According To The Scriptures

Boys I've been thinking a lot about this blog.  The seed of my desire to retell the One True Story as revealed in the scriptures to you seems to have fallen on rocky soil or shallow soil.  I find myself driving from work, thinking of a scripture, thinking of how I should go about this; Should I start at the beginning and go through the Bible?  Should I pick a verse I'm reading and just expound on it?  Should I try to just retell the main "stories" of the Bible?  I find myself reading things other wise Christians have written these past few weeks that have contributed to the decision I've come to.

Ken Ham is a man who does a great work of urging Christians to take the Bible for what it says, especially in regards to creation and the account of Genesis.  Because you boys have been asking me a lot about how we can know that the Bible is true, and how we can know that the flood really happened, etc., I decided to order some materials from his ministry, Answers In Genesis.  While ordering, I ran across a quote from the creators of the material that went something like this, "We shouldn't be teaching our kids Bible 'stories'.  They will begin to think of David and Goliath along the same lines as Beauty and the Beast... Just another fairy tale.  Instead when we teach them we should say, 'This is the true account of David and Goliath, or the world-wide flood, etc."

I have no problem with the term Bible stories as long as you  know these are TRUE stories.  This is not fiction.  These are non-fiction stories.  These are true accounts.  Real history.

I'm excited to get the material I ordered.  I'm praying that I will be able to teach it to you and hopefully other kid too, over the summer as sort of a vacation Bible school.  I'd love to invite some neighborhood kids.  We'll see what God allows.

So back to what I was saying.  I also am reading a wonderful book about the disciplines of a woman of God.  The author says at one point that one of the things we often miss in teaching others the gospel of Christ is that the Gospel of Christ is revealed from Genesis to Revelation.  It's not just in the New Testament.  When Paul wrote the letter to the Corinthians he said:

"For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures..." (1 Cor.15:3-4).  

When Paul wrote that he didn't have a leather bound Bible from Walmart and neither did the people he wrote to.  He had the Old Testament.  He had the writings of Moses and the Psalms and prophets.  These are the scriptures according to which we find out that Christ died for our sins and was buried and rose again on the third day.  This lights me up!  I love it!  I want you to see that.  But I can't make you see it.

Oh how I pray that the Holy Spirit will give you understanding to see Christ your Savior who died for your sins and was buried and raised from the dead from Genesis to Revelation!

Then He said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!"Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?"And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. -Luke 24:25-27

Genesis One and Two

Boys, I've been putting this off for too long.  I set out so motivated, and then when I realized how great a task I was setting out to do, I stopped trying.  But, it's like a fire in my bones.  I can't not press forward in retelling the scriptures to you.  There is so much I don't understand, so much I can't explain, so much I don't know how to retell, so much I'm sure I'll miss.  But that's okay.  I, "... see through a glass darkly..." The Holy Spirit is able to teach you as you pick up your Bible's for yourselves and dig in one day. 

In the beginning God created everything we see with the word of His mouth.  He spoke light as we know it into existence.  He ordered light and created time as we can measure it.  Time began with His words.  But in that beginning, before He spoke anything, He was the Word.

God is the Word.  He was there, in the beginning making everything.  He is life.  He is what makes people alive.  And He, the Word, would become a man, and lived among us and out of the planting of Himself in our thorny fallen dirt, would create a new life.  A new creation.  The first creation came from the word of His mouth.  The second creation would come from the Word dying and rising anew. 

In the beginning the One who would someday come to live among us created a good world.  He was there over a formless nothing and He spoke into existence an intricately detailed and ordered earth.  A world of light and darkness.  A world of water and sky.  A world of wonderful plants with fruit that would delight us and feed us.  A world of fish and birds and animals.  A world to be managed and multiplied by the ones God would create in His own image.

