chosen by the youth pastor, And then we open in prayer. When we finish we turn the service over to the praise band to offer us worship songs before the pastor speaks. Sometimes the senior pastor preaches. Other times the youth pastor preaches. When they are gone we have guest pastors.

   It is good to be back in group fellowship. Watching on line services is good, but you don't really have fellowship with other believers. 

Man Needs To Be In Relation

Next step in the story. God creates man. Gives him authority over animals and co-ruler-ship. He creates a woman for man so he won't be alone. Daily God would come and fellowship with Adam and Eve. All they had to do was tend the garden, eat of the produce .
The produce of the garden was theirs. All except one thing.
In order for God to test them as to their obedience, He gave them one restriction. There was a tree in the midst of the garden. Of this tree they were not to eat. It was a simple rule of obedience. Not at all difficult to understand or obey.
This makes one ask, in what state was Adam and Eve created? They were innocent. But untested. That is the best answer I can give.
But they disobey a command. And now they must be punished with (As God promised) death."The day you eat of it you shall die." was what God told them when he first gave them the restriction.
We don't see them dropping dead at that moment. (Maybe this is where death was introduced into the story. We will never know.
But they are driven out of the garden and the relationship they had with God.
So now we say.. wait! God created them for a relationship with Him. This I believe.
It so happens God was not surprised at what happened. God had already decided in eternity pass what He was going to do when this happened.
There was a way provided back to a relationship. It required shedding blood. Not just any blood would do. It had to be the blood of a sinless creature. Adam and his offspring could not give this blood. It had to be from a perfect individual. A sinless creature.
The only sinless subject was God Himself. I wouldn't say creature because God is not a creature. He is the creator.The un-created creator. The plain was to take on humanity and live a sinless life so he would be the perfect person to die for our sins (disobedience, though that is a very limp term. Sin being anything that is less than the perfection of God, which He demands).
So God started His plan by preparing the world for that event.
And that is the cliffhanger I leave this posting on.

Knowing God

Take Up And Read

Let us get back to the Bible reading. It is very important. As we read the Bible we find out what God wants to reveal to us.
We can't know everything. The secret things belong to God and the revealed things can be known by us.
And just who does the revealing?
For us Christians, we know the answer is God.
He does that through the Bible. He does it using the Jewish scriptures and the books of the New Testament.
Sorry, Roman Catholics, not the extra books stuffed in.
And until we are rightly related to God through Jesus Christ, we don't really get any good out of it.
The reason is simple. We, as Christians, have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. A gift, yes, in that God now dwells in us as He once dwelled in the Tabernacle in the wilderness. He is our teacher and lives in us revealing Scripture and sealing us.
And He carries with Him gifts to enable us to minister as His Body, The Church, down here on earth.
In my book blog I just finished reporting on a book called Open to the Spirit and you may want to go back and read it. So if you would just click on this link, you can go look at it.
It is very important we get our understanding correct. And I find books about the Bible help me understand better how to read the Bible. It is a book unlike any other book. But only the Christian knows what I am talking about. But that doesn't mean you are left out.
In earlier postings in this blog, and you can go back and do your own hunt, I discuss this subject. You can't miss it. Just keep going back until you find them.

