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I have set a up a Facebook page to use if that is easier for you. I will post here and there simultaneously. I also have a Discord server set up for anyone that would like to use that to connect. I am going to spend the next couple of days finishing the Attributes of God series so that I can clear the deck to move to the next series. I am in a Spiritual Formation class so if there is something for me to share from that I will. Otherwise, we are going to go through the epistle to Titus. The reason I want to work through that letter is because it is relevant to the modern Christian life among the culture, we find ourselves. I hope it will encourage you to be obviously Christian without being obnoxiously Christian. https://www.facebook.com/groups/700112605053201/

Good morning. Holy smokes that was a wild couple of weeks. I started seminary and it's for real. We took turns with cold in our house the very next week. By the grace of God, it wasn't Covid. There is a bit of a flap going on it seems. One night of a feverish, congested baby should be punishment for all sorts of misdemeanor crimes. We'd have a cleaned-up country in no time. I have created a Facebook group and Discord channel. I will keep you posted as to when those are operational. The plan is to cover as much ground as possible through various platforms to not only reach more people, but to give us wider options of communication. Discord will allow us to communicate in a live meeting room with screen sharing if we want to pursue that at some point. The goal will be to convert these series into video for streaming platforms. Let me know if you have any ideas or are interested in scheduling live meetings so I can prioritize things better. Let's get started on God's Attributes. I want to start off with the Trinity just to nail down something, I believe, must be held firmly in your mind when you are thinking about God's attributes. I believe this because of how we should be reading Scripture. We ought to be reading Scripture with God first, not man. We live in a world where Christianity is often taught as a means to get what you want. It's not about what we want, it's about what God wants. He is getting what He wants, and you can be a part of it or not. That sounds cold and mean. Yes, if you are thinking about yourself. Think about God first. When God gets His way, will that not be your best life? If you want your best life now, then what is there to have hope in later? Put yourself aside and think about all the ways that God getting what He wants puts us in uncomfortable positions. It's not because God is cold and mean, it's because we cannot see the complexity of it all. Understanding who God IS goes a long way in resting in the Lord and considering all suffering as joy if it is for the advancement of the Kingdom. This doesn't mean to not pray for your situation. It means to ask God to provide everything you need to show the world who He is through your reactions to your situations. Because as we will see, God is always acting for the best and never disappoints. Many errant doctrines begin with a misunderstanding of who God is. There is also a way of describing God that seems to make some Christians uncomfortable and that is describing God as a what. There is nothing blasphemous or irreverent to understand God as a what. In fact, it is important that we always understand God as a person. A what and a who. To set the table for our walk-through of God’s attributes, we should begin with the Trinity. The Doctrine of the Trinity is often attacked by your above average village atheist as a Christian invention. Yes, in the sense that a full doctrine has been articulated, it is a Christian invention. No biblical scholar, secular or confessional, will make this assertion. Let’s look at a couple of scriptures to understand why. John 1:1-5 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. So here we have The Son with The Father in the beginning. This is what is known as The Two Powers in Heaven. In the Old Testament, God manifests as the Angel of the Lord. Any time you have God appearing as a man or doing human-like things, this is the Pre-Incarnate Son. We understand this from passages where God and the Angel of the Lord appear together, or separately, and swap pronouns. In other words, God will be speaking in the first person, using I, and the Angel will then seamlessly begin speaking in the first person as I. The Angel will also assume the authority of God, something no created being has the authority to do. Genesis 16:10 10 The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” Genesis 22:11-12 11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” We have a couple of options here. First, ignore it and say, “well that’s weird.” Second, believe that the authors are writing in a complicated manner to convey something difficult to understand and move on. Third, think more deeply about what is being communicated theologically. Understanding that the Angel of the Lord is the second person of the Trinity has a lot to do with how people were to recognize Jesus of Nazareth as the incarnate Son of God by the way He spoke about Himself and how He taught Scripture. When Jesus taught “with authority” it doesn’t mean that He taught well and with competency. He spoke Scripture in the first person as the underwriter of Scripture. Well, who has the power to speak to the validity of Scripture? We are left with the Holy Spirit. Perhaps someday we will go down the road of the especially dense understanding of Ruach and Nephesh, today is not that day. It is important to understand that God the Father was understood by ancient Israelites as Spirit or Ruach. To insult a modern Christian or ancient Israelite as someone who believes in a “giant man in the sky,” just shows astounding ignorance. Nobody has ever believed that the Father is embodied. The passages describing the Father as embodied are humans using human language to articulate a spiritual truth to other humans using the imagery available to them. This isn’t to say that the Father cannot appear in human form to humanity, we just covered that. Let’s look at Genesis 1:1-2. Who is there? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. We know from several passages in the OT and NT that both the Father and the Son were always together. The Spirit of God is here. Where do we see this same imagery again? Luke 3:21-22 21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Notice Luke is careful to note that the Spirit was in bodily form, why? Because you cannot see spirit. Notice what isn’t said here. In spite of what you may hear taught by some preachers, the Spirit of God didn’t enter into Jesus and hitch a ride like some kind of avatar. Notice that Jesus here, nor anywhere in the Bible is said to be filled with the Holy Spirit. So, what is happening here? God is “re-creating” humanity. God’s Spirit is once again hovering over the waters. And once again the Son is setting order in the universe. Because it is through the Son that we have life. As it was in the beginning so it shall be in the end. This is why Paul can speak of new creatures and new creation. We can stop here for today. We are trying to understand the theological implications of the Trinity. It took the Church nearly 400 years to articulate and codify the Hypostatic Union. The physics and technicalities of this union are not important to this series but understand that it is important to simply know this: God is one what and three who’s. They have always been and neither one is created or separate in essence. We will begin our series in full tomorrow. It is my intention to present God’s attributes in pairs. This is not to say that God is warring against Himself or always playing some weird balancing game. That would be very Egyptian of Him. I want to help illustrate how God simply IS. God does not possess His attributes; He IS His attributes. God, we ask that You speak words of wisdom into our hearts as we boldly attempt to understand who You are. While You can be understood we know that we will never comprehend You and we marvel in that greatness. May we glorify You by representing You accurately and with reverence. May the reality of who You are guide our hearts as we divide Your word and seek to know You more fully. Thank you for sending Your Son, Jesus, to exemplify Your holy and righteous nature. It is in His name that we come before You in fear and praise, amen.

