The View from the West Mesa

As early as Genesis the narrator tells us that God told the serpent that eventually - sooner or later - a descendant of the woman would crush his head.  And then the story continues with rather little reference to this statement of future reality. The descendants of Adam seem to carry on their lives as people would. Eventually, being far enough removed from Adam's experience, the knowledge of God and his expectations for human life becomes muddled at best. Our next major player is Abram a son in a Mesopotamian family that worshiped their local gods. The story is told with anticipation but the major player is a Pagan, selected by God to bring blessing to the world.  This Abrahamic story has its own ups and downs and while God makes appearances, those appearances seem to not have the impact they might have had. Abraham and Sarah for instance, think that the promise might need a bit of help and so they decide that maybe Hagar could jump-start the fulfillment of the promise of an ...

I have written in one of my ordinary books this statement: “The purpose of “being saved” isn’t being saved. Rather, it is to be set aside, consecrated, sanctified, set apart and marked for the work of God.” Let’s break that down a bit, and get “behind the story” as it were. When Abram’s family was told to get up and move to a new land, they were anything but monotheists—they had and worshiped household idols of various gods. They weren’t originally devoted followers of YHWH. And yet God chose Abram and had him move to a completely different land; from what many have said is the cradle of humanity to a coastal hill country. As the story develops, God makes a promise to Abram. That promise included both a long and an extensive lineage for Abram—something of considerable value and prestige in ancient cultures. But that wasn't all. Those descendants we are told and Abraham is promised will bless the world. I suspect that Abraham didn’t know what that meant and neither do we if we r...

 It occurs to me that the reason we're told that God doesn't remember our sins is that He never really took note of them as specific events anyway. What He looks at - what He has always looked at is your heart, your direction, your desire. All he needs to know is what sort of person you are; not your specific litany of wrongs.  Now don’t get me wrong, God is capable of listing our sins if that’s what He wants to do. Clearly,  he has done that on a number of occasions when addressing Israel and her seemingly persistent intractability. A short perusal of the prophets and God’s complaints contained within them will quickly reveal that if God wants to recall what we’ve done, He is no slouch in that ability. What is interesting though is that God sent Israel into exile not because one or two—or several Jews stole some bread or cheated their neighbor. As long as the behaviors were not characteristic of the nation as a whole, making the correct sacrifices and worshiping YHWH was...