Jammin with Jamin

I woke up one morning after having a rather strange dream. I quickly jotted down a couple of the things I could remember but really only had two main ideas to base this story off of. I hope you enjoy it.

There had been a legend told by the sailors of the past that was as old as time itself. It was a legend of mystery, wonder and power. A story that had been passed down through generations, yet no man had ever attempted to test the story in order to find out if it was real or not. 

But one man, a scientist of his time, dared to pursue that in which he did not understand. If there was a theory out there then of course it would  be his duty to hypothesize, analyze, and test it- regardless of how far fetched the legend was. After all, every legend has got to have somewhere to start, right? So perhaps there’s a bit of truth behind every one of them. And perhaps this story had some bit of truth to it.

Perhaps…

And that possibility is all that was needed.

“The Door in the Sky” was the name of the legend. It was started long ago when a crew ship stumbled across a mysterious door in the sky. There it floated, shining as bright as the sun. But in order to reach such a door, the mast of the ship would have to be quite large. And luckily, the mast to their ship is noted to have been large enough to reach the door. However, the legend goes on to say that no one possessed the courage to enter it. After all, who would want to simply enter a door in the sky? Who knows what could be on the other side.

The scientist found this intriguing. If this theory proved to be true then it would completely change everything he knew. But then again, in science, everything has an explanation and if it was true… well, then he would figure out the scientific reason as to why. All he needed was the location, which he happened to possess. The long lost journal of the captain who originally saw the spectacle had been attained by his country’s kingdom and they had asked him to travel to the location and bring home a report on the legend. The captain’s journal marked the location of the phenomenon and did so with warning:

…To anyone who may read this: HEED MY WORDS. There is something unsettling in my being about this unusual event. I tell you that as surely as God lives, there is a door standing high above me- floating in the sky. However, some things were just not made to be tested. Some things are better off alone. I do not feel completely sane writing this location down, but my curiosity compels me to do so. But may it be out of your sheer will and determination that you find this door. I will not lie responsible for your actions- I have warned you.

This was the captain’s last entry before it happened. What I mean to say is that the ship had arrived on shore one day in perfect condition- not a scratch on it. 

However, the ship’s crew was gone.

There was blood staining the ship, but no bodies. The entire crew had disappeared. If it wasn’t for the journal the captain had left behind then no such legend would have ever come to be.

The scientist agreed to take the mission under the terms that he chose his crew. He did not favor working with more than he had to and such a legend should be pursued with those that he trusted. Among those that he trusted to his task was a well-known captain, a scholar, a doctor, a soldier, and a 17 year old boy. He also recruited a homeless man. While the scientist was no religious man, he was a good man and he had gotten to know this homeless man a little bit through short conversations with him on his walks to work. He knew that such a person would be humbled to be given the opportunity to make some money and perhaps it would help the poor man get back on his feet again.

The newly formed crew was gifted with a medium sized ship that had been built with a very tall mast in hopes that the legend was true. The scientist chuckled. What an odd looking boat it was. After a couple preparations had been made and jobs had been assigned the boat sailed off in search of this “door in the sky.”

After about a week of sailing the ship neared its destination. In fact it was so close that the scientist was sure he should have seen some kind of strange thing by now. The scholar desperately searched the captain’s journal for more clues and compared it with the map, but alas, there was nothing. Nothing strange in the sky and nothing strange in the water. Just a heavy fog in the distance.

Then again… there did seem something strange about the fog. There was no starting point to it. The fog was just heavy. It didn’t slowly trickle in as they floated towards it. Something wasn’t right. It had been completely clear behind them. It was midday and there was a bright blue sky and nothing but water for miles. How peculiar…

Silence grew over the entire crew as they approached the massive wall of fog. There was excitement in the air- but not without fear. What would they find in that fog? Would there be strange scientific wonders? Or would there just be nothing?

The front of the ship entered the fog and the moment it did, it disappeared out of sight. The fog was so heavy…

The crew had a natural instinct to leave their posts and group together. Open mouthed and wide eyed, together they entered the wall. Although so close to each other, the fog made it impossible to even see each other’s faces. But this only last for about two seconds. The fog was thick, but apparently the wall was not. They were now inside something even more odd.

A vertical tunnel of fog.

It surrounded them. Other than the blue sky at the top of the tunnel, fog was all that could be seen. The back of the ship continued to make it’s way through the fog until the ship reached the middle of the tunnel. Then there was a loud noise and the ship rumbled as it stopped dead in the water. They hadn’t hit a sandbar…

Next a huge wind swept through the tunnel and blew the fog completely away in about a second.

What beauty…

There were now huge islands in the distance that had not been there before. Every color the eye could see seemed so much more vibrant here. The water was a beautiful dark blue; the island’s sandy beaches were a bright gold and its forests spotted it with a brilliant dark green; the sky was a spectacular shade of blue with bright glowing white clouds. The sight was unfathomable. The crew was in wonder at this place they had come to find.

The crew was especially in wonder at the strange door that was now at the top of their mast…

There was no science here. 

No formula to solving the equation. 

Just confusion.

Confusion and the question of “what is on the other side of that door, and dare I open it?”

The crew gathered together to talk about what they were seeing. 

What was this? 

Where were they? 

What now?

Each individual had his own plan of action to add to the mix. But it was agreed by all that none should enter that door. Not quite yet anyways.

Or so they thought they all had agreed…

But how can you truly know the adventurous young heart of a 17 year old boy anyways? How could he just stand there and not see what was on the other side? Especially after so long! Those crazy patient adult folk wouldn’t understand. Its now or never and frankly the now had passed four hours ago when they  had gotten there. In another three hours the sun would be down and who knows what would happen then. What if they were released from this spot back to their normal world and never able to come back again? Yes, now was definitely the time for action. The adults were just being stubborn anyways.

As soon as the boy found a chance while the adults were talking, he ran over to the mast and began to pull himself up it. No one even saw him! He was so clever and sneaky in his ways. His heart pounded as he neared the top. What kind of treasure would lie behind this door? The boat had stopped in the perfect spot for the mast to reach it. But stranger things had happened day. He took one last look at the vibrant beauty the world around him possessed. He could see so much of it from up here. He then turned for the door slowly and began to open it. A bright light shown out of the door as he walked into it.

The room was coated with a glowing white light. It was the only color that existed in the room. Even his entire body and clothes were glowing white. There was no room for any other color to exist- except for that hint of blood red on the stand in the middle of the room. Words were engraved on a white stone tablet underneath it:

“THIS RING BELONGS TO THE KING. HE IS GOOD AND LOVES HIS PEOPLE. NO ONE ELSE MAY WEAR IT FOR NO ONE ELSE IS AS GOOD AND LOVING AS HE AND CAN HANDLE ITS POWER WITHOUT CORRUPTION.”

However, being that there was no real warning in this writing, the young boy tried the ring on.

Images began to flood his mind. Images of all that was good. Its very difficult to describe it but the boy saw love. He saw goodness. He saw both in its truest form. He saw Heaven! But these weren’t his memories… Nor were the feelings he felt watching the memories. No, the boy had never experienced this kind of love. This was far to powerful a love to be of this world. These must have been the memories of the King that the stone was talking about! 

How could anyone be so good? 

So pure? 

So righteous? 

So loving?

So… perfect?

How could this be a King?

It didn’t make any sense! What kind of man could be given power and use it with this kind of love. These memories were so strong that the boy knew they had to be true no matter how much sense they didn’t make to him. The boy had to show the others! They had to experience this love! This ecstasy!

With the ring on his finger he ran to the door of the room and opened it. He stepped back into the world, his face and clothes radiating white. He stepped onto the mast and closed the door behind him. But when he did, something strange happened.

