Bible Studies

Noah Was a Righteous Man

Mary Okkema
Noah releases dove

by Mary Okkema

He named him Noah and said, ‘He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed.'” “These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God. – Genesis 5:29, 6:9

Noah releases doveWould that each of us could have an epitaph as the words spoken of Noah. Recently our daughter performed a vocal solo of epitaphs by Slonimsky. They ranged from stirring and amusing to thought provoking. It helped us think of what would be said of us after we die. But listen to the these words spoken of Noah: “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God.”

The hope of Noah was that through him God would comfort the race and alleviate the effects of the curse that was brought about by the fall of man. One could believe that Noah was the new Adam, the answer to what had happened in the previous chapters of Genesis and the wickedness that surrounded Noah. He was quite a contrast with those who lived around him as the phrase “blameless in his time” infers.

Noah’s father, Lamech named him with the foresight of the comfort to be brought through him. His name has the root meaning of “comfort.” It is said that “when a righteous person comes in to the world, goodness comes in to the world.” (Talmud: Sanh. 113b) Can this be said of each one of us? The following scripture verses describe righteous people during life and not just as an epitaph. Pray that they can be said of us:

The righteous is a guide to his neighbor, But the way of the wicked leads them astray. – Proverbs 12:26

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. – Deuteronomy 6:5

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. – Mark 12:31

Laying Down the Bow

Lois Tverberg
Bow and Arrow

by Lois Tverberg

And God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.’
– Genesis 9:12-13,15

One of the most popular scenes available for decorating baby nurseries is that of Noah’s ark with the a big boat, cute animals and a pretty rainbow. This image is fine to use as a beautiful image of God’s faithfulness, and represents a happy end to the story. But let’s not forget that the flood is very much the opposite from being a happy children’s story – it is the most terrible scene of judgment in all of the Bible. Every human being died in one great cataclysm because mankind had sank to such depravity that God was sorry that he even made them.

I had a hard time imagining what human beings could do that would merit such anger on God’s part until I heard about the horrors the Nazis committed in WW2 concentration camps, or of the deaths of thousands in torture chambers and by nerve agents in Iraq in even just the past few years. Humans really are capable of wickedness to the limits of the imagination. On Sept. 11, I remember wondering why God didn’t swoop down and put an end to pockets of evil that are responsible for such misery on earth. Of course, the infection is universal – if judgment started, where would it end?

Bow and ArrowIn the light of this, the first covenant that God made has a profound message to us. The word for “rainbow” is used for “bow” through the rest of scriptures, the weapon of battle. The sign of the rainbow is to say that God has laid down his “bow,” his weapon, and has promised not to repeat the judgment of the flood, even if humans do not change. It is because humans are so precious in the eyes of God that he constrains himself to finding another answer to the dilemma of sin than the obvious one of universal judgment.

Even in this early story we see forward to God’s ultimate desire for mercy rather than punishment for sin. He will finally bring it to maturity in Christ, who would extend mercy to sinners and a permanent covenant of peace with God through His atoning blood. That covenant is the ultimate answer to sin, the final solution to the terrible human problem.

Photo cred: Travis

What Have You Done?

Bruce Okkema
Cain and Abel

by Bruce Okkema

“What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.” Genesis 4:10

Often more can be said with a question than can with an answer, because the answer can be implied in the question. This is why it is such a highly effective method for instruction. A person can not easily avoid being drawn into the discussion without revealing their own adequacy and position. Here, in the opening chapters of Genesis we have some very powerful questions being posed by the Lord Himself.

Cain and AbelThen the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate. Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Genesis 3:9-13

We cannot hide from God thinking that he will not know. He will hold us accountable for our actions and he will be right there confronting the sinful. We are not told that Adam, or Eve, or Cain confess their sins and they are driven from God’s presence. Note also that even though Eve had committed the first sin, God addressed Adam first. He had given Adam the commandment not to eat of the tree (Gen. 2:16), and held him responsible for both of their actions.

There is a repeat of this kind of behavior in the story of King Saul (I Samuel 13). His kingdom is torn from him after he offered the sacrifice himself rather than waiting for the prophet Samuel. When he arrived, Samuel said,

“What have you done? … You have acted foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, for the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not endure. The LORD has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart, and the LORD has appointed him as ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.”

From these stories and all the other lessons of scripture, we must realize that God means what he says, and will not overlook what we do.

“Adam, where are you?”
“Eve, what have you done?”
“Cain, where is your brother Abel? What have you done?”

From the very beginning, you can hear these questions echoing throughout all of history. Think about the question, “What have you done?” Hopefully, you will have a positive answer.

Lamech’s Opposite

Lois Tverberg
Embrace

by Lois Tverberg

“Lamech said to his wives, “Adah and Zillah, listen to my voice, you wives of Lamech, give heed to my speech, for I have killed a man for wounding me, and a boy for striking me; if Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.” Genesis 4:23-24

In Jesus’ time, rabbis studied the Torah intensively and peppered their sermons with references to the first five books of the Bible. They often would use even a single unusual or unique word to hint back to a story and make their point more effectively. Their culture was deeply literate in the Bible and would have recognized these allusions to Scripture. Unusual words would stick out at them and immediately bring to mind an earlier story.

In the following passage, Jesus seems to be doing this, to more effectively make His point:

Then Peter came to him and said, “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother who sins against me? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, I tell you, but seventy-seven times.” – Matthew 18:21-22

EmbraceHere we read that Peter asks him how many times we need to forgive – up to seven times? The number seven is symbolic of completeness, hinting that Peter was saying that we should forgive repeatedly and completely. But then Jesus says “up to seventy-seven times,” which we often want to translate as “seventy times seven,” because 490 times is larger than seventy-seven. But the key to understanding is not in the quantity of 77 or 490, but in the fact that the phrase “seventy-seven times” or “seventy-sevenfold” (shiv’im v’shiva or hebdomekontakis hepta) is a unique phrase, found only once in the Hebrew scriptures, in today’s verse from Genesis 4:23.

The context was that Lamech, as a descendant of Cain, had inherited Cain’s violence, but then also had a lust for revenge. If some one hurt him, he would kill him, and he was certain to make sure anyone who wronged him was paid back seventy-sevenfold. God had told Cain that if anyone hurt him when he was roaming the earth, God would punish him seven-fold (Genesis 4:15). But Lamech says he will outdo God in revenge. Anybody who crossed him will be paid-back in a big way — not just sevenfold, but seventy-sevenfold!

If this is in Jesus’ mind, Jesus may be saying that we should be as eager to forgive as Lamech was to take vengeance. Just as Lamech wanted the punishment to far exceed the crime, we should want our forgiveness to far exceed the wrong done to us. We should be the exact opposite of Lamech, making our goal to forgive as extravagantly and completely as possible.

The Slippery Slope

Lois Tverberg
Temptation and Expulsion from the Garden

by Lois Tverberg

The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. – Genesis 6:5-6

We think of the point at which sin enters the world as when Eve takes the first bite of the apple. Some of us quickly leap next to the Gospels to read God’s answer to the problem. But it is interesting that if we keep reading we can get a lesson about sin and its consequences.

Temptation and Expulsion from the GardenWe see sin’s effects even after Adam and Eve are sent out from the garden. Within a few years, one of their own sons commits the first murder – a drastic worsening from Adam and Eve’s small act of rebellion of eating forbidden fruit. Cain is a man who doesn’t care about his brother and is prone to jealousy. His anger entices him to murder, just as the serpent led Eve to sin. A few generations later, in Cain’s line, we see a man even more vengeful than Cain – his descendant Lamech. Lamech said the following:

I have killed a man for wounding me, and a boy for striking me;
If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold. Genesis 4:24

Not only was Lamech more violent than Cain, he was even proud of it! Finally, evil reached its peak a few generations later in the generation of the flood. The scriptures say that this was a people whose only thought was of evil all the time, and God was sorry he made them. He wiped them all out with a flood, but the first thing man did after the flood was to build the tower of Babel — it was clear that the flood hadn’t washed the sin out of their hearts.

At this point, God began a much more long-term answer for sin in the heart of man. In the very next chapter, God chose one faithful man, Abram, and promised that through him he would make a people that would bless the whole world. Through him would come a nation that could be taught God’s way to live, and even if they struggled, could be a light to the nations around them. And God could use this nation to bring his final answer to sin – Jesus.

Through this we can see the amazing power of sin that starts out small and quickly grows powerful and ugly. But we can hope in the fact that while God’s answer also starts out small, it ultimately will triumph with redemption.

