21st C Disciples With a 1st C Faith

On Becoming a 21st Century Influencer

“Our God is an orderly God—in His creation, with astronomy, you can predict when things are going to happen,” he says. “Knowing where stars were when Columbus sailed to where they will be next winter—the evidence for a Designer is overwhelming.”

Professor Henry Kuhlman

It is not difficult for people to see the order in the universe and point to God. The sun comes up every day, the seasons go through their annual cycle, Orion appears in the Northern hemisphere every winter. How odd it seems to think of a universe with no predictability, where the physical order would change in unpredictable ways and we could never know which season would come next and where, or if, the stars would show up.

Psalm 19 speaks to this order: The heavens declare the glory of God. The expanse shows his handiwork. Day after day they pour forth speech, and night after night they display knowledge. vs. 1-2

The physical order of the universe is evident in these first two verses. The repetition of order – day after day ( yom l’yom ) and night after night (lailah l’lailah) demonstrates the regularity of that order. Day after day pours forth speech (אמר amar) and night to night reveals knowledge (דעת da’at). That speech (amar) is the word of God in physical form. He speaks to us through His creation as Psalm 19 continues:

There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their voice has gone out through all the earth, their words to the end of the world. ca. 3-4

You can travel anywhere you wish on the face of planet Earth, and the voice (קול kol) of creation is heard everywhere you go. The voices of the day-by-day and night-by-night revelation of God speak loudly and no one has an excuse for not hearing what they are saying. (see Roman 1:18 and following)

Though these witnesses are silent yet they speak so loudly that you cannot get away from their voice. Think of these words the next time you view a night sky and ask what the physical order in the universe is telling you. The Apostle Paul (Shaul) points to the same principle found in Psalm 19 and in Romans 1 as noted.

For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse. Rom 1:20

The physical order of the universe is so clear to mankind that we are all left without an excuse for not recognizing the Creator. Psalm 19 begins by describing how God has placed this witness in verse 1: “The heavens declare the glory of God.”

Declare is מספרים m’sopherim from the verb saphar. While the verb saphar means to count or tell, derived from the same root is sepher, a scroll or a book, along the same thought, a sopher is a scribe.

Here in Psalm 19, the m’sopherim is the telling. The heavens are in a sense the scroll of God who wrote His glory in a physical way by speaking His Word into His creation.

This is like the sopherim, the scribes of Israel who wrote His voice in another physical way using his verbal words.

From a revelation through what has been made to the revelation through what has been written.

The LORD’s Torah is perfect, restoring the soul. The LORD’s testimony is sure, making wise the simple. The LORD’s precepts are right, rejoicing the heart. The LORD’s commandment is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever. The LORD’s ordinances are true, and righteous altogether. vs. 7-9

The physical creation is a pointer directing us first to the Creator God recognized in His revelation to the whole world, and then directing us to the Torah of God (torah is the Hebrew word for teaching) which points to the parallel but invisible moral order. In Psalm 19, we find both together as the sum of the declaration of God to His creation.

Where other organizations point to the message of God in His physical order, Answers in Exodus points to the message of God in His moral order and finds overwhelming evidence that points to our Creator and to our responsibility before Him. We find the moral order of this universe to be a powerful witness to the One that created it.

One difference between the physical order and moral order is that violations of the physical order come much quicker and are easier to see. The moral order seems to take more time, but the violations of that order do eventually come as it declares in Number 32:23 “be sure your sin will find you out.”

How we ever got to the place where following the moral Torah, God’s instruction for the unseen moral order of our universe, the moral order of creation, is taught by some as a violation of following the God who created it is another story for another place on this website.

Answers in Exodus, the foundation for Bound2TRUTH, has a goal to return the disciples of Yeshua aka Jesus, to the Torah – the teaching about how to truly be alive and show that life, the life that he followed. One point of influence, is through that teaching to bring about the end of the practice of child sacrifice in our nation, as one influence, wherever we are able. The second point of applying the moral order as created by God, is to bring about the end of the transgender sacrifice of our children. And to do that we must understand how a Torah-centered worldview will affect our practices in life.

Am I “uniquely set apart to obey him,” or another way of saying the same thing, “am I holy?” That is the starting point for being an influencer in our impure and unholy, not set apart culture today.

Want to be an influencer? It starts with being set apart, as God said, “You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” Lev 11:44.

Being an influencer starts with being able to transmit God’s set-apartness, his holiness to others.

Being an influencer includes the whole Bible from cover to cover. That’s why our blog is called Both Ends of the Book and why we refer to the Wholly Bible.