Good Morning!
Vacation Bible School is such an interesting time of year, I mean that in a good way. It’s fun seeing the kids come and hear of the good news of Christ plus gain an opportunity to be in a church building when some of them may not have any experience with it. There are a lot of ancillary benefits to volunteers, parents, and leaders as well. For mom’s and dad’s it may provide a couple hours of relief, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that, we’ve all been there! It is a good opportunity for husbands and wives to spend some time reconnecting. One of the unique aspects of Bethany’s VBS is that we provide an adult class that parallels what the kids are learning. That way when they ride home at night (and even after the week is over) there can be common conversation and it can evidence growth across the board in the household. While there is a sense in which learning about God should always be fun regardless of the scenario where and when it is taking place there is just something nice about the format of VBS that encourages us to be more open to those opportunities. One wonders if there is something we could do on Wednesday or Sunday nights to encourage similar attention and attendance in months outside June and during times of the year when it isn’t so hot?
One wonders.
The program we’ve been doing this year at Bethany is called Zoomerang. It is a production of Answers in Genesis, whose material is well liked by our Middle School and High School Sabbath morning classes. The focus providentially is on life, the preservation of it, where it comes from, and what God’s purpose is in it. Another part of the curriculum is thinking through how Jehovah promotes life through the salvation purchased by Christ and the reasons why the work of creation brings us to the cross, the empty tomb, and the supremacy of Jesus.
On that note in the aforementioned adult class on Sunday night we read portions of Genesis 1 and 2 and talked at length about what the image of God means and what it does, and doesn’t mean and do. We also had a good laugh about a couple aspects of things related to it. First of all I presented an inquiry that a late 19th Century, early 20th Century scientist/tinkerer by the name of Duncan McDougall made about the soul. He was convinced that he could prove the soul existed by showing a change in weight when a person died. It became to be known as the 21 grams (.7 oz) experiment because of that. A minor detail there, as we discussed, is that the soul is not a material substance, but a spiritual one, and because of that there is no actual weight to it.
Secondly, I entered into the dialogue a question that sounds silly, but in one sense when you really think about it isn’t that odd of a subject. Want to know what it was? Well, here it is:
Did the LORD make us with bellybuttons?
Think about it for a second. Would Adam and Eve have had one if they were created by God, first Adam from the dirt of the ground, and then Eve from the side of Adam? Not to get too much into uncomfortable biology here, but I think we all know that no umbilical cord was needed.
Maybe Adam got one when Eve was made?
Who knows, but as I said above the idea here is not as weird as it might first seem. It gets to a very important point about the Christian faith. It forces us to take a second and consider why and how the LORD made us the way He did. If we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (and we are) then every part of our bodies was created to bring glory to God in the highest. Our appendix as much as our brain is a portion of Jehovah’s good creation. Understanding the unique features of the human person should move us to an attitude of doxology and thanksgiving. It also should bring to mind why we fight so hard for every life, and why we preach the gospel of grace with such fervency. Even after the Fall, and despite the entrance of sin into the world nothing has changed in regards to the value of the individual homo-sapien. Each life is precious unto the Lord.
Especially yours.
When Christ was speaking to His disciples about contentment, He used a man’s stature to show that anxiousness and worry would not change what God had made. In a similar vein coming to grips with our body types is a way we testify to the glory of our Heavenly Father. If the Lord wanted me to be David Hasselhoff He would have, but He had a better, or probably better said more distinctive purpose for my life from the foundation of the world. In our Sabbath School lesson from this past Sunday we heard of the Shulamite woman describe herself as “dark”, yet beautiful. If you were there you remember I noted that this wasn’t a statement about her tone or her person, but her sinfulness, her own understanding of the unworthiness she possessed to receive the love of the Beloved. The Shulamite says these things much for the same reason the Apostle Paul does to young Timothy. It makes what the Lord Jesus did at the cross for us even more lovely. Christ died for the ungodly, those stained with and by sin. He did these things not just to remove the shame of sin, but its power as well.
In closing, there are a few days left so I want to invite you to come tonight through Thursday to be with us, see what is going on, and spend some time in the middle of the week being refreshed with the word of God. There is so much richness to the gospel that the wonderful thing about it is that when we get to Heaven we’ll get to see in the Lord’s providence an even deeper and more bountiful picture of all that our Savior has done for us, especially those things we can’t, or won’t, see.
Be blessed today.
Here’s a selection to fill-in some more:
https://modernreformation.org/resource-library/web-exclusive-articles/the-mod-why-our-bodies-matter/
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church