Photocred: www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Eva2.jpg

You Must Master It

Bruce Okkema
satan the serpent

by Bruce Okkema

The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your
countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted?
And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire
is for you, but you must master it. – Genesis 4:6-7

With so much happening in the opening chapters of Genesis, it is surprising how much we are not told. We know that Cain started a fight with Abel out of jealousy, but did he know that the striking or whatever he did to his brother would result in death? Quite likely, neither of them knew what death was, and furthermore we do not know if that was Cain’s intention (verse 8). How did the brothers know that God had accepted Abel’s sacrifice, but not Cain’s? Who are the people that Cain says will kill him (verse 14)? Several more questions surface in our minds as we read the ensuing story, but they are left unanswered for us to focus on the main issue.

Essentially God is saying to Cain, “What’s your problem? You know the difference between right and wrong. In every situation you face, you are going to have a choice. Sin is lurking at the door; it desires you, but you must master it.”

satan the serpentFrom the very first temptation, in which Eve certainly could have chosen not to listen to the serpent, until today, the Adversary will continue to come back with another suggestion; that’s the way life is. God has given us the responsibility to choose between activities which honor Him and those that don’t. He promises us that if we ask him, he will make us wise in our choosing and strong in resisting the temptations that confront us. I Corinthians 10:13 says,

No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.

As an athlete trains diligently day after day to increase his endurance, to improve his performance, so on the day of the race he can win, let us faithfully, day after day, study God’s Word, pray, and prepare intensively, so that when we face life’s trials and temptations we will be ready to “master” them.

 Photocred: Darren and Brad

Learning to Read

Mary Okkema
Child reading

by Mary Okkema

Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. – Matthew 18:3

Child readingBecoming like children has a different meaning for each one of us. It can mean playing on the floor, being spontaneous with sounds, learning to see things with childlike eyes, and many other things.

For me, learning to read Hebrew feels a lot like becoming a little child again. Since this language is new to me, there are still so many words that are unfamiliar, but those I do recognize seem to jump off the page. I want to study them in great detail, much like a child wants to look at every bug and stone and leaf while taking a walk.

Taking a closer look at Genesis in Hebrew, brings questions to mind like, “Haven’t we heard this word somewhere else in scripture?” It helps us understand how the disciples would have heard and recognized when Jesus was quoting Old Testament scripture, as He so often did in His teachings.

Familiar words like “ruach” (wind/spirit), “ha-aretz” (earth/ground), and “ha-shamaim” (heavens/sky) from Genesis 1 enhance our appreciation of the creation story. Adam’s rib gets a second glance knowing that the word for “rib” can also mean “one side.” We see the word “basar” (flesh) used for the filling in of Adam’s side, is the same word used for the substance of beings used for sacrifices like a bull or ram (as in Deuteronomy 12:27).

The story of the first temptation in Genesis 3 can also be so familiar in our minds, yet when we read it again we see that the word “nahash” (snake, serpent) is repeated over and over as the one doing the talking, and “Satan” is not mentioned. Could other animals speak too at this point?

Sometimes the Hebrew language can be much stronger as in the case of Genesis 3:15:

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” (NASV)

In English a “bruise” is a minor injury but the Hebrew word here, “shuph,” has the action of pounding, which is much more violent.

So as we begin to see, it can be a wonderfully rich experience to go back to the beginning and look for the Lord like a little child again.

Photocred: GMR Akash

In His Image

Lois Tverberg
Roman coin

by Lois Tverberg

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
– Genesis 1:26-27

What is the significance of saying we are made in God’s image? It’s clear that it means that we share something in common with God that nothing else in creation does. Human life is uniquely precious to God. According to Genesis 9:6, because God made man in his image, murder is a crime that always calls for the death penalty, because murder is an affront to God himself. This was a new and revolutionary idea in its time. Other cultures had death penalties for stealing and other property crimes, but biblical law considered life too precious to require it as a penalty for a material loss.

In rabbinic literature, the contrast was often made of man, made in the image of God, compared to idols and statues made in the image of earthly kings. One rabbi said that “A king mints a thousand coins with his image on them, and every one is exactly the same. But the Lord makes multitudes of human beings that all bear his image, and they are all different!” It shows the infinite glory of God that he can represent himself in so many ways.

