And God said...

I'm starting off this post with Gen. 1 and 2 for your convenience, but if you'd like you can skip down to what you really want to hear, my stuff!

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

3 Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

6 Then God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters." 7 Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.

9 Then God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth"; and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 So the evening and the morning were the third day.

14 Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. 16 Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. 17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20 Then God said, "Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens." 21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." 23 So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24 Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind"; and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all F2 the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

29 And God said, "See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food"; and it was so.

31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

4 This is the history F3 of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5 before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; 6 but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. 7 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 being.

8 The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. 11 The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Hiddekel; F4 it is the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.

16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

18 And the Lord God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him." 19 Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.

21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. 23 And Adam said: "This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man." 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

So there it is- all of creation.

I in the begining, nothing... then

BAM!

The heavens and the earth! Sweetness!

God starts creating things. The creation process is quite formulaic. Here's how I see it-

1) God makes a decree ("God said," "let there be", "let the earth bring forth" etc) By the power of God's Word, creation comes into existence. He speaks, and it comes into being. This is an interesting principle, because according to the gospel of John, Jesus is the Word. Christ is referred to as the Word of God. By God's word/Word creation comes into being.

2) God's decree comes to pass ( i.e "and there was" or "and it was so"). The word becomes physical matter. By the spoken Word, the face of the earth is made and manipulated.

4) God names/classifies His creation (i.e. "And God called the..." or "according to it's kind...") By naming His creation, God exhibits His ultimate dominion over it.

5) God checks out His work and He enjoys it. He declares it "good".

Nice formula, fairly consistent, BUT something happens that throws all this organized creation off. The formula is altered. Everything is different.

Difference one- "God said 'Let Us make man...'" Not just let there be, but God speaks to the rest of God. Then He even goes as far as to suggest that man not simply be, as the rest of creation came into exsistence, but that they make man.

Difference two- "in Our image, according to Our likeness;" God doesn't just speak it to be, but makes man, and even in His own image and likeness.

Difference three- "let him have dominion over the (stuff)" (I put the stuff in there, it's not scripture, just in case you didn't catch that yourself) So God decides, even before it's created, that man will have dominion over all living creatures, which would inculde himself. Self dominion I think can be rephrased into free will.

Difference four- God tells man that He has given him and the animals all the herbs and fruits for food. God hasn't yet told man He has been given animals to eat. So thus far, all of creation is vegetarian. It's not until Genesis 9, after the flood, that God makes any mention to man that he can eat meat. I imagine man hadn't even thought about eating animals before then. It seems from the text that, before God's declaration in chapter nine, man had a friendly relationship with animals. This would explian how, if dinosaurs did exsist, they co-exsisted with man without destroying us (like Jurasic Park, whoa!). Anyway, Gen. 9: 1-4 is my reference.
So there's this vegetarian cycle of life where nothing had to die for something else to eat. Now we kill animals to eat, but then, man and the animals ate the plants. Even the plants didn't nessecarily die, but they gave their leaves and fruit to animals and man, the animals and man would digest and poop out to fertilize the plants, that would then produce more leaves and fruit. There was this perfect, friendly continuation of life.

Anyway, we already see God is taking extra care with man. He even gives every other living creature to him to take care of. Chapter two tells us God made the garden of Eden and placed man into it. God created the garden after He created man, so we can assume God created Eden for man. I would even assume God created Eden to be a kind of hang out for Him and man to coexsist. Chapter 3 verses 8 and 9 give evidense to that, although I'll go into that a little later.

Verse 7 tells us God formed man form the dust in the ground, and then breathed into his nostrils. Two interesting things-
1. God only breathes life into one creation, the man.
2. God formed man.
The interesting thing about God forming man goes down to the root of the word. In Hebrew, the word used for most of creation, create, or bara, simply means to create, possibly out of nothing. To form, or yasar, has the meaning of a potter molding something out of clay. This word indicates far more creativity and care than the rest of creation. God simply creates the world, but He forms man.
So its apparent God took extra special care making man. Not only does He go about it differently, He is far more creative and then He gives the rest of creation to man. Then He takes even more creative lisence in making Woman. He could have formed her out of the dust like man, but instead He takes a rib and made, or banah, which can be translated as built. God builds Eve out of a rib.