New memories?

What were these?

There was evil in these thoughts…

But not the evil of the King, rather the evil being done to the King.

The strong love of the King was still felt incredibly in the boy’s mind, but outside of that room of goodness and love was an extreme hatred. He saw demons and Satan and he literally felt their piercing hatred and anger towards everything. The boy watched as these evil spirits spread across the Kingdom; invisible to the King’s people. They whispered into his people’s ears evil thoughts, harsh words, and blasphemies. 

“KiLL HiM!” they said.

“KILL HIM!” the people yelled.

Next the demons looked right at the boy. 

“YoU KiLLeD HiM!” they barked.

The evil corrupted the Kingdom and soon the all-loving King was taken by His people to face a gruesome, horrifying death. 

So much blood spilled…

So much horror…

And still…

So much love.

The King’s thoughts rang out through the boy’s head as he watched His people torture the King.

“But I love you.”

They spit on Him.

“I… still… love… you…” He was growing weak.

They left Him in pain and suffering for three days.

“I will always love you.”

The boy could take no more. He removed the ring and dropped it, losing his balance while doing so. He fell from the mast, tears streaming down his face. 

He made no noise. 

No scream for help.

Nothing.

Everything was in slow motion to him. 

Why? How could such a love be subject to such hatred? 

The ring landed on the ship.

tink

The boy just nearly missed the side of the ship before hitting the water.

SPLASH!

This alerted the others to the fact that the boy had not been around in awhile. They all stopped what they were doing and ran to where they had heard the splash. There the boy laid face down in the water.

 The soldier was the first to act. It was as if he had been trained for this moment all his life. Quickly he dived into the water with perfect form and grabbed the boy. He was no longer radiating with light. The others threw out a rope to them and pulled them in.

The doctor was next. He kneeled over the boy and began to do all in his power to revive him. It was quite a fall he had taken and it was possible that there was more damage done to him than that of a simple drowning case.

Everyone circled around, hoping, praying, waiting for some kind of life to return to the boy.

And fortunately…

It did.

The boy coughed out the water he had taken into his body and he somehow didn’t have a scratch on him from the fall- despite the fact he should have been dead from it. The boy rolled over to his side and saw the ring lying on the ship. He ran quickly ran over and grabbed it. The others stared at him in confusion. The boy knew that what he had seen had to be shared. 

It was meant to be shared.

He told them of how he had snuck into the bright door and how he found the ring there. He told them of the love he had seen in the King and how the evil in the world tried to kill his perfect love, but never did. Sure, the evil had killed the King as a person, but not the King’s love.

The scientist walked over to the boy. He asked for the ring. Being a scientist, he wanted proof. He could not simply just believe this story. The boy was reluctant at first for he did not want anyone else to have to go through the horrifying things he had just witnessed. But finally he handed it over. The scientist took a deep breath and tried it on.

…

Nothing.

Hope in the other’s faces faded as they saw the scientist grow angry. Why had the boy lied?

The boy grabbed the ring back. He explained that now that he knew of the King’s story it was his responsibility to tell others of it and that they would just have to believe him. And perhaps if they believed him, then the ring’s power would work. That was it! To put that ring on without belief is to ask the ways of the mystical to follow the rules of science. 

Faith.

That was it.

That was what it took to make the ring work.

But now it was growing late and the ignorant adults decided it was time to eat dinner. Let the boy have his fantasies.

When the crew was done eating they decided that perhaps now they would go and check the mysterious door. But the sun was getting ready to set and no moon or stars had seemed to come out yet.

Or maybe they were never going to come out…

The only light left at this point was that of their dim lanterns. Everything else was pitch black. Then there was another large noise and the ship shook once again. It sounded as though water was pouring out of somewhere, but where? The scholar looked over the side of the ship and came to realize that all of the water that was once below them had fallen away. There was nothing but a circle of blackness below them and they were still stuck. There was still water all around them, but not under them.

They were hovering in mid air.

That’s when they heard it. The horrifying piercing screams of those creatures. Those noises. The crew looked around at each other. What was going on? Something had just landed in front of the scientist. He held his lantern up and saw a distorted face staring back at him. The creature had wings and sharp teeth that never stopped gnashing. It breathed heavily in front of him and had a rotten stench.

“No oNe tO sAVe YOu,” it said. “No oNe to gIVe YOu loVE.”

The boy yelled. It was the demons he had seen in the memories! They loved hatred. They loved evil. They loved darkness. And now they were going to feast on them just as they had done with the captain’s crew who had written about this location in the legend. What was once such a beautiful and vibrant world had now become dark and ugly. It had become Hell. 

Literally.

Demons flooded out of the open space below the boat screeching loudly before landing on the ship. Hundreds of them pushed the crew into a circle. So this was the scientific mystery of the door in the sky was it? It was a religious experience. There was no scientific explanation. It just IS.

The boy yelled at the creatures in the pain of remembering the King’s death. The demons chuckled and smiled at the boy’s pain. The scientist turned to the boy.

…

“I believe.”

All of the sudden, the homeless man’s ragged clothes glowed with bright light. His whole body radiated just as the boy’s had earlier, but this man lit up the entire earth. The demons covered their eyes and screamed. The man was glowing with more than light. He was glowing with power and authority!

“WhO iS tHIs MaN?” they cried.

“I am the King,” He replied. “The one who was, is, and is to come.”

The demons began to blister in the brilliant light. “It CAn’t BE! WE kiLLed yOu!”

“Fear me demon! You have no power over me or my people! They have the same authority to rid you just as I do!”

The demon screamed and quickly jumped off of the boat into the eternal abyss.

The crew fell at his feet immediately, calling Him King. 

So many questions. 

So few answers. 

So much confusion.

So much…

Love.

The King looked to the scientist. “Now, my friend, you see the power of belief.” He looked around at the rest of the crew. “There is good in all of you here. I see it in your lives, your professions, your attitudes. But the only way to truly unlock that love and goodness is to believe in my existence. I am the definition of true love and true goodness and I am currently building a Kingdom away from here. I want the whole earth to join me there. I will let anyone and everyone in, as long as they believe in me and live for me here on earth in love and goodness. Anyone who doesn’t do so will live among those demons in their kingdom for that is the life they have lived for here on earth. Please, my friends… Please, don’t let that happen. The entire earth is made of my people. I cannot stand to have them live among Hell’s kingdom.” A tear fell from the King’s eye. “Please tell them about me. I love you all and I will always be with you. We will meet again soon.”

Just then, water returned beneath the boat and it rumbled back into place. The King vanished as the boat moved out of the mystical realm it had been in.

The crew was silent. 

There was so much to bring back home with them. 

Who would believe their tale?

Who would consider them insane?

None of them cared.

This crew was not going to let the King’s people fall into that demonic abyss. 

This crew had just experienced love at its fullest.

And love moves people…

This story represents that of Jesus Christ.

“What the heck is a day of rest!?”

Well, if Christianity didn’t look appealing before, perhaps now it will! Looking back in the Bible, we saw this concept invented right from the start by God Himself when He made the world. After building our world in a few days, He rested. Then He told us to take time in the week for ourselves to rest as well.

It’s funny that a God who could really make us do whatever He wanted decided that He wanted us to take time to rest. We view this idea as crazy in today’s culture. We are ALWAYS on the go. If we’re not somewhere then we were supposed to be half an hour ago and we feel that if we’re relaxing then there should be something better and more productive we could be doing.