Roman coinOne scholar1 believes that Jesus was also using the contrast between the images of kings on coins and humans which are in God’s image.

When people who wanted to trap him were questioning him in the temple as to whether people should pay tax or not, he asked for a coin and then asked whose image was on it. The questioners replied, “Caesar’s.” Jesus then concluded, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and God what is God’s!”

The implication is that because Caesar made the coins and stamped his image on them, they belonged to him, but that because God made humans and stamped his image on us, we belong to him! So Jesus was brilliantly evading their trap about paying taxes and issuing an “altar call” at the same time – reminding us that God is our maker, and has stamped his own image on us, and for that very reason, we should give what he has made, ourselves, back to him.

1 See Your Money or Your Life, by Randall Buth, at www.jerusalemperspective.com.

Photocred: Ssolbergj

Eve’s Error

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Now the serpent … said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, `You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’? The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, `You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’ The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. – Genesis 3:1-5

An interesting lesson that we can learn from Eve is the way that she got in trouble and opened a door for Satan to “win” in her conversation with him.

Eve was probably trying to be faithful to God in her conversation with Satan, but when she told the serpent God’s regulations regarding the tree, she overstated what God had said by saying that they must not even touch it or they will die. She was exaggerating for God’s sake, by making his rule more strict than it really was.

Satan probably smirked when he heard her say something untrue, because he knew it was an opportunity for him to gain an advantage. When he said, “You surely will not die,” he had spoken the truth about touching the tree. At that point, his temptations gained credibility in her mind because he corrected her own misstatement.

The thing we can learn from this is the great damage we can do when we over-speak for God and misrepresent his word to other people. This happens in several ways: Well-meaning people make God’s rules more strict than they really are, and put burdens on other’s shoulders to keep impossible, legalistic rules. By insisting on extra requirements that are not central to salvation, well-meaning people often put up barriers to sincere seekers to follow Christ.

Or, sometimes a person claims a certain scientific discovery proves the Bible, and when it is disproved, people doubt the truth of the whole thing. Or, when a person says that one specific doctrine is absolutely necessary for salvation, people are forced to choose sides in battles that divide the church. We can almost see the serpent smirking at all the unnecessary anguish and lost faith that has come from the misrepresentation of God’s word.

We must be ever mindful that our own zeal does not cause us to go beyond God, as we put words in God’s mouth. We need to always speak to let God’s truth be known.

Wind and Water

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. – Genesis 1:2

There is a really fascinating theme that runs through all of the Bible – the picture of God beginning a new creation. Genesis begins the story of creation with the Spirit of God “hovering over” the deep (Tehom), and one of God’s first acts of creation is the separation of water from water. This picture is a theme that recurs over and over in the scriptures, every time God starts something new.

There is a little of a poetic motif there, because the word for “the deep” is Tehom, which was symbolic of chaos. It is a picture of God conquering evil and chaos to bring order and a beautiful new thing into existence. The word for Spirit in Hebrew is ruach, which also means wind or breath, so when God parts the waters by a great wind it is a picture of God in the act of creating.

wind and waterWhere do we see this? First we see it in Genesis 1:1 of course, but only a few chapters later, after the flood destroyed all of life on earth, we read in Genesis 8:1-3 that God caused a wind (ruach) to pass over the earth, and restrained the waters of the deep (Tehom), and the flood waters receded, giving the world a new, clean beginning.

We next see this in the parting of the Red Sea, as the wind (ruach) blows to separate the waters so that the Israelites can pass through. This marks the beginning of God’s new nation of Israel, who now would have their own sovereignty and identity as the people of God. Later, as they pass through the river Jordan, once again God was parting the waters, and in a sense, re-creating them as his people and cleansing them of their sin in the desert. After their entrance into the land they took on the covenant again, just like they did at Sinai, and made a clean beginning as God’s people.

There is one more place significant scene in the Bible when we see this imagery of God at the waters – at the baptism of Jesus. Here the heavens are parted (reminiscent of the waters being parted) and we see the Spirit of God “hovering” over, in the form of a dove, just as it hovered over the first waters of creation. Here is God’s new creation, God on earth in the form of the Son of Man.

Photocred: Jacques Joseph Tissot

reading the bible

If you’d like to learn more about how Hebraic imagery is woven throughout the Scriptures, see pp. 210-212 in ch.11, “Reading in the Third Dimension” in Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus.