The Do-Over
In the beginning . . . Genesis 1:1 NASB
Beginning – Of course, this isn’t the real beginning. It isn’t even the beginning of all of these investigations called “Today’s Word.” But it is a beginning, and with that in mind, a few things must be said.
- Beginnings happen all the time. Every day is a beginning—and an end. The purpose of Scripture is to begin what God finishes, to explain the why and the what of the restoration plan, not necessarily the how. Most of us grew up with lots of answers to the how questions. “How does forgiveness happen?” “How did God make the earth?” “How are we supposed to live now?” “How will this age end?” Today we can set aside a few of those questions for some that are simpler, and perhaps deeper.
“Why am I here today?”
“What does God demand of me today?”
“Why should I care?”
“What does it mean to say I love and follow the Messiah?”
So this is a beginning. For the next three hundred days or so, we will investigate a lot of questions; questions about the text, the meaning of words, the implications for our lives. But we must try to never get too far away from these two: “Why do You love me so much, Father?” “What do You see in me that makes You trust me to be Your child today?”
- Today is the beginning of a new approach to an old text. Today we begin to ask why God gave us these particular words in this particular way. Why did He want us to read about this particular history, this particular time, this exact person? Today we begin to look for clues in the lives of the men and woman of Scripture that will help us deal with the men and women today. Today is the beginning of application after examination.
- And today is the end. It is the end of naiveté — naiveté about theological bias in the text, about the Jewish view of the authors, about the Jewish Messiah, about the effects of selective canonization, about the human characteristics of the words of Scripture. But most of all, it is the end of faith in certainty. It is the end of belief; the idea that religion is about having the correct propositions. And it is the beginning of faith—emunah, the way of life that comes from faithfulness to YHVH through the faithfulness of His son. Emunah, that “knowing” that comes from being swept up into God even when logical expression can’t quite make it clear. Emunah, the experience of the divine, not because we constructed rational arguments but because we made ourselves available to the Spirit.
Today is the beginning of thoughtful living beyond logical certainty. Are you ready?
Topical Index: beginning, emunah, Genesis 1:1, certainty
Wow, you sure made this mission statement clear & succinct…and YES, i am personally ready to live it out AND ready to pass it on to others who are ready!
. . . it is the beginning of faith—emunah, the way of life that comes from faithfulness to YHVH through the faithfulness of His son. Emunah, that “knowing” that comes from being swept up into God even when logical expression can’t quite make it clear. Emunah, the experience of the divine, not because we constructed rational arguments but because we made ourselves available to the Spirit.
This is a huge challenge. Unless one is ready for such a challenge one will not understand it. Am I ready?
Todah, ABBA, for new beginnings!
Todah for Your chesed, they are new every morning!
May we desire to start afresh, washed clean and white as snow.
And turn away from our carelessness/ bad attitudes/ poor discipline
and lack of hunger for Him in our lives.
Making “…ourselves available to the Spirit.”
“Today is the beginning of thoughtful living beyond logical certainty.” ..towards a certain end! Amein!
Skip you have an uncanny ability to “say the right thing at the right time.” Exactly four years ago today we began our formal retirement, bought a motor home in Las Vegas of all places and hit the road in search of …………… what? For me it was the quest for a new “life,” one that would hopefully be the end of the quest for truth.
Along the way we soon found it although we didn’t know it at the time. The first time was in Joshua Tree State Park desert arriving alone late under a full moon. Sometimes it was in the desert near the Mexican border or beside the Interstate or in the ruins of the lower 9th ward of New Orleans. We kept finding it seemingly without looking for it.
We would find it again later in the year like Paul along the shores of the Mediterranean, in the hills of Tuscany, in the wind and snow at the top of the Matterhorn, on the banks of Grand Lake in Canada. Last year I found it at the top of a hill in Israel while I listened to Rabbi Bob describe David’s battle with Goliath and the Philistines or at Tel Dan with Lebanon and Syria at our backs.
Finally we found it in a retirement community in central Florida where we ended the quest because it was all around us. It was with us all along looking over our shoulders, pushing us out of the way when necessary, stopping us completely on occasion for the chance to engulf ourselves in creation. The Word. Right back at the start with Today’s Word. Genesis 1.1 Where it all began.
I have my NASB at my left hand and my Torah at my right. I trust I am ready. Thank you Skip.
Ready
‘It is about the end of faith in certainty.’
Count me in, Skip!