So sum up so far- God makes the world, then He takes a LOT of extra effort, thought, and care into making His ultimate creation- Us! In chapter 2, God forms animals after He forms man. If we follow the two chapters chronologically, we can read it as God creates the world, He forms man, sticks man into the garden paradise of Eden, and then creatively forms animals to keep him company. These animals aren't fitting, so He builds woman out of Adam's rib.

Unfortunatly, man chooses sin. Verses 8 and 9, however, shows us a beautiful picture of God walking through His lush creation in the cool breeze of the day, looking for Adam. This little glimpse shows us something very important- God created the world to be relational with it. God walked through the garden. He called out for Adam. While it wasn't a pleasant conversation, Genesis records a personal conversation God has with Adam and Eve. He was with them and loved them and talked with them like we talk to one another.

So what's my point? God created to love. He created to enjoy and to be in relationship with His creation. His favorite part was people. He took a lot of care with us when He made us, more than the rest of creation. Why? Because God knew us before He made us, and He loved us. God is love. He loves His whole creation. He created to love, He created because He loved. God loves us, so He created. That's my conclusion. Pretty simple in the end. There's more to it, but I can't give it all in one blog, so keep checking back. The next installment presents sin, and the third is Seth and Cain, which I already posted. The final conclusion is what all the posts mount up to, and it was a pretty big epiphany for me. So keep reading my Theological blogs and I'll try to convince you God loves you and wants you to be holy.

Cain and Seth

16 Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. 17 And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son--Enoch. 18 To Enoch was born Irad; and Irad begot Mehujael, and Mehujael begot Methushael, and Methushael begot Lamech.

19 Then Lamech took for himself two wives: the name of one was Adah, and the name of the second was Zillah. 20 And Adah bore Jabal. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. 21 His brother's name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who play the harp and flute. 22 And as for Zillah, she also bore Tubal-Cain, an instructor of every craftsman in bronze and iron. And the sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah.

23 Then Lamech said to his wives: "Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; Wives of Lamech, listen to my speech! For I have killed a man for wounding me, Even a young man for hurting me. 24 If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, Then Lamech seventy-sevenfold."

25 And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, "For God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed." 26 And as for Seth, to him also a son was born; and he named him Enosh. ^F7 Then men began to call on the name of the Lord.

That's Genesis 4. So here it is. Adam has two sons, Cain and Able. Cain kills Able. God gives Adam Seth to replace Abel, which I think is a bit of evidence against the theory that Adam and Eve had a lot more kids, although I haven't really cared to look into that enough to find more truth. Anyway, that's not the point. Cain is the first recorded murderer. Then he goes and starts the first city. Amoung his decendants are the first polygamist, the first metal smith (and the first to take apprentences), the first nomad, and the first musician, not listed in order. Cain sinned and went away from the presence of the Lord and started civilization as we know it. Rather than living with and depending on God, they lived out of His presence and were self reliant, trusting in themselves and their new inventions. Also, 4: 23, 24 show an account of Lamech, who was wounded by a young man, so he killed him and bragged about it to his two wives. This shows all the sin that was already spreading through Cain's tainted line. All of this is to say that Cain's decendants were sinful and did not know God.
Seth's decendants, however, called on the name of the Lord, which is actually to say that they used the name YHWH, Yahweh or Jehovah, take your pick, either way it means the actual name of God, like George or Sam. Amoung Seth's decendants are Methuselah, Enoch, and Noah. Enoch was so righteous, rather he walked so closely with the Lord, that he never died. He just ceased to be. The technical term for it is being translated. God took him to Heaven. Methuselah was the oldest recorded man ever to live, and one could make the argument that he lived so long because he was righteous and sin didn't reign in his body, sin which has the power of death. Later on, Noah is spared amoung all of mankind because he's the only righteous man left.

So then we come to this verse that says

that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.

3 And the Lord said, "My Spirit shall not strive ^F9 with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years."

4 There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them.
Gen 6

Now people generally assume that this means angels had sex with women and they produced giants. But if you look at the logical progression of Genesis up to this point, it seems far more likely that the sons of God are actually the righteous decendants of Seth. Verses three and five confirm this. There were two strains of man, one righteous and one wicked. Then all of the sudden God says in v. three that "he is indeed flesh" and in five "the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great." Man became wicked. The rational progression of Genesis three through six would suggest that when the "sons of God saw the daughters of men" it was the righteous strain of humanity, the sons of Seth who called on the name of the Lord, people who knew God by name, that saw the daughters of man, the decendants of wicked Cain who reveled in sin.