"Let us make man in our image,"  the Three-In-One God said.  And so God created a man and a woman, both in the image of the Triune God.  Made to reflect His glory, His substance.  Made to magnify His nature.  God created an earth designed specifically for these Imago Dei ones.   A world of companionship between a husband and wife.  A world of family.  A world of intimacy and friendship with the Creator.  A world where man could walk with God in a garden.  A world without shame or death or wrong or guilt.  A world that would speak day and night of His greatness. A world ruled by God, who is love, who's nature makes it necessary for the object of His love, to choose.

So in this beginning of our history, the Creator of the universe (also the Word who would dwell among us one day) spoke the word and created time, a 24 hour day, day and night, sun, moon, stars, the atmosphere, the clouds, the sky, trees, plants, dry land, oceans, rivers, fish, birds, land animals, insects and His-Image-Bearers (a.k.a mankind).  He did all this in a 6 day time period and then He stopped creating things with His words. 

At the end of each day of creating He stepped back, like an artist from His painting and said, "That is good!"  But when He breathed life into His Image Bearer, Adam (the first man), He said stepped back and said, "Mmm.  That's not good.  He should not be alone.  I'll make a suitable Image-Of-God-Bearer companion for him."  So after God let Adam name the animals He'd created, giving Adam himself a chance to see that he, unlike all the other creatures created by God, was alone.  And then God did something amazing and very special.  Something unlike anything else He had done in all of His creating.  He made His Image-Bearer, Eve (the first woman), not by speaking life into dust (as He had done with Adam), but by taking from Adam's own body, his side.  God took this piece of Adam and created a woman, Adam's companion. The first husband and wife. And then  as though He had reached the crescendo of His artistic masterpiece of His wonderful creation, God looked at Adam and Eve and said, "That is VERY good!"

Wow!  When I just stop to think about that I am put right.  All that seems to be and is wrong in the world gets put right when I look from the high view of our Creator.

Why "The One True Story"?

I read this book awhile back.  It's about how to apply the gospel to our everyday parenting.  In the book, the authors talk about their parenting policy concerning the movies and books their children watch and read.  In a quote, the Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson write:

Our hope is that if we have taught them how to discern the one good story and judge every other story by it, they'll be better equipped to answer the wicked Imposter's lies when they hear them.

The one good story.  It made an impression on me.  That old, old story I heard about in hymns growing up.  I decided to refer to it as The One True Story.  The message of the gospel of Christ in the Bible is the truth to judge every other story by.  It is the plumb-line.  It is the compass.  It is the mirror.  It is the divider of thoughts and intents.  It is the One True Story.

When I first set out to write this blog, I decided upon a title My145:4 after Psalm 145:4.  But the more I've thought about getting over here to get this thing going I've had "The One True Story" come to mind.  So, The One True Story- A re-telling of the Bible for my children it is.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it  and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.- 2 Timothy 3:14-17

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.- Luke 24:27

Start at the Genesis

Boys I have not known where to start with this attempt to write a re-telling of the scriptures for you.  I have had many words, "church" words, pop up in my head as my days carry on and have wanted to sit down and explain them to you and write them out here.

I did have the opportunity recently to talk to you about what it means to "believe" in Jesus, the Christ, the Savior of the World, the Son of God.  It was a great moment.  One of those moments that redeems all the times I've felt like I'm spinning my wheels and getting nothing accomplished.  If I get the chance to plant the seed of the Gospel in your ears, and get the privilege of helping you receiving that seed, I've lived my purpose as a mom!

Even though I haven't had the chance to write down what I talked to you about regarding leaning wholly on Jesus to "believe" in Him, I intend to someday.  I hope to capture that conversation in writing.

So where to start with this desire to retell the "one True Story" to you?  I guess it's fitting to start at the beginning, the Genesis.

• In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.- Genesis 1:1

Genesis means beginning.  The Bible is God's story and His story begins with His creation of the universe and people.

To begin with, God wants you to know He already was.  "In the beginning God..." the story starts.

God has no beginning and no end.  God is eternal.  He always is.  He is and was and is to come.   This is really hard to wrap our brains around.  We only know things as having a beginning and an end. 

