Studying The O.T.

THURS., JUNE 10, 1993, 5:35 AM
FARM, STUDY

The discussion in your post-breakfast group yesterday morning strayed from the Micah text yet again. It is good that a discussion among church-related Christians can involve everyone and can apply to your present life and culture. However, you can’t remember what the focus of that interchange was… except that it related hardly at all to Micah.

I rather continuously urge you to study these Holy Scriptures, including these “books” called the Old Testament. This morning hear some special advice on why and on how you should study this ancient story. This is an important study, even in this time and culture so different from that long time period.

Genesis commences with some marvelous myths, the brief look into the families of Adam and Noah. The truths from the Adam story are that I created the earth and all that is therein, but how I did it remains in the realm of mystery. I created humans male and female, and each came from the other… and each has an immortal soul, a spirit which is ultimately a part of Me, lent for purposes of growth. There is no clear reason why all this should be. That old exclamation attributed to Me as a black God – “I’ll make Me a world!” – is as good as any. The story also says that the human experience began in Paradise, but needed to be other. It usually is interpreted that humans disobeyed and were expelled. I have told you, and I do again, that I wanted them out of the Garden, for the earth was not created to be only a Garden. It is a realm where evil and sin abide, with human life being a struggle with these.

The Noah story is a reminder that I still am in charge… that I can destroy as well as create. Yet Noah’s drunkenness, after his superb act of faith, shows that even the blessed are flawed, and that others may suffer from such actions. Yes, it would be interesting to study these early myths as a group. Perhaps you will.

But what of the prophets? These are repeated and somewhat similar accounts of My reactions to the motivations and behaviors of this special, chosen people of Mine. Symbolically, of course, this can be any chosen people. You Christians have only spiritual ties to these early Hebrew people. It does remain odd of Me to continue a relationship with the actual and cultural descendants of these Jews, whose ultimate sin was in rejecting Me, as Jesus, their Messiah. I have chosen another group of humans, you Christians, and so what I said to these early Jews, through these several prophets, can also apply to you Christians in your culture.

You see the sun shine through the leaves, after several stormy, wet days. This is a symbol of what the prophets said, in various ways. As Almighty God I shall storm against your turning away from Me, but then My love for you, My perfectly imperfect creations shall shine through, showing that I do not abandon you, as you seem to do Me.