Boerenroem blog

// September 24th, 2008 // No Comments » // jesus, spread the word, thoughts

It happened last night: watching someone really understand grace is a beautiful thing.

We know that everything in the Law was written for those who are under its power. The Law says these things to stop anyone from making excuses and to let God show that the whole world is guilty. God doesn’t accept people simply because they obey the Law. No, indeed! All the Law does is to point out our sin. Now we see how God does make us acceptable to him. The Law and the Prophets tell how we become acceptable, and it isn’t by obeying the Law of Moses. God treats everyone alike. He accepts people only because they have faith in Jesus Christ. All of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. But God treats us much better than we deserve, and because of Christ Jesus, he freely accepts us and sets us free from our sins. (Romans 3: 19-24)

By faith we have been made acceptable to God. And now, because of our Lord Jesus Christ, we live at peace with God. Christ has also introduced us to God’s undeserved kindness on which (more…)

// February 18th, 2007 // No Comments » // spread the word, thoughts

Another big book with big stories: Exodus, Israel leaving Egypt. A miraculous and maybe even incredible story. Did God actually divide the Red Sea? Did all those plagues really hit Egypt? But there is more than enough historical evidence for the story of the exodus to believe it. Until the present day, Jews around the world remember God (JHWH) as He wants to be remembered: the One that brought them out of Egypt, to be their God (Lev 22). All those signs and miracles happened to show the greatness and might of God.
Still, there are two sides to this story. We see God acting as the Most Powerful, and we see the people of Israel acting as the Most Human: there is complaint, unbelief, impatience, more complaint, greediness, unfaithfulness – not uncommon to most of us. At one point, the people assure to God that they will obey his commands; the very next day they disobey in the most hideous way you can think of – remember the Golden Calf? And although there is much emphasis on the Law, you can see Gods love and faithfulness to his people time and time again. For example: I love those passages in Exodus 35 and 36, where you can see that God gives special giftings to some, and involves everyone in a way that fits them.
God even decides to come and live among his people. Picture this: the Most High, coming down to live in a tent with a bunch of murmuring nomads, and even letting them participate in the production.

Already you can see the ‘foreshadow’ of what’s coming: Israel being freed from Egypt*) as a picture of the redemption of the world; the Law and all instructions following as a picture of Jesus, the perfect man; God coming down as a picture of the Holy Spirit living in the believers.

Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.

*) Don’t get me wrong: I don’t mean to say that Egypt is the devil. Read here to find proof that Egyptians are the most peaceful people in the world

// January 29th, 2007 // No Comments » // spread the word, thoughts

Remember the one-year-bible-reading-program from our church? Today we will finish the book of Genesis. As we already read the entire book of Job, this means we are at 1/33 of the bible books, and at 1/12 of the time.
Anyway. I developed the habit of listening to the Bible while driving. Last Saturday I listened to the story of Joseph, and believe me or not: I had tears in my eyes. It is an exciting story about sex, power and money… and lots of more spiritual stuff also. About forgiveness, for example, and about relationships, and about the supremacy of God.
But I was really moved again by the way the reunion of Joseph and his brothers was described. Picture this Egyptian king running out of the room, crying out loud nextdoor out of emotion , washing his face, coming back in… And then not being able to keep on playing games. It is all so human, so close. It would certainly make up for a good series of emo-tv.

I think Joseph is an interesting character. Much unlike his dad Jacob he díd have character, that he showed when his boss’s wife tried to seduce him. He had humility, as he showed when giving glory to God for explaining dreams. But he also had pride, as he showed when talking about his own dreams. He was a smart businessman, as he knew exactly how to deal with the challenge of the famine that would come. And in many ways, he typifies Christ, for example when after being humiliated Farao raises him to be the first man in the kingdom.

Yes. I really like Genesis!

// January 3rd, 2007 // No Comments » // spread the word, thoughts

We started an exciting project in church: Spread the Word! In 2007, we are going to read the entire Bible in one year with the whole congregation. The fun part is that it will be in chronological order, which means we just started in Genesis this week but tomorrow we’ll jump to Job, because he obviously lived somewhere in the times of early Genesis. And it will become interesting when reading Kings and Chronicles, the Prophets, Psalms and Proverbs…

To make sure I’ll do my homework, I started downloading the Bible in mp3 from www.downloadbijbel.nl, so I can listen while waiting in traffic. And Ralph started to blog about Spread the Word here, and I already read some interesting thoughts. Let me add one or two here, without promising to do this every time.

When listening and reading the first 11 chapters of Genesis, it struck me how mysterious the creation of the world and the early years of creation are. It is as if you read just a very small portion of a much greater story. To some, this might indicate that it is all not true – for me, it is the opposite. Genesis seems not to be a general story of creation, but a very specific and personal one. God is interested in telling a certain story line that happens to start right at creation of man, that has to do with specific people and specific actions. Only between the lines you can learn about the physical and natural development of the world as such. For example: if you look at a map it is easy to see that the continents once fit together. A physicist probably wants to know how this happened, but the Bible does not tell a whole lot about it, apart from a sideline in Genesis 10:25 (‘in Peleg’s time the earth was divided’). Another example is Genesis 6: who are the sons of the gods, the heroes of old, men of renown?

A second thing that struck me (especially when hearing the Bible read) are the many repetitions in the story. Creation of man is told 3 times (in chapter 1, 2 and 5), and a number of times the pedigree of Noah and others are repeated. I think this has to do with the Jewish oral tradition, in which repetition was needed for accurate transfer. This tradition makes up for a special poetic style that is also an explanation for the different way of presenting a historical account. In our western tradition we like to see truth as a set of verifiable facts, but maybe in Jewish tradition it is not so much about the facts as it is about the meaning and the message.