10 years! What a Ride!

I will almost never post to things in one day, but I just realized that I have been writing on this page for 10 years. That is unbelievable to me. It doesn’t feel like it, but 10 years ago, January 5 of 2013 to be exact, I was a sophomore in Bible college. I probably thought I knew everything. My wife and I had been married for just over two years, and we only had one kid, who was almost a year old. We were living in Glendale, AZ, and we were in the process of church hunting due to our previous church going in a direction we didn’t like. Things have changed dramatically since then, and yet they are so much the same!

Over the last 10 years, I feel like I have grown a lot. I graduated college. I got ordained as a pastor. I have built ministries from the ground up, served in existing ministries, and even seen some of those ministries fall apart. I have made amazing friends who encouraged me in the Lord, and I have had to leave those friends as I’ve moved around the country. They’re still there, but I don’t talk to them nearly as much as I should . . . a product of my anxiety, apathy (medication induced), and even fear. I’ve also drifted from God, followed my own passions and desires, and tried to do things on my own. Spoiler alert! It didn’t work. I have had several interesting jobs (none of them in ministry), and somehow, by God’s grace, survived what should have been two fatal heart attacks at 40 years old. Needless to say, it’s been a rollercoaster.

So, where am I now? Well, I have found a newly revived passion for God and teaching others about Him and His word. I am living in Mississippi (never would have imagined that!). I am unemployed because my anxiety and depression got so bad that I couldn’t even get out of bed a lot of days. I actually had a three day long panic attack. Not fun! I am involved (and getting more involved) in a church that I really like. I do worry that they will think I’m crazy when they read this blog, but I guess we’ll deal with that when we get there.

All in all, I have a good life, although I struggle to see it that way at times. My depression and anxiety, which was only made worse by the PTSD I suffer from my heart attacks, is now getting better. I am doing weekly counseling, as well as some other treatments, that have worked wonderfully. The truth is, though, I think that my renewed and reinvigorated love for God and relationship with Him is the main driving force behind my improvement. Please don’t tell my wife. She’s been on me for years, and I wouldn’t want her to think she was right all along (she was! And I’m sure she’s reading this.).

So, over the last ten years, I have had some serious ups, like graduating college, the birth of my second son (not that the first was any less amazing . . . just not in the last 10 years.), getting to travel the country, getting to go to Hawaii, being ordained to do ministry as a pastor, and buying my first house (although that has its own not so great backstory). There have also been a lot of downs. I almost died from a heart attack, and then I did actually die from a second one (I got better). I have had mental and emotional breakdowns that have, at times, made a “normal” life impossible. I have had to leave churches and people I loved. I lost my dad suddenly to a car accident. Sadly, I feel like there has been more down than up, but that is probably just my perspective. Remember . . . depression.

Here is the point to all of this, though. Through all of this, through all of the amazing moments and debilitating struggles, I can say one thing for sure. God has been with me through all of it, even when I didn’t see it. Sometimes I feel like I have completely failed as a husband, a dad, and a man. There were times I felt like my life wasn’t worth living anymore. Often I feel like there is no light at the end of my tunnel. I feel like, even though my depression and anxiety are improving, I will never be able to live the life I want to live. Sometimes I feel like I will never be of value to the people around me or to the world.

The truth is, though, God brought me through all of this, and as cliche as it sound, He allowed it for a reason. Do I know what that reason is? No, not really. I can say that I have grown from a lot of it, but I still struggle. It is still hard for me to simply exist some days. My greatest desire is to be able to teach people about the Bible. God gave me a passion to work within the local church to disciple others and deepen their love and understanding of the Scriptures. My wife says that God saved my life so that I could do that one day, but, to be honest, it feels like that day is never going to come.

OK, I keep trying to bring the mood up, and yet I keep going back to complaining. Here is where I am at right now, in this moment: I am leaning on God! I started writing this blog again because I can hopefully live out my passion for teaching right here. I have hope that, even if I never get hired as a pastor or find some other way to be a Bible teacher, I will always have Jesus. He will always present me with ways to spread His truth to others. More than all of that, though, He will always be with me.

Our God isn’t some distant deity who we have to entice to intercede in our lives. No, our God is close to us at all times. In fact, He lives in us! His Spirit actually lives in us and fills us with the joy and peace and comfort and love that can only come from God . . . if we let Him. So, am I doing perfect? No. Are all my days great days? Not even close right now. Am I “#tooblessedtobestressed”? Absolutely not. Life is hard. When I draw close to God, when I really let Him define who I am and what I’m worth, and when I let everything else except for Him fade away, I find peace. I find comfort. There have even been a few times I’ve found joy . . . which has been extremely rare. God doesn’t make all the hard things go away. He makes the hard things seem small in light of who He is and who He says I am. That is where I’m at right in this moment.