Think of what you could do with one day to relax. You could enjoy family time or time with your spouse (if you have one of course), do something you love, or just have some time to do a whole lot of nothing. Who knows, maybe that would strengthen households and we’d maybe even see less divorce out of that one day a week when people can relax with each other and connect out of their busy schedules.

We’ve got so much more work to do now a days. As great as the internet it is, it’s screwed us up pretty good. Now we don’t even have to be at work to do work. We can have deadlines from our home. Our ongoing work schedules are stressing us out and stress can lead to a whole lot of other things.

Last semester I tried to incorporate this day of rest, or sabbath, into my life on Tuesdays. I only had two classes and then I was done by noon, so I would try to get home right after and then relax for most of the day at least from doing work.

Now I’m not saying it has to be like “don’t move a muscle” kind of rest. We see Jesus heal a man on the Sabbath in the Bible and all the Pharisees viewing Him as a sinner because of it. I think God just wanted us to take a break from life and spend some time with Him and relax. After all, if He had to take a break then by all means we should know that we weren’t programmed to run on full power.

These are my thoughts on the forgotten Sabbath. I think it’s more important than we realize. I might even go so far as to say that we NEED to make time for it. I will know more as I continue to read through my Bible but in the mean time this was on my mind and I thought I’d share it.

Take it.

Chew on it.

Think about it.

Here’s some ideas Taylor Keating put together about sleep in one of our band’s video blogs:

We’re making a CD based off of each day in Creation and this is the musical idea representing sleep that we have so far.

The ADD Generation

When assessing the idea of innovation in our churches, it is of great importance to have an understanding of a key element in today’s generation. This element is known as A.D.D. That’s right, the generation we want to reach suffers poor concentration with a very short attention span. Now please keep in mind that I write of this idea while living in this generation myself. 

I wonder how many pretzels I ate tonight… Oops, sorry.

This idea is essential to comprehend before indulging yourself in the rest of this book. The major reason behind innovation in the church is taken from this idea.

Think about it. The junior high and high schoolers of our generation wake up five days a week to go to a school consisting usually of six classes, each measuring approximately an hour long. From one tedious class to the next they are given large amounts of information (often times in lecture form) that will stick with them until their next class starts (if even that). These students do this for seven years and leave high school not even able to remember the names of the 50 states of America.

And yet, can we blame them?

You see, the problem here does not lie completely with the students. Sometimes it lies with the teachers. Take a moment to reminisce about favorite teacher and all the great slow motion moments you had in their class. Now why were they your favorite teacher?

Because they gave the most boring lectures ever?

Because their monotone voice could soothe you to sleep like no other?

Oh wait! I know!

Because they could somehow speak for an hour straight without stopping!

Chances are that the teacher who sticks in your mind the most had a different way of teaching. They were innovative, creative and had passion behind their teachings.

I remember one of my favorite teachers…

*Jamin looks to the sky to reminisce as the screen turns black and white and blurs into past memories.*

His name was Mr. Zainea. The truth is that I had a hard time getting good grades in his class, but to me it did not matter. I learned ten times more in his class that I did in most of my others. Why? Because he cared! He was passionate about what he did and because of that he showed interest in his students. He showed us that he wasn’t in the teaching business for money (not that teaching really gets anyone anywhere financially) but that he was in it for us.

It seemed like every day he had something new and creative to do to get his point across. Whether it was showing a clip from the Simpsons, taping quarters to the bottom of his shoes and attempting to tap dance on desks, singing a song with his guitar or playing his trumpet, he was always looking for new ideas to keep our attention.

In other classes I would have to struggle to stay awake or find my own creative way to learn. I remember having a hard time paying attention in geometry so I would turn the notes I took into full blown comics. My superhero “Math Man” would return again and again to beat off trapezoids, skateboard across angles and explain how proofs worked. But I could only entertain myself with the idea for so long and soon returned to listening to the tedious lectures with the attention span of a child waiting to open his Christmas presents (It seriously took me about ten minutes to figure out how to end that sentence).

*We now blur back to color and reality*

The truth is, if you want people to come out of a message or lecture having learned something, you better have some form of innovation, creativity or entertainment incorporated in your teachings. The world is constantly trying to catch people’s attention and typically education is not the avenue that attention is grasped through. And a lot of times when you know you are about to be taught something, you pull out your pillow and drool away. In fact we are so used to pulling out our pillows that we are completely caught off guard when a speaker walks on stage to talk and catches everyone’s attention with a joke. 

A perfect example of keeping people’s attention in a message would be my dad. Being the children pastor he is, he has accustomed himself to teaching with different forms of entertainment. Whether it would be having comedic conversations with his puppets, singing some crazy songs, or telling stories, Dad is always ready to teach through entertainment. And it works! And the cool thing is that it works for more than just children. I tell you, I have never seen so many old people laughing at some of things he does.

Every once in awhile Dad will get the chance to act out one of his stories to the entire congregation on a given Sunday. While his stories may have up to 10 different characters, he is the only actor which makes for quite an interesting show. I recall in one story he told he was acting out four different kids at once as well as a cat. From one character to the next he jumped around. Two of the boys were bullies and tossing a cat through the air to each other while a little girl (the cat’s owner) cried about it and yelled at her brother to make it stop. The whole church was cracking up and at the same time receiving the message that was being told through it. Again, people strive to be entertained and as a church we should be trying harder than anyone else to do so. After all, we have the most important message of all.

***

So now that we know what the problem is, why do we have such a hard time being innovative in church?

Well, one of the reasons is that it takes time. If we are going to add more to our church schedules then that means there has to be more planning, writing, and assessing. Our world is already hectic enough as it is so why would we want to add even more to our plate? And who’s going to work on these ideas? Are we going to have to hire a creative arts director?

All of these questions are very important to look at but none of them should not stop us from innovating because it is more than a want at this point in time. 

It 

is 

a 

 necessity.

If you keep telling yourself “I’ll do it in the future,” then you might as well scrap the idea in general. It needs to start NOW. The church is declining quickly and if we want to attract new people to church as well as stop people from leaving, then it is a necessity that we are creative. 

Another reason we are having a hard time being innovative is because we have become way to comfortable with tradition no matter how recent tradition is. At my church, “Cornerstone,” we went through a phase where all we had all this technology and up to date equipment to use and we somehow still created tradition. Every week we had the same set-up with the same amount of familiar songs and the same way of doing messages. We had all this other stuff to use and yet we were not using it to its full advantage.

What was once brand new and attractive had become old and routine. Something had to change if we were to get our messages across and engage people in worship. And as you might guess, that something was innovation.

I got to thinking last night about Heaven, hell and Earth. And after sorting out my thoughts, I came to the conclusion that in the realm of God, earth just makes sense- its being; its reason; its existence. I apologize, however. This is one of those subjects that I can only truly understand in my mind and have trouble putting it into words.

First off, let’s enter into discussion remembering where it all started: the Kingdom of Heaven. Here we find Satan himself chillin’ with God as an angel. We have perfection to the fullest. All the angels are there worshipping the Most High who is, in fact, the image of all that is Good and Perfect.

This seems unreal to us. Perfection just doesn’t make any sense at all. 

And we even come to find out that this is unreal. While we have this image here of true 100% perfection in goodness, we also come to terms with the fact that even among the angels there is capacity to do wrong. Satan is the prime example. It seems as though God has given even His very own angels free will to live how they want. There are no atheist angels-they know exactly who God is. There are only angels that for some moronic, selfish, and evil reason decide to go against all that is Good. All this evil is cast out of Heaven and into hell.

