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The hardest part of understanding the Bible for modern people is transcending the mental categories we have all inherited by being raised in the age of science and technology.
New Glasses Will Allow us to See New Truth
We go through life with the automatic mental programming of our generation, sort of like wearing a pair of purple lens glasses. We've been wearing these glasses all our lives and so we just don't see certain colors accurately.
Only by intentionally removing these glasses and putting on a different set can we read the Bible and really see what is being revealed.
This is our first episode of actually opening the Bible to the first page so we can start to build our world narrative. This narrative must be trustworthy. I'm basing mine on what is revealed to us by the Creator about the true nature of our world.
This is a fascinating study! We will go slow and make sure we take time to savor all the implications of the foundational truths revealed in Genesis 1-3.
Remaining Unmovable in our New Life
The current world moves ever deeper into an always-connected, tech-required experience. We are never truly offline now. Rest is a luxury.
The most important life skill for all of us living in this generation is grounding—stability of mind, relationships, and actions.
I believe there's no single thing you can do to ground your life. Grounding is the reward for maintaining four networked stabilizers:
A trustworthy Narrative to map out the reality of this world and define who we are and our role in it.
A resilient mindset where we meditate on the truth and implications of that mindset and use it to build our hope and expectation.
A robust interpersonal network of relationships. We live out of the resource of this relational web, and our life finds value as we serve our network and add value to the lives of others within it.
A meaningful body of work, and by this I mean the sum total of our actions as sovereign individuals who have dominion over our actions. We build our own little world, and this act of building, a beautiful life for ourselves, and those who are in it, sustains and supports us. It is where our satisfaction comes from.
Some people in this generation are going to thrive. I want that person to be you.
“In the Beginning…”
The first line of the Bible is a perfect first sentence. In Hebrew, it has seven words, but in just seven words it outlines the entire content of this collection of revelation that will take thousands of years and over 35 different authors to express. Here’s what it tells us:
We live in a universe which is not eternal. It began at a moment in time.
Our universe was created by a single intelligence.
Our universe exists to express the desire of its Creator.
Our universe was intentionally created according to a careful design.
Our universe has two levels to it. Heavens (Skye) and Earth. Material and Immaterial. Seen and Unseen.
The rest of the Bible is devoted to stories that illustrate the interplay between the seen and unseen worlds. We will meet characters from both worlds, and we will see how these two dominions are intertwined and affect one another.
The Bible will teach us that universal harmony and perfection of life will come when everything in the Heavens and the Earth are completely unified, “As in Heaven, so on Earth.”
Our calling as humans is to use our dominion and free will to bring earth into alignment with the heart and values of its Creator. God’s Spirit will be with us giving us the power and resources we need to make this happen in the parts of the world we control.
The Story Leads to Jesus
Ultimately, the story will lead us to Jesus who heals both dominions and unites them as one unified whole. Only then will the Creator King return to his creation and make it His home. With His presence (the Reign of God) the envisioned Utopia will become an eternal physical reality on Earth.
“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,
The leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
The calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
And a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall graze;
Their young ones shall lie down together;
And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole,
And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den.
9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,
For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11: 6-9 NKJV)
It’s the Big Story. Let’s open it up and live it out!
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