At first glance there is not much that combines the New and old Testament readings selected for today. In John 6:1-24. Jesus performed miracles 4 and 5 recorded by the Apostle John, feeding five thousand (plus women and children), and then during the night walking on water.
Then in the Old Testament Genesis 11 it tells about the Tower of Babel, and how different languages arose, all by being disobedient to God.
Then again in Psalm 3 David prayed earnestly when he fled from his son Absalom.
The common thread is we always seek to get some favors from God, and thus be able to control the outcome. But God may have other plans for us.
Today we read in John 5:31-47 how Jesus defended His testimony.
In Genesis 9 God established His covenant with Noah (The Noahic Covenant), and as a sign He established the rainbow in the sky. Noah planted a vineyard, got drunk and exposed his nakedness. This lead to “the curse of Ham,” which gave the excuse that the black race was destined for servanthood and slavery. It was in reality the curse of Canaan, the original inhabitants of the yet to be promised land. Ponder that!
Genesis 10 is a genealogy of the descendants of Noah. It describes how the earth was repopulated. This is quite interesting to see how the different tribes developed.
The common thread for today is Jesus redefining the meaning of the Sabbath and Noah being part of the new beginning. Psalm 2 defines Jesus as the Son and God the ruler of all, and mankind still trying to do it all by themselves at no avail.
John 5:1-30, describes how Jesus healed a man at the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath, which offended the Jews. In addition Jesus claimed to be equal with the Father, for which the Jews sought to kill him, but Jesus defended His testimony.
Genesis 7 tells of Noah, having completed the ark, took with him seven (pairs) of clean animals and one male and one female of each specie of unclean animals, and also birds. The aquatic life did just fine. After the animals had entered, God shut the door and it rained forty days and forty nights.
Genesis 8. The water receded and Noah sent out a raven and later a dove that returned empty. The second time the dove was sent out, it returned with an olive branch in its beak. The dove has since become the universal peace symbol. After exiting the ark Noah built an altar and sacrificed from the clean animals. God made a promise to Noah: “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”
Psalm 2 tells of what happens when “the heathen rage” and this psalm speaks of the fight that is going on even today.
John 4, speaks about the first real evangelist spreading the good news of Christ the Messiah. It is the woman at the well, a Samaritan, scorned and rejected by her many ex husbands, yet used by God to tell the good news.
Genesis 6 . Sin and wickedness got worse and worse on earth. God saw it and decided to start over. But Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives, eight in all found favor with God, so God told him to build an ark. This Noah did, and it was the biggest ship built until the time of Ptolemy (around 215 BC.)
Ponder that the first evangelist was a scorned woman who happened to meet Jesus, and that Noah, being obedient to God built the ark on dry land, too big to be of any use unless there was going to be a giant flood. This takes faith!
Today we read John 3, the new birth chapter; you must be born again (literally: from above), the new birth is necessary to enter into the Kingdom of God; John 3:16 is the most quoted verse in all the Bible.
Genesis 4 tells of the results of original sin with the story of Cain and Abel and the beginning of animal sacrifice.
The take home for today is there are two births, the physical birth and the spiritual birth (the birth from above), the first murder, the first man (Enoch) to be carried directly to God rather than die. (because ha walked with God).
Today we read in John 2, that Jesus turned water into wine, cleansed the Temple, and when the Jews demanded a sign he gave them just one sign (which they of course did not understand).
Genesis 2 left us with the idyllic Eden, no diseases existed yet. But God created us with free will, and the fall is then described in Genesis 3 . The problem is, after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, (not an apple tree) and in so doing we think we can build a better world without God.
The question to ponder is: Why did God create us with a free will? He knew the result from the beginning, and knew He would have to send His Son to redeem us back to Himself. In fact He knew it from before the beginning: “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in theLamb’s book of life, theLamb who was slain from the creation of the world.” (Revelation 13:8, NIV)
Answer: We are created in God’s image, male and female, not so much physical, but spiritual, and free will is part of the package. Without free will there is no fellowship with God, only puppetry.
Psalm 1 is a beautiful poem about righteous living, and only one person could fulfill all the conditions mentioned, the exception to ” There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3: 10)
This saying is old, and was circulated both when I was in private industry and when I worked at the University. During my 56 years in the U.S. I have watched the cost of medical care rise from 6% of GNP to over 20% of GNP. Part of it is of course that we are getting older, and people used to die at their first heart attack, and now they can survive multiple heart attacks, just to name one disease.
