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[#14] Genesis 1:20-23 – The Fish and Nephesh

By Jeremy Myers
5 Comments

[#14] Genesis 1:20-23 – The Fish and Nephesh
https://media.blubrry.com/one_verse/traffic.libsyn.com/redeeminggod/14_Genesis_1_20-23.mp3

fish and nephesh Genesis 1:20This episode of the One Verse Podcast concerns the question about whether or not animals go to heaven.

Do you believe that “All Dogs Go to Heaven”? To be honest, I don’t know if they do or they don’t. I am nearly certain that there will be animals in the eternal state, but I do not know if God will bring Fido or Fluffy to join you there.

Some people use passages like Genesis 1:20-23 as an argument for the idea that animals have souls, and therefore, animals will go to heaven.

Genesis 1 does in fact teach that animals have souls. Even fish, as we see in Genesis 1:20-23, have a soul. So does this mean that if Nemo had been flushed down the toilet, he would have found himself in paradise? This is one of the things we look at in this study of Genesis 1:20-23.

The Text of Genesis 1:20-23

Genesis 1:20-23. Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”

So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

In this discussion of Genesis 1:20-23 we look at:

  • Why “creatures” in Genesis 1:20 is better translated as “swarmers.”
  • Why many English translations leave out the word nephesh in Genesis 1:20.
  • Why a belief that dogs go to heaven leads to a belief in universalism.
  • Nephesh does not mean “soul” but “life.”
  • What it means for birds to fly across the face of the firmament.
  • The connection between blessings and obedience.

Resources:

  • Logos Bible Software
  • Eight Reasons Genesis 1 Does Not Teach Creationism – Spencer Boersma
  • Study what it means to save the soul from death: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
  • Hamilton, Genesis 1–17 – Amazon or CBD
  • Hasel Article on Genesis 1
  • Hertz, The Pentateuch – Amazon
  • Kidner, Genesis, Amazon or CBD
  • Waltke, Genesis, Amazon or CBD
  • Wenham, Genesis – Amazon or CBD
  • Subscribe and Leave a Review on iTunes 

Downloadable Podcast Resources

Those who are part of my online discipleship group may download the MP3 audio file for this podcast and view the podcast transcript below.

You must join a discipleship group or login to download the MP3 and view the transcript.

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Login here.

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Upgrade your Membership to one of the paid groups.

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Join Us Today.

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Do you like learning about the Bible online?

Do you like learning about Scripture and theology through my podcast? If so, then you will also love my online courses. They all have MP3 audio downloads, PDF transcripts, quizzes, and a comment section for questions and interaction with other students.

If you want to deepen your relationship with God and better understand Scripture, take one (or all) of these courses. They are great for personal study or for a small group Bible study.

You can see the list of available courses here, and if you join the Discipleship group, you can take all the courses at no additional cost. Go here to learn more and join now.

God is Redeeming God, Redeeming Scripture Bible & Theology Topics: creation, creationism, evolution, Genesis 1:20-23, nephesh, One Verse Podcast, soul

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A new view on Genesis 1:4 you probably haven’t heard in church

By Jeremy Myers
2 Comments

A new view on Genesis 1:4 you probably haven’t heard in church

In my One Verse Podcast, we are working our way through Genesis 1. I try to be fairly thorough in my research and explanations, but just discovered one view on Genesis 1:4 I hadn’t heard before. Here it is:

God separated light from dark

On a side note, if you have not subscribed to the podcast yet, do it today! Tomorrow’s episode looks at whether or not animals go to heaven! Seriously! Go here to see the various ways you can subscribe.

