Mach 5 Through the Pentateuch

A few months ago, my Community Group decided to go through 1 & 2 Kings. I love the Pentateuch, especially Genesis, parts of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers and really wanted teach on that. So I convinced Patrick that we need some OT primer, especially for a lot of these churched kids who just might have never seriously looked at some of these books and miss out on not only gems but the full history of God.

What this ended up giving birth to was a ridiculous, high speed, about 1.5 hour journey through Genesis - Ruth, though 95% of our time was spent in Genesis - Numbers. For a couple weeks I poured over these 4 books, trying to trace the high points of God's history with man, and was greatly nourished but also surprised at some of the clear patterns I pulled out. Those being the accelerating depravity or "jacked-upness" of mankind, and what amazed me the most was the incompleteness of the Jewish sacrificial system. This whole system God put down very clearly did not solve the problem of sin, especially any sort of willful sin. David himself after sinning with Bathsheba can only cry out "Lord have mercy." We are left to wait on the mercy of God, for the blood of a sacrifice that actually does the job. In short, after this study our desperate need for Jesus became so salient and the book of Hebrews became the answer to the Pentateuch. It was incredible to actually see what I have heard about spelled out in plain English (or Hebrew I guess). I also took some shots at happy, clean Sunday school Christianity to show just how gritty the OT is which created plenty of excitement and laughter. Enough rambling, strap in and I will attempt that same supersonic flight over those first 4 books below--a bit shortened for your reading pleasure. Look me up anytime you want to hear the full thing.

Adamic Covenant

Genesis 1:31

31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

This is where we start, God made everything, Adam and Eve included and it was awesome. No sin, no rebellion, just paradise. Then,

Genesis 3:1-15

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.

He said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?
2 And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,
3 but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.
4 But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die.
5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
9 But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, Where are you?
10 And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.
11 He said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?
12 The man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.
13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, What is this that you have done? The woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate.

14 The LORD God said to the serpent,
Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.

Eve decided God was lying, Adam was with her and useless and complicit. The first sin. Our mother is one who distrusts God and thinks she knows better, our father is one who does noting, abdicates responsibility, follows into sin, and utterly fails as the head. There is much to learn about our sinful proclivities here, so clearly does it outline much of the sin deep seated in my heart. But what I want to bring out is this, the proto-evangelion, the first gospel. Right after Adam and Eve sin, from the get-go, we have this promise in v.15. Satan will bruise man's heel, but Eve's offspring will crush his head. Gonna kill sin and Satan. We are going to look at a great number of Eve's offspring and hopeful "Satan crushers." And they are all going to blow it, BIG TIME. See right here how much this fits Jesus, and as we go on how poorly it fits any of Eve's other offspring. And see that from the first sin, the beginning of the downward spiral of man's history, from that beginning God has a plan, forgiveness, Jesus Christ is in mind, victory someday is promised through Eve's offspring.

Genesis 4:1-10

1 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.
2 And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground.
3 In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground,
4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering,
5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.
6 The LORD said to Cain, Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?
7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.

8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.
9 Then the LORD said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother? He said, I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?
10 And the LORD said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.

Its our favorite duo, Cain and Abel. The first brothers in the history of mankind, and what friends they are! It took mankind all of one generation to discover 1st degree murder, wow things are looking up! What's your first thought when your brother or sister outdoes you? Hey let's go in the backyard? I want you to see how with lightning speed invents all the really good sins, so drastic is the fall of our heart and nature. And these are the days when God still spoke directly and pointed it out! So clearly the offspring God spoke of that would crush Satan's head is not her firstborn Cain, he does quite the opposite.

Let's peer a few generations down into the future and see how God's creation, mankind is doing on their own:

Genesis 6:5-9

5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6 And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
7 So the LORD said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.
8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

9 These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.

Sooo, how often do men have evil thoughts? All the time. How often are their intentions evil. All the time. Boy I think that about does it. We have gone from 1 sin to sin 24/7. This is a huge indictment on mankind, often a proof text for God's election and our inability to save ourselves. How can someone who intends evil all the time seek salvation? Anyway, suffice it to say man's jacked-upness is pretty much complete here, very early in our history. In fact it is so bad God is actually sorry, actually grieved. Do you see that you have grieved God? I mean this is serious. This is our condition. This is what makes God's continued striving with man, sending Jesus so incredible.

But Noah found favor. Noah walked with God. As Pastor Mark is quick to point out, Noah walking with God and preaching righteousness happens after the favor, after the grace. I think he makes a good point considering what will happen post-flood.

We don't know how long it took, less than a hundred years but probably not too much less, but Noah and his sons built this huge colossus of a wood boat as per God's design. And the whole time is preaching righteousness but not a single person believes him or cares. He is an amazing amazing perseverant preacher.

So God floods the earth in an awful, low point, but deserved part of history. Killing everything but those on the boat, it is quite gritty, would be utterly terrifying to be on that boat hearing those screams as people die. But God shut the boat, no one else was getting on that thing. And after the flood, we have an important shift.

Noahic Covenant

Genesis 9:6-15

6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image.

7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, teem on the earth and multiply in it.

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him,
9 Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you,
10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth.
11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.
12 And God said, This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations:
13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds,
15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.

The first covenant was with Adam and Eve. Be fruitful, fill the earth, just don’t eat out of that tree. They did, broke the covenant, a new one was needed. And here it is. Never again shall all be killed by a flood. God is done with the wholesale destruction of mankind. As man gets more and more wicked, God becomes more and more patient, merciful. Two opposing trends, amazing. So the is covenant 2.0.

Some big themes are here too, the image of God, imago dei that fuels everything from anti-slavery to anti-abortion, and the rainbow which is a sign that God will never flood the earth again but which the gay rights movement has hijacked, in an odd sort of ironic way. Way to go mankind taking a symbol of God's grace and making it a banner for your sin.

OK, here is one of my favorite parts. Time to see how Noah acts getting off the boat, him who trusted God, preached righteousness for almost 100 years, built the boat out of great faith, the only one to be a righteous man, find favor with God pre-flood. What will the righteous Noah do as the heir of this world!?

Genesis 9:20-27

20 Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard.
21 He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.
22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.
23 Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness.
24 When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him,
25 he said,
Cursed be Canaan;
a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.

26 He also said,
Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem;
and let Canaan be his servant.
27 May God enlarge Japheth,
and let him dwell in the tents of Shem,
and let Canaan be his servant.


Wow. There is a page that didn't make it into the coloring book. A naked, drunk, passed out Noah with his redneck kid Ham laughing at the door, putting up some facebook photos. Well before this Noah does offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God, but turns right around and makes some moonshine to get drunk. I simply cannot believe this was some sort of accident, making wine takes work man, years of commitment and careful work. So the righteous Noah's 2nd post flood act, experiencing the grace of God in such an unforgettable way is to get drunk and pass out naked in his tent by himself. I have no idea what he was doing, how he got himself naked. This is the redneck manifesto, this is the first 1 man frat party. Really quite sad, and makes it very clear, Noah is not a righteous man inherently. He was gifted righteousness because he blew it big time here.

And from this drunken, naked 1 man party, we get the origin of Canaan, one of the most bitter enemies of God's people and purveyors of sin, starters of so much wicked idolatry, and a people that color the books of kings. Sinful nations are often traced back to one sinful act of an ancestor in Genesis. Point is your sins matter, will leave a legacy unless God intervenes, they grow exponentially.

So the covenant #2 failed, Noah blew it. What's next? God is going to go for 3, probably the most important covenant to the Jews. It all starts with a guy named Abram:

Abrahamic Covenant

OK, time to start in on a HUGE thread of the OT, where everything gets traced back to. The big guy. Father Abraham. Even in Jesus day he was the father of faith, he was the man, he was the one the Pharisees claimed as on their side. Even the muslims love this guy, he is a stud. Awesome. And he is awesome, Paul speaks very highly of him. But he also has this one flaw--humanity. Ergo, he is also extremely jacked up. Let's take a look.

Genesis 12:1-4

1 Now the LORD said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.
2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

God pulls Abraham out, calls him out, says you are going to be my man, you are going to carry my torch and father the Jewish nation. And you will bless the earth. Now we are going to see that Abraham fails to bless all nations, and Israel will strike out there too. It is going to be Abraham's offspring Jesus that finally gets this promise done.

Genesis 15:5-6

5 And he brought him outside and said, Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them. Then he said to him, So shall your offspring be.
6 And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

Very interesting, God makes these crazy promises and Abraham believes. Brings the old fart outside and says count the stars, your kids and their kids will be like that someday. And it is credited to him as righteousness, this is very important. Abraham did not earn righteousness, do the right thing all the time, but believed God and God makes it as if he had. Amazing. But why does God do this? Why not just judge him on his actions. Let's see! This gets fun.

Genesis 20

1 From there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar.
2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister. And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.
3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife.
4 Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, Lord, will you kill an innocent people?
5 Did he not himself say to me, She is my sister? And she herself said, He is my brother. In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.
6 Then God said to him in the dream, Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her.
7 Now then, return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you, and all who are yours.