Yesterday, I sat reading some last lines of a year’s writing—a 250 page book. Was it finished?
“For a time no one spoke. The hush was inescapable and pressing, a physical thing. At last Margaret stood to say, “Two years ago, Sam and I decided if Yeshua,Who does not change, told His listeners that Deuteronomy 6 is the most important commandment, then it must still be the most important commandment. So, we committed to reciting Yeshua’s shema daily that we might together faithfully acknowledge the Oneness/echad of our Lord, our Savior and our King. Since obedience to that decision, my understanding has been reordered and my life transformed.”
“How?” The single word held yearning.
Margaret’s eyes glistened as her loving heart responded, “There is no ‘how,’ there is only Hear and Do.”
Then this morning I read, “Today is the beginning of thoughtful living beyond logical certainty. Are you ready?”
Thank you for helping to confirm for me the reality of my fiction and for your ongoing gems of enabling. Today joyfully and thankfully along with many others, I join you Skip around ‘God’s Table’ for the actuality of ‘hearing that we might do.’
Have we decided to join the Rabbis and Sages who have asked the same questions for thousands of years? Are we prepared to stand with those who agreed upon a paradigm–that unapologetically turns our thinking upside down? Will we forego the daily debate that lays again the same foundations (to paraphrase the writer of Hebrews)?
If so, even though it is not Rosh HaShanah, perhaps the greeting can be appropriated here also “for a good year”. L’Shana Tova.
This is not a comment about this article but a question about Chapter 6 of the Book of Genesis. When the Bible refer to the sons of God, who is reffering to, the Angels? I have a Good News version of the Bible and it talks about the Super Natural beigns Please explain this to me if you do not mind. Thank you. Keep doing the good work..I have learm more reading your letter every day than any time of my life( I am 80 years old) God bless. Happy New Year!!
Read Nahum Sarna’s explanation of the passage in his commentary on Genesis (JPS Torah Commentary). There isn’t much to support the idea that these are supernatural beings. In addition, see the comment of Jonathan Sacks (I referenced it in something I wrote) on the same passage. The “bad angels” idea seems to have come from distinctively pagan worldviews and probably isn’t what the author had in mind.
Ready to do it ,needing to do it.
Ready? I don’t know. I’m hungry. I’m broken. I’m desperate. Is that the same as being ready? After finding no success in life, it’s hard to say, “I’m ready” when I doubt that I’ll ever hit the mark or arrive at some destination that provides the peace that I crave. I have been diligent to get all the “facts” and adopt the rules for living, but where is the community that binds the brokenhearted? “Confess your sins to one another that you might be healed” is true in the context of community that is stronger than my sin. To be rejected by those who you thought would stick closer than a brother is another reminder that we are truly alone. In the end, it will be me and Him, for better or for worse. And the mouth of the grave looks more appealing with each passing year.
Hi Warren,
I’m sorry that you feel so bleak. I don’t know where you are or what you’re going through, but I know the feeling of being alone and confused and frustrated. And I know what it’s like to be hurt and abandoned by those who proclaim brotherhood or even love. But I also know that you’re not fully alone. You are here. We are here. If there’s something we can do to help, please let us know. We have some amazing prayer warriors and I know, from personal experience, that the family here is willing to help in more tangible ways when needed. I suppose it sounds trite or cliche, but know that even if you feel alone in your world, neither has G-d abandoned you. Even in the midst of silence, in the searing heat of the wilderness, in the freezing cold of lonely wandering, He is there.
Shalom to you, and may your Shabbat be restful!
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. Robert Frost
Hey Warren
please know that you are not alone – many share in the same kind of struggle: the inadequateness of my life to this point in time when I feel that all has come to nothing (Eccl) and being without community(again) made me look for new definitions of community and these I found this morning – (and may be we have still been living the wrong definitions of success as well):
https://skipmoen.com/2007/12/22/the-event-of-church-2/
“Remember that qahal is first found in the idea of a gathering of soldiers for war. It is the purpose that precipitates the gathering, not the other way around. Church, from a Hebrew perspective, is all about why we come together, not about where we come together”.
Heschel:
“Human being is both being in the world and living in the world. Living involves responsible understanding of one’s role in relation to all other beings. For living is not being in itself, but living of the world, affecting, exploiting, consuming, comprehending, deriving, depriving.
Ch. 5.