Good morning. I want to share with you a bit from my notes that I think is helpful to keep in mind as a Christian in a hostile and critical world. Flawed thinking is frequently found in hostile critiques of the Bible and its content Typically amateurs, but even among scholars. Illogical argumentation is neither a gift nor a fruit of the Spirit. Questions are not answers... Riddle me this Christian. They are not interested in an answer. Correlation does not mean causation. Similar does not mean identical. That you see no explanation doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Don’t assume what you need to prove. Conclusions aren’t islands. If that is true, then what else must be or not. “Possible” and “plausible” are not the same. No one person can hold every piece of argumentation, evidence, or know what is unknown.

Okay, so here is the deal. I am going to spend the week putting the Attributes of God teachings into a pretty word document so that I can post here, and I think we will open a Facebook group page as well. Rather than finish the last series as planned, I realized in putting together the Attributes of God lessons that what I would have said there gets covered. No sense in beating a point to death. For this week I'm going to be a bit of a hair puller and throw some annoying questions out there for you all to think about. I kind of like stirring the pot so I'll do my best to have some restraint. I was going through Genesis as I seem to do a lot recently, and something stuck out to me in Genesis 6. 3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” I am a little embarrassed to admit this, but I took the now horribly ridiculous position that this meant God limiting the lifespan of humanity to 120 years. If that's the case, then what's up with everyone living past that post Flood? Perhaps we take another ridiculous position in thinking these were super pious people that God gave special blessing to. Really? I'm not saying that God didn't bless His people with long life. Come on, without antibiotics and refrigeration you'd need God to get above 30. The 120 years God is laying out is the time He is giving the people to respond to Noah's calls for repentance. There are two interpretations of this view. One is that 120 is a way of communicating 3, 40-year generations. This way of calculation is sometimes used to reckon the time of the Exodus and other OT events. The problem is that it doesn't work consistently, and you have to say, "well give or take a few years." The second interpretation is the one that I lean towards. That much of the dating in the OT is reckoned by sexagesimal or Base-60 mathematics. My reckoning is that this is the mathematics used in the Ancient Near East from earliest history until Base-10 mathematics and decimals showed up with the Greeks. When we use base-60 and the sacred numbers 5 and 7, the dates and ages begin to fit. With this interpretation you get dates that match more closely with archaeological data. This isn't twisting the Bible to natural science, rather it is confirming the Bible with observable data. The 120 years for the Flood comes out to 60 literal years. 60 months= 5 years. Wouldn't this make more sense? Noah's boys didn't have children. Were they to have been childless for 2 or 3 generations? Was Noah to be childless for 2 generations then have children at the right time that they were old enough to be married but not with their wives long enough to have children? Why would Canaan be cursed out of inheritance if he wasn't the first born off the Ark? I don't want to get into the weeds on that nerdy stuff, but I thought it would be something interesting to think about the next time you hear some prosperity teacher shouting about how they expect to live to 120. Another example of "not being able to read too good." Also, in the event that someone is hard up on literal years; do the math. You will end up with patriarchs out living either their reported deaths or out living people like Abraham. It gets weird fast. Please don't let these side bars distract you from the real point of the Bible and that is Jesus. When the Flood happened is of no consequence so long as you have faith that it did happen for a reason that God willed. Noah living for any period of time doesn't matter so long as you believe he did. It's just interesting to examine scripture with a mind more similar to the original intended audience.

Hello everyone. I have been taking the last several days off to stay caught up on class work. It looks like everything is a go on the master's program at Redemption Seminary. I will get to the last piece of the generosity series before the weekend. Monday we will start a series on God's Attributes. How I plan to work through them is in pairs. I spent last week reading Attributes of God by A.W. Tozer and it occurred to me that God's attributes are best explained in pairs so that we get our vocabulary right. As you will often hear me say, precision is incredibly important because we live in the information age. Tik-Tok videos of Christian Deconstruction are all the rage right now and the core element to all of them is precision. Either imprecision on their part that "millstones" people of weak faith or on our part as leaders that lead to these superficial understandings of Christianity that are easy to lampoon and attack. Over the next two weeks I will be finishing up my last class through Awkng School of Theology to transfer to Redemption so that I can take a clean run at the new coursework. If I think I will need to take a few days off I will let you know. I want to take this opportunity to offer you all the open floor to bring a teaching or discussion to the group through this platform. That's the ultimate goal. I want to get us started and hand things off to the rest of you. I think spiritual growth is better when more voices are heard than less. Especially if we have the environment to think out loud. Discipleship is deeply profound and to go far we must go together. I'm trying to decide if we should expand this group to Facebook. I hate to give them traffic; it is really hard for me to want to support someone that hates me. On the other hand, we have to operate within the societal tools available to reach people. Paul did use the Acropolis. The worldview sewer of its day. I want things to be as easy as possible for sharing and growth. I hope you all are having a great week. I'm excited to share God's attributes with you; I really think it will enrich your understanding of scripture and help you with basic apologetics. God Bless!

God’s Great Generosity Amid Rebellion Good morning. Today we will look at God’s generosity amid the last two of what I call the 3 Great Rebellions. The 3 Great Rebellions are characterized by humans and supernatural beings working together to undermine God. Before we get to the 2nd Great Rebellion let's look at generosity in the Cain and Able story. 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 contrary to you, but you must rule over it.” We often hear or teach that God didn’t like Cain’s offering because he withheld his best. But is that what scripture says? What God didn’t like about Cain’s offering was what was in Cain’s heart when he did it. We are to understand that Cain felt begrudged in his obedience to the Lord. When God called him out, he responded so. Look at Deuteronomy 26. Do you remember when we talked about this in the tithing rant, I subjected you to? In Malachi 2, God spoke of their offerings of dung. Jesus in Matthew 23:23 ring any bells? Yes, God wants your best because He deserves it. He is the Creator of All Things. However, God cannot be bribed. He wants your best when you are glad to do it. Gee, sounds a little bit like the Gospel’s call to be a cheerful giver, doesn’t it? Prosperity teachers want you to be cheerful because you should expect something back. You should be cheerful because you have a proper understanding of who God is and where humans stand in His regard, expecting nothing in return because giving your best with gratitude is literally the least you can do. Without mourning your faith, never forget you don’t deserve anything more than God’s generous wrath. We celebrate our faith because we know the truth. The truth is God does love you, God does want you, and God will have you; however, it comes at a cost for both Him and you. He ransomed His son Jesus, and you sacrifice not in blood but in obedience and submission to the very Son that took on your debts. God, in later commandments calls for the death penalty for murder, yet He merely moves Cain further from His people and presence. He blesses Cain with a fruitful family and blesses Adam and Eve with an even greater replacement. I hope you are seeing the Gospel is already being played out all the way back in Genesis. When you see this ancient hope, your faith should grow knowing that our God is THE God, and His nature is truly Holy and Righteous. If we our generous in our love for one another and towards God, He will be generous in His blessings over us and our tents. There are so many rabbit trails we could end up on if we aren’t careful when we are looking at the Great Rebellions. I’ll be brief so that tomorrow we can start taking giant leaps through the Bible. I hope by now I’ve helped you understand God’s ancient generosity. I pray the Holy Spirit is speaking into your heart and you are feeling secure under His wings. The last two Great Rebellions, Genesis 6, and Genesis 11 are The Flood and the Babel incidents. When humanity and supernatural beings were generous in their wickedness God was generous in His judgement. Notice in both scenarios God preserved a remnant. Granted His remnants would ultimately fail He chose to act through certain people in certain times. Noah was righteous in the moment and God acted. Abram was righteous in the moment and God acted. This goes for men like Jacob, Judah, David, and Solomon. Same goes for the prophets, kings, and women like Rahab, Tamar, and Mary. Were any of these people perfect? Obviously not or Jesus would have been unnecessary. God does what He can without violating His perfect righteousness to provide us with a way to be with Him. Tomorrow we might make a couple stops in the Pentateuch, but I want to place our focus on Hosea and Lamentations. We will then make a jump to Jeremiah and Isaiah. We will finish out the week in the New Testament. In the New Testament I am going to avoid the common go-to’s. I think the material giving and social justice teachings have been whipped to death. We get it. What I want to focus on is our hearts and our hope in the future of Earth 2.0 when Jesus becomes our Holy Place in the City of God. Jesus, we thank You for coming to save the remnant. As Noah’s ark bore humanity through God’s judgment, so will You carry us into Heaven. Father, we come before You each day asking for a greater understanding of Your commandments. Thank You for Your Spirit. Holy Spirit, speak into our minds and into our hearts as we seek for clarity and purpose in our lives. We trust the Triune God to provide all we need in generosity, salvation, and discipline. We ask these things for the glory and in the name our Messiah, Jesus, amen. Hodu Hodu l’Adonai ki tov Ki l’olam chasdo Hodu l’Adonai ki tov Translation: Give thanks to the Lord for His is good; for His mercy endures forever!