Philippians 2.

While the trinity, or the triune God is never explicitly spelled out in scripture, it is hinted at in so many places:

Yes, Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man:

This emphasizes who was, is, and will be performing the salvation, as was written in Philippians 1:5-6 “ For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day (past) until now (present); 6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it (future) until the day of Jesus Christ:”.

 

 

Genesis 15, God’s land covenant with Abram.

This is now the fourth name of God introduced. NIV translates it “Sovereign GOD”

The normal way of sealing a covenant is that both parties to the covenant pass between the halves of the sacrifice, as is described in Jeremiah:

The smoking oven and the burning torch symbolize God passing between the pieces. The most important thing to realize is that God walks through alone. Normally, both parties of the covenant would walk through together, showing that they both had responsibilities to keep in order to maintain the covenant. But when God walks through alone, He shows Abram that there is absolutely nothing Abram or his descendants have to do in order for God to keep this covenant.

It is a one sided covenant. God takes all the responsibility for fulfilling it upon Himself. No matter what Abram does or doesn’t do from this point on, God will keep His promise. No matter what Israel has or has not done in history, God will keep His promise. (

 

Philippians 1.

 

The Apostle Paul writes the letter to the Philippians from prison in Rome.

Philippi is located in the middle of Macedonia.

There are still ruins left from the Roman time.

The acts pf the Apostles is recorded in Acts:

Paul prayed and gave thanksgiving often, as is evidenced by these quotes from second Corinthians:

Yes. even Job, in the oldest book of the Bible, the trust in God is evident.

 

All the Glory belongs to the LORD and to our Savior, Jesus Christ.

 

Genesis 14, Abram rescues Lot, gives tithes to Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God.

That was a lot of information about a very minor tribal warfare! But Lot was captured.

This was a long pursuit, all the way to north of Damascus!

Back to Salem, which means “peace”. It is now called Jerusalem.

Melchizedek came out of nowhere! He is mentioned in the Psalms:

But the best description of him is found in Hebrews 7:

Now back to Genesis 14:

Genesis 12, the call of Abram, his journey.

 

The command came with a promise:

This promise is valid even for us Christians. It is the blessing that comes with faith:

And not Abraham’s offspring, but to all that has come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, as is written in

This is interesting. Abraham went in faith. Yet, when trouble started he did not have faith that God would protect him through the famine, but resorted to deceit to stay alive. It caused trouble, and God had to bail him out. This is one strong argument why I believe the Bible. It shows even Abraham with faults and failing faith.

 

Genesis 11, the tower of Babel

One candidate for the location of the tower of Babel is the tower in Babylon, located in the middle of the walled city:

This is one suggestion what the tower used to look like.

And Babylon is being restored, complete with the Ishtar gate.

To finance the building of the tower the oldest profession did its part. The temple of Ishtar was full of temple prostitutes, and to organize it more effectively the use of money in the form of coins was first used in Babylon as payment for transactions.

Ishtar is having a resurgence in modern western culture, promoting whatever was going on in old Babylon. There is nothing new under the sun.

This did end a predictable way

In the genealogy of Shem the Septuagint accord differs from Masoretic text. I do not know why, except that the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew original seems to be more complete.

The timeline from Adam in table form:

After the flood people did not live as long. Could sun exposure have something to do with it? Or was it viruses?  Anyhow, here is the

Genesis 9, the rainbow, the Noahic covenant and “the curse of Ham”.

Yes, the days of Noah are referred to in the New Testament, but even Isaiah waxes eloquent about the promises God made.

The rainbow is not mentioned much in the Bible, but Ezekiel mentions it in his famous vision in chapter 1 of Ezekiel, a vision which resembles a modern day helicopter invasion. (An end times vision?)

And the rainbow displays its promise again, Aug 3, 2017 over the White House. It means different things for different administrations.

doublerainbow

Then in Revelation the rainbow is mentioned again,

Ham saw Noah’s nakedness, but the curse is on Ham’s son, Canaan, not Ham himself!

It is from the Muslim literature and oral tradition we find “The curse of Ham”. It is not found in the Bible (or the Torah), nor is it found in the Quran.

Ka’b al –Ahbar (ca 652 A.D) wrote that Ham lay with his wife and gave birth to a black boy and girl. He claimed they were not his. They are, his wife responded “for the curse of your father is upon us.” The story goes on, and all blacks come out from four black children of Ham. Wahb ibn  Munabbih (ca 730 A.D.) wrote that Ham was a fine white man, but because of his Father’s curse God Almighty changed his skin color to black. He then became the father of all the black people. In the story collection “One Thousand and One Nights, A.K.A Arabian Nights” it is also found: Noah blessed Shem and Cursed Ham. (Source: The curse of Ham. By David M. Goldenberg)