Revelation and Concern

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On Sunday, after the second service, someone approached me and said, “that was the adult lesson for Noah’s Ark.” I appreciated that. That’s how I felt. Sometimes we forget the wonder and awe of stories like Noah’s Ark and the Genesis flood. There is simplicity and joy in just reading a text as if it’s the first time. So it was good for my soul to ask, “what would Moses’ people think or ask when they heard this story?” I asked my kids that question in our family devotions this past week. Their first question was: Why did God pick Noah? That confirmed that we tend to lose simplicity and joy in our “mature” and “educated” minds.

The Role of Preaching

One of the lessons from my early days of teaching God’s word that has helped me through the years is to be mindful that teaching and preaching God’s word is a way of helping people learn how to read and study their Bibles. This became clear in my preparation last week and even as I delivered the sermon on Sunday. Sometimes preachers can get excited over showing “new” things and “profound” things but miss the “important” thing.

When I teach God’s word, I hope that as we go through our big idea and outline, our people will see what I’m talking about in the text, and they won’t be asking, “now, where in the world did that come from?” Instead, I hope they can easily read the text with me and follow along. Further, I want our people to be able to go home, and when they open their Bibles to read and study it, they can see the flow of the text and the big idea.

The Role of Progressive Revelation

This is a big term for how God reveals things over time, not all at once. We’ll have several of these moments in our Genesis study. What we see in the origins of all things is not a clear and complete picture without progressive revelation. God did not reveal everything all at once to Adam and Noah. Things were disclosed over time.

For instance, as we saw Sunday, Noah was saved by faith, even though he was evil in his heart. This theme is progressively taught in the Bible, but we see it explode more clearly in the book of Romans. Over time, God makes more things clear. So, by the time we reach the end of the Bible, everything we need for “life and godliness” has been revealed.

This is why we desperately need the Old Testament. We cannot fully grasp New Testament concepts without the Old Testament. The New Testament discloses the Old Testament and yet cannot fully disclose the Old Testament without the Old Testament. We would not understand faith without Noah, Enoch, and Abram. We would not understand salvation by grace through faith without Romans 4 showing us how this worked out in Abraham’s life. And we would not understand how faith and work, work together without James 2 revealing how this worked in the Old Testament saints.

A good rule to live by is what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:1-6 when Paul talked about the rock of Christ and the Old Testament saints. And then he concluded with: “Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.” If we didn’t have these examples, we could fall into the same traps (we do anyways).

AI and Its Challenges

I’ve said recently that we should be paying attention to the role of Artificial Intelligence. I read something today from “The Weekly Reader” (which I highly recommend) that alerted my concerns. Here’s what Max Anderson wrote at the end of his blog:

“What happens when as our machines claim to have feelings, emotions, and dreams? What happens when they begin becoming expert at provoking feelings, emotions, and dreams in us? The machines will seem “like real people” when in reality they are incredibly sophisticated mathematical models (models that not even their human creators fully understand).
What then will we say is the difference between man and machine?
Or will we say there is no difference? I’m sure there will be those who argue machines that display such intelligence should be afforded the same rights as humans. I bet there will even be factions who will argue that the machines should be given greater rights because they are more advanced than humans and should be protected. There will be new cults.
These things will happen because we don’t have a shared belief about what it means to be human. And there certainly is not shared view about that in Silicon Valley and Redmond, Washington, where these AI models are being built. I appreciate those philosophers and people of faith (all faiths) who are trying to work out their faith in the light of AI. They are being honest about what’s at stake.
And they are a few years ahead of the rest of us. The developments in technology we are witnessing and the experiences we will soon all be having are going to force us to reckon with what we believe it means to be human.
We will reckon with whether we believe we are no different than the code of a self-learning algorithm.
We will reckon with whether there is within each of us a spark of the divine.
We will look into each others eyes we will see a reflection of the unseen God.”

That should concern all of us.

Jacoby

Don’t forget that this Sunday, we will have one service at 10:00 a.m. at the Jacoby Auditorium on the UCC campus. This past Sunday, we had a family meeting about that, and it was exhilarating. The Lord seems to have met us in our time of need for expansion.

We are meeting at Jacoby on February 26, March 5th & March 19th. On March 12th, we will be back at our building for services (due to our Marriage Retreat). Service times on March 12th will be 8:00 & 10:00.

From the Cheap Seats

Today, full squads report to Spring Training.
Last week, College baseball started. It was a sweet sound for me to write my sermon in my office with a game in the background. I felt inspired! 😂🤦‍♂️
For those of you thinking that the defensive holding penalty against the Eagles in the Super Bowl wasn’t holding or shouldn’t have been called…you’re crazy. That was a legitimate hold, and the defensive player even admitted it. Right call. And yes, the Chiefs still would’ve won.
If you watched the Super Bowl, you probably saw the ad from Tubi, a TV subscription. At the party I was at, we were digging for the remote. Just like this: https://www.instagram.com/reel/ComuPIlvAfg/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=by.

To watch or listen to the sermon described in this post, please click here.