Later we see God recreate free will, but this time apart from the Heavens. He tries to give perfection another chance, but still without creating robots who are built to automatically worship Him. This time, however, we are built into a world where there is already Good and evil, because without the chance to do evil, free will really doesn’t exist. Yes, the earth is Good, but Satan corrupts humanity and henceforth corrupts the earth with sin. After taking a bite of the forbidden fruit we see perfection ruined again and we distance ourselves from what is Good. And because of that bite we opened ourselves to have the capacity to do evil. But at the same time, we are still capable of doing Good.

We have this idea of Heaven of being really high in regards to earth and the idea of hell being at the furthest depth from us. This concept actually creates a wonderful chart we can look at to grasp better the meaning of Earth. Take a look at my beautiful picture here:

My amazing artwork… Except not so much… I apologize for the countries that weren’t drawn in.

The concept here is that we have Heaven (Good) at the top and Hell (Evil) at the bottom. We are the middle ground between these two and given instruction on what will get us where. We can accept Jesus as the Son of God and live for Him on a journey to the top or we can do nothing and stay at the bottom. It’s not necessarily a ladder concept, but more of a “do you want to be the best for God that you can be” concept.

I explained it to a friend earlier this week like this. We’ve got two kingdoms ruling over the earth: The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan. We are not the kings of either and never will be, but we will follow a kingdom whether we know it or not. We are born into the Kingdom of Satan and Evil and unless we choose to join the other side of God and Goodness, we will continue to live in hell on Earth. It’s funny because we realize that hell is a horrible place that none of want to go, but we complain because the other Kingdom requires us to do something in order to get in.

A popular question among people is that if God is good, holy and loving, how could he ever condemn us to hell? Well, if we live our life in hell’s kingdom of evil on earth, then how can God let that evil enter His goodness. I imagine that the hardest thing that God has to do is let people go to Hell. He loves us all unconditionally and for that reason, it must rip Him apart to be separated from us for eternity.

This whole idea written here may be hard to understand or swallow, but I thought I’d just give you my thoughts on it. Trust me, I had a hard enough time trying to understand it myself. I hope this gives you something to think about while I know it’s hard to read because of the hard time I had writing this.

Journal entry regarding our band’s future CD “The Creation Architect” made on 3-28-08

The purpose of The Creation Architect is that of all of our CDs: to bring God into our music, and send that music out into the world to be shared with others, earnestly hoping that they see God in it. Nothing else is more important than this and I will not risk covering up God’s message. may it always come first and I pray that we give His message in a way that’s not stereotypical, cheesy, or threatening.

We had originally wanted to create a CD called “The Creation Architect” which would be a soundtrack based off of Creation. Each song would be inpired by some form of nature.

The Creation Architect needs to be 7 tracks or so since Creation was only seven days.  Each track will resemble what was made on each day.

We would like to make this album very symbolic and extremely inspired by what it is. Therefore we would like to do our best to place ourselves in places surrounded by the form of nature we are working on. For example, when making a song about water we should go to the beach or something along those lines.

Since all of these songs are instrumental, their names are our words to portray God. Our music is all about God even when instrumental.

Seeing as how we know all of this Creation from the Bible, studying the correct verses are essential to knowing what sound to create and in getting an image in our head to work with.

Although this is obviously the story of Genesis, I’d like to use Job 38 and 39 for the theme of this CD.

In these verses, God tells Job of His Greatness by speaking in great detail about creation. I think it will inspire us in our creating this album.

Idea for a song

Journal entry made on 3-29

Imaged DNA

Today I begin work on Imaged DNA. Lord, take this song and transform it to your glory. Help me not to do anything out of place that You wouldn’t have me do. I pray for help in reflecting your glory through this song.

I’ve taken Uberzone’s Ideology into mind while working on this song. I feel that that sound would be a cool idea to aim for in reflection of complex DNA being formed.

We are made from dirt, so I would like to have a shovel sound or something at the beginning of this song. From there on I need to try to imagine a complex human being being put together.

Forgive me for starting without You Lord. Right now I pray You’ll give me words, images, anything to go off of with creating this song. I will wait. After all, You were there during Creation. I imagine you have a pretty sweet soundtrack in mind for it.

Distractions

That’s what human life is like…

Distracted

Lord, as I lay on the ground, there was a number of distractions:

traffic

Taylor wanted to show me a song

Jaron’s video games

Loud music upstairs

And a strange loud crack of something unknown

You also showed me Light. As I laid my head down I put it in the exact spot where sun shone through my window. Perhaps to tell me to keep this song happy/major because of Your joy in creating humans and how much You love them.

The distractions are a great concept too because I could make this song rather busy and random in the beat.

Thank You Lord.

Key: D(istractions)

I can use the Drum N’ Bass Remix section to create organized chaos.

So in case you’re wondering why I have been putting up old posts lately, it’s because I’ve been writing this honker of a paper. If I could have been a little more less professional about it I would have made a reference to Star Wars. There’s a part where Jesus meets Moses and Elijah on a mountain top and I picture them all holographic like Yoda and Obi-Wan. There’s my tid bit. Feel free to read on and learn something.

The Bible has been portrayed by many people to be the “Book with all the answers.” While I would have to agree that the Bible is in fact truth and that with truth come answers, I also believe that many times people finish a passage and are left with more questions than they can chew on. Unfortunately, many people do not put in the effort to research their questions and therefore continue their lives with confusion in their faith. Granted, we will not always come away from research with a direct answer, it is still important to look into our questions.

The question I would like to raise about the Transfiguration of Jesus is one that I think we should ask with every passage we read: “What is the significance of this?” As people of faith, we really do need to ask this question on a regular basis. I believe that we will find truth in this difficult question, and walk away from our readings with something new to apply to our faith, actions and daily walk.

A great way to start answering this question is for one to educate oneself in the context of which this story takes place. Knowing the historical basis in which a passage takes place can really be key to getting a good understanding of one’s questions. The Transfiguration was an event documented in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but I am going to be looking more specifically at Mark 9:2-13 in this case. It is also interesting to note that each book offers a few different ideas on this story; however, none of the stories contradict each other. They simply offer a couple more ideas and details as what happened within this chapter.

The author of this book, John Mark, is widely accepted to have written the first gospel because all of the other gospels quote all but 31 verses of what he had written. Mark wrote his gospel somewhere between 55 and 65 A.D. and even though he was not one of the twelve disciples, he still worked with quite a knowledgeable and powerful figure: he accompanied Paul on his first journey to bring the news of Jesus Christ to the world.

The reasoning behind writing this book was to reach the Christians in Rome whom at that time fell under the reign of Tiberius Caesar. It ends up that Rome was pretty much the perfect place to get the word of Jesus out because it had such an awesome transportation and communication system. And just in case that was not enough, Rome also spoke a pretty common language, so there wasn’t too much of a language barrier between people.

The Book of Mark is a Biblical narrative of the life of Jesus Christ. Mark wrote quite a bit about the miracles that Jesus did. In fact he wrote so much about them that he recorded more miracles than any other Gospel did. There are healings, demonic deliverances, teachings, and much more. Mark seemed intent on making the mystical glory of God through His son Jesus obvious to His audience.

To be a little more specific, however, the Transfiguration of Jesus is situated between a couple more themes. Some of them are the popular themes you see throughout the entire book such as miracles, healings, demonic deliverances, and teachings, but the co-text of this particular pericope hold a couple more themes that are not quite so dominant throughout the book. For instance, we see that Jesus predicts his death for the first time in the section right before the Transfiguration. And then, within the same chapter that the Transfiguration takes place; Jesus predicts it for a second time. And then again in chapter 10, Jesus predicts his death for a third time.

There is also quite a bit of talk of children or at least references to them. At the end of chapter seven, Jesus sends a demon out of a girl, and then in chapter nine He sends one out of a boy as well. In chapter ten, Jesus even goes to the point of making children an example of what it takes to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus does quite a bit of teaching throughout the co-text as well. This makes sense since Jesus claims in Mark 2:38, “We must go on to other towns as well, and I will preach to them, too. That is why I came.” And He definitely does so. Jesus gives many lessons throughout chapters eight, nine, and ten. In fact, just about every single pericope carries with it a lesson from Jesus, even if it was only meant to be a story. For example, when Jesus feeds the four thousand and the five thousand, he uses it later to question the disciple’s faith in pericope 107. Even if Jesus does not make a direct teaching out of a pericope, there is still a lesson to be learned.

There are also a couple times in the co-text where Jesus has to scold or question his disciples. Sometimes the disciples would get a little out of hand with their ideas or lack understanding of Jesus’ teachings. They would also seem to occasionally go on a bit of a power trip like in chapter nine when they argue with each other about who was the greatest, or later when they when they try to stop a man from casting demons out of people in the name of Jesus just because he is not in their gang. Again and again Jesus has to correct them.

So we are beginning to get a feeling from the co-text of the Transfiguration that Jesus is quite a powerful, authoritative, wise and mystical person. He can perform miracles, heal the sick, cast out demons, see the future, and teach even the wisest of religious leaders. But how can a mere human have such qualities? Where do such qualities come from? These questions lead us to a very important passage of the Bible: the Transfiguration. And this is where the question comes in, “What is the significance of this?” And we come to find that there might be much more significance in this passage than we could have ever expected to realize.

Jesus took three of his disciples up a high mountain to be alone. The disciples He chose to come with him were Peter, James and John. These three were perhaps the closest friends to Jesus out of all the disciples. Mark spares us the small details of what happened during their hike, because the next thing we know the disciples are watching Jesus be transfigured. Now the first question that would enter one’s mind is probably, “What on earth does that mean? How was Jesus transfigured?”

According to Strong’s NIV Exhaustive Concordance, in Greek this word means to be transformed or changed in form. It might make more sense in English to mention that the transliteration of this word means to metamorphose. No matter which way you look at it, the point remains. Jesus was changed in some way, shape, or form upon that mountaintop. It can also be concluded that this is a huge deal, because this is the only story in the entire Bible that this word is used in. It is used once in Matthew and once in Mark, both within in the same pericope.

Mark goes on to describe how it was that Jesus’ appearance was transformed: “His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them (Mark 9:3 NIV).” This description can be taken one step further with a brief look into Matthew 17:2, where Matthew states that Jesus’ “face shone like the sun (NLT).” This description sounds very breathtaking and mystical, all the while pushing us to question the significance of it. Why is the transfiguration described as white, bright, and shining?

Well, we of the Christian faith recognize Jesus Christ as God’s Son who came down from Heaven to show us how to live. Therefore Jesus is of Heavenly descent which many commentators have made a connection to the reason why his clothes are shining white. “Shining white clothing is a feature of accounts of the appearance of heavenly beings, not only in the resurrection narratives but also in Deuteronomy 7:9 and in other apocalyptic texts where God wears light like a garment (France, 351).” There is a good example of this in Matthew 28:3 where an angel is sitting on top of Jesus’ rolled away tombstone. He is described almost exactly the same as the transfigured Jesus. “His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow (NLT).”

In case the transfiguration itself was not bizarre enough, next “Elijah and Moses appeared and began talking with Jesus (Mark 9:4 NLT).” Glenna S. Jackson offers reasons as to why these two were the people that showed up on the mountain. “Not only did Moses and Elijah suffer as great prophets and lawgivers, but each had a vision of the glory of God on a mountain and both seem to have escaped natural deaths (Freedman, 1327).” Jackson makes a great point in finding these similarities. Perhaps these are the reasons that bring the three together for a chat on this mountain.

Commentator Robert H. Gundry picked up on something else quite interesting in this short verse. This is the fact that “Mark does not describe Elijah and Moses as transfigured human beings (Gundry, 478).” This gives Jesus superiority above these two in his transformation. It doesn’t compare him to these two famous and powerful leaders of old—it puts Jesus on a whole different level.

Peter, on the other hand, kind of screwed up that idea. “Rabbi, it’s wonderful for us to be here! Let’s make three shelters as memorials—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah (Mark 9:5, NLT).” This put Jesus on the same level as Moss and Elijah. An ancient commentator Jerome made a great quote on this moment. “O Peter, even though you have ascended the mountain, even though you see Jesus transfigured, even though his garments are white; nevertheless, because Christ has not yet suffered for you, you are still unable to know the truth (Oden, 119-120).” But apparently Peter was terrified about everything that was happening and spoke of out his fear and that somewhat excused him.

In verse seven a cloud appears and overshadows or envelops “them.” “Them” is the keyword up for debate here because scholars tend to fight about if the cloud overshadowed Jesus, Moses, and Elijah or if it overshadowed everyone on the mountain. This is difficult to decide because we hear God’s voice coming out of the cloud and therefore we wonder if the cloud is too holy to allow the disciples inside. However, after assessing this story in Luke, I agree with the idea that the disciples were inside the cloud. Although the word “they” is used this time, it is not used quite as broadly and seems much more direct. “A cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud (Luke 9:34, NIV).”

God speaks these words out of the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” These words are very familiar to what God said about Jesus after He was baptized by John in Mark 1:11. Craig A. Evans made a great connection between this and Daniel’s prophecy in Daniel 7:13. This verse stated part of Daniel’s vision: “I saw someone like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient One and was led into his presence. He was given authority, honor, and sovereignty over all the nations of the world, so that people of every race and nation and language would obey him (NLT).” Evans also made a note of Daniel 7:9 which described “the Ancient One” as having “clothing white as snow (Evans, 36).”

“Suddenly, when they looked around, Moses and Elijah were gone, and they saw only Jesus with them (Mark 9:8).” This is the next stage in this pericope signifying that the cloud has lifted and Moses and Elijah have disappeared with it. Skipping the details once again, Mark skips to the journey down the mountain and Jesus telling the three disciples “not to tell anyone what had happened until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept it to themselves, but they often asked each other what he meant by ‘rising from the dead (Mark 9:9-10, NLT).’” The verses push the three disciples into secrecy, as Jesus had asked a couple people to do before with the things they had seen. 

One of the big reasons Jesus probably does this is to protect Himself from being mobbed by people. Keeping this secret will also make all the other prophecies capable of happening. The release of this information too early could screw everything up. But if it is supposed to be a secret, then why did the disciples have to go up the mountain in the first place? Well, if they would not have gone, then no one would have been there to witness it, and therefore no one would have known that Daniel’s vision ever came true, or that Jesus had had that kind of authority vested in Him. This also shows how much Jesus trusted these three.

The disciples asked Jesus why the law insisted that Elijah had to come back before the Messiah came. Jesus responded by telling them that Elijah was going to come first to get everything ready. Then He to makes a question that seems off topic at first, but is in fact an idea related to His answer. Jesus added a question to his answer, which He tends to do quite often. “Yet why do the Scriptures say that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be treated with utter contempt? (Mark 9:12, NLT)” This is Jesus referencing the confusion of the cross even though Elijah has supposedly already paved the way for Him.

Jesus ends the pericope stating that “Elijah has already come, and they chose to abuse him, just as the Scriptures predicted.” It’s interesting that Mark doesn’t mention the fact that John the Baptist was Elijah in this moment. Especially since the whole book starts off with a prophecy of a messenger—the returning Elijah—and John the Baptist is the messenger stated directly after the prophecy (Mark 1:1-4). The same story in Matthew 17 states at the end of it that “the disciples realized he was talking about John the Baptist.” This is a rather curious absence of information, but at least John’s role is described in other parts of the Bible to get the point across.