The word giants comes from the word nephilim, which can also be translated as mighty or fallen ones. In this context, it seems more likely the nephilim here weren't giants but mighty ones, perhaps even mighty in their sin. That's not to say there weren't ever giants, just not neccesarily here.

So what can we draw from all this interesting stuff? Sin separates us from God. Seth's decendants were righteous and close to God. Cain's decendants were self reliant and sinful (just look at Lemech, who brags to his two wives about how he killed a man) and never mentioned God. Cain knew God. Look at how God speaks to him before he kills Able. It's friendly and fatherly. But after he sins, he leaves the presence of God and starts civilization. Sin separates us from the great relationship we can have with God.

I think I'll start a series of blogs on some stuff I recently studied. This is part of it, although it goes further back to creation. God gave me some heavy revelation recently and I thought it was pretty exciting. So I'll share it with you in spurts, because some people probably won't even read this because it's so long and because I don't have time to throw it all out there right now. Peace be with you from the Lord God through our Savior from all sin, Jesus Christ.

Happy holidays!

I posted my Christmas wishlist on my Xanga at www.xanga.com/marvelmonkey so go check it out and bless my pants off this holiday season.

As an added bonus for reading my blogger, I will present to you the truth about Sante, thanks to www.brainofbrian.com. If you have kids or are a kid, you may want to spare them this post.

After much research, we present the annual aeronautical engineers report on the theory of Santa:
No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer, which only Santa has ever seen.
There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish & Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total -378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes that there's at least one good child in each.
Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with. This is due to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits/second. That is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has .001 second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house.
Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles/household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles; not counting stops to do what most of us do at lease once every 31 hours, plus eating etc. So Santa's sleigh must be moving at 650 miles/second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles/second. A conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles/hour.
If every one of the 91.8 million homes with good children were to put out a single chocolate chip cookie and an 8 ounce glass of 2% milk, the total calories (needless to say other vitamins and minerals) would be approximately 225 calories (100 for the cookie, give or take, and 125 for the milk, give or take). Multiplying the number of calories per house by the number of homes (225 x 91.8 x 1000000), we get the total number of calories Santa consumes that night, which is 20,655,000,000 calories. To break it down further, 1 pound is equal to 3500 calories. Dividing our total number of calories by the number of calories in a pound (20655000000 / 3500) and we get the number of pounds Santa gains, 5901428.6, which is 2950.7 tons.
The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (2 lb.), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300lb. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see #1) can pull 10 TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with 8, or even 9, reindeer. We need 214,200. This increases the payload - not counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. This is four times the weight of the ocean-liner Queen Elizabeth.
353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles/second creates enormous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within .00426 of a second. Meanwhile, Santa, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 lb. Santa, being very conservative in terms of guessing Santa's weight, would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 lb. of force. If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The Next General!

I wrote this in an e-mail to one of our Salvation Army publications. These are my essentials for the new General-

My name is Joel Boyd. I am a soldier of the Seattle Temple corps in Washington. I've been a soldier in the Army for six years. I've written this article to express one active soldiers opinion on what the next General should be like. Thanks for letting my voice be heard.

The Salvation Army is at a crossroads, and the next General will be the one that decides which direction we will take. That being said, he/she could be the most important General since Booth himself. The Salvation Army in the West is full of officers and soldiers who are dissatisfied with the way things are. Some desire a return to the "good old days" and some seek radical change. The problem is neither group believes we're where we should be as the Army. I and many others believe that the Army is ripe for change, and the next General will be our leader to bring us through that change. We need to take a deep, careful, Spirit-filled look at the Army as it is now and then decide who will lead us to where we should be.

Recently, while reading the parable of the sower and the seeds (Matthew 13), the Lord led me to a new application of the different soils and how they relate to the Western Army of today. The different types of soil relate to the spiritual conditions of the Army's collective 'heart'.

The "path" or "wayside" soil represents, amoung other things, traditionalism, an attitude that says "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." In Commisioner Pil Needham's Salvationist ecclesiology, Community in Mission, he states that "...faithfulness to tradition is not adherence to traditions; it is adherence to the gospel, allegiance to Christ, openness to the Spirit's leading- and letting the chips of traditionalism fall where they will... the Church must courageously maintain flexibility in matters traditional." According to Commisioner Needham, rather than sticking to old traditions, we need to maintain constant flexibility. We need a General who will courageously examine every tradition, even down to the uniform, and prune away every bit that is not useful to the mission. The General needs to be completely open and sensitive to the Holy Spirit, taking His guidance as to what needs to stay, go, or be changed. We need a General who can lead us into breaking through the 'hard path' of traditionalism into soft soil, ready to receive all the the Sower's seeds.

The rocky soil represents a lack of spiritual depth. In the parable, the rocky ground kept the seed from growing deep roots, and as a result the crop failed under pressure. I believe, as an Army, we have lost much of the spiritual depth of our salvationist forefathers. As a result, many of our soldiers have become demobilized. Our mission needs to be spurred on by deep passionate love for our Heavenly Father, but much of that deep, first love has faded. We need a General who can not only be a great spiritual leader of the Army, but one who has a passionate, even prophetic relationship with Christ. Our General needs to love our Shephard and know and follow His voice. Only this kind of leader can help guide our roots into deeper soil, thus strengthening our crop.

The thorny ground represents cares of this world, and for the Army, pride in our name and reliance on money. The Salvation Army is known world wide for it\'s incredible work helping the poor and the helpless. Every good soldier knows that one only needs to show up in uniform and drop the name "The Salvation Army" and people will be glad to donate. Our problem is we pride ourselves too deeply on our name recognition and not on the fact that it\'s God that has gotten us where we are, and it\'s God that will take us where we are going. Also, we\'ve begun to lean on money to drive our minestry and have been lacking in the faith that drove the early Army. One only needs to look at the DHQ\'s to see the departments dedicated to minestry are often understaffed in comparison to those dedicated to finance and business. The burning passion of early salvationism has been choked out by worry about money. We need a General whose faith will vastly outweigh reliance on anything else. Our trust should be in God, who is our Great Provider, not in money or respect from the world. Our General needs to guide us away from the thorns we\'ve embraced and help us to lean on God our Father. He is the one who will sustain our mission and minestry.


The rocky soil represents a lack of spiritual depth. In the parable, the rocky ground kept the seed from growing deep roots, and as a result the crop failed under pressure. I believe, as an Army, we have lost much of the spiritual depth of our salvationist forefathers. As a result, many of our soldiers have become demobilized. Our mission needs to be spurred on by deep passionate love for our Heavenly Father, but much of that deep, first love has faded. We need a General who can not only be a great spiritual leader of the Army, but one who has a passionate, even prophetic relationship with Christ. Our General needs to love our Shephard and know and follow His voice. Only this kind of leader can help guide our roots into deeper soil, thus strengthening our crop.

The thorny ground represents cares of this world, and for the Army, pride in our name and reliance on money. The Salvation Army is known world wide for it's incredible work helping the poor and the helpless. Every good soldier knows that one only needs to show up in uniform and drop the name "The Salvation Army" and people will be glad to donate. Our problem is we pride ourselves too deeply on our name recognition and not on the fact that it's God that has gotten us where we are, and it's God that will take us where we are going. Also, we've begun to lean on money to drive our minestry and have been lacking in the faith that drove the early Army. One only needs to look at the DHQ's to see the departments dedicated to minestry are often understaffed in comparison to those dedicated to finance and business. The burning passion of early salvationism has been choked out by worry about money. We need a General whose faith will vastly outweigh reliance on anything else. Our trust should be in God, who is our Great Provider, not in money or respect from the world. Our General needs to guide us away from the thorns we've embraced and help us to lean on God our Father. He is the one who will sustain our mission and minestry.

When all these soils are dealt with, all that is left is the fourth soil, the good soil. The good soil grows up seeds into a crop that produces fruit, some up to a hundredfold Like I mentioned earlier, our next General will be the one who brings the Salvation Army into a new era of it\'s life. We need to find a General who is ready, willing and able to deal with all the problems, all the bad soils, and bring us into a renewed period of passion and mission. God has great plans in store for the Salvation Army. I believe if we can find the right General, he/she may help lead the Salvatin Army to live out these words our founder Catherine Booth prophesied- "I believe this Movement is to inaugurate the great final conquest of the Lord Jesus Christ."