by Beverly Matiko | 25 March 2022 | Many people enter their retirement years sure of the hobbies they plan to pursue, the places they hope to explore, and the company they want to keep. When I retired recently, all I knew for certain was that I was done with teaching. After sixty-one uninterrupted years […] Source: https://atoday.org/confessions-of-a-reluctant-neighborhood-bible-study-participant/
Sabbath: The Creation
Image © Pacific Press
Sabbath Afternoon
Read for This Week’s Study: Psalm 100:1-3, Genesis 1:1-2:25, Exodus 20:8-11, Exodus 40:33, Matthew 25:14-30, Matthew 19:7-9.
Memory Text: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1, NKJV).
The book of Genesis and, hence, the whole Bible begins with God’s acts of Creation. This fact is very important because it means that our creation marks the beginning of human and biblical history. This truth also implies that the Genesis Creation story has the same historical veracity as other events of human and biblical history.
The two Creation texts in Genesis 1:1-2:25 contain lessons about God and humanity. As we study this week, we will understand better the profound meaning of the seventh-day Sabbath. We will ponder God’s act of creating humans in His image, and out of the dust too. We will be intrigued about the purpose of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and about its connection with the tree of life.
The most important lesson of the biblical stories of the beginnings is a lesson on grace. Our existence is purely an act of grace. God created the heavens and the earth while humans were not yet present. Just as our creation was, our redemption is, too, a gift from God. And how profound it is that both concepts, creation and redemption, exist in the seventh-day Sabbath commandment.
Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, April 2.
Amen!
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Genesis: The Book of the Beginning
THE BOOK OF THE BEGINNING
Genesis is about Jesus: Jesus our Creator, Jesus our Sustainer, Jesus our Redeemer. Writing millennia after the Genesis text itself had been penned by Moses, and reaching back across those ages to the patriarch’s very words, the apostle John reveals Jesus in the Creation account: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1-4, NKJV).
What did John write here? “In the beginning” all things that were made, all things that once didn’t exist, came into existence — by Jesus. All creation — from galaxies hurling across the cosmos in staggering pinwheels of fire and light to the meticulous DNA woven miraculously into the cell to quantum waves — Jesus created and sustains it all. And the book of Genesis is the first story in Scripture of both this creation and the redemption of this creation. Here, in this book, is the world’s only “official” account of our origins.
The English word Genesis is derived from the Greek genesis, which means “beginning,” itself derived from the Hebrew bere’shit, “in the beginning” — the first word of the book (hence, the first word of the entire Bible!). Genesis gives us the foundation, the base, upon which all the following Scriptures rest. Because it is first, and so foundational to all that comes after, Genesis is probably the most quoted or referred to book in the rest of the Scriptures.
Genesis is important because it is the book that, more than any other work, anywhere, helps us understand just who we are as human beings, a truth especially important now, in a day when we humans are deemed as nothing but accidents, chance creations of a purely materialistic universe. Or, as one physicist put it, we humans are “organized mud,” (which is to some degree true, though for him the laws of nature alone organized it!). Genesis, however, reveals to us our true origin, that we are beings purposely and perfectly made in the image of God in a perfect world. Genesis also explains the Fall; that is, why our world is no longer perfect and why we as humans aren’t, as well. Genesis, however, also comforts us with God’s promise of salvation in a world that, in and of itself, offers us nothing but suffering and death.
With its dramatic stories of miracles (creation, births, rainbow) and judgments (the Flood, Sodom, and Gomorrah) witnessing to God’s holy presence, Genesis is awe-inspiring. But Genesis is also a book with moving human stories of love (Jacob and Rachel), of hatred (Jacob and Esau), of birth (Isaac, Jacob, Jacob’s sons), of death (Sarah, Rachel, Jacob, Joseph), of murder (Cain, Simeon, and Levi), and forgiveness (Esau and Jacob, Joseph and his brothers). It is also an instruction book with lessons on ethics (Cain, Babel), on faith (Abraham, Jacob), and on the hope and promise of redemption (crushing of the serpent, Promised Land).
During this quarter, we will not only read and study the book of Genesis — we will enjoy its beautiful stories and learn to walk better with the Lord of Creation, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Meanwhile, the geographical movements of the book — from Eden to Babel, to the Promised Land, to Egypt, to the prospect of the Promised Land — remind us of our nomadic journeys and nurture our hope for the real Promised Land, the new heaven and the new earth. As we follow the various characters across the pages of Genesis, we will discover that — regardless of how different the time, place, culture, and circumstance — often their stories are, in many ways, ours, as well.
