If you have been at Element the last three weeks, you know that it might seem like a bit of a downer because we are in the first chapter of the book of Ruth. This is simply because the first chapter of Ruth is depressing. It starts off at very low point: no one is following God, a man moves his family to a pagan place and dies, his sons marry women who worship foreign gods, those same sons die, and all hope seems to be lost. These scenes we read about in Ruth should give us pause to consider the whole idea of suffering and affliction in our own lives.
 
The term “sanctified affliction” has been used by Charles Spurgeon, John James, and most recently, John Piper. Sanctified affliction teaches that everything that comes into our lives can be used by God to grow us more into His likeness and image. This means not one tear we have shed is meaningless in light of God’s overarching sovereignty. As I talked about on Sunday, John Flavel, a Puritan in the 1600s, wrote extensively on this subject. He personally lost three wives, a son, his parents, and he was ejected from his church…he (understandably) asked the question, "Why does God sovereignly permit the suffering of his people?". He gives eight answers to that question (from an article by Brian H. Cosby in Modern Reformation Magazine, February 28, 2014):

1.To Reveal and Deter – Flavel writes, "I heartily wish that these searching afflictions may make the more satisfying discoveries; that you may now see more of the evil of sin, the vanity of the creature, and the fulness of Christ, than ever you yet saw."

2.To Produce Godliness and Spiritual Fruit – Flavel believed that the most fruit producing soil in our lives is the ground of suffering. "The power of godliness did never thrive better than in affliction." 

3.To Reveal More of the Character of God – God reveals his kindness (hesed) and character by how He cares for us in the midst of our suffering. Flavel writes in reference to 2 Cor 12:9 (where Jesus says to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”), “By exposing his people to such grievous sufferings, he gives a fit opportunity to manifest the glory of his power…and of his wisdom."

4. To Relinquish the Temporary for the Eternal – Too often we cling to things that have no eternal value, so God removes them from us even when it hurts. "Thy affliction is a fair class to discover [the creature's vanity]; for the vanity of the creature is never so effectually and sensibly discovered, as in our own experience of it."

5. To Produce a Sincere Faith, Devoid of Hypocrisy – Suffering reveals what we truly believe about the kind of person Jesus is. He says that in suffering we have "an opportunity to discover the sincerity of your love to God."

6. To Encourage Fellowship with God through Word and Prayer – In times of suffering, we should be drawn to the goodness of God and develop a deeper faith than we have ever known. Flavel writes this amazing line, where he says, "I am sure the sweetest melody of prayer is upon the deep waters of affliction."

7. To Bear Witness to the World – How believers live in the midst of their suffering will be a great witness of the reality of salvation and the goodness of God. Rather than hiding or running, we embrace what affliction can teach us. In The Touchstone of Sincerity he writes, "The frequent trials of grace…prove beyond all words or argument that religion is no fancy, but the greatest reality in the world."

8. To Cultivate Communion with Christ, the Greatest Sufferer – We have a God who not only walks with us through our suffering, but suffered Himself for salvation by taking our sin upon Himself. When we understand that Jesus cared enough to die the death we should have died, it should humble us and draw us into deeper relationship with Him. In The Method of Grace, Flavel writes, "In all your afflictions he is afflicted; tender sympathy cannot but flow from such intimate union."

The Puritans, as a group, were unique in their understanding of our suffering and the goodness, sovereignty, and kindness of God. Today it seems as though the American church wants to run and hide from any theology that touches near the subject of suffering and pain. We are told that God’s job is only to bless you…and “bless” is defined as whatever makes you feel happy and fulfilled. On the contrary though, we know the truth is that God does bless us many times, but that blessing comes either in the midst of, or as a result, of suffering. God isn’t too small to allow pain into our lives, and He is big enough to walk us through it to grow us in our sanctified afflictions.
 
How about one last quote from Flavel? “A Christian may develop and cultivate a deeper and more meaningful relationship and fellowship with God, especially in times of suffering."

I know, I told you last week that the last blog was my last for our What in the World Part 2  series, but I had three people ask me the same question after Eric’s message last Sunday so I thought I would come back and answer it. If you missed Eric’s message you can listen/watch it here.
 
The question Eric answered on Sunday dealt with Jesus cursing a fig tree in Mark 11:12. Eric spoke about how Jesus came not to attack Rome, but the fruitless religion of His people and used the fig tree as a living example of that judgment. In the course of this answer, when reading Mark 11;12 (which says, “On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.”), Eric made the comment that this was a time in Jesus’ life where you saw the humanity of Jesus. He said that Jesus went to the tree because He was hungry and He “didn’t know that the tree was fruitless.”
 
I was asked if I also agreed with that statement, that “Jesus didn’t know.”
 
Let me say that I love and respect Eric’s theology…and…there are many scholars that love Jesus, see Jesus as sovereign, and have written the same thing Eric said…that this is a moment where you see Jesus living out his humanity. Michael Houdman of gotanswers.org says, “Upon coming to the tree expecting to find something to eat, Jesus instead discovered that the fig tree had no fruit on it…” Wayne Jackson writes, “One must conclude that this circumstance reveals that though he was deity, Jesus did not exercise the full range of his divine powers constantly. He did not know the details regarding this tree until he was in close proximity.” There is nothing wrong with this assessment and it is part of an orthodox view of Jesus.
 
You also should know that I view Jesus in a particular way, that I always look for a reason why He would do something that would make others question His knowing things in certain circumstances. I have a bias; my bias is that Jesus was always sure of everything. So how could the text that reads, “he went to see if he could find anything on it” be anything different than Jesus not knowing? This could be a great What in the World question!
 
First off Mark writes his gospel account with a particular bent, he wants to declare the identity and authority of Jesus; this account in Mark 11 would then be part of that. In the New American Standard translation it even says that Jesus went to see “if perhaps he could find anything.” The English standard version omits the “perhaps” and just says “if” then says “he could find anything.” The word for “if” or “if perhaps” is the word araand it is a word that is there in order show someone wants to draw a conclusion. “He could find” is actually one word: heuriskō. Heuriskō means to come upon something in order to bring about knowledge. When putting these two words together it can be translated exactly as it is in the ESV or the NASB, or it could mean something deeper…that Jesus was hungry, but He intended to use that hunger in order bring His disciples to a conclusion that He wanted them to see. 
 
I know, it all sounds very confusing so let me un-muddy it as best I can. 
 
As Eric pointed out, this event takes place at the beginning of the last week of Jesus’ life. At the end of this week Jesus would return true worship to His people by His death and resurrection. He is trying to get the disciples to see that God longs for a fruitful people that are completely His (again, please listen to all of Eric’s message as this will make sense in that context). At the end of verse 14, after Jesus curses the fig tree for its barrenness, Mark records these words, “And his disciples heard it.” I would contend that Jesus and the disciples were hungry. Jesus took them to this fig tree which had leaves on it for the purpose of showing them what false worship looks like. I would contend that the tree’s barrenness didn’t surprise Jesus, it was exactly what He needed before the events of the coming week took place in order to grow His disciples in their understanding of true worship.
 
Willian Lane wrote, “If the incident occurred in the period approaching Passover, the parenthetical statement in verse 13c is incontrovertible and suggests that Jesus had no expectation of finding edible figs. Events have meaning beyond their face value; they become significant as they are interpreted. The unexpected and incongruous character of Jesus’ action in looking for figs at a season when no fruit could be found would stimulate curiosity and point beyond the incident to its deeper significance.”
 
There is no theological quandary in viewing it either of the ways I have talked about, I just thought I would do well to answer the question that some of you had. Thanks for being part of our What in the World series.

Sadly, I believe this will be my last blog in our What in the World Part 2 series; it is not my last because I have run out of questions, it my last because I have saved some good questions for an eventual part III of What in the World. What in the World is where we are answering your questions about verses in the Bible that make you scratch your head and ask, “What in the world does that mean?” The shorter-to-answer questions are being addressed in blog form. Today’s question is this, “In Matthew 17:20 Jesus talks about faith as small as a mustard seed. I know how small mustard seeds are, but why are we supposed to have faith like it, what in the world does it mean?”
 
First off, you are right, mustard seeds are tiny (just google it, it is a very small seed). In the context of Matthew 17 the disciples are trying to cast out a demon, something Jesus gave them power to do, but they were unsuccessful. It seems like they were questioning the power Jesus gave them and not their own lack of trust in Jesus…it’s kind of like they have faith in faith and not faith in Jesus. It is important were our faith lies, so the text says: Matthew 17:18-20 And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”
 
Faith is more than mustering up enough belief, our faith as Christians starts in history, that our God came and lived among us in order to redeem us. This is why faith is very important in the scriptures, it is why we call Christianity a “reasonable” faith because it is verifiable. Where something like Islam says, “submit,” our God says “let us reason together” in Isaiah 1:18. Our God stoops to our level so we could trust Him in a real and true way; it is not how much belief we can muster up, but the object that our faith is in. We are told that faith is so vital that it is impossible to please God without it in Hebrews 11:6, but we are also reminded it is a gift (in more ways than one) in Ephesians 2.
 
The Mustard seed analogy is used two times in the Gospels, Matt 17 and Luke 17, both in reference to doing something so out of the ordinary (mountains moving or trees uprooting and being planted in the sea) that it stretches the bounds of mere belief. This is why we must understand how Rabbis taught, especially in using an analogy like the mustard seed. Jesus is pointing to this small seed in reference to true faith in the One real God, not faith in your own power or faith in your own belief. Our faith can be tiny, but it truly matters who our faith rests in because God is faithful.
 
In Matthew 13:31-32 Jesus talks in a parable about a mustard seed being planted and eventually, if left to grow, it can become a tree that birds can rest in. I think this illustrates what faith and a foundation that grows into a legacy can become in our lives. It can start small, but Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. By continuing to trust Him, no matter how small or frail our ‘faith’ seems at the time, eventually our faith will grow and encompass friendships, family, children and grandchildren…it will last generations and leave an inheritance for those who come because it is not based in us, but in Jesus Himself.
 
The best definition for the word we translate as “faith” in the bible (the Greek word pistis) is probably our word “trust.” Let’s put our faith, as small as it sometimes is, in the person of Jesus. Michael Ramsden wrote, “Ever since the church began, the refrain has always been the same: Come, believe, follow the light of the world. It has never appealed for people to leap into the dark; no such invitation is found anywhere in Scripture. Instead, we are called to step into the light. The Christian gospel is not a message that revels in ignorance. It is the revelation of God in the person of Christ, so that we might know there is no other.”

We are currently doing a sermon series at Element where we are answering some questions you asked about the Bible. I mentioned last Sunday how some of the What in the World Part 2 questions that you have asked are too short for a full sermon, so we are answering them in blog form. Today’s question and answer is going to be very short, as no one knows the full answer except for Jesus. The question was: “In Mark 31-37, Jesus spits on a man’s tongue to heal him. Why the spit? Wouldn’t people have thought that was gross?”
 
The first thing I think we can do, as always, is remember the character of God or who Jesus is. Throughout His ministry, Jesus never met a disease He couldn’t heal. As we look through the Biblical accounts, it’s interesting to see that Jesus never healed the same way twice. This has caused many Bible commentators to think that Jesus was trying to get people to move away from superstitions associated with certain techniques.
 
Some people, even today, believe amulets, trinkets, and magical words are all effectual for healing to some degree. When my wife and I were trying to get pregnant, a Christian man gave her some earrings saying that if she wore them while trying to conceive, we would have a baby. (Yes, it was a little creepy and no, we never tried it.) By Jesus healing in the various ways He did, He emphasized trust in the power of God over some superstition or trinket.
 
But why the spit? Mark 7:32-33: And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. Jesus actually uses spit three different times in the Gospel accounts when healing (Mark 7, Mark 8, and John 9). In John 9, most commentators assume Jesus makes and uses mud to refer to the creation account; He was making new eyes from the dust in the ground, as Adam was made from dust.
 
But…that doesn’t help answer the question about Mark 7. Would people think it was gross? Not necessarily. During this time, spit was part of common remedies employed by physicians for different illnesses. In the Greek text, it is implied that Jesus spit on his own finger, or simply got saliva on His own finger (He wasn’t hawking up a gigantic loogie). This could have signaled to the man that healing was coming and he needed to calm down and trust what Jesus was about to do.
 
Honestly, it is all just speculation. What it should remind us of in our daily lives is the old adage that “God works in mysterious ways” and we don’t always need to understand everything He is doing to live our lives in consistent and constant trust.  We should be humbled when we come to the limits of our understanding, and there will be lots of questions we get to ask Jesus when we see Him face to face. Mark D. Roberts once wrote, “May God protect me from pretending to know what I don’t know, or what cannot be known this side of heaven.”
 
We can know that Jesus has authority to heal, but how He does it, when He does it, and why He does it are all up to Him.

We have a current sermon series (summer of 2017) at Element calledWhat in the World Part 2. It is where we are answering your questions about verses in the Bible that make you scratch your head and ask, “What in the world does that mean?”. The shorter-to-answer questions are being addressed in blog form, because they are not long enough to take up an entire sermon. (Although, some of you would probably love a 10 minute sermon, wouldn’t you?) Today’s question is simply this: “What is the deal with eunuchs from Matthew 19:12?”
 
Let’s put this in perspective by actually looking at the verse, Matthew 19:12: “For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”
 
I know, it seems pretty weird, but for the disciples, this question would have made total sense. In the context of the broader passage, Jesus is speaking about marriage, divorce, remarriage, and hardness of heart; this is one of those places where the disciples are dumbfounded, like our culture, that the only justifiable reason Jesus gives for divorce is unfaithfulness (breaking the marriage covenant). The teachers of the law at this time often said that Moses “commanded” them to divorce their wives for any stupid reason. (You know, because it’s always the woman’s fault a marriage doesn’t work…SARCASM, people!) Jesus says that when a man marries a woman, they become one flesh and NOTHING should separate that unless one of them is unfaithful.
 
We are called to work through our problems in a real way, including the difficult issues that can arise within a marriage. The disciples are like, “Wow, that’s hard. If that’s the case, maybe we shouldn’t get married.” It entails the idea that we shouldn’t take the marriage union so lightly and that it is very important to God. Jesus responds that not everyone can accept this and then talks about eunuchs truly being the only people who can. So, what are eunuchs?
 
Eunuchs were traditionally men who were castrated (completely) in order to be guards over harems of ladies. Many rulers figured that you couldn’t put your hand in the cookie jar if you didn’t have a hand (so to speak). Eunuchs often held privileged positions in certain cultures because of their sacrifice. When Jesus says, “There are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men,” he is referring to men serving in these roles. He also talks about men who were born as eunuchs—who were born without the ability to have sex, or were born deformed or not fully developed (genitally). Lastly, Jesus says there are those who have “made themselves” eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom. “Made themselves” does not mean they went into the garage and chopped off their man parts; it simply means they made a decision to serve God as a single man, and not as one committed to a wife.
 
There are all types of people who take these verses out of context today to make them try to say everything they want…but Jesus’ point is simply that if you aren’t married, you can devote more time in other areas. Jesus is not saying, as some have said, that being a “eunuch” is a better way of life or more noble choice. He is simply stating that those who have been called to that kind of life are rare and blessed. It is the same as those who have been called to marriage (and truly work on it) are blessed because it reflects the oneness of God Himself.
 
In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul speaks of those who are unmarried and serve Jesus in other ways because of their state. Some people who are “eunuchs” (figuratively speaking) are able to serve in capacities well-suited for someone that is not married, but later get married and find their priorities need to shift. For example, they may serve as a missionary in a dangerous territory while single, and then relocate/change jobs once they have a family. It is important to remember that no one is better than anyone else; no one is less than anyone else. If someone doesn’t have sexual desire, that may be a gift from God where they can devote their lives to unencumbered ministry, just like those who do get married can devote their life in service to Jesus by how they love their family. It is all about the good news of Jesus and how we live it out. As the body of Christ, it is important for us to understand, appreciate, and encourage the diversity God has granted us in our individual callings. 

At Element we are currently almost two-thirds of our way through our summer series called What in the World Part 2. It is part two because we did part one last year. During part one I asked you to submit any questions you had about the bible and we would address them this year. The shorter to answer questions we are doing in Blog form because they are not long enough to take up an entire sermon. Today’s question is one that gets asked any time anyone opens a general, “hey, ask question about the bible here” type forum. Today’s question about the bible is, “What does the Bible say about Dinosaurs?”
 