8 So Abimelech rose early in the morning and called all his servants and told them all these things. And the men were very much afraid.
9 Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, What have you done to us? And how have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and my kingdom a great sin? You have done to me things that ought not to be done.
10 And Abimelech said to Abraham, What did you see, that you did this thing?
11 Abraham said, I did it because I thought, There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.
12 Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.
13 And when God caused me to wander from my father's house, I said to her, This is the kindness you must do me: at every place to which we come, say of me, He is my brother.

14 Then Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and male servants and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and returned Sarah his wife to him.
15 And Abimelech said, Behold, my land is before you; dwell where it pleases you.
16 To Sarah he said, Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver. It is a sign of your innocence in the eyes of all who are with you, and before everyone you are vindicated.
17 Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children.
18 For the LORD had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife.

So righteous Abraham goes on his way, and what does he do? Hatches this great plan to pimp out his wife to the king for protection and to get free stuff. Wow, great job! Hey have sex with the king and he will give me free stuff, sound good to you. Way to lead your wife, Columbus! And to make things worse, this is the second time he does this, did it in Egypt too. Seems to be his default or something. A side note, seems like all Abraham had going for him was his wife was still extremely hot at 90 years old.

This is gritty stuff. This is ugly, sexual, crazy. But this is humanity, this is what makes the Bible true and not happily colored over history, man does some really awful stuff that God has to put up with. It is gritty just like yours and my sin. And I even left out the grittiest part, before this Sara tries to force God's promise of a child by giving her maidservant to have sex and a child with Abraham. Let's just say that doesn't go over so well, and the Muslims trace their lineage back to that illegitimate son, Ishmael.

And I love this picture of the father of faith getting rebuked by a pagan king. You know things are going bad when the atheist is rebuking you for bad morality. And this picture of how firmly God holds onto the wicked Abraham. Abraham after blowing it huge, has to pray for the king to heal him. Seems like their roles should be reversed, but so powerful is God's love and choice even over sin. Gives us great hope as sinners trying to do God's mission.

So Abraham blows it. And with his grandson, Jacob things get really wacked up. This is one of my favorite stories, but in the interest of space I will just sum it up here. Basically Jacob, who is later renamed Israel and becomes the father of that nation gets duped into marrying the lazy-eyed ugly sister of the girl he really likes. So he marries both, and also gets their two maid-servants to boot. And what begins is a hideous war for who can have the most children. Much like his grandma did, the two wives both offer their maid servants as surrogate wives at some point, so what we end up with his 13 kids who have one daddy, two moms, and his two girlfriends. It makes for the most dysfuntional household, akward thanksgivings, and the most difficult marriage bed ever. Goes to show that ever guys dream of having a bunch of women doesn't go so well in practice, and that the great nation Israel had a really ugly start. And the whole thing makes the Jerry Springer show look like they should be rename themselves to Focus on the Family.

So fast forward, Joseph, Jacob's favorite son, ends up being pretty awesome, gets in power in Egypt and moves the whole family over when there is a famine. So Israel ends up in Egypt, eventually they get enslaved by a new harsh regime, and God does miracles, the 10 plagues to get them out. There is blood and gnats and locusts and frogs and darkness and bowling ball hail and all sorts of stuff, it is nuts. But we are just going to mention the final plague here because it does a lot to prefigure Jesus.

Exodus 12:12-13, 5-11

12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD.
13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats,
6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.

7 “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.
8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.
9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts.
10 And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn.
11 In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD's Passover.

This is amazing, everyone deserves to have their firstborn killed here, everyone is sinful and wicked. No one is good enough to avoid it. Very curious that God chooses to save his people through the blood of a lamb and not just have the angel avoid their houses. I think God wanted to make a very clear statement that as death goes by these houses nothing in their goodness, or performance, or pedigree, or race saves them from God's wrath. They deserve it to. The only thing that saves them is the angel sees the blood, God's chosen way of dealing with sin here. And says I will pass over. This is very important. Why? Because what was the last meal Jesus ate on earth? Passover. When did he die? The day after the passover. What happened? He bled for our sins.

Jesus is our passover lamb. Jesus is the blood that if we take it upon us then the judgment will pass over us. The judgment we deserve just like everyone else.

So God calls his people out of Egypt with miracles, gives them the 10 commandments and also gives us a great Charles Hesston movie later on. And what to the people say to this, what is their response to God's here are the 10 things I command you to do if you want to be my people?

Exodus 24:3

3 Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do.

Good, everything is going great so far, looks like the start of an amazing relationship between God and his people. Things didn’t go so well with Adam. Noah blew it. Abraham screwed it up after being called out, Isaac did, and Jacob really screwed it up, his kids try to kill the one God will use to save them. So Adam fail, Noah fail, Patriarchs, fail. Let's give the nation of Israel a shot, a fresh start, and spell it out real clear.

Mosaic Covenant

Exodus 24:14-18

14 And he said to the elders, Wait here for us until we return to you. And behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them.

