Sermon Tone Analysis

“Before the Mountains were born...

I AM.”

First Sentences are Doors to worlds.

The most captivating stories grip you in the first opening words.

'The story so far: in the beginning, the universe was created.

This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move'

'Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board'

'It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen'

'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife'

All stories have A beginning.

The art of story telling - Choosing a meaningful beginning can be an excruciatingly painful process.

Rambling Stories that seem to have no meaning or purpose are exhausting to listen to.

The first sentence ought to have something to do with the second one, don’t you think.

“Write with the end in mind”

Most Successful Authors only begin writing when they have identified their story’s destination.

Despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles almost immediately crashing down around the protagonist - They somehow, almost as if divinely guided and protected, they miraculously persevere unto the end.

At the end of every story, is the beginning of another.

Revelation 22:13 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.””

Isaiah 43:10 ““You are My witnesses,” says the Lord, “And My servant whom I have chosen, That you may know and believe Me, And understand that I am He.

Before Me there was no God formed, Nor shall there be after Me.”

Just because the authors found A beginning, does not mean that it is THE Beginning.

The Time, Before Time...

Not Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

The Beginning of Our Time

Existed for eternity before us with no beginning

And though Mark 12:25 “For when they rise from the dead ...but are (Will become AS) like angels in heaven.”

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

And even though it says we will live forever with him, we can not comprehend this statement, but he is before all things, and after all things.

there is none before him, nor any after him.

His is the first and last.

Our Story

When God Began to Create!

The not in Hebrew Technically.

The very first word of the Hebrew text in Gen 1:1 is bereshith.

Genesis 1:1-3

1 act or 3?

John 1:1 Genesis 1:3, Then Genesis 1:1-2

Genesis 1:3 “Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.”

Genesis 1:1-2 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”

Because V1 is not an absolute beginning for obvious reasons.

BI161 Problems in Bible Interpretation: Difficult Passages I (Not the Absolute First Beginning of Matter)

The ramifications are that Gen 1:1, if you are just going with Hebrew grammar, is not the absolute beginning of the creation of matter.

Genesis 1:1–3 would describe actually a reordering, a refashioning, a reconstituting of matter that is already there in verse 1.

We know theologically that God is the creator of all things visible and invisible.

Gen 1:1, if you just go with Hebrew grammar, is not the absolute first beginning of matter.

Genesis is about describing what God did with that stuff that He had created sometime prior, that we aren’t told about in Genesis but we are told about in other verses.

God is taking that material and refashioning it.

Why?

He wants to take that material and make a habitable earth and then fill it with human life and animal life.

BI161 Problems in Bible Interpretation: Difficult Passages I (Accommodating Modern Cosmological Views)

Accommodating Modern Cosmological Views

“Why should I care?”

If you’re concerned about the notion that modern science contradicts—the notion of a very, very, very ancient universe and even a very, very ancient earth—if you take the Hebrew grammar view, you have an indefinite amount of time between whenever it was that God created that material that we are first introduced to in Gen 1:1, and then went back and reordered it for human habitation.

We’re not given any sort of time sequence at all in the first three verses.

You could have in theory millions or billions of years before Gen 1:1–3.Again,

that doesn’t solve all of the issues related to the creation and evolution debate,

but you should know that the Hebrew text itself can accommodate a very modern cosmological idea like that.

None the less, old earth, or young perspective, God is the Author and Creator of all things that have beginnings and ends.

Thus, everything that is visible, has its origin in the invisible.

Making the Unseen Realm the greater than that which is seen.

The author of our beginning both knew, and is able to accomplish His Story despite man’s free will

Choose your own adventure style

Are We Just Marionettes in a Divine Display of Master Puppetry?

Pertaining to the fall of man, sin, war, creator of all things, God must’ve created evil then right?

To begin to come to terms with comprehending that which is un-comoprehendable, there are several pieces we must define.

1. God does indeed foreknow all things

real and possible.

He foreknew all things that happen, and he foreknows all possible events that don’t happen.

2. God predestinates events, but he does not predestinate all events.

He certainly does not predestinate events that never happen (else they would have been predestinated).

He also does NOT predestinate all events that DO happen.

Chapter 4 is devoted to an explanation of this view.

3. Just because God can foreknow an event, that is no guarantee he predestinated the event.

The idea that God does not predestinate all events that do happen (especially the fall, sin, and evil-doing) is based upon the biblical fact that foreknowledge does NOT necessitate predestination.

Put another way, just because God can foreknow an event, that is no guarantee he predestinated the event.

How?

Because as 1 Samuel 23:1-14 shows us very clearly, foreknowledge does not result in or necessitate predestination.

In that passage, God foreknows things that never happen because human decisions change the circumstances.

Very simply, God foreknew things that never happened.

This tells us that foreknowing things does not necessitate their predestination.

Here’s the idea in a syllogism:

God foreknows ALL events God foreknows events that never happen Therefore, the fact that God foreknows and event doesn’t require that it will come to pass.

Therefore, there is no cause and effect relationship between foreknowledge and predestination.

Here’s a related syllogism:

God foreknows all events Some of those events actually happen Therefore, God foreknows events that do actually happen We know from 1 Sam 23 that the fact that God’s foreknowledge of an event DID NOT mean the event had to happen Therefore, if God foreknows an event that does happen, we cannot conclude that event was predestinated to happen just because God foreknew it.

4.  God may have predestinated events that actually happen-but he also may not have.

There is no necessary link between foreknowledge and predestination.

We don’t know if an event that happens was predestinated on the basis of God’s foreknowing it.  God would have to tell us he predestinated an event for us to be sure he did that.

Scripture does tell us God predestinates some events.

5.  The entrance of sin into the world were foreknown by God.

That doesn’t mean that he predestinated sin’s occurrence.

6. Sin’s entrance into the world and all acts of evil exist because humans and divine beings have free will.

Free will (freedom; freedom to make choices between alternatives, including alternatives that God would not be pleased with) is an attribute humans share with God.

Since we are God’s imagers-his representatives on earth to be steward-kings over the earth-we must have this ability.

If there is no free will, there is no imaging of God.

To remove free will from us would be to undo our status as imagers-it would be taking away the imaging status given to us (all humans) by God himself.

Freedom and imaging are inseparably linked; it is foundational to our being like God.

7. Since Adam and Eve were created beings and not God, they were lesser beings.