The First Giant Leap
The Thinker
The truth from John 3:16 helped The Old Fool to reconsider events as recorded in the beginning. Some students use data in the Bible to calculate age of the earth to be little more than six thousand years.
The Old Fool invites you to take a first great leap with him over time, however long it is, to the beginning and imagine a satisfied smile on God’s face as he says “now that’s good” at the end of each day of creation. If your God has a frowning face, The Old Fool suggests that you take another look at the stories.
The Old Fool’s bumper sticker
In the beginning, listen to a soft chuckle as God forms a woman from the man’s rib. Puzzle over the enigma that God told Adam and Eve they would “surely die” on the day they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that they did “not surely die,” just as the serpent said they would not. See the kind face of God as he chased down the semi-nude couple, clothed them more modestly, sent them out to populate the earth, and trusted them to give care for it responsibly.
Be surprised by the Creator’s compassion for Cain, the oldest son, that first murderer, whom God mercifully protected from the capital punishment he deserved.
Was God pleased with any one of these first people? No, no! But he loved them all and thought kindly of them even as he judged them.
The themes generated by these old tales persist tenaciously in the Bible. Laws were given by God and were soon disobeyed. Judgments were harsh, but soon softened. Often there were evidences of unexpected grace and a loving kindness that was steadfast. Prophetic glimpses of a future world at peace kept hope alive.
The Old Fool in the next post will ask his listeners to take a second leap going to the coming of Jesus
