Living Life

Howdy!

 

Our Pastor preached a sermon that I disagreed with on a couple of points and it just got me to thinking...so I am just going to explore those things with you.

 

By the way...in your life this is probably going to happen over and over again.  Some preacher is going to preach or teach about something that you personally believe to be different...in fact you might absolutely know for a fact that they are wrong.  The bible teaches that a wise man will be quiet more than having to talk.  Do a search on the word "tongue" and only look at the results from Proverbs.  If you try to correct a man's theology...more than likely you will not end up as friends....even though you are right and he is wrong....its better to have a friend that you might be able to have a relationship with... than an enemy.  God never said that you or I had to go around teaching people where they were wrong....The Holy Spirit is the teacher.  Now....on the other hand....the scriptures do teach the concept of "iron sharpening iron".  It means that people who have a relationship can learn from each other and the rough and dull edges (like wrong theology) can be straightened out and both people can be better equipped for the Lord's use.  Do you remember Les Montgomery?  Les and Karen were our good friends and Pastors of a church called Action Faith.  Mom was attending their church initially and then I came along later.  Les preached a really good sermon one time called "Lively Stones" and it was based on this scripture in 1st Peter.  One of the examples he used in that sermon was a rock tumbler and the analogy was that as Christians in relationship together we are going to rub the sharp edges off of each other which helps us to be better used by Christ.

 

So, you have just learned something about me...I am an expert in what preachers call "rabbit tracks".  I haven't even begun to write about the subject that I initially started out with.....which was....

 

Our Pastor preached a message on the "Image of God".  Positing the questions..."What is it that makes us different from animals?"  "What does it mean to be made in the image of God?"  His response was that it was the ability to empathize with another person.  When he initially asked the question about animals, one of the people in the congregation said out loud that it was our spirit that makes us different....to which the Pastor replied that it wasn't and he went on further to say that animals have spirits and that all we need to do is to read the scriptures to learn that....(it sounds harshly said here but it wasn't at all that way).  Well, he is absolutely wrong on both those points....but as to the point about empathy he is partially right....It's kind of like saying cement is made out of sand....that is only partially right..but you need some other stuff.

 

So...here is the way that I believe the theology works where these questions are concerned:

 

In Genesis 1 it tells the story of the creation with the order in which he created things.  Did you ever realize that humans were the last thing that God created.  He created plants and birds and fish and animals all before he created humans.  The scripture also specifically notes that they grew and flew and swam and moved...they were alive!

 

Something else interesting here...and a definite "rabbit track" is that the scripture specifically states that he created the human male and female at the same time!

 

In Genesis 2  there is a recounting and summary of the creation with more specific details.  It is here that the scripture shows that God formed a body out of the ground for man.  Gen 2:19 refers backward to how God had also formed all of the other living creatures out of the ground.  Remember...they were all formed out of the ground and they were alive.

 

Here is the difference.... Genesis 2:7 .....God does something different here with the body he formed out of the ground...it says that God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life".  It doesn't say that God did that to any other thing that was alive.  Are we to assume that this whole process of "breathing the breath of life" is implied to all the other living creatures? or should we see that the scriptures have said exactly what they meant and that this process was something altogether different?  I don't think that cows have changed that much over the last hundred years...or five hundred years...one thousand or two thousand years or even longer....sure i think there has been a natural selection in the gene pool...(enter Charles Darwin....but that is another rabbit track...) but in all the time that cows have been alive i don't think that they were alive without breath at one time and then ...now they breathe.  I believe that for God to point out specifically that He "breathed the breath of life" into man's body must mean more than we see on the surface....and it does!...but it requires a little digging into Hebrew of which I am not a scholar...I am an absolute amateur...I just rely on the work that scholars have produced.

 

Obviously, the bible is a collection of books translated into English meaning that each of the words or phrases we read correspond to a word or phrase in another language.  It is Gen 2:7 that bears a closer look.  The Hebrew language doesn't use all the same parts of language in the same ways that we do as outlined here.  Written below is Genesis 2:7 with links to the definitions of the actual Hebrew words used in the scripture.

 

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

 

Look specifically at the word "breath"..if you do a little research you find that the Hebrew word translated as "breath" here...is also translated as "spirit" elsewhere.  This is where very educated scholars doing the translation give themselves license to translate as best they can...this isn't hidden truth..its just truth that has to be looked for.  Now look at the Hebrew word for "life"....it is used interchangeably in the same way as we do...We might say "That pond is teeming with life." meaning that it has plants and algae and fish and frogs (physical life) or we could use the same word as Dr. Frankenstein did when he said; "Life! I have created life!" meaning that he had made something animated or alive that used to not be alive.  So a possible translation so far is that God breathed into his nostrils the "spirit of life"...

 

look further at the words "living soul"  the word "living" is just a variation of the word "life" that we just talked about.  "Soul" is the key...it's very different.  The word speaks of our core existence...our innermost self...it is what makes us...us! ...and it is differentiated from physical life..it is life..but a different kind of life than physical life...spirit life!  So then, the scripture becomes...that "God breathed into mans nostrils the spirit of life and man became living life"...not that man was living a life but that the physical life and the spiritual life had become one.

 

This is what separates us from the animals they are alive but we are living life!....It is within this that we understand that sin causes spiritual death...that man becomes "living dead"..physically alive but spiritually dead.

 

Soooo..I have more to say on animals and spirits but I think for now I used up all my words for one sitting....hope this wasn't boring...I sure did enjoy writing it.

 

Love You

dad