Things aren’t easy. I’m in constant pain (from broken ribs from CPR that will never fully heal). I have had more death in my life in the last three years than anyone should. But right now, right in this moment, I feel peaceful. I feel loved. I feel strong. I feel like my life has a purpose, and that purpose is to love people the way God has loved me . . . and that brings me more joy than I have felt in LONG time.

I don’t know where you’re at right now. You’re life may be great, or you could feel like everything is in shambles and there’s no way out. My prayer for you tonight is that you will draw close to God. Sorry, my “Christianese” took over. Just talk to Him. Tell Him what you’re feeling. Yell at Him if you have to. Tell Him you’re angry. He can handle it. Or, cry your heart out. Tell Him that you feel like you can’t go on. Tell Him that you’re scared, alone, or broken. That’s what He’s there for.

Most importantly, though, give your life to Him. He is the King of the Universe. He rules over everything and everyone. But, He’s a good King. He wants what is best for His people. He wants nothing more than for you to run to Him, trust Him, and let Him be your strength, your hope, and your refuge. He wants you to be part of His family! I don’t write this to tell you that you need to get your life right or follow His rules. That’s not what this is about. No, this is about letting your Father lift you up and rescue you . . . because He will.

Ten years ago, I thought I knew it all. Now I have more questions than I’ve ever had. The one thing I don’t question, though, is God’s love and presence in my life. I have seen it first hand. I have felt Him when I’m near Him. I have seen the way He fulfills me when I just let Him! That is what I pray for anyone who is feeling lost or hopeless or alone. Run to Him! Please! It is the best decision you will ever make!

The Sons of God . . . Men or Monsters?

Hey everyone! I want to address a topic today that some people may be familiar with, but that has been debated among biblical scholars, Bible teachers, and just Christians in general. This topic is about who exactly the sons of God in Genesis 6:1 are. I hit on this a bit in my post about Jesus’s birthday, but it was a very quick mention that didn’t really address this issue in any meaningful way. Before I get into the meat of this issue, I guess we should just look at what the passage says. This comes at the beginning of God’s announcement of the upcoming Flood which will clean the earth of the pervasive evil that has taken root in the hearts of men. Here is what Genesis 6:1-4 say:

“1 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.”

I will be the first to admit that this passage is cryptic. There is little doubt that these verses are intended to be an explanation of why God brought the Flood on the world, since what follows is God’s choosing of Noah and His announcement that He was about to destroy all life on earth. Whatever this passage means, we need to understand it as a problem that is severe enough to warrant the wiping out of every living thing.

Who are these “sons of God”? Well, as I said this is a debated issue in the Church. There are two prevailing views that have been brought forth to explain this passage. The first (the Sethite view) is that the sons of God are those of the line of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve. It has been the dominant view since about the 4th century A.D. This view sees the line of Seth as the Godly line of man, those who remained faithful to Yahweh. The daughters of man, then, are the line of Cain, those who had abandoned faith in God. The idea is that these marriages between faithful and unfaithful were seen as an abomination to God.

The second view (the fallen angel view), while not as accepted in the world of academia today, is more . . . supernatural. In this view, the sons of God are seen to be divine beings who came down and had sexual relations with human women. Now, I need to explain here the when I use the word “divine,” I am not saying that these being were divine in the same sense that Yahweh is divine. They are created beings who are lesser than the God of the Bible. No, when I say divine, all I mean is that they are spiritual beings who, at least up until this point, resided in Heaven with Yahweh.

So, which view is correct? Well, let’s first look at the first view and how it is held and explained by a few Bible scholars and commentators. Trevor J. Major, M.Sc., M.A. writes, “Thus, after the generations of Cain and Seth have been outlined in chapters four and five, and 6:2 then speaks of two groups of people, is it not reasonable to conclude that the earlier familial division is being carried on into the later discussion?” His point is that the previous chapters outlined the lines of Cain and Seth, so it would be reasonable to conclude that this passage is carrying this forward.

Ayantunde Olaoluwa Meshach of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria writes in the Pharos Journal of Theology, “. . . when we take the sons of God to be fallen angels, everything looks like falling into place . . . But the interpretation of the sons of God as godly male descendants of Seth is more appropriate because it is due to the sin of men and not of angels.” He sees the rationale for the Sethite view as the idea that the Flood was because of the sin of man, not angels (divine beings).