All is not Lost-2

Man is now outside the garden. It is a struggle for him now to make a living. the weather has changed. It is n longer sunny every day. The ground no longer produces as much to eat as it used to. Adam and his wife argue now. They didn't use to. God is silent, it seems. They miss the daily walks with God.
 But they are still alive and if they seek God through sacrifice and prayer, they can still connect.
  I will let you in on another secret. God was not surprised when man listened to the serpent in the garden. Man at that time was innocent. He had no reason to know good and evil. God from the moment of the creation of man was his go-to man. Any question, any need, was supplied. God was     their mediator. They had it good.
  And along comes the serpent. Not just any serpent but a serpent in which the fallen angel Satan, aka, Lucifer, entered. Lucifer was trying to get God to reject His creation, man, as God had rejected him. Satan had done his homework. He had noticed that God had created a male and a female. He also noticed that it was to the man God spoke more often . He noticed that Adam would spend time transmitting the information to Eve.
   This day Adam and Eve were walking through the garden. Adam tended the garden. Eve would work along side him.  They were inspecting the trees.
    And then they came upon the one tree in the garden God had told them not to eat of the fruit from.
    Eve was ahead of Adam as they came to the tree. It was now that Satan spoke through the serpent. "Has God really said to you that you that you can eat of any tree in the garden?"
    Eve though through what she has been told God said. "Yes. Except for the fruit of this tree. And we are not even to touch it."
    Satan came back. "He is holding out on you. He knows the day you do you will know Good and Evil and become like God."
      Eve thought. Adam has not yet told her anything about that subject. Maybe the serpent was correct. So she took the fruit and ate.
     All at once her appearance changed. Adam, who was there with her, noticed this. And he knew want has happened. He could see himself losing her. So he took of the fruit and ate. His appearance changed also.
     The serpent laughed to himself. And he clapped his hands (Serpents had hands or feet at this time) I have done it, I have won.
     Then they heard God walking in the garden. All at once Adam and Eve hide.
     God found them and instructed them how to get back in fellowship with Him. And to the serpent, He took way the feet and had him crawl on the ground, slithering.
      I told you earlier about the plan the Trinity had to restore fellowship. You can go back in the earlier posts and read about it.
      Man was sent out of the garden to now work and sweat more when they did so.
      We are told the woman was deceived and the blame for the fall falls on the man.
       God also told the first humans that a Redeemer was going to be coming who would crush the serpent's head. In other words, man could be restored. Angels could not be.  Crushing the head would stop the power and control.
        Man now needed someone who could stand between him and God when it came to approaching Him. God set up the sacrifice system and the priest.  But this was to be temporary. He Himself would have to come to earth , be born, live among us, be crucified as an innocent sinless creature, rise the third day, ascend back into heaven to become a link between God and man.
           But that is another post down the line.

The Great Divide

 

    This is now the fourth installment. We have God having created. We have man. We have the  animals. We have the garden.
    This is not the place to discuss sexuality. That will come in a later doctrinal discussion on humanity. This section--and I don't yet know how many more-- is on creation. I guess we should look at why God and man separated fellowship.
     In the last posting I said God created man innocent or capable of learning for himself what he needs to know. That means part of God's image consists in knowing things.
      It is not my plan to explain God's image. I don't know exactly all it is. But our ability to communicate must also be a part of that image.
      So, what happened that God and man naturally no longer walk and talk together?
      I call it a great divide.
      To do that I must insert another doctrine here. All doctrine is interconnected.
       Still I am talking about creation.
       God also created angels. Angels are God's messengers. They were created to do nothing but glorify their creator. It was a vast number. He created them in ranks or divisions with each rank having a special job. God must have given them in the beginning the ability to choose where they wished to serve. The Bible says that one called Lucifer became prideful and thought himself independent. He somehow got a third of the angels to agree with him and they opposed God's authority. So Lucifer got thrown out of heaven and the other angels who followed him also were cast out.
     Lucifer and his angels were thrown to earth. Lucifer because Satan (Accuser) and his angels became demons.
     They watched as God created man.
      They heard what God told Adam and Eve, the two innocent humans--"Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree,  in which is the fruit of the tree yielding seed..."  for they had watched as God created all the trees-- also the tree of life in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God told them to eat of every tree in the garden except for that one which was in the midst.
        It was a test of obedience
        Satan saw a way he could get God to throw man out of the garden and separate Himself from them, just as he had separated Himself from fellowship with him.
         Get them to doubt God and disobey a command.
          And it worked. He went after the woman. He figured, rightly, that the man loved the woman so much he would follow in the disobedience.
           And God did throw them out of the garden. But not before leaving a way open to restore fellowship--something He did not do for the angels.         
           This means there will be some more posts.

The Show Begins

  Before there was anything, there was God. The first verse in Genesis states, in the beginning God created. He didn't need a big bang. All He needed was the spoken word. All came into being because He spoke it out.
   All the stars we see through a telescope-- all the things we see trough a microscope-- God made them by a word.
   The land we walk on--the air we breathe. All spoken into existence by God.
   The animals we see even us.. spoken into existence by God. 
    And humans are special. The Bible says God created Adam and Eve and blew into them life. This was a way of saying, God shared some of Himself with us. What is called the image. It is not physical. Since God is spirit, it was something to do with spirit.
    We read Adam and Eve had daily fellowship with God. They walked together, is the way the scriptures put it.
     Why we don't walk with God today will be covered in the next post.

It is Just An Error Of the Mind

  "Only God or principle exists and everything else is an illusion."
  "There is no matter; material things such as a person's body are not real"

   Recently I read a book that explains what it is like to grow up a child in a house where your mother and father have embraced the religious system known as Christian Science. It is not Christian and it is not Science.
    The book review is found in my book blog http://drsbookplace.blogspot.com/ and it is a book called motherfathergod. It was posted around Sept 26.
    Don't get sick. They don't have medical doctors. Just a Science Practitioner (sic) who will come and pray over you. Healing, for them, is found in right thoughts.
    The belief system is easy to list.

•    God is all in all
•    God is good. Good is mind.
•    God, Spirit, being all.nothing is matter
•     Life, God,omnipotent good, deny death, evil sin, disease. Disease, sin, death, deny good, omnipotent God, Life.

   That is taken from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by the founder Mary Baker Eddy.
   There is also a claim made that the Bible is the only authority. But it is not. You need her book, mentioned above, as the textbook because she believed that God was also the author of her book. You will need her book because the Bible is in error in places, so she teaches and followers of this cult believe. Her book being inspired and far superior to the Bible.
    Let us hear more.
     "Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. ...man  is made in the image and likeness of God. Matter is not that likeness...Man is spiritual and perfect...He is..the reflection of God."
      Enough already. 
      She and her group don't see man as sinful since his birth, since to them, birth and death are but illusions. God can not be sick and neither can be man. It doesn't exist.
      In their system Jesus was not a real man, but only a spirit.Or at best, a teacher.
     So what about God? To them He is an impersonal Principle not a Person.
   Am I helping you with my postings? Comment and keep a conversation going. Also become a follower of this blog. And hang on. This blog is going places.

Analytical Method Bible Study

You are now approaching the Bible section to make a claim.

1.  In this approach you will be surveying the historical period and background of the book. With each Bible study method you will be going deeper. Ask of or by whom? At what time. Where? Use the Bible notes to research. You can also use your Bible dictionary
2. Now you survey the contents of the book itself starting the structure of an analytical chart. The chart will help you as a first step in outlining the passage. Title the paragraphs. Find the main divisions of the book. Look for the theme.
3.  You will be making a detailed study of the section paragraph by paragraph or chapter by chapter. To do this you will need to take notes of the text and making an outline, summery, paraphrase, charts and topical studies. This is why I say use a pad and a pen or pencil. Start a seperate page for each paragraph
4.  Now you are ready to formulate conclusions drawn from your anaylsis. Try to make statements about the book as a whole.

    Use your commentaries carefully. Just becasue it is written doesn't make it true FInd out about the author of the commentary. What is his method of Bible Study? What are his personal beliefs.
  Go to your Bible frist Make your detailed outline from your study. Then go to the commentaries. They are there for specilaized help not for final authority..

First look: Inductive Method

  As we consider Bible Study Methods I want to start by looking at an easy one. It is useful for digging and will give results in the short periods of time that we have in this busy lifestyle of ours.

Study-- study--study

   It is called the Inductive Method. It basicly will answer; What does it say?

   We start with our Bible. We take a section, a small section. Maybe even a short paragraph. Or maybe even a sentence.

    Let us take a sentence out of the Gospel of John  which most people who are told to memorize scripture  playfully or not choose. That is John 11:35. Jesus wept.

    Yes, that is good enough to see how the Inductive Method can be used.

     The thing to do is to ask questions of the passage.
      The first thing we do is start with observation. Who is involved in the passage?  Jesus. His followers. The Jews. Mary. Martha What is happening? Jesus is standing in front of the tomb of Lazarus. He is weeping. And so on. Who. what.when. where
      The second thing is interpretation. Why is Jesus weeping? Is He a cry baby? Where is the evidence? No, he is not a cry baby.  What does this tell us about God? If you hold that Jesus is the God/man, then we can learn something here about God. So why is He crying?
       Then we end up with application. Why does this mean to me?
        I suggest strongly that you have a pencil or pen and a pad of paper with you as you use this method. You would want to record what you are discovering. The main reason is that you want to share this with others. Christianity is not a solo act.

Start Up

Hi. As you can see, my name is Dane and I will be your host. Feel free to comment when you feel the urge. I will attempt to get back to you as soon as possible.
 For this first posting let me tell you that I plan to make this blog a useful one. I will be seeking out a weight trainer to blog here. I have one already in mind. So once I line him up and get him to post here you will have a chance to ask him questions. I will also try to line up a pastor. I may even line up a survey to post here. That is still in the planning stages.
  I may not be posting everyday As I see it this blog will grow as time and need dictate.. Stay tune and welcome to this blog.