In this lesson, students learn from Jesus and Paul about creation.
Devotion
Genesis 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Who alone can merely speak a word and what never was suddenly is? If you answered “God,” you are correct.
Forget everything you’ve been taught in public school or watched on television: God’s Word in the Holy Bible is absolutely clear that God created EVERTHING we know by merely speaking it into existence over the course of six 24-hour days!
Well; not everything we know. On the sixth day of that incredible week, God created mankind—not with a Word, but with His very own hands!
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
That’s right, my friend; the very first man was hand-made by God Himself. That’s why every man, woman, and child who’s ever lived is something really special to God—and that includes, you!
Feeling down, unappreciated, alone? Just remember that the very Being who spoke the universe into existence with His Word also knit you together in your mother’s womb. Not only that, He has promised to take care of you in every earthly—and more importantly, every spiritual way!
Sadly, that first handmade man decided he knew better than God, and rejected the perfect Paradise God spoke into existence for him. That’s why sin has haunted God’s perfect universe ever since.
The Good News, is that God the Father still takes care of His beloved Creation—including you! Food, clothes, friends, but most important of all: a way to get back to God’s Paradise Lost!
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Celebrate your special standing with the incredible Being that is God!
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.
What does this mean?
I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them.
He also gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all I have.
He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life. He defends me against all danger and guards and protects me from all evil. All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him.
This is most certainly true!
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Devotion
“For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be.” (Mark 13:19)
In predicting a future judgment on the unbelieving world, the Lord Jesus referred to “the beginning of the creation which God created,” thus affirming the biblical doctrine of supernatural, sudden creation. In the pagan world of His day, evolutionism was dominant almost everywhere. The Epicureans, for example, were atheistic evolutionists. The Stoics, Gnostics, Platonists, and others were pantheistic evolutionists. None of the extra-biblical philosophers of His day believed in a God who had created all things, including even the universe itself.
But Christ was a creationist, and the much-maligned “scientific creationists” of today are following His example and teaching. He even believed in recent creation, for He said (speaking of Adam and Eve) that “from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female” (Mark 10:6). The pagans all believed in an eternal cosmos, but Jesus said it had a beginning and that man and woman were a part of that beginning creation, following which “the sabbath was made for man” (Mark 2:27).
He also believed that the “two accounts” of creation (Genesis 1 and 2) were complementary, not contradictory, for He quoted from both in the same context. “Have ye not read,” He said, “that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female [Genesis 1], And said For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh [Genesis 2]?” (Matthew 19:4-6).
There may be some Christians who are evolutionists, but there is no such thing as “Christian evolution,” for Christ was a creationist! HMM
The lesson
19 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. 3 Some Pharisees came in order to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?”
4 He answered, “Haven’t you read that from the beginning their Maker ‘made them male and female,’[a] 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will be one flesh’?[b] 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, man must not separate.”
7 They asked him, “Then why did Moses command a man to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8 Jesus said to them, “Because of your hard hearts, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives, but it was not that way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the grounds of her sexual immorality, and marries another woman is committing adultery.”[c]
10 His disciples said to him, “If this is the relationship of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”
11 But he said to them, “Not everyone can accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For example, there are eunuchs who were born that way, and others who were castrated by people, and others who decided to remain unmarried because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who is able to accept this should accept it.”
Matthew 19:9 Some witnesses to the text add And the one who marries the divorced woman also commits adultery.
10 Jesus got up and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. Crowds gathered around him again and, as he usually did, he taught them. 2 Some Pharisees came to test him and asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
3 He replied, “What did Moses command you?”
4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”[a]
5 But Jesus told them, “He wrote this command for you because of your hard hearts. 6 But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.[b] 7 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.[c] So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
10 In the house his disciples asked him about this again. 11 He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. 12 If she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
https://live.bible.is/bible/ENGESV/MRK/10
Questions.
The two ideas Jesus quoted from Genesis: God created gender and marriage should be for life.
God made marriage. Man makes divorce. Moses action was part of the civil law.
Paul's reference to the Greek poets shows they had a natural knowledge that there is a god.
Saint Paul delivering the Areopagus Sermon in Athens, by Raphael, 1515.
Altar to the Unknown God
SEI·DEO·SEI·DEIVAE·SAC
G·SEXTIVS·C·F·CALVINVSPR
DE·SENATI·SENTENTIA
RESTITVIT
This could be translated into English as: "Whether sacred to god or to goddess, Gaius Sextius Calvinus, son of Gaius, praetor, restored this on a vote of the senate."
22 Then Paul stood up in front of the council of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in every way. 23 For as I was walking around and carefully observing your objects of worship, I even found an altar on which had been inscribed, ‘To an unknown god.’ Now what you worship as unknown—this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made with hands. 25 Neither is he served by human hands, as if he needed anything, since he himself gives all people life and breath and everything they have. 26 From one man,[c] he made every nation of mankind to live over the entire face of the earth. He determined the appointed times and the boundaries where they would live. 27 He did this so they would seek God[d] and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’[e] As some of your own poets have said, ‘Indeed, we are also his offspring.’[f]
29 “Therefore, since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and planning. 30 Although God overlooked the times of ignorance, he is now commanding all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has set a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he appointed. He provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
32 When they heard about the resurrection from the dead, some of them started to scoff. But others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” 33 So Paul left the council. 34 However, some men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them were Dionysius (a member of the council of the Areopagus) and a woman named Damaris, as well as others with them.
22 [δεισιδαιμονεστέρους Paul in the opening of his address to the Athenians, Acts 17:22, calls them, with kindly ambiguity, κατά πάντα δεισιδαιμονεστέρους (namely, than the rest of the Greeks (Winer's Grammar, 244 (229)), cf. Meyer at the passage), as being devout without the knowledge of the true God; cf. Bengel at the passage. ]
Acts 17:26 Some witnesses to the text read blood.
Acts 17:27 Some witnesses to the text read the Lord. see Romans 1:19-22
Acts 17:28 This might be a quotation from Epimenides, who lived around 600 bc.
Acts 17:28 This seems to be a quotation from Aratus poem Phainomena, who wrote approximately 270 bc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEXRkyzLOAE