Dear Family,
This week we come to one of the most controversial passages in the bible - Genesis 6:1-4! Where will I go with it? What is the Nephilim? Who are the sons of God and the daughters of men? Well, I suppose you will just have to wait until Sunday. What I am more concerned about is how we all approach passages that are known to be filled with intrigue and potential controversy. How will we face this tough passage together?
As one of the elders and main teaching pastor of our church, I would at least like you to know a few things. I studied hard. I focused on good hermeneutical principles by being concerned about translation, language, and grammar. I was concerned about the context of the passage, the book and the entire bible. I was concerned for the significance of the original audience and also the New Testament usage of our text. I thought through the prominent historical positions of the church for the past 2000 years. One would think after doing all that work, we would certainly come out with an undeniable answer. Well, the truth is that I'm fairly confident and at least convicted, but not without an open hand of knowing that I could be wrong and that I have seen my own room for error.
What is more important to me is what I am asking this week of you, my dear church family. I hope we will all come to the Scriptures asking God to guide our hearts and minds. I hope we will not want to be convinced by a pastor but by God's inerrant and infallible word. I hope we will come with grace knowing that some aspects of Scripture are harder than others. I hope we will all realize that if there is any lack of clarity in the Scriptures, it is our problem, not God's. I hope we can come with a collective humble attitude to hearing the main point from the context of God's truth regardless of our own ideas about a difficult passage being matched. And I hope you know my door is always open for more conversation.
What I'm asking this week is for you to hear out an explanation of a difficult passage and then hone in on the big point of the whole text. If you can hear the most important aspect of Genesis 6, I promise you will love God more.
2 Peter 1:19-21 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Look at the humility here from Peter. Peter was able to witness the transfiguration of Jesus. With his own eyes he saw the glory of Christ shining in all his brilliance standing next to Moses and Elijah. Even after acknowledging that he witnessed that most glorious event, Peter says that the Scriptures are more reliable than his own experience. This Apostle says that the Scriptures (not his own eyes and experience) bring greater clarity like a lamp shining in a dark place. That is how I want to approach preaching Genesis 6 this week, and that is what I am asking of my church family as you come to hear the preaching of God's word. Keep your eyes in the text, hear the explanation from your pastor, and ask the Lord to make his word shine for us all. Let us be prepared to give God's word priority over our own ideas and experiences and prejudices
The great thing about the doctrine of perspicuity (the clarity of Scripture) is that it does not mean all of Scripture is equally clear. There are certainly some passages that are less clear than others. When that happens, we will concentrate on the more clear to attempt to understand the less clear. We will also celebrate the fact that the most clear truth through the entire message of the Bible is the gospel of Jesus Christ. On Sunday I promise to be clear about salvation!
Pray for me. Pray for you. See you Sunday.