So the question still remains, what is the significance of this pericope? Well, I would say that Daniel’s prophecy hits the nail right on the head. “He was given authority, honor, and sovereignty over all the nations of the world, so that people of every race and nation and language would obey him.” Jesus was led into God’s presence on this mountain to receive this authority, honor, and sovereignty. It was audible, visual, and it was direct proof from God to a few people of the “Kingdom of God arriving in great power (see Mark 1).”

This is a great passage for any Christian that ever doubts the truth or authority of God and it really should be talked about more in churches. There is something very divine and true that happens in this pericope and I do not think I would be so far off to say that many people don’t truly understand what happened in this area. I don’t think I would be wrong to say that some Christians don’t even know this story at all! This is an awesome story and it should be talked about in detail.

Mark 9:2-13 is essential to what we believe in Christianity. It is the audible and visual proof from God of His son. It was so important that it was kept a secret for a good amount of time. If we are not teaching Christians this story, we are holding them back from something they need to hear.

Yesterday I ran into a guy who was living out of his car with his wife and running on empty on their way to Ohio. They hadn’t eaten in quite awhile and needed some help.

I remember back in the day when a homeless guy asked me for my pringles and I was too selfish to even offer him those, but my attitude has changed greatly for these people. This is obviously a great thing for the Kingdom of God, but it can also be harsh on my wallet. But obviously one beats the other by a million miles and I knew that helping this couple out was much more important than any money in my wallet. I gave them my left over Mongolian Barbeque and what I think was enough gas for them to make it home. I prayed with them and now I hope that they are at their destination.

I gotta say though— it didn’t make me feel that good to know that I was eating some nice Mongolian Barbeque when there are people right around me starving. And it made me feel even more uncomfortable about all the people in foreign nations going through the same thing. 

Anyways, here’s a journal entry I made on October 11, 2007 about a homeless man that I met in Chicago that I thought I would share with you:

Chicago, Homeless, Blessings, and Pants?

“Jesus was homeless!”

-Shane Clairborne

A couple weekends ago I took a school trip to Chicago to experience different cultures. While I had grown up in the country, I have also had a couple years in the city. But not anywhere near the big city.

Everywhere you looked there were buildings that scraped the sky as well as skies that scraped the buildings. Thousands of individual owned stores, different religions, different cultures, different music and so on and so forth. People were living as one yet living completely segregated. Yet I think the thing that struck me the hardest was the homeless.

When I was younger I always kept my distance from the homeless. I figured they must have been horrible people who screwed up in life and asked for your money and spent on booze. Some call that a stereotype. I, however, call that a stereotype (shut up Jamin). The truth is that these people are really wonderful people who are trying to get by in life.

While I have never been homeless I have been broke. Fortunately I have a job. A lot of these guys don’t have jobs. They make just enough money off of begging for food for a day. So how on earth are they supposed to find their way out of debt and back into today’s screwed up economy? I have no idea.

But I do know that I am doing much better off then these people no matter how much money is in my pocket and it is for that very reason that I am compelled to give little of what I may have. And when I say little, I mean little as in giving to others. I am not satisfied in how much I was able to give away to the homeless.

I’m reminded of my new friends I met one night of the Chicago trip. It was late and I felt like going for a walk so I could soak up Chicago one more time before we left for home. I met him the moment I walked out the door. His name was an odd name that started with an R. It was a sweet name too, but due to the lack of my ability to remember things I cannot quite tell you what exactly his name was. Either way, he approached me in his inside out shirt, jeans, large glasses and began a conversation.

-Excuse me sir, I don’t mean to get so close to you but I can’t hear well so I apologize if I’m yelling.

-Yeah, what’s up?

-Well, it’s getting late and I haven’t eaten anything all day and I just thought I would ask you if maybe I could use some money to go get a burger. McDonalds has this two big macs deal and I would like to get it. Man, you know God will bless you back if you could spare a couple dollars.

*Pause* (Freeze everything in place and mute ambient noise as I walk towards the camera to talk. Lower background lighting and turn on spotlight.)

I was caught speechless after he said this trying to find the words to say. God will bless me? Look, I may not have a whole lot of money, but I have got to have more than this dude. And here he is telling me God will bless me? Being next to this man I come to realize… God has blessed me enough. I have a home, a family, a car, musical equipment, friends, {insert need}, {insert not a need but still sweet to have}, and here’s this guy telling me God will bless me if I give him some cash? Let’s reverse this. How about God uses some of the blessings he’s given me to bless him. I wished I was rich at that moment. “Here’s a couple grand, bro. Use it to get back up on your feet.”

(I walk back to the current situation, the special lighting fades and the ambient noise of cars, trams and people kick back in.)

-Can I take you to Panera Bread right there?

-They don’t let me in there man.

-They don’t?

-No, I’m not allowed.

I pulled out my wallet. 29ish bucks. That’s not too far off from a grand right? I had to settle for 9 bucks.

-Thanks so much man. God bless you.

-No, God has blessed me enough. Enjoy your meal!

As he walked across the street I decided I wanted to see if I could pray for him. I ran back after him and probably scared the living daylights out of him.

-Hey man, can I pray for you?

-Man I need prayer more than anything else.

We connected one hand together and prayed that he would be able to find hope and love in God and be able to get out of the rut he was stuck in. 

Man, I don’t know about you guys, but I think if I was homeless I would have a hard time loving, let alone believing in God. The whole world is against me and it’s like “If there’s a God then why would He do this to me!?” Well take a look at Jesus himself. These were the people he ministered too. Not to mention that He was homeless!

Oh us of little faith. There are those much worse off than us who depend of God for everything. Yet here we are with everything we need and ignorant of our blessings. Especially myself included.

On another note, I gave this other homeless dude my last dollar bill later and he dropped his pants for some reason. He was asking for another dollar. I think he was asking for either new pants, underwear, or a belt… I dunno but he was telling me to look for whatever reason. Friends, if you ever become homeless, please don’t take your pants off when someone gives you a dollar. It’s so awkward. Seriously, I’ll get you some new pants or underwear or whatever it is you’re looking for.

Sorry I don’t have any Bible posts for you today. It’s been a long week full of essays and whatnot. But, I did want to leave you with some thoughts that were on my mind last night. And these were actually thoughts of the sun.

The sun is proof to me of God. There’s so much essential to our lives that God designed into it, it’s quite amazing.

1. First off, its the perfect distance from us so life can exist. It’s not too close to burn us up and not too far away so that we freeze over. The perfect distance.

2. Secondly, it gives us light (obviously). Because of the sun we are able to see what’s around us.

3. Sunlight creates Vitamin D in our bodies which helps to maintain proper levels of calcium in the blood.

4. Incase you had a long cloudy winter like we have here in Michigan, you might now realize that the sun has cheered up the area you live in. God has balanced in an attitude change with sunlight and darkness. In the same way, at night you might start to have a whole different kind of attitude towards things.

5. This one really throws me off. God has designed color into light. He knew it would be boring to be black and white, so he designed an entire system of light that somehow takes place. That just throws me of and is really sweet to me.

6. The sun provides heat for us. The all natural cooling system.

Anyways, those are my thoughts from last night. I’m sure there’s more I missed but I thought I’d throw it out there.

Meet Hagar.