The beginning of all things is God.  Nothing exists without Him.  Out of God comes life and time and the order of the universe.  This is not to say that the beginning of evil is God.  God did not create evil.  But God did create beings with the ability to choose God or their own way.  Out of beings who choose their own way comes evil.  So I guess I should say the beginning of all GOOD things is God.  The beginning of all evil is God's created beings who choose not to follow God. 

All things began when God willed and spoke into existence time, space, planets and stars.  God is THE Creator.  The fact that something can be made or created comes from the truth that God is the Creator.  We make things because God made things.  We order things because God ordered things.  Things are not just accidentally or evolutionarily created.  Created things may have accidents and created things may evolve, but things are not created by accident or evolution.

One does not look at a lot of land and wish to live there and throw a pile of tools, wood, nails, and supplies for building a house onto the spot in a random moment of collision and watch as the pieces systematically, and perfectly join themselves together to form a livable house.  It just doesn't happen that way.

Without an intelligent Creator our perfectly joined-together universe and forward-functioning time, not to mention intricately designed bodies, and endlessly creative animal kingdom would not exist.  Our design implies a Designer!

You have a God!  You were created by a Creator!  You were made by a Maker!  You were designed by a Designer!  You are intended, on purpose, for a purpose!  You are not an accident or a chance particle of matter.  You are a work of art composed by the Artist of all artists!

Church words

Boys, all my life I've been around church words.  Many of those words I spoke and still speak without really knowing what they mean.  Learning what those words really mean has been like giving a person with bad eyesight their first pair of glasses.  A beautiful world I never knew was behind those blurry church words.  I want to give you those glasses.  Although, in truth, I'm really not the one to open your eyes.  I trust the One who can and pray He will as I pass onto you what I've learned.

Sin:  In the Bible you'll read the word sin and you'll probably hear it spoken of in and out of church.  Sin is not just the bad things people do (although it is that too). In the Bible sin means:  to miss the mark.

When you guys were 6 and 8 (just this past year) we took you to a community fair thing.  One of the booths there was for archery.  A game and fish officer actually taught you how to hold a real bow and arrow and shoot it at a target.  And you got the opportunity to actually shoot that bow and arrow yourself.  You steadied your arrow, pulled back your bow, aimed at your bulls eye target and let go!  Some of your shots were great!  You actually hit the bulls eye.  But some of your shots were sin... they missed the mark.

Now, not hitting the bulls eye isn't sin in the way you and I hear the word sin.  We hear it and we think of being bad or guilty.  And that is true, sin does involve being bad and guilty.  But knowing that sin is first of all missing the mark helps to understand God's beautiful mark for you!  There is a mark.  There is a bulls eye.  There is a way you were made to be.  But like a defective arrow, you and I and all people live in such a way that misses the mark God made for us to hit.

What's the mark?  God made us to reveal His glory. (More church words, I know. We'll get to that.) Like a mirror reflects the image of the person looking in it, we were made to reflect the goodness, the rightness, the love, the beauty of God who made us. 

The Bible says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 3:3.  Every person has missed the mark of being the glorious reflector of God he or she was made to be.  Even when we try really hard to do what's right we fail.  The fact that we have so many rules and laws and punishments shows that we are trying to keep the damage from our dangerously off-course lives contained.  Like wild arrows missing the target we hurt others, ourselves and the world around us.

Spend a few hours with a couple of two year olds and you'll see that we don't even have to learn how to miss the mark.  We do it automatically.  Its like its natural or normal for us to be selfish and hurt each other.  But its not normal.  Its fallen.  Its the natural rotted.  Its not the way we were created to be.  But its in us.  And like a little mold growing from the center of a delicious berry pie, its going to spread and ruin the whole of who we are.  Its leading to our total rottenness and destruction.  Like a silent but deadly cancer that leads to the certain death of its host, sin is in us all, and its result is death.

Death is not part of the original mark of God's creation.  Death came because of the first man's sin and has been past down in our nature ever since.  We all die.  Even while we live we experience the decay, the breakdown, the dying effects of sin.

Some people think its mean to say we sin or we're sinners.  I think it even more cruel to say this is the way we're supposed to be. There's an wonderful anticipation of something better when you can see that you sin because you are a sinner.  You're not a sinner because you do bad things, you do bad things because you're not what you were made to be.  The Savior of the World came to save sinners, not people who think they are what they're supposed to be.  You have to know you're lost before you can be found.  You have to know you're broken before you can be healed.  You have to know you sin before you can be saved.

This [is] a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. -1 Timothy 1:15

More preface: When you ask...

Boys, There's a place in Deuteronomy where Moses told the people of Israel to remember God and His commands and ways when they got to the land He promised them.  He told them to love God with all that they are and to commit themselves wholeheartedly to the ways of God and to pass onto their children all the commands of God by talking about them in everyday life, repeatedly.  He told them to be careful not to forget the LORD when they got to the land God promised, full of good food and houses and wells and vineyards.  He told them that a day would come when their children would ask what the meaning of all these rules and ways the LORD had told them to live by, and that they should tell their children about their salvation from Egypt- how God had rescued them with a "strong hand."

He told them that after God had brought them into this rich land and driven out their enemies and provided them with plenty that they shouldn't think that God did this for them because they were such good people. No! It wasn't because they were such good people, it was just because God chose them to show the rest of the fallen world His goodness and love.

This section of scripture inspires me to remember its my love for the Lord and my obedience to His word that leads you, my children, to ask "Why?"  And when you ask why may my answer be something that says, "Because Christ died for us!"

My life, and the Bible teaching I give you, should point you to our Redeemer.

Preface: What's all the hoopla about?

Sons, I want you to know what the Bible is all about more than I want you to know all about the Bible.  I want you to know what the big deal is.  Why do I insist on teaching you "God stories" so often?  Why does "everything" have to be about God?  What's all the hoopla about?

A very long time ago, when there were no computers, no Angry Birds, no McDonalds, no cars, no electricity, no flushing toilets, no air conditioning, no Internet- the Creator of the Universe came to earth to redeem the people He loved. Loves.

Redeem is a rich word... but we'll get to that in another chapter.

There were no Bibles then, but there were written stories kept and passed down from the previous 2000 plus years.  Stories that told the history, future and purpose of mankind and God's relationship to them. These stories weren't made up by people.  They were true accounts of things God did and said.  These are the stories we have in our Bibles now.  All those stories of things God did and said were unfolding the truth about the very meaning of life.  The meaning wasn't a sentence, or a paragraph or even a book.  The meaning was a Person. A Person who is the Word of God made human.

The Bible says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father." 

The Son of God, the Word made flesh, is what the hoopla is all about.  He was named Jesus and He is the Savior of the world.  He is the meaning of life.  He is life.  He is the Word that all those words from thousands of years past were spelling.  He is the Word that tells the one true story.  The Bible is all about Jesus, the Savior of the world.

I pray that every time you read the Bible you would remember that the One who saves you said its all about HIM!  Learn of Him and you'll learn the meaning of life... what the hoopla is all about.

That same day two of Jesus' followers were walking to the village of Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem.  As they walked along they were talking about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things, Jesus himself suddenly came and began walking with them.  But God kept them from recognizing him.

He asked them, "What are you discussing so intently as you walk along?"

They stopped short, sadness written across their faces. "What things?" Jesus asked.

"The things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth," they said. "He was a prophet who did powerful miracles, and he was a mighty teacher in the eyes of God and all the people. But our leading priests and other religious leaders handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. This all happened three days ago. Then some women from our group of his followers were at his tomb early this morning, and they came back with an amazing report. They said his body was missing, and they had seen angels who told them Jesus is alive! Some of our men ran out to see, and sure enough, his body was gone, just as the women had said."

Then Jesus said to them, "You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures.  Wasn't it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?"

Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.- Luke 24:13-27