Good Morning Everyone. I read the Bible through with this group two years ago, started on the NT last year and am back. I am reading a lot from the Message this year for comparisson. I found it interesting today that Matthew 7:7 a common, well known verse about asking for what you need and seeking God. Many time I've have held on to this vese and passage. But today in the Message it says. "Don't bargain with God". Yet, in the OT today we see Abraham doing just that. How do the authors get certain things like this out of the text when they change the version to the Message or Living Bible?

Good question Jay! I remember when we read through that year too. There did seem to be some contradictions between OT and NT but I don't remember any that weren't resolved by the end of the year. Proverbs tells us to seek wisdom in all that we do and wisdom begins with a holy fear of the Lord.

Father God I ask that you grow us in your wisdom today, help us to read with our spiritual eyes and ears open so that we may see and hear what you want us to. In Jesus' name amen.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life."

I grew up in a worry-oriented environment. If my dad wasn't worrying about something, we thought he was ill. He is 83 and is still living in that state of worry and fear. So for me, I naturally gravitated towards worry as I grew up. It seemed familiar and comfortable, like a snuggly blanket. It didn't appear to harm anyone because it was all in my head, or so I thought. Then I got married. That's when it all came to the surface.
Over the years, I have been learning to identify that voice of fear and worry. It sounds so much like my own that it can be sneaky. Today, I feel I have grown leaps into my faith. Fear is the opposite of faith and I know that living in that space will stifle everything God is growing me in. To grow means to get out of my comfort zone where transformation can really take place. I still love the verse though because it's a powerful reminder to me to keep an eye out for that snake called worry. It's silent seduction has a way of slithering into my heart and creates an enormous amount of discontent and disorientation. Keeping my eyes on Christ is the only way to go. He is my provider, my deliverer and my strong tower.

Aaron, it really fits into what you mentioned the other day surrounding our focus on what 'we' want vs. what God desires and provides for us. Getting rid of the self-monster that wants to consume so much of this world.
When I walk in faith, I can let go of my control and worry and doubt and trust that He has got it handled and regardless of my circumstances I can have joy in the fact that it's all good.

Good Morning!
Jacqui -- thank you for putting into words the worry issue so aptly. :-) I struggle with feeling fearful or anxious and at times I ruminate on things so much that it can almost paralyze me. It usually raises it's ugly head when I feel threatened by criticism or negative feedback around my work performance that is clearly unjustified from my stand point -- but I keep replaying the situation in my head trying to be sure that I was right in my actions. It's very consuming, non-productive and can dominate my thoughts. Why should I care so much what others think? I know that I am trying to doing my best -- but when co-workers accuse me of not doing things how they feel it should be done -- well it throws me into a whirlwind of re-playing the situation over and over in my head. Sounds obsessive and CRAZY -- and I think it is a little crazy. Living in the past in my mind is not where God calls me to live. I am learning to trust and hand things over to Him more often, but old habits die hard and I need to grow the FAITH and TRUST habits to be stronger than the sick ones my life has been dominated by. Lord, I ask for Your mind to inhabit mine. When I focus on fear please replace it with Your love and acceptance and teach me how to focus on YOU! Thank You Jesus! Amen.

Wow LuDell, thanks for sharing your heart so openly. I relate to what you are saying and have struggled with that same issue. It is becoming less and less as I gain confidence in who I am however, when it shows up, I feel so paralyzed.
I am echoing your prayer. :)

I'm with you Jacqui & Ludell. Sometimes I feel like worry and stress is so silly and pointless, knowing that I can't control circumstances and God's got everything handled. Then, the very next day, I find myself stressed to the maximum and I be askin 'em... wait, I'm not Will Smith. Anyway, I somehow forget everything I knew about God the day before and there I am, all worked up. What's the deal with that?