Now Hagar plays quite a significant role in the story of Abram and Sarai, because 10 years after they had moved into the land of Canaan, Hagar became a visual embodiment of the couple’s doubt and confusion in God’s covenant with them. God promised to make a great nation out of Abram and He also promised him a son of his own. But uh… Sarai can’t have kids and it has been quite awhile and frankly… there’s probably a bit doubting going on. 

But hold up, what does Hagar have to do with any of this? Well, this woman is Sarai’s Egyptian maid and Sarai decides to use her in a strange way. She asks that Abram take Hagar as a wife and sleep with her. Hopefully Sarai would be able to have children through her maid since she can’t by herself.

I know this all sounds strange but apparently this was a custom back in the day. You should know that women who couldn’t reproduce were pretty much shamed by the rest of the world. After all, multiplying was such a huge deal back then and God did tell humans to multiply and fill the earth. And now here’s Sarai and she is unable to do so and it’s obviously quite devastating to her. On top of that, she’s getting old and soon enough (if not already) she will be unable to give Abram any children whatsoever. So basically what she does is give her husband a substitute wife, as is the custom of the time. Then whatever child was born to Hagar would be considered Sarai’s child.

Either way, apparently Abram’s doubt must be growing as well, because he agrees to go through with his wife’s idea. He has sex with Hagar and she gets pregnant. And along with this pregnancy, Hagar gives birth to a new attitude towards Sarai. Now she treats Sarai with a sense of superiority in herself because Sarai has pretty much become a small threat to her. This frustrates Sarai and she decides to take it out on her husband. 

“This is all your fault! I put my servant into your arms, but now that she’s pregnant and she treats me with contempt. The Lord will show you who is wrong—you or me!”

Uh lady… why couldn’t you just have trusted God?

We had just finished reading the past couple days about God’s glory and mystery working in Abram’s life. First He speaks audibly to Abram telling him to leave his hometown of “Ur of the Chaldeans.” Then the next thing you know, He “appears” to Abram telling him that He will hand over a decent chunk of land to his descendants. Then he gives Abram the power to wipe out 4 strong kingdoms of warriors with a little over 300 people. And then some mysterious firepot and flaming torch are moving between some carcasses as a sign of a covenant with Abram to assure him that his descendants would inherit the land He already promised them. God even goes into decent detail about when, where and how! He also tells Abram that he will have a son of his own so that his servant won’t inherit the land. Oh yeah, and the dude is crazy rich.

My, my Sarai. You should have just been patient.

Abram responded by saying, “She’s your servant, so deal with her as you see fit.” Of course, now there is a decent bit of anger behind Sarai and so she decides to rule over her maid with an iron fist. In fact, she ruled over Hagar so harshly that the maid ran away.

But God saw her. He knew her pain.

And God sent His angel (the angel of the Lord) to find Hagar, which he did. She was beside a spring of water in the wilderness along the road to a place called Shur.

The angel spoke to her. “Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?”

“I’m running away from my mistress, Sarai,” she answered.

“Return to your mistress,” said the angel. “Submit to her authority. I will give you more descendants than you can count. You are to name your son Ishmael, for God has heard your cry of distress. This son of yours will be wild, as untamed as a wild donkey! He will raise his fist against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives.”

Hm… sounds like a good kid.

But something huge happens in this moment. Something that can be talked about, but not truly understood until you realize it for yourself. God has seen and heard Hagar. This is actually the reason Hagar’s son is to be named Ishmael because Ishmael means “God hears.” Now any Christian when told “God hears you” would probably not think twice about it. In fact they may not even think about it at all. I never gave it that much thought until I had a particular incident in my spiritual formation class one day.

We were supposed to meet up with someone else in the class we knew nothing about whatsoever and ask God to give us something to pray for them for. I had two things on my mind and I knew that if God was going to give this dude something to pray for me for, it would be one of the two. But I didn’t expect anything to really happen.

And I definitely did not expect my newly acquainted partner to pray for both the things I needed prayer for. Man he nailed it right on the dot. And for whatever reason, it became absolutely clear to me in that moment that even though there are a couple billion people on the face of the earth, God had heard me. God had seen me. And now He was speaking right to me through the heart of another believer.

God had heard my prayers. This was proof.

Hagar was so moved by this experience that after this time, she referred to God as El-roi, meaning “You are the God who sees me.” That’s how much this moment made an impact on her. Her name for her son is audible and her name for God is visual! 

She also said “Have I truly seen the One who sees me?” Because of this she named the spring of water (or well) the angel had met her at “Beer-lahai-roi. This means “Well of the Living One Who Sees Me.” This happened on the map between Kadesh and Bered.

So at the age of 86, Abram had his first son through Hagar who had named him Ishmael, just as the angel had told her.

Despite how many people there are in the world, God sees you.

Genesis 16

Abram was called by God to be the common ancestor or a great nation. But unfortunately, the poor dude’s wife is unable to have children. So uh…

How does that work out?

Well, apparently God knows more that Abram and he’s just going to have to trust Him.

Sometime after Abram had defeated 4 kingdoms worth of warriors with a little over 300 people (his servants nonetheless), God spoke to him in a vision.

“Do not be afraid, Abram, for I will protect you, and your reward will be great.”

I wonder what is going through Abram’s mind right there. I think I know what I’d be thinking. “Dude! My wife can’t have babies! How am I supposed to create a nation without being able to actually create something?”

Oh hey, that’s actually not to far off from what Abram’s thinking. Shocker! But he does reply much more humbly:

“O Sovereign Lord, what good are all Your blessings when I don’t even have a son? Since you’ve given me no children, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in my household will inherit all my wealth. You have given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir.”

Wait… who?

Well, back in the old school days the custom was that if you didn’t or couldn’t have any children then your heir would be your most trusted (and possibly the oldest) servant. This would make the servant be like Abram’s adopted son in a sense. Still, it doesn’t make a lot of sense that God would bring a great nation out of Abram, but not by his own blood.

“No, your servant won’t be your heir,” God said. “You will have a son of your own who will be your heir.” God took Abram outside to take a look at the skies. “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!”

This verse is kind of like Genesis 13:6 when God told Abram that he would give Abram “so many descendants that, like the dust of the earth, they cannot be counted!”

Whether dust, or stars, or star dust; the idea is that Abram is going to have quite a few kiddies. Perhaps you’ve heard the song Father Abraham? This is who they were talking about, not Lincoln as I tried to figure out as a little kid.

I still think that I would be a little confused as to how these babies were supposed to come about, but Abram is a strong man in faith and he believed God. And because of that God counted him as righteous. That’s some serious faith and patience.

God reminded Abram, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur the Chaldeans (his hometown if you don’t remember) to give you this land as your possession.”

And here we have another issue of faith and patience. Not only is the man supposed to have children when his wife is barren, but he is supposed to possess all of the land that is already possessed by other people. And you thought you had faith? Try finding the brain power to wrap your head around everything that Abram is supposed to get!

And Abram wonders about this idea of gaining this land. “O Sovereign Lord, how can I be sure that I will actually possess it?”

And God brings him what seems like a rather peculiar answer:

“Bring me a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram (rams are male), a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 

And here we have a sacrifice given to God. Another test of faith. This really helps turn a relationship with God into a love relationship if you think about it. There is something physical that God would like for Abram to bring to Him. Something that God finds to have a pleasing aroma (Lev. 1:14). So Abram shows God how much he loves Him by doing so. Abram killed them, cut each animal down the middle and laid the halves side by side (but he didn’t cut the birds in half). Some vultures tried to swoop up the dead carcasses but Abram chased them away.

As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep and it’s written that a terrifying darkness came over him. And now God foreshadows the story of Moses to Abram. 

God speaks to him, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years.” 

Okay, so not very comforting.

“But, I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth.”