Jacques B. Doukhan, DHL, ThD, is emeritus professor of Hebrew and Old Testament exegesis in the SDA Theological Seminary, Andrews University.
Amen!(0)
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Obedience
As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: but as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. 1 Peter 1:14, 15.
What does God require? Perfection, nothing less than perfection. But if we would be perfect, we must put no confidence in self. Daily we must know and understand that self is not to be trusted. We need to grasp God’s promises with firm faith. We need to ask for the Holy Spirit with a full realization of our own helplessness. Then when the Holy Spirit works we shall not give self the glory. The Holy Spirit will graciously take the heart into His keeping, bringing to it all the bright beams of the Sun of righteousness. We shall be kept by the power of God through faith.
When we are daily under the control of God’s Spirit, we shall be commandment-keeping people. We may show to the world that obedience to God’s commands brings its own reward, even in this life, and in the future life eternal blessedness. Notwithstanding our profession of faith, the Lord, by whom our actions are weighed, sees but an imperfect representation of Christ. He has declared that such a condition of things cannot glorify Him.
It means much to commit the keeping of the soul to God. It means that we are to live and walk by faith, not trusting in or glorifying self, but looking to Jesus our Advocate as the author and finisher of our faith. The Holy Spirit will do its work upon the heart that is contrite, but never can it work upon a self-important, self-righteous soul. In his own wisdom such a one would mend himself. He interposes between his soul and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will work if self will not interpose.
Where is our dependence? Where is our help? God’s Word tells us: “The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit is ready to cooperate with all who will receive Him and be taught by Him. All who lay hold on the truth and are sanctified through the truth are so united with Christ that they can represent Him in word and action.—Manuscript Releases 12:52, 53.
Ye Shall Receive Power p. 93
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Prayer Requests
—-Prayer request for that little boy again in the morning in Seattle.in he is having another surgery he has had so many surgeries since birth. thanks. M
—-Continued prayer is needed for E’s situation. R
—-Prayers for family friend who is losing her leg and now discovering her daughter has stage 4 cancer. Mel
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Dear Friends,
One of the television programs I used to enjoy watching is on House and Garden TV. Rich people who are wanting to buy vacation homes (or a home in a new location) tour three luxurious places and then decide which one to buy. I enjoyed seeing all the beautiful places and tried to guess which one they would pick. It was fun to view, but it always amazed me how some people have so much money, that they are willing to pay a million dollars for a home they only visit a few weeks out of the year.
As I think about the program, I cannot help but think of the rich man in Jesus’ parable, “The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” Luke 12:16-21
The rich man felt no need of God. He did not care for the needs of others. He was totally self-centered. He had more than he could ever use in a lifetime. Yet, instead of using his means to help those in need, he hoarded it. When the rich man’s time came to die, all of his riches, all of his lands, his luxurious house, all of his expensive possessions could not save him. All that he had worked for all of his life was given to others. He went down to the grave to wait for the resurrection of damnation that Jesus spoke about, “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” John 5:28,29
Jesus asks a question that it would do well to meditate upon, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Matt 16:26 The rich man’s riches could not save him from death. He could not give them in exchange for his soul. His only hope of salvation, our only hope of salvation is in our Dear Saviour’s sacrifice upon the cross of Calvary. Our Great Creator assures us, “Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.” “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.” Isa 43:1;44:22 “I will ransom (thee) from the power of the grave; I will redeem (thee) from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction.” Hosea 13:14
Paul tells us, “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” Titus 2:11-14 Peter adds, “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” 1 Peter 1:18-23
May our focus be in Heaven and not upon the things of this sinful old planet. For the things of this world will soon pass away and only our treasure in Heaven will endure.
Rose
‘DO GOOD’ – ADRA-UK launches its 2022 Appeal
On 24 February 2022, as all legal Covid restrictions were lifted in England, the Ukraine crisis began. Just as we believed that life here in the UK was returning to ‘normal’, the people of Ukraine entered an era of mass displacement, loss of homes and livelihoods because of military action.
Your generosity of the past month has been amazing. Over the past four weeks, ADRA-UK has raised over £100,000. These monies have been sent to the ADRA network to support the Emergency Response Teams on the…Source: https://adventist.uk/news/article/go/2022-03-25/1097/