God is Redeeming Scripture Bible & Theology Topics: Genesis 1:4, humor, laugh a little, One Verse Podcast

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[#13] Genesis 1:14-19 (Part 3) – 7 Theological Insights from the Sun, Moon, and Stars

By Jeremy Myers
2 Comments

[#13] Genesis 1:14-19 (Part 3) – 7 Theological Insights from the Sun, Moon, and Stars
https://media.blubrry.com/one_verse/traffic.libsyn.com/redeeminggod/13_Genesis_1_14-19-p3.mp3

One Verse PodcastToday we conclude our 3 Part discussion of Genesis 1:14-19.

Previously, we learned that Moses did not intend to write a scientific explanation of how the sun, moon, and stars came into existence, but instead wanted the Hebrew people to understand how Yahweh was different and better than the gods of Canaan, Egypt, and Babylon, with which the Hebrew people were familiar.

In the previous episode, we really only saw that Moses was in fact writing a polemic against the gods of these other religions and cultures.

This episode concludes this study of Genesis 1:14-19 by showing the seven ways that Moses differentiates Yahweh from the deities of these surrounding nations and cultures.

Genesis 1:14-19 Sun moon and stars

The Text of Genesis 1:14-19

Genesis 1:14-19. Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light to the earth”; and it was so.

Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

In this discussion of Genesis 1:14-19 we look at:

  • Why the sunrise is not the pinnacle of creation.
  • Why Moses waited until Day 4 to introduce the sun, moon, and stars.
  • Why time existed prior to the sun, moon, and stars.
  • The significance of Moses not even naming the sun and moon.
  • The theological truth about the stars being nearly ignored on Day 4.
  • The reason Moses repeats the phrase, “and it was evening, and it was morning.”
  • The truth that God faces no battles for our continued, daily existence.

Resources:

  • Theology.fm – Helping you and your Theology Look Like Jesus
  • Atkinson, Genesis 1-11 – Amazon or CBD
  • Greidanus, Preaching Christ, Amazon or CBD
  • Hamilton, Genesis 1–17 – Amazon or CBD
  • Hasel Article on Genesis 1
  • Johnston Article on Genesis 1
  • Miller and Soden, In the Beginning – Amazon or CBD
  • Ross, Creation & Blessing – Amazon or CBD
  • Wenham, Genesis – Amazon or CBD
  • Subscribe and Leave a Review on iTunes

Downloadable Podcast Resources

Those who are part of my online discipleship group may download the MP3 audio file for this podcast and view the podcast transcript below.

You must join a discipleship group or login to download the MP3 and view the transcript.

Membership-become-a-member

Thanks for visiting this page ... but this page is for Discipleship Group members.

If you are already part of a Faith, Hope, or Love Discipleship Group,
Login here.

If you are part of the free "Grace" Discipleship group, you will need to
Upgrade your Membership to one of the paid groups.

If you are not part of any group, you may learn about the various groups and their benefits here:
Join Us Today.

Membership-become-a-member


Do you like learning about the Bible online?

Do you like learning about Scripture and theology through my podcast? If so, then you will also love my online courses. They all have MP3 audio downloads, PDF transcripts, quizzes, and a comment section for questions and interaction with other students.

If you want to deepen your relationship with God and better understand Scripture, take one (or all) of these courses. They are great for personal study or for a small group Bible study.

You can see the list of available courses here, and if you join the Discipleship group, you can take all the courses at no additional cost. Go here to learn more and join now.

God is Redeeming God, Redeeming Scripture Bible & Theology Topics: Bible Study Podcast, creation, evolution, Genesis 1:14-19, podcast

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The New Reformation has Begun (Are you part of it?)

By Jeremy Myers
33 Comments

The New Reformation has Begun (Are you part of it?)

October 31 is not just Halloween. It is also “Reformation Day,” which commemorates the day on which Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the Church door in Wittenburg and sparked off the Reformation in 1517.

I have often thought that I would have liked to live back then. They were amazing times. There was not only great upheaval and changes within the church and theology, but these changes also took place along with the Renaissance, the scientific revolution, and eventually, the Enlightenment.

These were times of great advances in science, medicine, engineering, art, music, and theology. Imagine living during the time of Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, Wycliffe, Tyndale, Luther, and Calvin!

Well, guess what?

You are!

You and I are currently living in the middle of a new Renaissance! A new Enlightenment! A new Reformation!

Martin Luther Reformation

The New Reformation is Here

Imagine how exciting it would have been to live in the days when the “New World” had been discovered and Spain, Portugal, France, and England were racing each other to place colonies on this new land to the West.

Well, in case you missed it, there is a race right now to put human colonies on the moon and on Mars. China, Russia, and Europe are racing to put a colony on the moon, while MarsOne, NASA, and SpaceX are racing each other to put human colonies on Mars by 2030. That’s fifteen years away.

colony on Mars

Then there are the advances in Quantum Physics. The discoveries of Quantum Physics are unraveling much of what we think we know about time, matter, energy, and space. For example, it appears that reality does not exist unless you are actually looking at it. Furthermore, it appears that quantum particles can communicate with themselves in their past, so that events in the present can ripple back in time. Recent studies from just last week have proved quantum entanglement, that two entangled electrons can communicate with each other instantaneously, no matter how far apart from each other they are. Believe it or not, these sorts of discoveries will eventually trickle down into theology, requiring us to rethink much about creation, prayer, the afterlife, the flow of time, and numerous related subjects.

But that’s not all…

The advances toward Artificial Intelligence and discovering life on other planets threaten to undo and change everything we think we know about ourselves and about how we came to exist. For example, if life is found on another planet (and scientists are certain they will find it), what will this mean for our understanding of Genesis 1:16 that God “made the stars also”? If we are able to develop Artificial Intelligence that rapidly becomes smarter than humans, what will this do to our understanding of Genesis 1:26-27 about humans being made in the image of God?

The changes in theology are not all just potential future changes, however.

The Christian theological world is already full of upheaval. There is an earthquake going on right now in theology surrounding the issues of justification, the violence of God, the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven, and what it means to be the church–the people of God in this world.

We are living in exciting times. Times that future people will look back upon and say, “Wow! Can you imagine living in the early 21st century? There was so much going on! So many changes! Because of what happened then, the world has never been the same!”

A few things to expect in the next few decades

If history is any guide (and it usually is) the current Renaissance, Revolution, Reformation, Enlightenment will be accompanied by several factors.

Below, I have listed some factors that will contribute to the New Reformation along with some changes that we will see as a result.

1. Disaster

black deathFirst, on the negative side, it is quite likely that there will be some sort of rampant disease, catastrophe, or war which will serve as the final catalyst for the future changes.

This will be some sort of humanitarian crisis or a tipping point among world governments. It might be a financial collapse. It might be a medical disaster (the Black Plague helped kindle the Renaissance). It might be a war. It might be a drought and famine. It might be all of these combined.

I don’t say any of this to scare you. There is not much that can be done about it. I am just saying that usually, these sorts of disasters and catastrophes help spur the human race on toward a new level of understanding and unity, which make further advances easier.

2. Voices from Below

Second, however, as I look around at what the World Wide Web is ushering in, I think that this new Reformation will not come from the leaders and those in power, but will come from below. The internet has given everyone a voice. The gatekeepers no longer have the power to silence the masses.

Now with blogs, podcasts, YouTube, etc., anybody can make their voice heard. So the new Reformation will be led, not by a few key voices at the top of the hierarchy, but by a large number of voices near the bottom. This Reformation will be launched from the “uneducated.” From the “unschooled.” From the blogs and podcasts of the non-professionals.

So if you are starting a blog or a podcast right now, you are well situated to be one of these voices. (If you need help on these, let me know!)

3. Leadership from Women

Third, I believe that this new Reformation will contain a piece of the theological puzzle which has LONG been missing from the church. What piece is that? It is the voices of women. I firmly believe that one of the major problems with historical/traditional Christian theology is that it has primarily been written by men. As a result, theology has often shifted away from the one thing it is supposed to do, which is to engender love and relationships among people.

Voices of women will play a larger role than ever before, which will allow the church to adopt a stance toward people that has always been missing in traditionally male hierarchy.

reformation
Where are the women?

The voices of women will bring theology and the church back to the way they were always meant to be. So if you are a woman, and want to contribute, please, start a blog, start a podcast, start a YouTube channel, write a book.

4. Direction from the Poor and the Minorities

Fourth, I believe that the new Reformation will include a new focus on minorities and the poor. I believe that new thinking and revolutionary ideas will not come from the rich and the powerful, but from those who have traditionally been ignored and silenced. Voices of the poor and the minorities will have a larger role in the changes that will occur in culture and the church.

5. Church will become less centralized

Fifth, just as the first Reformation resulted in church becoming less focused on a hierarchy of priests to lead and teach it, I believe this trend will continue in the second Reformation.

The Reformers, as wonderful as they were, still retained the Magisterial, hierarchical, building-centered approach to doing church which began after Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity.

Millions of people are now seeing how empty that structure is, and are leaving the Sunday-morning, leadership-led, entertainment-focused style of church to enter into a daily, Spirit-led, relationship-focused style of church. As I reported last week, this trend will soon become the majority trend within the church.

The church will become less and less centralized, which makes it more universal than ever.

6. Church will become a servant to the world

Sixth, as a result of church becoming less centralized, those who focus on being the church in this way will stop thinking that the job of the church is to attract the world, and will begin recognizing that the job of the church is to serve the world.

Church will become less power-centered, and thus, more powerful. This will not be the power of money and position, but will be the power that was present in Jesus – the power of truth, and light, and love.

The church will become less group focused, and more individual focused. This does not mean the church will become individualistic, but that the church will realize that our mission and our task is not to “groups” of people “over there” but to “individual people” who are next to us right now. The newfound power of the church will be the power of individuals loving individuals, rather than groups focusing on groups.

7. Scriptural Understanding Will Change

Seventh, due to all the preceding factors, there will be a radical shift in how people read, understand, teach, and apply Scripture.

new ReformationWords like “inerrancy” and “authority” and “inspiration” will drop out of use, and we will instead begin to hear more about “redemption” and “reconciliation.” That first set of words are “book-focused” which is what theology and the church have been focused on since the cry of sola Scriptura of the first Reformation.

But now, with the focus on relationships, and love, and following Jesus into the world, the church and theology will become more relationship-focused, which is why terms like redemption and reconciliation will become more prominent.

No longer will doctrinal statements be focused on “truths to believe” as a litmus test for orthodoxy. Instead, churches will adopt “Practical statements” which will be focused on truths to practice. We will stop arguing about whether a person believes in inerrancy or not, and start debating about whether anybody is beyond redemption or not.

Ultimately, of course, all these changes in Scriptural understanding will have Jesus as their goal and focus. It is His life and teaching which will serve as the model and framework for how the church progresses into the dawn of the new Reformation and the new age that will follow.

So are you excited to be alive?

You are currently living in a new period of Enlightenment, a new scientific Revolution, and new Renaissance, a new Reformation. Does this excite you?

What do you think about the things I have written above? Do you agree? Disagree? Do you have anything to add?

What are you doing to contribute to or participate in this new Reformation? Share your ideas and suggestions below!

God is Redeeming Church, Redeeming Scripture, Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: Artificial Intelligence, John Calvin, Martin Luther, reformation, Theology of the Bible, Theology of the Church

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3 Reasons You Should NOT Listen to my Podcast

By Jeremy Myers
6 Comments

3 Reasons You Should NOT Listen to my Podcast

I recently launched the One Verse Podcast, and hundreds of people have subscribed so far.

And while most of the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, I have also received a bit of negative feedback from people who subscribed and didn’t like what they heard.

So here are three reasons you should NOT subscribe to my Podcast:

1. Don’t Listen to My Podcast if you are a pastor or professor and want to keep your job.

If you are a pastor, and you are listening to these podcasts, or if you lead a Bible study in your church, let me provide a brief warning. Do yourself a favor and don’t teach any of what I am teaching you to the people in your church. In most cases, if you teach these things about Genesis 1, it will not go well for you.

Pastoral payI think churches are beginning to lighten up a bit on some of this stuff, and consider ideas that maybe they wouldn’t have considered ten years ago, but I have heard so many horror stories of pastors being fired and Bible study leaders getting booted out of the church simply because they taught some of the views I have been sharing in these podcasts.

In fact, when I first started learning about some of the things I am sharing on these podcasts about ten years ago, I was working for a non-profit Christian organization, and I made the mistake of writing a blog post about how I was studying and researching these things. Do you know what happened? I got fired from my job. There were seven things I was studying at the time, and one of them was the issue we have been discussing in this podcast, about whether or not Moses was writing a scientific treatise on how the earth came to be. My boss didn’t like that I was researching these things, and he fired me.

So be careful!

2. Don’t listen to my podcast if you get uncomfortable when your understanding of Scripture is challenged.

In my theological writing and Scriptural research, I have always sought (like Captain Kirk) to “Boldly go where no man has gone before.” But that doesn’t mean that what I write is science fiction! (Though some might think so! Ha!)

Read the BibleNo, what I mean is that I have always sought to investigate a matter from every possible angle. While lots of Christians only read books and listen to teachers with whom they agree, I always do my best to listen to Bible teachers and read Christian books with whom I know I will disagree.

I figure that if what I believe is true, then it can stand up to any and every challenge thrown at it. If, however, what I believe is not true, then the only way to learn the truth is to be taught by those who believe something different than what I believe.

What this means, however, is that what I write and what I teach on my Podcast, is often a strange mixture of ideas gleaned from Dispensational, Reformed, Catholic, Pentecostal, Orthodox, and Jewish sources. Believe it or not, there are even some ideas from Atheistic sources thrown in.

Does that last part shock you? I listen to what Atheists say because the critics of Christianity often speak truths we ourselves are blind to.

Here’s the point: If you don’t like your theology and your views of Scripture to be challenged, you probably don’t want to listen to my Podcast. It will be too upsetting for you.

I am not saying I am right in everything I teach. I am learning right along with you. All I am saying is that the people who will most enjoy the podcast are those who also know that they are not right in everything they believe. This is the third reason you might not want to listen to my podcast.

3. Don’t listen to my podcast if you are a Bible expert and there is nothing else you can learn about Scripture.

I am not a Bible expert. I am a fellow traveler with you on this road of following Jesus.

My blog and podcast are places where I share with you my life-long hobby of reading theology and studying Scripture.

But if you have all your theology figured out and you know what every verse in the Bible means, then you have no need to listen to my podcast and you won’t enjoy it. You will probably just end up thinking I’m some sort of heretic.

On the other hand, if you know that you have much to learn about Scripture and theology, then you are exactly the type of person who should listen to my podcast, because you are the type of person I want to learn from.

Why You Should Listen to My Podcast

One Verse PodcastWhile my podcast is a place for me to teach what I have come to believe about various verses in the Bible, it is much more than that. More than anything, my podcast is a way for me to invite feedback from you, so that I might learn from you as you learn from me.

My podcast, just like this blog, is about inviting you into the conversation. I am not at all interested in telling you what to believe about Scripture and theology. I am very interested, however, in having a cordial conversation with you about Scripture and theology, and how to live it out in our lives so that you and I end up looking and acting more like Jesus.

That is what I hope my podcast accomplishes, and if that interests you, then I look forward to hearing from you about the content in my Podcast. See you there!

God is Redeeming Scripture, Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: Bible Study, podcast, Theology - General

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