On a surface reading, this view seems to have some merit. Some argue that angels or divine beings are never mentioned in the narrative up to this point (an idea that I will deal with in a later post); therefore, it is wrong to see them in this passage. Others argue that it would be impossible for spiritual beings to have physical relations with human beings. While I can see where this view comes from, and why some may hold it, I believe that it lacks both the historical and textual support to be the correct view. Let’s move on the second view.

Again, this view states that some members of Yahweh’s divine family rebelled and came down to earth, having sexual relations with human women. Where do we find support for this view? Well, the best place to look is the rest of the Bible.

Let’s start with the book of Job. In Job 1-2 we see a divine council scene in which the Satan comes to challenge Job’s devotion to Yahweh. The operative verses are Job 1:6, 2:1: “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them,” and, “Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD.” Now, there is no dispute that these two verses describe divine beings coming before God which are called the sons of God. We also have Job 38:7: “when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” This is describing the divine beings who were with God when He created the world.

Those are the only places in the Old Testament where the phrase “sons of God” is used, and they all refer to divine beings. There is also Psalm 82 where they are referred to as “sons of the Most High.” Interestingly, though, we can also find support for the “fallen angel” view in the New Testament. Two writers, one an Apostle and the other a brother of Jesus, both make reference to this event and take the supernatural view.

2 Peter 2:4-10 reads, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10 and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.”

Peter talks about the “angels when they sinned.” There is really no other reference in the Old Testament that could be about angels (plural) sinning. He goes on to compare their sin to that of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah who wanted to “know” the angels who were visiting Lot. Verse 10 also is a clarifying phrase in which Peter says that this is about “those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.” If we see divine beings or fallen angels in Gen. 6:1, that is exactly what they did. They gave into their lusts and despised the authority of God who made a separation between the spiritual and physical worlds.

The second New Testament author to make mention of this is Jude, the brother of Christ. In his one chapter book, he says in verses 5-7, “Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”

Jude mentions the “angels who did not stay within their own positions of authority, but left their proper dwelling.” These angels left their spiritual realm and the authority of God in order to transgress the separation God had put in place. In case we weren’t sure what they did when they left their proper dwelling, v. 7 tells us that they, just like Sodom and Gomorrah, indulged in “sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire.” In other words, they pursued sexual relations with physical, human beings which is unnatural for a divine being to do.

Now, this part is going to be slightly controversial, but I want to bring it up because I believe it gives historical support to this view. In 1 Enoch (commonly called the Book of Enoch), chapters 6-8 tell the same story as Genesis 6:1, but in more detail. I’m not going to quote any of it. If you’re interested, I suggest you find a way to read it. It’s interesting, to say the least.

I need to make a disclaimer here. I know there is a lot of disdain in the conservative Christian community for the Book of Enoch. I am in no way claiming this book is Scripture. Rather, I believe, as others do, that it gives insight into the beliefs of the Jewish people in the 2nd Temple era (the time between the Old and New Testaments). The story told in Enoch points to the fact that the ancient Jews also held to the supernatural/fallen angel view of Genesis 6. Other 2nd Temple texts also refer to this event, such as Jubilees and the Book of the Giants. They are all interesting reads, but they are not Scripture and should not be taken as though they are. They are simply a glimpse into the worldview of the people who read and studied the writings of the Old Testament. It is also important to note that Jude actually quotes the Book of Enoch verses 14-15 of his letter, showing that he was familiar with the book and gave it at least some credit as having valuable information.

With all that being said, I think that the evidence points to the fact that the sons of God in Genesis 6 are rebellious beings who left God’s divine council in order to corrupt humanity and satisfy their own lusts. I feel like we, as Christians, should not be afraid of this view. We believe in a supernatural God and should have a supernatural worldview. This view should not present a problem to us. Not only that, but it seems to be what the people who wrote and read the Bible believed.

There is a lot more that can be said of this, but for now, I think this will do. I hope you got something out of this and enjoyed it. More than that though, I hope you draw close to God today, that you strive to live and look like Jesus, that you make every effort to love and minister to those around you, and that, if you don’t know Jesus, that you look into the claims of Christianity and get to know Him. That is the best I could hope for anyone, because it is the only way to find true joy and fulfillment in this life. I love you all. I hope you have a great next few days, and I will write more shortly.