There are two primary ways in which mans relates himself to the world that surround him: manipulation and appreciation. In the first way he sees in what surrounds him things to be handled, forces to be managed, objects to be put to use. In the second way he sees in what surrounds him things to be acknowledged, understood, valued or admired.
Ch. 5.
Fellowship depends on appreciation while manipulation is the cause of alienation: objects and I apart, things stand dead, and I am alone. What is more decisive: a life of manipulation distorts the image of the world. Reality is equated with availability: What I can manipulate is, what I cannot manipulate is not. A life of manipulation is the death of transcendence.
“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ….get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel
endure!!
Thank you, Luzette! (I think I keep saying that to you.)
Warren, Be encouraged! ABBA is with you, look not to men for comfort for HE is our Comforter and strength. HE has brought you here shows how precious and blessed you are; not many have been led here to dig deep into the wonderful truths/ perspectives of the Word. ABBA’s shalom with you; rest and wait upon Him, He is watching and ruling over everything.
Yes! 🙂
yes, Skip. I am ready. I am committed to living it out and passing it on, as well. I see YHVH building bridges. May each of us be committed bridge builders as we press on toward the prize!
“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ….get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”
This is one of the best quotes I have ever heard!
I can’t wait to remember more of what the angel taught me before I was born into this realm!!! (been working on this for awhile)
Hello Skip and Others,
First, your thoughts on Jacob carried me through 17 days of hospitalization and rehab for a mini-stroke sustained on December 11. In the process I did not get a job promo I was expecting, but God has supplied in other ways! Follow Yeshua and walking in His ways now have added meaning as I continue to rehab. I plan to be a regular reader and learner this year of your God-given thoughts and wisdom shared with the body of Messiah. I know of Warren’s disappointment from past experience myself and a particular evening when I came home from a fellowship and literally cried tears of anguish and anger before God at perceived rejection by other believers. In 40 years since then, it has perhaps made me more compassionate and empathic toward someone else. Cry before God and get it off your chest! Meantime, may God enable us to begin each day ready to live the Torah life!
David R
David R, thanking ABBA for your speedy recovery! Shalom!
I can’t wait!
Insanity is expecting things to change, while we continue doing the same things.
Dr Scott Simmerman
For there is very little between an ordinary and extraordinary person – the difference; that little extra.
Zig Ziglar
A person can make you feel high,
A person can make you feel low.
But only you can decide,
Which way you want to go.
A person can hurt you mentally,
A person can hurt you physically.
But only you can place,
A limit on your abilities.
A person can cause drama,
A person can cause a situation.
But only you can create,
Your own reputation.
A person can make you laugh,
A person can make you cry.
But only you can make,
Decisions for your life.
I guess what I’m trying to say,
That when you’re living day to day.
Don’t live by what people do,
But live by what you know is true. (Author unknown)
John 5:39-40 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. 40And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.
Col. 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
Two thousand plus years ago, the incarnate Jesus of Nazareth was the Word of God in flesh, as He was the express image of the Father (Heb 1:3). Jesus of Nazareth expressed and declared the Father (John 6:46, 14:9) who no man had seen. Later teaching claim that this same Jesus is now both the resurrected Spirit of Life or a Life clothed with Christ(2Cor 3:17, Rom 8:2) and Lord (Acts 2:36); and He dwells within our human spirit (2Tim 4:22).
As a sinner I try and find a reason for this natural creation and the Bible does not reveal any specific purpose, it just mentions possibilities… but what it does clearly state is that the goal of our belief or faith in Yahweh is salvation (legacy) of our lifestyle (soul).
beginning, emunah, Genesis 1:1, certainty
Now other scholars refer to the term emunah as “faith” or “belief,”…
Is the creation narration in the beginning then maybe more relevant to how God (or Yahweh) is guiding us to be transformed into that being He wants us to be – Jesus Christ the incarnation of God’s will in our flesh so that He can bless and equip us to be even more powerful in His ways… If this is the intent then John 1:1-14 is possibly a guideline for us to use when we approach trying to understand the creation; as Jeremiah did (own explanation to follow) to claim on day 6 “Here am I send me” so that we can be the child introduced to the congregation on day 8…
So yes, we should tackle everyday as a new day to draw closer to understanding God then the claim that the apostle doctrine in the New Testament implies/requires that everyday becomes a Sabbath, makes sense as then everyday we will be learning and be reminded of what God wants from us now: This is eternal life or salvation John 17:1-3.