To Infinity and BeyondDavid Tatebible, genealogy, halloween, christianity, hidden message, bible study, genesis 5Comment

How to Make Reading Genealogies Fun

To Infinity and BeyondDavid Tatebible, genealogy, halloween, christianity, hidden message, bible study, genesis 5Comment
How to Make Reading Genealogies Fun

Doesn't it fall in line with God's character that He might place little Easter eggs of truth throughout the Bible for His disciples to find, little tidbits that help reaffirm those truths found throughout the rest of the text?

In this video, I address one of these possible "hidden messages," found in the genealogy of Genesis chapter 5, which traces Adam down to Noah.

Doesn't it fall in line with God's character that He might place little Easter eggs of truth throughout the Bible for His disciples to find, little tidbits that help reaffirm the truths found throughout the rest of the text? In this video, David addresses one of these possible "hidden messages," found in the genealogy of Genesis chapter 5.

So there you have it: Thanks to sin entering the world, mankind was appointed death and therefore sorrow; however, the Almighty and Praised God, Jesus Christ Himself, left His place of prominence and to descend and come into the world in human flesh, living a blameless life filled with teaching and wonderous works, dedicated purely to the purpose of bringing, through His death on the cross, rest or comfort to all mankind.

To Infinity and BeyondDavid Taterestless, phil wickham, heaven song, christianity, bible studyComment

Restless

“And my soul is getting restless for the place where I belong…”

As the final word of that phrase rang into the nighttime sky, the entire audience drew in a unified breath, chills passing throughout each of their bodies as raw emotion flooded the entire amphitheater all the way up into the open-air lawn at the very perimeter. From my spot upon that lawn, I could do nothing but close my eyes and soak in the moment, a second wave of chills passing over me as the audience suddenly broke into a chorus of applause, myself included. There was but one man standing on the stage before me – with nothing but a guitar in his hands and a microphone before his lips – but his voice as it burst across the arena was like that of church choir singing as one breath:

“—I can’t wait to join the angels and sing my heaven song.” I had never heard truer words in my life.

To Infinity and BeyondDavid Taterestless, phil wickham, heaven song, christianity, bible studyComment
Restless
To Infinity and BeyondDavid Tatereal jesus, bible, study, christianity, present jesus, jesus in the present dayComment

Will the Real JC Please Stand Up?

It’s Sunday morning and your church is going up in a riot.

A crazy man from out of town is running through the entrance hall, knocking over the bookcases in the gift shop and spilling the money from the cash register all over the ground, yelling loudly and shaking with anger. Ignorant to anything more than the man’s name (because you have most definitely heard of him before), you turn to your friend and ask him to dish out more details.

He’s from a small town you’ve never heard of, but people speak of the town like it has a bad reputation. He is apparently a “teacher” even though he himself is uneducated, and he has grown in popularity thanks to his acts of witchcraft that he performs on a near-daily basis. He and his closest friends are all homeless, wandering from town to town just to argue nonstop with the local authorities; he preaches a message about the loving and goodness and holiness of God, but he himself seems to contradict this apparent “holiness” by constantly hanging out with well-known thugs, thieves, prostitutes, swindlers, murderers, and whores.

To Infinity and BeyondDavid Tatereal jesus, bible, study, christianity, present jesus, jesus in the present dayComment
Will the Real JC Please Stand Up?
To Infinity and BeyondDavid Tateresponsibility, spiderman, bible, christianity, love, christian, bible studyComment

With Great Power...

“The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”

Isn’t it interesting how the first sin is shortly followed by the first excuse? God sees Adam, Adam sees God, God asks Adam what’s going on, Adam says he’s ashamed because he’s naked, God points out that Adam isn’t supposed to know that he’s naked and the only way for him to know that was if he had eaten from the tree he wasn’t supposed to eat from, and then Adam blames Eve, and if that wasn’t good enough, he blames God too. “Well, you see, God, ultimately this is your fault. Things were fine until the woman came along, and didn’t you make her?” Adam is trying to deflect responsibility off of himself at all costs.