I have been really fascinated by a lot of stuff I never realized before as I've been blazing through the passages these last few days trying to catch up. I think I, like Aaron used to read the Bible through just to do it, as Christian duty, or obedience or whatever. I'm reading it now like a good novel with everything from strange, juicy plot twists that leave you wanting to know more, to awe inspiring links between creation stories, songs of praise, and Jesus' teachings, to historically fascinating accounts etc... Without going on and on, I'm just trying to say that the Bible is amazing. One of the themes that's caught my attention is that God loves those who love Him, and show it by obeying Him. He does amazing things like save the human race because somebody (Noah) chose to be different from everybody else and just believe God. He rewarded Abram greatly because he just said "Ok God, I believe you." and Proverbs reinforces that idea.

The lineages have also been fascinating because of how God brought amazing, redemptive stories including the birth of his son because of small acts of obedience by women like Rahab and Ruth or men like David and the little old testament kings that chose to go against the flow of sin in their time. Like Marc said, these people weren't perfect, or their stories without flaws or really bad moments, but God always brought good results in the end. I guess Romans 8:28 is true, huh?

I think for me I'm realizing that sin or discontentment or worry or whatever personal issue I'm having comes from choosing to serve myself rather than God. I need simple trust, and constant reminders that His ways are better than mine. This Bible study was a great place for that last year, and I look forward to having that in my life again in '09.

There are so many things that I wonder about in the OT passage. There is the obvious. Lot and his daughters were spared when God destroyed S & G for what appears to be sexual perversion of the worst kind. Then Lot ties one on with his girls, sleeps with both of them and they end up pregnant? Hhhmmm… I’m not sure that I have the same definition of righteousness that God has. Could something else be going on? There is the less obvious. These angels ate, drank, conversed, appeared to be able to have some kind of sex, could be influenced by human persuasion, they traveled by walking, they had dirty feet. They sound like pretty human looking angels. There is the obscure. My whole life I’ve been taught that God is omnipresent and knows everything before it happens. Genesis 18:20 and 21 reads: Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know." If God has to “go down” from anywhere, that doesn’t seem all that omnipresent, and if he’s going down to confirm what has reached him, he must not have know it already, right? Same with going back and forth with Abraham. It just isn’t written as if he already knew the number of righteous. In verse 22 God seems to be standing there with Abraham having a conversation. This indicates to me that God has a physical body. Comments?

As far as the NT passage, I find it ironic that God tells us not to worry, which is very comforting to me, but the passage ends with the whole narrow gate thing, which scares me and I find myself worrying if I might be one of the ones on the wide path to destruction, believing I am not. I sure hope not.

Hey Rich, glad to have you along. I get what you're saying about God seeming not so omnipresent here, but I think maybe God dealt with Abraham on a more human level here, perhaps playing a bit dumb, just to be with Abraham. I mean, we as new testament christians have the perspective of the entire Bible and history before us, but Abraham only knew what God told him directly and maybe a few oral stories passed down to him. I think maybe God was just forging a bit of a personal relationship with Abraham, communicating on his level, and expressing care for his concerns. Of course this is just opinion, but i wouldn't take this passage to mean that God is not as powerful as He clearly is. I think we all know for a fact that He is present with each one of us who knows Him at this very moment, and He deals with us on a very personal level.

I really enjoyed the comments today. Good night and blessings to you all.

Hey Nate, thanks so much for the reply. I’m not really trying to diminish Gods power in any way, I’m just suggesting that our interpretation of who God is might not be accurate based on evidence in the Bible. Defining God has been a very confusing issue for me, and I constantly come across scripture that does not support what I’ve been taught. This is one of those instances. It seems that the supremacy, eternity, and omnipotence of God are all recognized within almost all denominations of organized Christendom, as well as God’s role as creator of all life. However, I feel that sometimes vague generalities, void of meaningful specifics, permeate most doctrinal approaches to the nature of God, which effectively places the concept of God in a more mythical kind of a hocus pocus dimension than a solid presence in the real world. It like we have this overwhelming desire to kind of over spiritualize stuff. "Knowing God" is presented in an equally ethereal manner that’s often relegated to a matter of "personal understanding" (whatever that means). For most of us, any concept that God may have a physical presence is rejected and in a lot of circumstances, at least that I’ve been in, considered heresy. In other bible studies I’ve been involved in I’ve been shunned, labeled as a nutcase or asked not to ask not to “contribute” when asking these kinds of questions, or making these kinds of observations. The honest reality of it to me is that sometimes it seems like “the church’s” interpretation that God has no physical presence is flawed. I mean you kind of said yourself that your whole perception of what happened in this passage was just your opinion, not anything backed up by scripture. Not picking on you here, just my measly attempt to try to understand who God really is.

You dig right into the meaty questions, Rich. People have been trying to sort out the nature of God since we had conscious awareness. And the Bible - written over the course of centuries, from the differing perspectives of various cultures, temperaments and contexts - doesn't give us a neat "systematic theology" perspective on the issue. There's a lot of tension in the story - for just the reasons you identify.

One of the things that I've noticed in my study is that you can see a bit of cultural development in the perspective of God as the Bible unfolds. In the very ancient texts, like we're reading now, God is almost always spoken of in very concrete, physical kinds of terms. You see God shaping Adam out of dust, you read about God walking and talking with Abraham, or later wrestling with Jacob. It's something that is so alien to us. And yet, if you look at the cultural views of divinity at the time, they are right in line with what we see here. All the cultures around the ancient near east at this very ancient time saw divinity as very physical. The gods had bodies. They lives in palaces that were located in specific physical places. Most importantly, they were connected to a particular piece of geography. The god that your tribe worshiped over in your valley didn't necessarily have influence or authority over the mountains in the next valley. That's one of the reasons the Hebrews were so horrified when they were deported to Babylon. They were leaving Yahweh's soil - how could He possibly protect or bless or interact with them? ...

But then as time passes concepts of God get more sophisticated and abstract. You see this in scripture as well. It was the ancient Greek philosophers who transitioned from the old view to a new more abstract view. They began to teach about gods being above and beyond the press and crush or normal life, unchangable and untouchable. They moved from the idea of gods being really big superheroes to gods being more symbolic ideas. This is a simplification, but it gets the point across. You see this in the Bible in the first verses of John's gospel - clearly influenced and informed by Greek philosophical thought. God is the logos, the essential structuring force of all reality.

Now, some people see this trend and what they take away is that the Bible isn't inspired at all, but in fact just an amalgamation of various religious ideas from different times and cultures. They will point out how much similarity there is between the story of Jesus and Zoroastrian myth, and talk about the parallels between the NT and the gnostic religions. But that's not what I see. For me this development talks about God's powerful commitment to reach people where they are at, using the language and forms they are familiar with, but altering them for His own purposes, infilling them with His character and truth. God does talk about being a pervasive presence. After all, you couldn't say "I will never leave you or forsake you" with any real meaning, unless that were the case. But He also talks about being an intimate presence in our lives. Perhaps that's part of understanding the trinity with all its strange implications.

At least, that's my opinion... ;-)

Hey Marc... Thanks for the comments. You write very well and do a great Job at presenting your perspective. It's also obvious you've done some serious homework to develop your thoughts. I still don't know if I'm on the same page though. There are to many places in the OT where God is descending, ascending, walking, talking arguing, etc., etc., for me to think that it's not really happening in a physical sense. He even shows his fanny to Moses who is in a crack in the rocks looking out. Then at some point in time, it would seem that he takes off, but still maintains some kind of communication that's much more opaque, kind of like Aaron Huddart was talking about earlier. Not to get ahead of things, but when God/Christ return, they show up in a 1400 mile, by 1400 mile cube of some sort that I assume is "out there" somewhere and heading this way. In the end it appears God/Jesus "returns" (and to return to someplace, you have to be gone from it) and they set up shop for 1,000 years on earth and once again coexist with humanity. At least thats kind of how I look at it at this point. Do you see where I'm coming from, or do you think I'm way out in left field so to say?

...rich