15 Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain.
16 The glory of the LORD dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.
17 Now the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.
18 Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

And God even shows some of his glory, let's the people have this huge, powerful reminder that God is with them, that this is the God they just agreed to serve. So we have a God who has done many great things for Israel, God who has promised to bless them even more, a God who gives them very clear and simple instructions, and a God who gives them this huge supernatural fire that devours a mountain next door to remind them. And things go great for a few days.

Exodus 32:15-29

15 Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written.
16 The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp.
18 But he said, It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.
19 And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.
20 He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.

21 And Moses said to Aaron, What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?
22 And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil.
23 For they said to me, Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.
24 So I said to them, Let any who have gold take it off. So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.

25 And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies),
26 then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, Who is on the LORD's side? Come to me. And all the sons of Levi gathered around him.
27 And he said to them, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.
28 And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell.
29 And Moses said, Today you have been ordained for the service of the LORD, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day.

Wow. Talk about ugly. How quickly they go from fully devoted to God to churchwide frat party. Gone from worshipping the alpha-omega to partying like psi-kappa. And they are being led by who, Aaron. This is Moses' God given partner, the one he speaks through. This is the guy who is the first priest of God, will play a prominent role in Israel.

Again we have a fail, Israel fails in the first month. So quick to sin, so quick to run from God to make stupid excuses. Some people say if God shows up then I will believe and live a new life. Probably not, God was camping out next to Israel. Fallen man is so quick to sin. We can say I give you my whole life God, commit it to him like we do during a worship song every Sunday, then turn around and totally blow it the next day. Woops! My bad. This calf just popped out. That girl just showed up in my bed, that website just opened itself on my screen, those words just fell out of my mouth.

Echoes of Adam as Aaron tries to weakly (and quite humorously) abdicate responsibility here.

So, let's talk about idolatry a bit. This is the first very clear example we have of it in the Bible. An idol here is this calf, and they worship it as the god who saved them, they celebrate to it. Worship is giving your time, life, joy, money, hope to anything other than God. We all worship, just whether it is on the right source, God, or something else, an idol. For them an idol was this cute little piece of gold. For us can be money, iPhones, sex, children, status, degree, and on and on. So many things. We think they will lead us, provide us happiness and joy. But they cannot deliver, they are lifeless, they are not God and where our satisfaction is found. They let us down.

A good test for an idol. If only I had ___ then everything would be alright is your test. If what goes in the blank is not God, then it is an idol. Simple. Because anything but Jesus in that blank is a lie and will fail you.

So the Mosaic covenant in very short order failed. The people sinned big time. So now God is going to lay out his system for dealing with sin on a regular basis, since clearly it is going to be an issue. What we get is the sacrificial system here, a snapshot of it is below:

Levitical Sacrificial System

Leviticus 4:1-12

1 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
2 Speak to the people of Israel, saying, If anyone sins unintentionally in any of the LORD's commandments about things not to be done, and does any one of them,
3 if it is the anointed priest who sins, thus bringing guilt on the people, then he shall offer for the sin that he has committed a bull from the herd without blemish to the LORD for a sin offering.
4 He shall bring the bull to the entrance of the tent of meeting before the LORD and lay his hand on the head of the bull and kill the bull before the LORD.
5 And the anointed priest shall take some of the blood of the bull and bring it into the tent of meeting,
6 and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle part of the blood seven times before the LORD in front of the veil of the sanctuary.
7 And the priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense before the LORD that is in the tent of meeting, and all the rest of the blood of the bull he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting.
8 And all the fat of the bull of the sin offering he shall remove from it, the fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails
9 and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys
10 (just as these are taken from the ox of the sacrifice of the peace offerings); and the priest shall burn them on the altar of burnt offering.
11 But the skin of the bull and all its flesh, with its head, its legs, its entrails, and its dung—
12 all the rest of the bull—he shall carry outside the camp to a clean place, to the ash heap, and shall burn it up on a fire of wood. On the ash heap it shall be burned up.

Alright, this is messy business. In part it is due to these being messier times, animal sacrifice was much more common. The priests of these days were not just the robed wearing folks who were celibate and the center of so much scandal as they are now. These Levitical priests could efficiently kill something as large as a bull, let the blood out and handle the internal organs with skill and then burn the thing.

The other, I believe more important reason this sacrifice stuff is so graphic and bloody is God is showing us just how big a deal sin is. Your sin, even here your unintentional sin, is so bad that something had to die and be torn apart to deal with it. The point is clear, you deserve that death. In this sacrifice your sin and guilt are transferred onto that animal and he takes the punishment. All the animal sacrifices really have two parts, the body and the blood. The body is killed, is burned. The blood is let out, is sprinkled. I like to think of it in this way, using some theological vernacular that might not be technically correct but I think fits well. In the body killed, broken I see propitiation, that is the wrath of God appeased. Sin demands punishment, God hates sin, the Law was broken, something ahs to die for it. And here it is the animal. And in the blood, the blood that is sprinkled, that is put on the thumb, that is rubbed on the horn of the altar, the blood is very important for Hebrews, the life is in it they say. I see the blood as expiation, as the cleansing. As the taking away of the sin, removing the shame from us. And for sin that is done to us, removing that defilement and shame for something we didn't do.

So a huge problem with these sacrifices, is they had to be done over and over. Even the most sweeping and powerful sacrifice, Yom Kippur, was done every yea to blanket all the unintentional sins of priests and people and clean the effect that sin had on the very tabernacle and ark of God itself.

Now it is time to look at another huge shortcoming of the sacrificial system, the system intended to deal with sin.

Numbers 15:27-31

27 “If one person sins unintentionally, he shall offer a female goat a year old for a sin offering.
28 And the priest shall make atonement before the LORD for the person who makes a mistake, when he sins unintentionally, to make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven.
29 You shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally, for him who is native among the people of Israel and for the stranger who sojourns among them.
30 But the person who does anything with a high hand, whether he is native or a sojourner, reviles the LORD, and that person shall be cut off from among his people.
31 Because he has despised the word of the LORD and has broken his commandment, that person shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be on him.

Does this hit you? Does the huge problem here not hit you like a train? All these sacrifices we have been talking about are always, explicitly for unintentional sin. For the woops, didn’t mean to sin, was an accident or I didn’t know that was sin at the time.

To be sure we have plenty of those, but have any of you ever willfully, very aware of what you are doing, repeatedly sinned? Have you ever sinned in a way you said you never would again, but did it anyway? If you are human the answer is yes. In fact most of my sins are quite willful.

So what does it say for folks like us who "sin on purpose"? We have despised the word of the LORD and should be utterly cut off. Our iniquity stays on us. Oh snap! That is not good. Not good at all. That is why David, in his famous psalm of repentance after a very willful and well planned adultery/murder cover up with Bathsheba starts with "Have mercy on me O God' (Psalm 51:1). That is all he can say, all he can ask. Not look at my sacrifices, not I got a nice goat ready for you. Just have mercy.

So there we have it, the sacrificial system needs to be repeated over and over, never really works, and doesn’t cover intentional sins we have all stacked up quite a list of. So based on this system, based on all the covenants God has made with his people in the OT, where do we stand? There is a man, Korah, who asked this question. Let's see what happened:

Numbers 16:1-40

1 Now Korah the son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men.
2 And they rose up before Moses, with a number of the people of Israel, 250 chiefs of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well-known men.
3 They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?
4 When Moses heard it, he fell on his face,
5 and he said to Korah and all his company, In the morning the LORD will show who is his, and who is holy, and will bring him near to him. The one whom he chooses he will bring near to him.
6 Do this: take censers, Korah and all his company;
7 put fire in them and put incense on them before the LORD tomorrow, and the man whom the LORD chooses shall be the holy one. You have gone too far, sons of Levi!
8 And Moses said to Korah, Hear now, you sons of Levi:
9 is it too small a thing for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himself, to do service in the tabernacle of the LORD and to stand before the congregation to minister to them,
10 and that he has brought you near him, and all your brothers the sons of Levi with you? And would you seek the priesthood also?
11 Therefore it is against the LORD that you and all your company have gathered together. What is Aaron that you grumble against him?

12 And Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and they said, We will not come up.
13 Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, that you must also make yourself a prince over us?
14 Moreover, you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, nor given us inheritance of fields and vineyards. Will you put out the eyes of these men? We will not come up.
15 And Moses was very angry and said to the LORD, Do not respect their offering. I have not taken one donkey from them, and I have not harmed one of them.

16 And Moses said to Korah, Be present, you and all your company, before the LORD, you and they, and Aaron, tomorrow.
17 And let every one of you take his censer and put incense on it, and every one of you bring before the LORD his censer, 250 censers; you also, and Aaron, each his censer.
18 So every man took his censer and put fire in them and laid incense on them and stood at the entrance of the tent of meeting with Moses and Aaron.
19 Then Korah assembled all the congregation against them at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And the glory of the LORD appeared to all the congregation.

20 And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,
21 Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.
22 And they fell on their faces and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and will you be angry with all the congregation?
23 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
24 Say to the congregation, Get away from the dwelling of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.

