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Getting to know the author
- Anytime you tell a story, you tell the parts that are important to you. You also tell the parts that make the point you’re trying to make. The LORD does the same thing. If you want to get to know the God of the Bible, one way is to consider what things He includes in His book and what things He leaves out.
- World History
- World history records the surviving literature from this time is the Epic of Gilgamesh.
- The Babylonians are doing complex math with a 6-based number system. Geometry and trigonometry is not Greek in origin, it is Babylonian. The 6-based number system survives today in our western mathematics. A circle is 360 degrees. A triangle is 180 degrees. There are 60 seconds in a minute. 60 minutes in an hour. 24 hours in a day consisting generally of 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night. That’s all Babylon. The sixes are everywhere. They also introduced the idea of place value numbers.
- The Babylonians had already created a system of lending based on deposits and withdrawals. It was what we call our banking system.
- Hammurabi, the Babylonian king, codified laws that exist today. A stone with some of these laws still exists today I believe.
- Mount Vesuvius erupts and destroys several towns.
- In China, the Shang began to gain power, replacing the Xia dynasty, and will become the Shang dynasty.
- This is also known as the “Bronze Age” according to world history.
- The earliest Mayan relics are from this time as well.
- But none of these things are recorded in God’s book. Why? Because the work of God is what’s important to God.
The LORD’s work in one family
- From the time of Abraham and God’s promise to Abraham that through him all nations will be blessed, the LORD’s eyes are on Abraham and his family. Specifically Abraham, then Isaac, then Jacob.
- From Jacob, who is Israel, the LORD will follow all the souls that come from Jacob.
- The LORD will watch over the physical descendants of Jacob who is Israel. Israelites will receive blessings that no other nation will receive.
- And the most important man who ever lived will come out of Jacob. That is Jesus Christ.
Passing the torch
- But even as God follows the physical descendants of Jacob, it is clear that what pleases God is faith.
- Abraham dies having not received the continuing city he’s looking for.