First off, the short answer is “not much.” Why is that? Because the Bible isn’t a book about dinosaurs…or a whole host of other things that people ask about, it is a book about God and what He will do to redeem mankind. The Bible spends its time showing humanities plight and the redemptive arc of God’s covenant of grace.
 
Much of the debate and questions about “dinosaurs” come to a head because of the different views of the age of the earth. There are young earth people who say that the bible does talk about dinosaurs, and old earth people who say that dinosaurs died off for one reason or another before God started His work in the garden into which He was going to place man so the Bible doesn’t talk about it.
 
The main word that most scholars agree refer to some sort of dinosaur is tanniyn. It is a Hebrew word that has been translated as dragon, serpent, or sea monster. In Genesis 2:21 the English Standard Version just says, “great sea creature.” There is another word “behemoth” which is said to be the mightiest of God’s creatures (Job 40:15-19). Some have said this is a hippo or an elephant, but others point to his tail being like a “cedar” (that’s a tree) and hippos and elephants don’t have tails like that and it must be a dinosaur.
 
Needless to say, there are hours of endless debate on this subject and nothing is certain (though everyone who debates it acts like they are certain). Almost all ancient peoples have some sort of art that depicts dinosaurs (from North America to South America, from Babylon to Mayan, from Rome to Asia). So I am sure the debate will continue. One site argues that if they did exist then after Noah’s flood the earth’s conditions probably changed so much that dinosaurs couldn’t survive…or if they did live when man was around then man hunted them to extension.
 
Either way, the matter is far from settled and the only thing we need to remember is that if they existed before or during man’s life on the earth, God made them and they were His creatures. We must be careful not to make the Genesis narrative into some sort of scientific textbook as that was not the point of it, Genesis was to show that in the end, all that is or ever will be, was created by God. We should become a people who trust Him for what He has revealed about life, truth, hope, love, and grace in the Scriptures. 

Currently, on Sunday mornings, we are doing our What in the World Part 2 series to answer your questions in sermon form, but some of these questions were too short for a whole sermon so we are answering the shorter ones in our blog. While today isn’t actually a shorter question, we covered it back in our Genesis series in 2012, so I thought I could shorten my answer up a bit here. Here is the question: “Who were the Nephilim and what happened to them?”
 
This question comes out of Genesis 6:1-4 V1 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, V2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. V3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” V4The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.
 
Because of how the paragraph is broken up in the English text, people want to connect the Nephilim with “sons of God and daughters of men” and make this into some sort of Halloween scenario where fallen angels are making half demon babies with humans; THAT IS NOT THE CASE! Verse 1 of Genesis 6 is taking what was just said in the last two chapters and bringing it together before moving on, this is why context is important. When Moses says, “sons of God,” it means descendants from Seth’s line (from Gen 5), those who followed God, marrying those from Cain’s line (Genesis 4). It essentially says that people who claimed to love God married those who hated God and acted like it was no big deal (sounds much like our culture today).
 
When people mix things in the Scriptures without context it tends to lead to some crazy ideas. Because of how people have connected “sons of God,” daughters of men, and “Nephilim,” we get 3 views of who the Nephilim were. I will give you all three:

• View 1: These are fallen angel half demon babies (yes, this isthe craziest one first). In the Old Testament "son's of God" can, at times, be interpreted as angels (Job 1:6 for example). In the New Testament Jesus says very clearly Matt 22:30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. Even if these were fallen angels, the purpose of putting it here in Genesis would be to combat polytheistic religions of the day (who had gods making demigods with humans all the time). The narrative goes on to tell you that no matter what offspring these beings produced they were merely mortal, NOT GODS, and they were subject to God's judgment like everyone else.
• View 2: These are Kings or dynastic rulers who took wives from whomever they pleased. The sin is polygamy just like Lamech from Genesis 4. These would be the earth's rulers before the flood who were to administer justice but instead multiplied sin.
• View 3 (as stated above) They are godly men descended from Seth. This again seems most likely in context. John Calvin commented about these verses: "It was, therefore, base ingratitude in the posterity of Seth, to mingle themselves with the children of Cain."

It is meant to simply show that the world is getting worse as men rebel against God.
 
In Genesis 6:4 The Nephilim were called “mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.”  People get all weird with this verse because some translations will actually use the word "giants" and link it (again) to sons of God and daughters of men. Because we are a culture inundated with science fiction we start to say, “Who are these people? Giants? Wookies?”
 
The text uses the word "Nephilim" because in Hebrew this word is NEPHILIM. It is only used here and in Numbers 13:33 when God’s people go into the Promised Land and are too scared to fight. They use this word as an excuse "we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers." They are saying, “we were scared to do what God told us to do,” and they reference this.
 
In all honesty, we do not know WHAT it means except what they text tells us: They were the men of renown. The text doesn’t say they were giants, demon-possessed, or Thor, it says men of renown. It could simply be the popular people of the day who didn’t know God, but everyone knew of them and wanted to be them.
 
The point of the opening chapters of Genesis 6 is to show how far man had fallen and what God was going to do when he started fresh with man named Noah to whom God offered grace…just like He does to all of us. 

Last Sunday was our Baptisms! If you didn't make it, or missed reading the stories, this weeks blog is simply a link to them. Please read them, be excited for them, and always stand amazed at the goodness of our great God.

Download Baptism Stories

At Element we are currently doing a series called What in the World Part 2, which seeks to answer questions you asked us last year. This past Sunday was a little tougher, because the question that was asked was: “What Does the Bible Say About Homosexuality?” If you missed it you can listen/watch it here. As you can imagine, this is a volatile subject in our culture today, and any answer that takes a stand will offend someone.
 
We didn’t spend a lot time talking about homosexuality; rather, we spent a lot of time talking about the story of the Scriptures and redemption. I did take you back to the book of Genesis and the creation account to show the normative way Scripture speaks about intimate sexual unions between one man and one woman. I do not believe that the Bible is in any way ambiguous in its stance on same sex unions.
 
I also believe that the Bible is not ambiguous on who Jesus died for and loves: all of us. Anything short of God’s best for us in our lives is sin. Many times, we live in open rebellion because what we want or feel trumps God’s call in our life. So when Jesus says things like,“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” (Matt 9:12, Mark 2:17, Luke 5:31), those words are spoken to everyone—whether gay or straight. As divisive as our society is today (including the Church, sadly), we can easily forget how broad the scope of sin truly is and start to categorize certain sins, such as homosexuality, as worse or more taboo than others. When the Apostle Paul states, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” it refers to all of us…and when Paul continues and says, “…and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” this also refers to all of us.
 
Yes, at Element we believe that homosexuality is a sin, but we must make a distinction between the things people do, the things they struggle with, and who they are. In a culture that tells us we are defined by our actions or how we self-identify, we need to remember the truth of the Gospel—we are named and known by our Creator, and those who believe in His saving grace are forever redeemed. This truth should enable us to love anyone, regardless of what they struggle with, because love isn’t condoning what people do…it is recognizing their true identity and worth found in God. Too often, the Church has elevated this one thing above all other issues and said, “This is the worst thing a human can do!” But the worst thing any of us could do is reject the love and grace of God. God doesn’t hate people who are struggling with sin in their lives. If that was true, He would hate all of us. The reality is that our struggle with sin is not the end of us, nor does it define us; it is this universal brokenness that can drive us to the healing hands of the Great Physician.
 
In order to help you start the dialogue, I would like to point you to a couple of blogs. (I know, you are already reading a blog and now I am referring you to another one…it’s like the Twilight Zone). Read these articles with an open heart and pray that God would reveal to you what He is trying to say. The first one is written by a young man who struggles with SSA (same sex attraction); the second is a study by Mark Yarhouse, Professor of Psychology and the Rosemarie Scotti Hughes Endowed Chair of Christian Thought in Mental Health Practice at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
 
As followers of Jesus, we must be willing to enter into discussion with others, but we need to remember what this actually entails from a Gospel perspective. It is not telling people God hates them, and it’s not telling them the Bible condones whatever they want to do. Rather, we must enter with grace and point to the redemptive love and hope of God in all things—that it is not our works that save us, but the work of Jesus that saves and restores us.
 