25 Then Moses rose and went to Dathan and Abiram, and the elders of Israel followed him.
26 And he spoke to the congregation, saying, Depart, please, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be swept away with all their sins.
27 So they got away from the dwelling of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. And Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the door of their tents, together with their wives, their sons, and their little ones.
28 And Moses said, Hereby you shall know that the LORD has sent me to do all these works, and that it has not been of my own accord.
29 If these men die as all men die, or if they are visited by the fate of all mankind, then the LORD has not sent me.
30 But if the LORD creates something new, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the LORD.

31 And as soon as he had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart.
32 And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods.
33 So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly.
34 And all Israel who were around them fled at their cry, for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up!
35 And fire came out from the LORD and consumed the 250 men offering the incense.

36 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
37 Tell Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest to take up the censers out of the blaze. Then scatter the fire far and wide, for they have become holy.
38 As for the censers of these men who have sinned at the cost of their lives, let them be made into hammered plates as a covering for the altar, for they offered them before the LORD, and they became holy. Thus they shall be a sign to the people of Israel.
39 So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers, which those who were burned had offered, and they were hammered out as a covering for the altar,
40 to be a reminder to the people of Israel, so that no outsider, who is not of the descendants of Aaron, should draw near to burn incense before the LORD, lest he become like Korah and his company—as the LORD said to him through Moses.
This is a long story, but one of my favorites in the Bible and most illustrative there are. We have a man who is pretty high up on the holiness pecking order, a Levite, one step below the priests. So he challenges Moses, says all of us are holy, are on good standing with God. So God says fine, come out and I will show you where you stand. So all of his followers show up with their censers, which is symbolic of their prayer, their offering to God. They are basically saying here God is the sum of my life, all I have to offer, all the good and holy stuff I have done. Being a nice person, helping my parents, setting up chairs at church, having a conversation with that guy, ministering, money given, and on and on. All of it. And how far does it get them? Burned alive, toasted completely. How do things turn out for Korah and the other ringleaders? Completely consumed alive, eaten by the earth. I want you to stand there, to be there. To hear the screams of his family and little ones as the earth swallows them, crushes them alive, as people run screaming in fear. This is truly awful, truly ugly. But this is what we deserve, exactly what we deserve.

This is our state before God, this is our natural state if we come before God right now and say give me what I deserve based on my performance in life, how I have lived. Sinners by nature and choice, and the penalty for sin as was laid out to Adam is still very clear and in effect, you will surely die. All the way back to Genesis 2.

I want you to read 16:38 again, crucial right here in understanding this. These men sinned at the cost of their lives. And now, something has changed. Their censers are holy. These men were clearly not holy, they approached God and were burned to ashes. But now their sin is paid for, the censers they held are holy. So that's it. That's the answer. What does our sin cost, how can we deal with it? What is the full proof solution? Very simple. You die for it, then it is taken care of. Perfect. Except the dying part.

So that is where we are at. Just to reemphasize that let's look at one more OT passage:

Numbers 17:12-13

12 And the people of Israel said to Moses, Behold, we perish, we are undone, we are all undone.
13 Everyone who comes near, who comes near to the tabernacle of the LORD, shall die. Are we all to perish?

Yup so that is where we are at. Adam, failed. Noah, failed. Abraham, failed. Israel with Moses, failed. Sacrificial system, failed. This is where the OT leaves us. There are no new sacrifices, no new stipulations really after this. The OT falls woefully short of dealing with the sin problem, of dealing with where sinful men stand before a holy, righteous God. They are left waiting for the answer. And in one of the most beautifully written books in the Bible, we have the answer. We have what the entire OT system, all the sacrifices and blood were foreshadowing.

Hebrews 10:1-25

1 For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.
2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sin?
3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin every year.
4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
7 Then I said, Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.

8 When he said above, You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings (these are offered according to the law),
9 then he added, Behold, I have come to do your will. He abolishes the first in order to establish the second.
10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,
13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.
14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
16 This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
and write them on their minds,

17 then he adds,
I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.

18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,
20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh,
21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,
25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

So here it all comes together, it all makes sense. Jesus is the perfect sacrifice, Jesus is what the whole thing was pointing to. There is so much depth here. In v.16 it even uses that language, a new covenant, a final covenant. Jesus died once, and because He is God and without sin he died for all people at all times, Jesus was the perfect sacrifice it says in v.14. His body was broken once, the wrath of God satisfied, and his blood spilled all the shame taken away, once and for all. So that is how we deal with our sin, just give it to Jesus. That is how people in the OT dealt with all this sin that was intentional, went to Jesus. Jesus to take care of all sin, He is eternal so not just for those who lived in 33 AD but all times. It is incredible.

And Jesus is the reason we don't offer any more sacrifices today, why they stopped. We don’t go to church and bring out a goat or bull for everyone during communion. We just have an empty cross, a reminder that Jesus died once and for all for all sins.