But God plays along. He turns to Eve, who proceeds to blame the serpent, which you can imagine ticks Adam off a bit, since it makes a lot more sense to blame the devil for your sin than it does to blame a holy and perfect God. Nevertheless, God continues to play along, and He turns to the serpent, who knows better than to provide an excuse. God reveals that it was in fact all three of them that were to blame, and their shared sin will affect not only them, but the entire world.

How often do we do the same thing as Adam and Eve?

To Infinity and BeyondDavid Tateresponsibility, spiderman, bible, christianity, love, christian, bible studyComment
With Great Power...
To Infinity and BeyondDavid Tategrace, bible, genesis 33, jacob and esau, chanan, jacob, israel, bible study, grace loveComment

From Graciousness to Grace (Reflections on Genesis 33)

Hey, everyone.

Here’s something a little different, I guess. It’s been a while since I posted on here, but just so you know I didn’t slip off the face of the earth, I figured I’d share one of my reflections with you today. I’ve started reading through the Bible chapter by chapter, day by day, and today, July 24, was Genesis chapter 33. Here’s what I got out of it:

GENESIS 33. Chanan – to yearn towards, long for, be merciful, compassionate, favorable, inclined towards. Graciousness. We have encountered a derivative of this word many times before – in 6:8; 18:3; 19:19; 30:27; 32:5; and even here, in 33:8, 10, and 15 – but here we encounter it as an action, something actively poured out. These previous occurrences are the noun chen (typically translated “favor” or “Grace”), but they are nothing without their source derivative of chanan, graciousness, without which they would cease to be. There would be no grace if there was not first a gracious person who chose to give that grace life. So we see here. As Jacob and Esau reunite, thrice Jacob says unto his brother that he desires to find favor in his sight: “To find favor in the sight of my lord” (Limso chen be’ene Adonai, v.8)…”if I have found favor in your sight” (Im na masati chen be’eneka, v.10)…

To Infinity and BeyondDavid Tategrace, bible, genesis 33, jacob and esau, chanan, jacob, israel, bible study, grace loveComment
From Graciousness to Grace (Reflections on Genesis 33)
To Infinity and Beyond, In This WorldDavid Tategender roles, christianity, bible study, imago dei, masculine god, christ, bible, man and woman, complimentarianismComment

Resurrecting God the Father

It is essential to my argument that I begin today’s writing with a disclaimer:

** Before even beginning to address specific gender roles as they are outlined in the Bible – especially as it pertains to why God is consistently, throughout the biblical narrative, referred to with male pronouns – we must establish that we are discussing things from a strictly Christian perspective. It is easy to object to the biblical ideas of masculinity and femininity when considering the sinfulness of man and the oppression that submission might so easily espouse within power-hungry and demeaning individuals, but we must accept, going into the argument, that we are speaking from the ideal as established by God in His creation of man. In this, we must discuss matters such as submission, sacrifice, headship, and leadership not according to the negative connotations established by a prideful and lustful society, but rather according to the biblical standard to which we all must strive. When you give a man a gun, he may use it to either protect or to slay – we may guide him towards the former, but the option by which he uses it is up to him. All rules and roles in any governance or society stand the possibility of being abused; the Bible seeks to establish gender roles in a manner that is holy and set apart, glorifying to God for the betterment of mankind. A rational and concise conversation regarding such matters is impossible if we do not first establish a stable worldview which we can then extrapolate. Thus, for the purposes of this article, it is my request that we set aside secular ideologies and rather read the “He” of God the Father according to the Biblical context, that we might better understand Christian ideals and even more greatly come to grasp the beauty of God’s love towards us. **

I will begin my argument by stating this: God is spirit. Of course, He stepped into the flesh via the person of Jesus Christ and thus lived on the earth for approximately thirty-three and a half years as a Middle Eastern man, but from eternity past to eternity future God is, according to His divine nature, spirit. Thus, He is neither male nor female; however, the way in which God manifests Himself is masculine in nature, in that he designed man as an image meant to reflect Him. Therefore my thesis is that our use of the pronouns “He,” “Him,” “His,” etc. are essential in comprehending our own selves in relationship to God.

To Infinity and Beyond, In This WorldDavid Tategender roles, christianity, bible study, imago dei, masculine god, christ, bible, man and woman, complimentarianismComment
Resurrecting God the Father