Oh, that’s better!

“As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age. After four generations, your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction.”

Ah… So Abram will not be around to see this even take place, but he will give be the reason that the event CAN take place. That’s really a pretty important position when you think about it. Even if he ends up missing out on the exciting part of the journey, he has been called by God because he was righteous enough for God to use in this way. He was righteous enough for God to bring a righteous family out of him. And now we know that He can’t use Abram to gain the land at the current time, because the people living in it aren’t quite evil enough to have reason to destroy them. But God apparently knows the future having given Abram this vision and He knows that the Amorites are headed down the right path to gain reason to be destroyed.

When the sun was gone and darkness came, something rather strange happened. Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses. Probably quite a site to see. Then again, Abram’s probably getting used to seeing some crazy things. But God made a covenant with Abram after this had happened:

“I have given this land to your descendants, all the way from the border of Egypt to the great Euphrates River— the land now occupied by the Kenites Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites,Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”

The land of ten other tribes, eh? I’d say that that is quite a bit of space to live in.

And here we see that Abram’s faith brings him quite a reward. That’s where we’ll off for now—that’s where we’ll continue when we come back.

Genesis 15

In chapter 14 of Genesis, war breaks out. Now I’m about to drop a lot of names and places on you so try to pay close attention here:

Team 1 (The Attackers):

King Kedorlaomer of Elam

King Amraphel of Shinar

King Arioch of Ellasar

King Tidal of Goiim

Team 2 (The Attacked):

King Bera of Sodom

King Birsha of Gomorrah

King Shinab of Admah

King Shemeber of Zeboiim

King Bela of Zoar

So team 1 goes to war against team 2 and team 2 comes together at the Valley of Siddim, also known as the Salt Sea. King Kedorlaomer has had team 2 under his thumb for 12 years, but now it was time for team 2 to rebel. And once year 13 rolled around, they did so.

In the 14th year, Kedorlaomer and the rest of team 1 dominated quite a few groups of people as well as the cities they lived in. Here’s a list:

The Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim

The Zuzim in Ham

The Emim in Shaveh Kiriathaim

The Horites who lived in the hill country of Seir all the way to El Paran which was on the far edge of the desert.

Oh yeah, and just incase that wasn’t enough, on their way back home, they figured they would take out the Amalekites in En Mishpat (which was later called Kadesh) and the Amorites in Hazazon Tamar.

Even if you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can at least realize that that is a lot of people to destroy.

The five kingdoms that made up team 2 had had just about enough of their four kingdom rivals and so they went to war against them. 

Unfortunately for team 2, having more kingdoms on your side doesn’t necessarily guarantee one’s victory… especially in this case. 

The kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled from the war they created and many of them fell into tar pits in the Valley of Siddim. However, some of them made it into the mountains where they hid until the coast was clear. Team 1 invaded the land of Sodom and Gomorrah and took all the possessions there—the food, the equipment and everything else—and were on their way. They also captured Abram’s nephew, Lot, who was living in Sodom. Also remember that Lot was very rich and now all of his stuff has been taken as well.

This news reached Abram by way of a fugitive and Abram got all 318 of his servants ready to chase down the kidnappers. And chase they did. They left their home at the great trees of Mamre (Marme was an ally of Abram’s and also an Amorite) and raced after Lot’s captors, finding them in a place called Dan.

Now Abram must find the guts to attack team 1 with the 318 servants he has…

Well that must be a tad bit intimidating when you know that team 1 has dominated so many peoples and places. Five Kingdoms teamed up against team 1 and lost, and now a few 318 people are supposed to defeat them?

But somehow Abram finds the courage to attack and separates his men into small groups. When night came they attacked and chased the kidnappers as far as a place called Hobah. Abram and his servants took back everything team 1 had taken from Sodom and Gomorrah—all the treasure, Lot and his possessions, and all the women and other people. 

Now that is faith in God and God in action.

When Abram got back, the King of Sodom met with him in the King’s Valley, the Valley of Shaveh. Melchizedek, the King of Salem, was also there and he was a priest of the Most High God. He brought with him bread and wine and blessed Abram saying:

“Blessed be Abram by the High God,

Creator of Heaven and Earth.

And blessed be the High God,

who handed your enemies over to you.”

Abram gave Melchizedek a tenth of all of the treasure he had recovered, much like an offering or a tithe that we give in churches today. The King of Sodom told Abram to keep all the treasure for himself, but asked that Abram return his people. However, Abram wasn’t really up for this idea. He made a promise to God right then and there.

“I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the thong of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, ‘I made Abram rich.’ I will accept nothing but what my men have eaten and the share that belongs to the men who went with me—to Aner, Eshcol and Mamre. Let them have their share.”

Just so you know, Aner, Eshcol and Marme were allies of Abram’s. Remember how Abram was living in the great trees of Marme? Well that is Marme’s land as you might have guessed and Aner and Eshcol are his brothers. Abram didn’t want to keep anything for himself, but he wanted to make sure that these guys got their cut before the treasure was returned back to Sodom. Abram was already loaded anyways and more treasure wasn’t going to do him any good. But it seems that one thing he wanted to make sure of was that no one else was given the glory for making him rich. 

His finances were all from God.

So Abram’s been cast out of Egypt by Pharaoh with all of his stuff, his wife, and his nephew Lot. Oh yeah, and Abram is loaded. He has piles of cattle and silver and gold. He’s a pretty wealthy man to say the least. 

Abram journeyed across the land, camping along the way. He travelled through the Negev as he moved into Bethel and then made a pit stop between Bethel and Ai—the place where he had built his first altar to God. There he prayed to God.

Now we haven’t heard a whole lot about Lot quite yet, but in Genesis 13:8-9 we discover that much like his uncle, he is very rich. This creates a problem for Abram and Lot because there is not enough land to support the two. There are quarrels going on between Abram’s shepherds and Lot’s shepherds and things are becoming hectic.

Abram talks with Lot about this situation and proposes that they split up. After all, there is plenty of land out there. “If you go left, I’ll go right; if you go right, I’ll go left,” he tells him.

Lot took a look towards the east at the land of Jordan. It was well watered and vast plain—a great place to keep his possessions! Lot decided to head in that direction and set up his tent next to Sodom. Um…….. This is not a good place to hang out, incase you don’t know the story coming in a couple chapters. But we’ll get to that a little further down the road. But for now be aware that the people who live in Sodom are very evil and quite the sinners.

So now the two have parted ways and Abram moved into Canaan. God spoke to him and said, “Open your eyes, look around. Look north, south, east, and west. Everything you see, the whole land spread out before you, I will give to you and your children forever. I’ll make your descendants like dust—counting your descendants will be as impossible as counting the dust of the Earth. So on your feet, get moving! Walk through the country, its lengthy and breadth; I’m giving it all to you.”

And so Abram did. He settled in Hebron by the Oaks of Mamre and once again built an altar to God. Again, we see that he does this quite often and many times after God has talked to him audibly or made Himself known to Abram in some way, shape, or form as He just did.

Before we jump into things, let’s begin with a quick look at a family tree:

As you might recall from my earlier notes our friend Noah had three sons named Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now Shem had a bunch of children, who had a bunch of children, who had a bunch of children, until finally a man named Terah was born.* This is where our next story begins. When Terah was 70 years old he had three sons named Haran, Nahor, and Abram. Here’s a quick look into their lives:

Haran died before his father did in the same place that he was born. This place was called “Ur of the Chaldeans.” However, while he was alive he did manage to have a son named Lot, as well as two daughters named Milcah and Iscah.

Nahor married Milcah, his niece.** Keep in mind that marrying within your family was common