So there you go, a primer on the Pentateuch. I left out one book, Deuteronomy, but there is nothing new there, it is just Moses repeating the first four books to Israel before he dies and passes leadership on. But remember, these first 5 books show us that we are jacked up and cannot fix the sin problem on our own. And they all point to Jesus as the perfect sacrifice, the only one who can deal with our sin and change our future from death to life. That's it man, that's the message, the point of the OT to prepare and point us to Jesus. To show us far beyond a shadow of a doubt that we cannot self-help ourselves to heaven, but all we have to do, all we can do is believe in Jesus and He dies the death we should have died.

A Tinder House Life

At community group, we have been going through 2 Peter. Last week, we fell upon a verse which ended up being a very intense discussion and warning to myself and all of us about what kind of life I am building. The relevant section of text is 2 Peter 1:5-11:

"5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
 10Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

For in this way (v.11) refers to the supplements to our faith in vv.5-8, which is also part of "making your calling and election sure" (v.10). So in short, "for in this way" refers to living out our faith, growing in godly qualities, and loving people through our actions. Bearing fruit to use Christianese.

Let's look at v.11 some more. "there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (ESV). Richly provided sounds wonderful. This is one of the few instances I really like how the NLT (I think) renders this:

And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The question is what does this richly/abundantly, gates of heaven flung wide refer to? Conversely, is there a way to get to heaven that would not involve a rich and abundant welcome? That is the question I will discuss below.

But first, a little preface. Because we all love prefaces. Most important, by FAR, is getting into heaven. MUCH better than hell. Once you are there, there is no mourning, or crying, or pain. The old order of things has passed away (Revelations 21). So there is no grief or regret that could leave us mourning. This is what I desire, what I try to meditate on more each day, this is what drove Paul to live such an intense life for Jesus. So in one sense, getting into heaven is a rich welcome in itself, the most important part. Jesus, on the cross, told the guy next to him he would be with Jesus in paradise. Today. If you remember the parable of the workers who each received a denarius (Matthew 20) who worked at the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 11th hour. This tells us that whether we are saved when young, middle aged, or at the 11th hour, we get the same share of heaven (our denarius) as the guy who has been a Christian as long as he can remember. If you do not love Jesus Christ you need to right now wherever you are at in life.

But here is the challenge to Christians. Do you desire to be the 11th hour worker? Or maybe more subtly, are you living like the 11th hour worker? Are you looking forward to a rich welcome into heaven? This is where the 1 Corinthians 3 text comes into play:

"10By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames."

So you are saved. You are called and elected, chosen by God, going to heaven. Nothing can separate you from God's love (Romans 8). That is the most important by far. That means your foundation has been laid, Christ Jesus, and no other foundation can be laid, because nothing else can save us and bring us to heaven except Jesus. On the Day of Judgment, we will stand before God and point to our foundation, Jesus Christ. It will be tested with fire and it will stand, and we will receive entrance into heaven.

But is anyone going to be waiting for you? Will there be people rushing to say "Thank you, thank you for sharing the gospel with me, thank you for giving me a sandwich to eat, thank you for doing my dishes when I was stressed out..." Or will people just say "Wow, you were a Christian. I had no idea. Cool." Will everything you have given your life to: your job, time, money, what you worship, will it all be burnt up like a big pile of cardboard? Will you look back on your life, now a smoldering pile, and say "Dang! Why did I waste it." Everything burnt and destroyed around you and just your body barley making it in. This is harsh but this is the language Paul is using. If you do what culture says, if you live the life TV and culture tell you, if you live the life many of your parents tell you, if you live a life devoid of eternal impact, it will be incinerated on that Day when you give an account to Jesus. I'm asking, are you building your life out of tinder? Are you laboring to build a paper house?

What I want deeply when I go to heaven, and what I want for all of you, is a throng of people waiting for you saying "Thank you so much!" A pile high of IOU's that people never paid back but that I knew Jesus would. It says in Matthew 6 not to lay up treasures on earth that moth and rust destroy, but treasure in heaven. I think this is the treasure in heaven, loving acts towards people in Jesus' name. I think this is what constitutes the "rich welcome" into heaven, a throng of souls you have had some eternal intersection with, you have done something for them which echoed on into eternity, which became treasure in heaven. That's desperately what I want, what I want and pray for my CG, what I want for every Christian out there.

So look at your life. If you are Christian and have the foundation that is permanent, Jesus Christ who forgives us our sins and takes us to heaven to be with God forever, then what have you put on top of that? Anything that will last? Will it stand the test of time, the Day of Judgment? Can you look Jesus in the face and say I spent my life well?

