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I will give you what you have not asked for—both wealth and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. (I Kings 3:13) |
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| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Monday, March 3, 2025
Today's Passage : Today's Passage :Noah and the Flood [Part 7] God’s Covenants with Noah Bible Verse:Genesis 9:1-7, 12-15 (ESV) "And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it. . . .” And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.”" Message:
We have repeated the first verses of Genesis 9, because they are important, to be read in the context of later verses. There is not a single, unique “old covenant”: there are, rather, several covenants made by God before the coming of Christ. In the early chapters of Genesis, we see one (or several!) in the Adam and Eve story, and here, a covenant made with Noah that still has effect.
When we start the later, less fabulous part of Genesis (in Chapter 12), we notice that Abram/Abraham is already living under a set of basic rules. Some of them are not written down. Even in Genesis 8, we see Moses building an altar and making sacrifice of “clean” animals; he has a worship service, but we are not told the origins of this service. So there is some sort of covenant or commandment given to humanity very early that is not spelled out. The idea of “clean” animals already exists, long before Moses.
Noah altar rainbow
Noah is given commands by God, and a promise. The promise is well-known, and is actually more strongly stated in Genesis 8:20-22. God will not again destroy all life while the earth remains.
Noah (and by extension, humanity) are commanded 1) to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, 2) not to eat flesh with its life, specifically its blood. One might read this to mean “do not eat any animal unless it is dead.” This would appear to be a law against animal cruelty. The Hebrews would drain an animal of blood before eating it (and dispatch it humanely), but they had a broader reading of the law and will not eat the blood of an animal, period.
The power of the prohibition is seen after Christ’s death. When the Council of Jerusalem rules that Gentiles do not need to be circumcised, they do require them to follow four specific prohibitions of the Law, one of which is not eating blood (and another against killing livestock by strangling). (Acts 15:19-29.). As far as I know, nothing in the Bible has negated this law. Humane treatment of animals has roots in Biblical commandments!
Up until these verses (as far as I can tell) God has only allowed people to eat plants. (Genesis 3:17-19.) These verses, however, specifically give all animal life into human hands, to dominate and use for food.
Secondly, God makes the killing of human beings, by animals or other human beings, punishable by death, and He authorizes—actually, He commands—humans to kill anything or anyone who takes human life. Today, death penalty advocates cite this as their primary Biblical argument for capital punishment. I doubt, if one reads the Bible fairly and with an open mind, that this law survived the teaching of Christ: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” (John 8:7.) But I cannot argue that the Bible is perfectly clear on the issue.
I resolve this dilemma in my own mind by thinking that the penalty for killing another human being is death, but that the power to judge and execute is not given to me; Christ requires me to forgive. But this is me talking, not God: it is not spelled out in the Bible.
Meditation : Prayer : May the Almighty and merciful Lord graciously hear me, pardon and deliver me from all my sins, confirm and strengthen me in all goodness, and bring me to everlasting life; through my Savior, Jesus Christ,...........Amen |
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