I got a hint at the real reason seeing this official chart:
While the number of doctors have slightly more than doubled, the number of administrators have risen thirty-twofold. and that was in 2009. Things are even worse now, since another level of federal bureaucracy have come between the doctors and the patients. It used to be simple, you paid the doctor, and that was it. The problem with this was that many could not afford a doctor, so during the second world war companies offered free health care since there was wage controls and competition for available workers was strong. This got institutionalized, and unions negotiated the best contracts, so pressure for national health care, which was the norm in many parts of the world never materialized.
Obamacare was finally enacted in 2010 and we now have the worst of all possible health care systems. The pharmaceutical establishment operate under their mission statement: “To cure a patient is not a sustainable business model” and so all pharmaceutical research is directed to control diseases, not to find permanent cures. Granted, there are many doctors that want to cure their patients, but they are swamped by incentives to control the diseases instead; the U.S. and New Zealand are the only two countries in the world that allow medical advertisements. The doctors operate in a difficult regulatory environment, there are local and state regulations, overlayed by federal regulations, often in conflict with each other. The hospitals are burdened with a lot of patients that are not willing or able to pay leading to people that are able to pay with horrendous bills, that they have to pay for the rest of their lives. I could go on, but you get the picture.
There has been much ballyhoo about to control the cost of medicine, like limit the cost of insulin to no more than 35 dollars per month. this all makes sense, since a person with type 1 diabetes is totally dependent on insulin for survival.
Yesterday I received a reimbursement for overpaying a drug. They really try to control drug costs!
This is how bureaucracy works. Thanks for the 15 cents back.The stamp alone was 59.3 cents. And the letter included the obligatory “Discriminating is against the law” page. Just to be sure, it was the bureaucracy itself that made the request, not me.
Today’s reading of the Bible begins with John 1: 19-51. John the Baptist testified about the Messiah: “Make straight the way for the Lord”. When he met Jesus he referred him as “The Lamb of God” that “takes away the sin of the world”, and “this is the Son of God”. Jesus called his first disciples, Andrew and Peter, Philip and Nathaniel.
Genesis 2 tells of how God created woman out of man, showing that creation was not complete without man and woman as a unit. This must be taken spiritually, since in Genesis 1 he already created man in His own image, male and female. God’s design is one man, one woman, one lifetime. This would still be the case if we let God chose our mate. If we had followed God’s intent, many sicknesses would not exist, especially sexually transmitted diseases. “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.” Proverbs 18:22
The Holy Bible is the most influential book ever written. According to Wikipedia it has been translated in its entirety into 724 languages, and the New Testament has been translated into 1617 languages. At least one part of the Bible has bee translated into 3,589 languages, and more translations are coming every year, especially from the Wycliffe translators.
Both the New Testament and the Old Testament begin with the words “In the beginning”.
Genesis 1 deals with the physical creation with spiritual emphasis, laying the groundwork for spiritual understanding of how and why we exist.
We are existing in time and space. The question is: What was there before time and space existed, before the beginning?
Answer: God, existing in three persons, God the Father, God the Son (the Word) and God’s Spirit, (the Holy Ghost).
The Three-in-one God alone are eternal, everything else, including time and space, is created.
Another Question: Why did God say “it was good” for day 1,3,4 and 5 but not for day 2 and it was very good after day 6?
Answer: The ecosystem is a work in progress and will function differently for each phase and finally come to completion when all parts are set in place, which includes people. We are responsible to God to be good stewards of the earth and leave it a better place than we found it. The main regulator of temperature on earth is the clouds. They cool by day and warm by night. The time of day they appear is also very important, and there is no risk for the earth to overheat.
Proverbs 31. The sayings of King Lemuel. The book of Proverbs ends up with “The Wife of Noble Character”, and every day I thank the Lord for my wife of 56 years. Lives would have been quite different (three children and seven grandchildren would not exist at all) if God had not brought us together.
This ends the year 2024 and I would like to pray for our protection in the year 2025, The Psalm that expresses God’s protection of His people is Psalm 91.
Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment. 