None of us are anywhere near perfect, and I have failed many times. MANY times. This exhortation in 2 Peter coming from Peter who probably fell the worst of any of Jesus' followers in history. Denied Jesus as he was on trial for the cross, then later was opposed by the apostle Paul for siding with the circumcision group. You ever been rebuked by the apostle Paul in front of your church? And I am sure there was more. So I am not saying your life needs to be a spotless or even great record. But as you look at your life, are you going the direction you want and is it toward God? Are you increasing in these qualities and supplements more and more, loving people more, loving God, praying, reading your Bible, serving, evangelizing, all of this stuff. Is there a trend you could stand before God and point to. Are you touching anyone's life eternally?

The great thing is you can start now, today, start small. Repent of your tinder house life this minute. Take one friend who doesn't know Jesus. Pray for him a minute each day. That's nothing of your time, but has an eternal impact. It is laying down a brick, putting up the first steel girder that will be your eternal house. Something that will withstand the fire of judgment. Go read your Bible and know God more, go help someone expecting no reward, give a sandwich to a homeless guy, so many ways you can have an eternal impact and receive a rich welcome into heaven. A throng of thankful people waiting for you on the other side.

Promises from 1 John

This comes from a Bible study we had at community group in August 2008. We had just finished going through 1 John, and took some time to go back and review all the promises of God to Christians in 1 John. It turns out there are many, many amazing promises given to God's people in 1 John which I found very surprising. I have always thought of 1 John as a book condemning people who do not practice what they preach or think they are Christians but are not living it. To be sure, John has many scathing remarks and warnings to people who do not love Jesus or people who are hypocrites, claiming to love Jesus but not actually doing anything that shows it. And maybe that is for another post. But to the Christians, to people who are loving Jesus, obeying His commands, loving people around them, confessing their sin to Jesus, 1 John is a letter just filled with an amazing density of all sorts of promises. And these promises made such a lasting impact on us, I have been meaning for sometime to post them.

So the list below is these promises to Christians from God. Each one of these promises, in the text, has a precondition or "if... then" statement, but assuming you do love Jesus then the promise applies and the precondition should be met.

Promise	Verse in 1 John
God forgives our sins. God cleanses us from the filth of all sin.	"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1:9
The love of God is perfected in us.	"but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected" 2:5a
We can live without stumbling into sin.	"Whoever loves his brother abides in light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling." 2:10
We will live forever.	"And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever." 2:17
We know the truth.	"I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth" 2:21
We have confidence and no shame standing before the judgment of God.	"And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming." 2:28
We are children of God.	"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are." 3:1a
God is greater than the condemnation we feel, and we have confidence He will still accept us.	"Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him." 3:18-22
Jesus lives in us and is more powerful than Satan or the world.	"Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." 4:4
God's love is perfected in us. God lives in us.	"No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us."
God first loved us before we did anything.	"We love because he first loved us." 4:19
Obeying God is loving God. God's commands are not too hard to obey.	"For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome." 5:3
Our faith has overcome the world.	"For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" 5:3-4
God hears and answers our prayers that accord with His will.	"And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we have asked of him." 5:14-15
If we pray for brothers in sin, God will lead them out of it.	"If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life…" 5:16a
Jesus protects us from Satan. Jesus helps us sin less.	"We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who has been born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him." 5:18

First Post

Hello world. I've created this blog to force me to put some thoughts or realizations into a form that is actually usable and helpful to other people, and doesn't just roll around in my head as something I thought was neat. I am not quite sure what all will end up here, or how long this blog will even persist, but I was spurred on to it by some exciting realizations a group of us had at a community group Bible study a while back, where several people said "you should write that down and email it out or something."

I'm not so worried about how many people read this blog, but am using it more as a tool to force me to think things through because I realize now other people might read them and they need to make sense.

Oh, and if you are curious, the name comes from a concept in learned in my ChemE undergrad days that stuck with me (my inner nerd leaking out). It is called the boundary layer theory, and is normally just a boring old way at solving fluid dynamics or mass transfer problems, but is a really cool idea. Basically the boundary layer is a line, plane, or surface which marks the end of somethings practical effect. Say you thrust your hand into a fast moving stream of water. The boundary layer would be where the water is going around 99% of its original speed; it is not practically affected by your hand. Or drop a pill in the water, a boundary layer at any second may be where less than 1% of that pill has dissolved and diffused into the water--the water is practically untouched by the pill.

So anyway, how does this apply to a blog? Very loosely because it is my blog, yo. But the point at which my thoughts and realizations have no practical effect I will call their boundary layer. And the hope is with this blog to push that boundary layer out a bit farther, through people reading it or through better articulated thoughts, because Jesus call us to be a light to this world and salt to this earth--not just to my head.