Lastly, let’s work to create a culture within Element and beyond where we can feel the freedom to express our struggles with sin without shame. As shared in the first blog below, church climates are often tragically perceived as oppressive. If our lives are truly centered around the Gospel, we should be encouraged to move toward one another in our brokenness, as we recognize the great need each of us has for Jesus.
 
https://torreygazette.com/blog/2015/10/26/on-my-struggle-with-homosexuality
http://henrycenter.tiu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Yarhouse-Homosexuality.pdf

At Element we are currently doing a series called What in the World Part 2 which seeks to answer questions you asked us last year. Last Sunday we answered this question: “In Genesis 15:17 it says that a smoking fire pot and flaming torch passed between the halves of the animals Abraham cut in half at God's direction. What is the significance of the fire pot and torch moving between the halves?” If you missed it you can listen/watch it here. After the message I had five more questions that people asked, none of them had to do with the central premise of the sermon, they were simply inquisitive questions (because inquiring minds want to know). So, don’t let these questions distract you from the central message that Jesus promised Himself to rescue us from our brokenness and then He fulfilled that promise.
 
The five questions are as follows, if you listened to the message this will make sense. Why was Abraham the only one who brought something to the covenant ceremony, why 3 years old, which way did they cut the animals, why didn’t the birds get cut, and why a young pigeon? Here are the verses in question: Genesis 15:9-10 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half.
 
All of these are pretty easy to answer:
Why was Abraham the only one who brought something to the covenant ceremony – When Abraham left the land of His father(s) at God’s call he was doing alright financially, but he wasn’t extravagantly rich. By the time Genesis 15 comes around God has so blessed Abraham with animals and goods that he has to separate from his nephew Lot because the land couldn’t sustain them both. Abraham sees all that He has as being given to him by God’s hand, so essentially Abraham is simply bringing what God has already provided.
 
Why 3 years old – At three years old the animals would all be at full growth and strength. They would have many years of child bearing ahead of them, so to give these animals would have truly been a sacrifice. On a side note, a heifer had not born any offspring yet (much like Abraham), a goat was used as a sin offering later in temple worship (one was sacrificed and one set free as a scapegoat) that represented Israel’s sin had been removed from them, and a ram is what God will provide in the place of Abraham’s son on Mount Moriah as a sacrifice.
 
Which way did they cut them – I find this question very funny because it never occurred to me that there would be more than one logical way to cut animals in half. They were not cut long ways (head to tail), they were cut side to side (usually behind the rib cage).
 
Why not cut the birds – The most common consensus among bible scholars is that the birds were simply too small, it is why there are 2 birds listed and not one. Two birds can be laid over against the other on either side of the isle. If you cut a bird in half behind the rib cage, like the larger animals, there isn’t much left. One side would have what is essentially a whole bird and the other side a pair of skinny, tiny, bird legs.
 
Why a “young pigeon” – This is a great question and my answer is only speculation because I am not 100% on it. The word In Genesis 15:9 for “young pigeon” is the Hebrew word gowzal. The word doesn’t actually mean a pigeon, it meant a young nesting bird, and maybe so young its feathers haven’t even come in. By putting the “gowzal” opposite the turtledove could represent where Abraham is in regards to his faith (it is newborn but also counted to him as righteousness) and what Israel, his descendants, will become. In Psalm 74 God will call the nation of Israel His turtledove as term of endearment and love. God could be saying to Abraham that you are starting off like this new born bird, but you and your descendants when full grown will be my beloved ones.
 
Remember that Moses is the one chronicling these events, which means he is viewing everything in light of the law that has been given to Israel at Sinai. Moses probably sees much greater and far reaching significance to these events than Abraham does. After Jesus’death and resurrection we also get to see much greater and far reaching significance than Moses saw. As we talked about Sunday, Jesus shows up and walks through the pieces and makes a covenant to save His people no matter what. Jesus passes through the pieces, not Abraham, which means Jesus will uphold and provide a way for both sides of the covenant to be fulfilled in Himself.
 
1Peter 3:18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.