Genesis Two - One Flesh

Genesis 2:24

". . . and they shall become one flesh."

History has unfolded in ways that separate men and women so that they often seem to have competing interests. Men and women are meant to work together; what's good for one is good for the other. Because of size and strength men have been able to dominate women, but this domination is not God's will. Theories abound on relationships between men and women, but only occasionally does one hear the message of Genesis 2:24 celebrated. It is essential to start with this teaching: we are one flesh. In that message is the unity God intended. 

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Perhaps, you've had the same experience I've had when visiting friends and family. I feel closer to my loved ones when I've made the commitment to travel to them in person. The hugs we share and sitting together for a meal make for an intimacy that a phone call or email message cannot create. To laugh or cry with the ups and downs of our lives gives perspective that enriches and strengthens my life. 

Judy and I have visited in North Carolina and South Carolina. We have visited in Greensboro, the Myrtle Beach area, Beaufort, Columbia, Black Mountain and Asheville. Now we are in Cookeville, Tennessee and plan to stop tomorrow in Marion, Virginia on our way back to Charlottesville. In over a thousand miles of travel we have seen the landscape change. Each place has beauty of its own: ocean, marshland, farmland and mountains, as well as towns and cities. These sights bring blessings when I pause to appreciate them. Trees and birds and weather are different in one area from those in another. The housing is different. The stores--if you look for the local offerings--are different, too. The exploration delights me.

It pleases me to meet people in the regions we've traveled.  Friendliness abounds. A dulcimer player sitting on a sidewalk in Asheville entered into a conversation with Judy about the joys of music and moved into encouragement for her to pull her dulcimer down from the wall. On occasion casual conversations have moved to discussions of faith, but whether the conversations move deeper or not I have a sense of the humanity we share with others, even strangers, when I travel. 

The Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove near Black Mountain North Carolina was on our itinerary. We attended a concert, spent the night at Pilgrim's Inn and toured the Chapel. The retreat was brief but meaningful. We plan to return soon for a stay that includes a seminar and time for hiking and  a visit to the Ruth Graham prayer garden. 

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Congratulations to the John Leland Center for Theological Studies! This week a team from the Association for Theological Schools visited Leland. In the coming weeks Leland will receive a report from the ATS team that visited. I am hopeful the report will lead to re-accreditation for Leland. I am grateful to God for all the team that prepared for this visit from ATS. To complete the self study and go through the visit from ATS is an accomplishment that came as a result of the faculty, staff, administration, board, students and alumni all working together. I know it was an accomplishment that required sacrifice by many. I am grateful that Leland has completed its study and accreditation visit. I am confident God will continue to bless Leland. Congratulations to the new president of Leland, Dr. Kenneth Pruitt. He will do the work with excellence and lead Leland into a new era of growth and impact for the work of the kingdom.

 In the Beginning God

Genesis 1

“In the Beginning God”

This picture in words gives us a place to start as we meditate on what it means to know God. Earth, our human dwelling place, had a temporal beginning; it is not eternal. God has provided it as a place for the purpose of bringing forth human life. The earth was made beautiful, orderly and good. The creation was to be a place of time. The creation was to be a place of continued flourishing. The creation was to be a place in which human beings—male and female—were meant to take responsibility. This dominion over the earth was a trust, and this stewardship from God helps us understand that what we do with life on earth—how we treat this place—gives us insight to our relationship with God. To be human—in the image of God—means, in part, to be responsible to God for creation given and creation continued.

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Readers of this blog will be generous, I hope, in excusing my “hit and miss” publishing. If I expect people to read what I have written I know that I have a responsibility to publish something on a regular basis. Thank you for reading my blog. I hope it is interesting and helpful. My resolution for this year is to write and publish consistently. 

The entries I make about the Bible for this blog will be at the top of each page. They are comments I have recorded in a journaling Bible.  I have a collection of comments for every chapter of the Bible. They are not meant to be explanatory as one finds in a typical commentary on the Bible. Those commentaries are helpful. My comments, I hope, will be helpful, too, but in a different way. I intend them to be devotional and theological ideas that have come to me morning by morning as I have read the Scripture. Perhaps, they are an insight to how a preacher—as I have been for decades—comes to an idea for a sermon. I would hope that for preachers and teachers who read this blog the entries could become a “starter,” that is they would lead you to your own musings about the text and would give you ideas for a lesson or a sermon. Of course, I pray each day as I read and write. You will, too, if you hope to be guided by the Spirit to an insight that God has for you.

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In the past I have often included a report from the antics or the sayings of my grandchildren. Today’s entry is an observation on the skill I admire in our daughter-in-law’s parenting. One of the children cannot abide the different foods on his plate touching, so Mairin carefully separated the foods that the restaurant had placed too close to each on the plate served to our grandson. As she did this work of love she told the child, “turn your eyes away, please.” Maybe it is her training as a doctor who tells a child who is about to receive an injection, “look away.” I don’t know how she came to the technique, but it worked. Our grandson looked away until his Mom had finished, and he was pleased to see everything arranged properly when he turned back to the plate. Yesterday was Mairin’s birthday. I am grateful she was born, that she married Justin and that she brings to her children and to all of us her love and patience.