A Journey Through the Bible, Part Five

Old Testament

Genesis 10 and 11

Genesis chapters 10 and 11—I’m going to consider these two chapters together because, except for the story of the tower of Babel in chapter 11, they both record genealogical data. Chapter 10 gives the lines of Noah’s sons Japheth and Ham; they are recorded first (even though Shem was apparently the oldest) because they are the least important. Moses does that more that once in Genesis; gets the lesser out of the way before dealing with the greater (compare Esau and Jacob). Shem’s record ends with Abraham, who, of course, is one of the principle men in the Bible.

A note on genealogies. They are carefully recorded by the Jews, who were meticulous with such things, and this is very advantageous for historians, though most of the latter figure somebody just made all these names up (he must have had fun in I Chronicles 1-9). There are gaps in genealogies, though. We know, for sure, of such omissions in Matthew’s genealogy, but it’s probably done for ease of memorization. Matthew divides the line from Abraham to Christ into three groups of 14. Moses has 10 generations from Adam to Noah, and 10 from Noah to Abraham. If we take Moses’ numbers strictly, then we get a creation date (of Bishop Ussher fame) of 4004 BC, and a flood date around 2400 BC. This is surely not correct, but is not a problem because, again, there are almost certainly gaps in these genealogies so that they could easily be remembered. Never forget that most ancient people were illiterate; they could not read, thus keeping things simple was imperative. It is one reason why we see a lot of repetition in the history books of the Old Testament, and why much of that book was written in poetical form. Poetry is much easier to memorize than prose. Literacy rates were somewhat better in Roman times, so the repetition and poetry are not as frequent in the New Testament.

An interesting but wholly hypothetical point: if the creation was not in 4004 BC, then when was it? There is no way of being absolute, but given the need to allow for the spread of man and animals throughout the world after the flood, and the development of the different races (which were no doubt genetically inscribed within Noah and/or Mrs. Noah, and Adam and Eve before them), we must push the creation and flood dates several thousand years prior to 4004 BC. A good a guess as any is that the world is probably 10,000 to 15,000 years old. There’s no reason to go back any farther than that.

The Ice Age would have happened immediately after the flood, and over the process of times, the ice in the polar ice caps melted to divide the “Old World” from the “New World.” Folks, the globe has been warming up for thousands of years and I doubt Al Gore, Barak Obama, and the United Nations are going to stop it.

New Testament

Matthew 6 and 7

Matthew 6:1--"Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven."  In the first half of this chapter, Jesus teaches on alms giving, prayer, and fasting (see vs. 5ff. and 16ff. for the latter two), all of which are good activities, none of which value us in the least if not accompanied by a proper heart. It doesn’t matter what we do for Christ, if our attitudes and motives aren’t right, then our actions will be in vain, at least as far as God’s accounting goes. Indeed, this is a major theme of the Sermon on the Mount—the inward man, not the outward. We humans want to emphasize the outward—baptism, church attendance, the Lord’s Supper—whatever it might be. Line up a few commandments, do them, and satisfy your conscience. How convenient. It’s easy to be baptized, folks. But try operating from a pure heart all the time. That will keep you busy for the rest of your life. Yes, give, pray, fast (the latter doesn’t seem to be a new covenant requirement, but still can be valuable). But make sure you do those things with a pure heart (Matt. 5:8). False motivations renders false, unacceptable service (I Corinthians 13:1-3).

Matthew 7:13-14—“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” We have here what must rank as among the saddest, and most frightening, verses in the New Testament. The Lord Jesus, Judge of all, tells us that most people are going to be lost eternally, simply because they aren’t willing to pay the price to go to heaven. I suspect Jesus was not smiling gleefully when He spoke these words. The way to heaven is hard; the road to hell is the easy one. Just follow the multitudes and they will take you right there. “Watch…watch…watch…” Jesus says in Mark 14:33, 35, and 37. And follow the narrow way, “which leadeth unto life.”