Are you a toe-dipper or a surfer?
Surfers get in amongst the waves. They search for patterns. They do not jump on every passing wave but wait patiently for that ‘Seventh-Wave’ to take them further up the shoreline. They learn the skills of balance and discernment, knowing wrong judgements can trip you into a roll and tumble. When they sting a little from the learning, the pick themselves up to try again. Surfers know if you follow the rules correctly, it is truly possible to stand on water.
Scriptures are out of fashion and favour at the moment, but Scripture-Surfers know they will be back. Scripture-Surfers have seen a pattern that is repeated from Genesis- (the opening chapter), through to Revelation- (the last): The world cries out from chaos; God reminds the world of His contract, (usually through a prophet or preacher). The people agree for a while; then they tear out bits of the contract they do not like. The world declines back into chaos.
Scripture-Surfers have also seen that God’s patience eventually gives way to His justice. From that point on, when the people cry out, the answer comes back:
‘Enough! They have Moses and the prophets let them listen to them.… Even if one should return from the dead they will not repent’.
Luke 16 29-31
Yet even now, if they repent … who knows, He might relent.
Joel 2: 12 -1
Excerpt:
Our Bible is a remarkable book.
It is more than just a clever view of history it was written down by forty authors of all walks of life from king to labourers and all between It was written over a span of one- thousand-five-hundred-years in three languages, There is no way these writers could collaborate with one another and yet it has one unified theme and message all the way through. Peter said, “For the word was not written by the will and schemes of man, but holy men of God wrote under the power of the Holy Spirit”.1 The Bible has many minor themes woven through it but it answers two overriding questions; What has gone wrong with the world and how can it be put right. The overall answer is, God is going to put it right, and he is going to do it by rescuing us from ourselves. The plot unfolds as to how he is going to do that in the story of redemption—the story of rescue.
The Book of Genesis introduces us to the plot of this drama.
When early Hebrews wanted to read Genesis, they picked out a papyrus scroll from a pitched lined storage box. Unrolling it enough to read the first few lines, they would check if it was the required scroll. If, “In the Beginning” were the first words, they would have the book we now call Genesis. As the Hebrew language declined, Greek began to rise. The Greeks added headings to the books. To make checking for accuracy easier, chapters were added later, and then chapters were further divided into verses. The scroll “In the Beginning” became “Genesis” or “Origins”.
If you take Genesis out, the rest of the bible doesn’t make sense because it introduces the plot. Imagine trying to follow the plot your favourite mystery drama after missing the first two-minutes. But many critics of scripture will try to say Genesis is an irrelevant book. Paul writes, “Just as death came through the first man Adam, so the resurrection comes through a man Jesus Christ”. How would you know who Adam was or what he got up to without reading Genesis. But Genesis introduces us to very many more origins. Life, Our universe, The world, Marriage, Bigamy, Family life, Civilization. Government, Culture, Literature, Arts, Sciences, Sin, Death, Murder, Music, War, Sacrifices, Idol worship and much more.
