What is Moral (or Good)?

There is a lot of talk in the news these days about popular opinion, especially using popular opinion to justify whatever naughty things are being done or to justify criticism of conservative opinions.  Some bold people are even beginning to self-declare what's moral or not and basing that opinion on what's popular.  That's insane.  Popular opinion is perfectly valid as popular opinion but should never be confused with morals.  Morals are unaffected by popular opinion and popular opinion should always honor morals as their foundation.  The two aren't supposed to be interchanged, nor should they be in conflict.  So how should we define morals?

• When God declares right and wrong, it's called morals.
• When industries or other groups of volunteers agree on a set of right and wrong, it's called ethics.
• When rulers or legislatures do it, it's called law.
• When people in authority do it, it's called political correctness.
• When most of society agrees, it's called popular opinion.

An important detail is morals are the foundation for the rest, not the other way around. Politicians, journalists, TV news anchors, and the rest of us shouldn't be making moral declarations without basing our claims on the written word of God.  When people simply throw out accusations of immorality they're really just pushing propaganda, and most likely just objecting that someone has a different opinion.  Differences of opinion aren't immoral, unless you're differing with your Creator.

Note, people who reject the history of the Bible are very likely to reject the morality of it, too.  That's an understandable correlation.  For now, let's assume we care what the Bible says, because proving its historicity is a different matter.

The 10

The 10 Commandments are perhaps the most famous part of the Old Testament.  In part, because they're the infamous "thou shalt nots" which God gave the Israelites, and which Christians try to encourage the rest of the world as minimum standards of morality.  They were given by God to Moses in Exodus 20, and Moses reminded the people of them in Deuteronomy 5.  In case you don't have them memorized, here's my personal summarization:

1. Do not believe in any other gods besides the one true God.
2. Do not make any idols.
3. Do not use the name of God without love, nor misrepresent Him. 
4. Remember and keep holy the Sabbath day.
5. Honor your parents.
6. Do not murder.
7. Do not get sexually involved with anyone but the one person you are married to.
8. Do not steal.
9. Do not lie when testifying.
10. Do not lust for nor misuse anything that is not yours.

About 2000 years ago, when Jesus walked the earth, He was asked which was the most important commandment.  The person asking the question was not simply referring to the 10 Commandments, he was referring to their entire law, which included what we now know in the Torah plus all their made-up add-ons.  The interaction was recorded in parallel passages of Matthew 22:34-40 and Mark 12:28-34.  Jesus's answer was:

1. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
2. Love your neighbor as yourself.

He was quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.  But another perspective on His response is He paraphrased the first 4 of the 10 Commandments with His first reply, then the last 6 with His second.

The 10 Commandments don't come with a prescription for punishment, at least not right there in the very next verses.  They're just the "thou shalt nots" that are so famous.  The implication is when God says don't do it, there's not supposed to be a need for an explicit punishment, you're just supposed to take God seriously.  However, even most Christians today, and certainly most atheists, have forgotten or were never taught that there actually were punishments prescribed for most of the Ten.  We just have to do the smallest amount of connecting the dots.

Rather than specifically look for each of the 10 Commandments, one by one, we can look for something else.  We can look for when God made a moral declaration and pronounced that violation was a capital offense (punishable by death).  Most of the following can be found with a simple keyword search (on BibleGateway.com or BibleHub.com or Bible.com or whatever tool you prefer) for "put to death" or "purge the evil" when using the NIV translation.  Since recurring themes are present, I've made a pass at categorizing them:

Disrespecting God (the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd commandments)

• Exodus 22:20 - apostasy
• Leviticus 24:16 - blasphemy
• Numbers 25:5 - false gods
• Deuteronomy 13:1-5 - false gods
• Deuteronomy 13:6-11 - false gods
• Deuteronomy 13:12-18 - false gods
• Deuteronomy 17:2-7 - false gods
• Deuteronomy 18:20 - misrepresentation

Disrespecting the Sabbath (the 4th commandment)

• Exodus 31:14-15
• Exodus 35:2
  

Disrespecting your parents (the 5th commandment)

• Exodus 21:15
• Exodus 21:17
• Leviticus 20:9
• Deuteronomy 21:18-21

Disrespecting human life (murder, the 6th commandment)

• Genesis 9:5-6
• Exodus 21:12-14
• Exodus 21:22-23 - the preborn
• Exodus 21:29
• Leviticus 20:1-5 - infanticide
• Leviticus 24:17
• Leviticus 24:21
• Numbers 35:16-18
• Numbers 35:21
• Numbers 35:31
• Deuteronomy 19:11-13
  

Disrespecting human sexuality (sexual immorality, the 7th commandment)

• Exodus 22:19 - bestiality
• Leviticus 20:10 - adultery
• Leviticus 20:11 - incest: mother
• Leviticus 20:12 - incest: daughter-in-law
• Leviticus 20:13 - homosexuality
• Leviticus 20:14 - incest: mother-in-law
• Leviticus 20:15 - bestiality
• Leviticus 20:16 - bestiality
• Deuteronomy 22:21 - fornication/promiscuity
• Deuteronomy 22:22 - adultery
• Deuteronomy 22:23-24 - adultery
• Deuteronomy 22:25 - rape

Disrespecting human dignity (human trafficking, relates to the 8th and 10th Commandments)

• Exodus 21:16
• Exodus 22:22-24
• Deuteronomy 24:7

Others (only mentioned once, still applicable today)

• Exodus 22:18 - sorceress
• Leviticus 20:27 - mediums
• Leviticus 27:29 NLT - people God says should die, should die
• Deuteronomy 17:12 - disrespecting God's ambassadors

These weren't the only moral decrees God made (for examples, do a text search for "detestable", "dishonor", or "wicked") but since these were punishable by the most extreme punishment, they were arguably the most important, or highest priority. They could be called the minimum system requirements to be moral. Logically speaking, as with breaking any of the 10 Commandments, from a Biblical perspective, when we commit any of these capital crimes, regardless of whether we are caught and executed or not, or if we even just encourage/ enable others to commit them, then we earn ourselves the label "immoral."

If we dislike or disagree with God on any of these topics, that doesn't change the fact that God is God and the rest of us are not. It's been said that God was the only one around when the votes were cast, and there's never going to be a recount (Isaiah 43:10). Believers don't call the Bible true or inerrant because they happen to like or agree with 100% of what it says the first time they read it. The Bible is true independent of our feelings, and is confirmed by fulfilled prophecy and all observable (objective) reality.

If we aren't crazy about capital punishment then it's easy to say now, almost 3,500 years later, "what the hell?" when we read all these cases. I don't need to defend the opinion of our omnipotent Creator, instead, let's look at the reaction of the people He "imposed" these deadly rules on. Did they feel God was being harsh, shocking, cruel, or the modern buzzword: oppressive?

Near the end of Moses's most famous sermon, after being told/ reminded of all the above, the people responded by claiming God's commands: (all following quotes are from the WEB translation)

• The things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. -Deuteronomy 29:29b

King David lived under the law, hundreds of years later, just as much as the people to whom Moses spoke to personally. Here are a couple of David's comments/attitudes:

• Yahweh’s law is perfect, restoring the soul. Yahweh’s covenant is sure, making wise the simple. Yahweh’s precepts are right, rejoicing the heart. Yahweh’s commandment is pure, enlightening the eyes. -Psalm 19:7-8
• Give thanks to Yahweh, for he is good, for his loving kindness endures forever. -Psalm 107:1
• I run in the path of your commandments, for you have set my heart free. -Psalm 119:32

Of course, I'm not advocating we have an Old Testament revival and erect gallows and start lining people up for execution. These laws identified above established crimes for the nation of Israel (besides Genesis 9:6, which came much earlier) and in a literal sense do not transfer from their theocracy to my nation's democracy. But what does transfer is the timeless nature of the sentiment upon which the laws originated. When God established the Israelites as a nation, He set them up with a theocracy, and one of the first things He did (as any human monarch might do) was inform the people of His opinion on some moral behavior. These opinions established the boundaries of freedom people would have, just as every government on earth still does today. Because all civilizations are defined by what they won't tolerate. God's opinion should always trump any man's opinion because of the nature of being God.

Nothing new

The temptation to replace God-defined right and wrong with popular opinion is about as old as humanity itself. Adam, Eve, and the serpent thought they could replace God's reality with a reality they made up, as recorded in Genesis 3:1-6. It didn't work out well for them, and it won't work out well for us, either, if we reject God's explicit command(s). Did you notice in the original command, in Genesis 2:16-17, the restriction came after the declaration of freedom? The first thing God said was "you may freely eat of every tree of the garden." It was just that one tree next to the Tree of Life that they were restricted from (Genesis 2:9). And that made it a target. The point is, besides God is God, God is good, so when He defines morality for us, we should care, take Him seriously, believe Him, and obey. When we believe someone then we act like they're right.

Remember when Jesus did exactly the same thing? When He walked among us, one of the ways Jesus slammed the leaders of the day was to point out that they had disregarded something that God had declared a capital crime. Read it yourself in Matthew 15:1-9. Notice the religious leaders were claiming something was wrong and Jesus responded that for the sake of their popular opinion on right and wrong they were ignoring God's opinion on right and wrong. Jesus didn't call for everyone who violated to be executed in a catch-up clean-up act, but He did use an example from the law which prescribed capital punishment to make a point about remembering and honoring what God cares about. I'm doing the same thing now. Don't miss the religious leaders were whining about a ceremonial hand washing and Jesus replied with a moral capital crime. Further, Jesus dismissed their ceremonial concern and attacked their moral deficiency.

In Jesus's most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, He started off with what we now call the beatitudes. Almost the next thing He said was He came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it. Then He spends the rest of what we now consider chapter 5 raising the bar on moral laws. For now, I'll just point out Matthew 5:21-22, where He didn't just remind us we're not to murder, but He also forbade us even hating people. Not only did Jesus leave murder a capital offense (as opposed to loosening the expectation & penalty) now thanks to Him we need to fear the fires of hell too! This was actually the first time the Bible explicitly mentioned hell by name. The second time was in Jesus's next breath, when He talked about adultery. Here again He raised the bar, made it harder to comply with the law, and raised the stakes by increasing the penalty for violation by introducing hell (Matthew 5:27-29). If Jesus was some peace-loving dope-smoking social justice warrior who advocated "make love not war," then if we heard Him say this we'd probably have responded "what the hell!?" (And we'd probably have called Him demon-possessed.) But really, do you think just maybe God thinks we should take Him seriously and use His definition of morality rather than arbitrarily making up our own (Matthew 6:33)?

So What?

Even though the literal Israelite laws no longer apply today, the opinion of our Creator remains. Do we care? Paul warned us in Galatians 6:7:

• Don’t be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.

Don't think for a second that because of Jesus's sacrifice we are off the hook. Paul warned us away from this foolish wishful thinking in Romans 6:1-2:

• What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?

As did the author of Hebrews 10:26-27:

• For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which will devour the adversaries.

Certainly God was exasperated with His people in the Old Testament.  Just one example was Jeremiah 8:6:

• I listened and heard, but they didn’t say what is right. No one repents of his wickedness, saying, “What have I done?” Everyone turns to his course, as a horse that rushes headlong in the battle.

And if their perspective wasn't enough, then remember Jesus's warning in Matthew 4:17:

• From that time, Jesus began to preach, and to say, “Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

And Jesus's warning in Revelation 2:16:

• Repent therefore, or else I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of my mouth.

Repenting requires that we stop making immoral choices and encourage others to stop too. What is immoral? At least the actions God felt were capital offenses and the prohibitions in the 10 Commandments (Romans 7:7b). (Though some good runners up are things He hates, including but not limited to Proverbs 6:16-19, Isaiah 61:8, Zechariah 8:17, and Revelation 2:6.) Why does God care so much that He declared anything to be a capital crime in the first place? Because God is holy and not a fan of evil, but more to the point He cares about us and wants us to live long lives in fellowship with Him. But don't just take it from me, He gave His reasoning in Deuteronomy 19:19b-21a:

• You shall remove the evil from among you. Those who remain shall hear, and fear, and will never again commit any such evil among you.

Later, in Ezekiel 18:23, He elaborated:

• “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” says the Lord Yahweh; “and not rather that he should return from his way, and live?”

Once we've earned the label "immoral," what is a holy God to do with us, other than get rid of us? The good news (the gospel) is that God came to earth to save us from our predicament. This concept was summarized by Peter in Acts 4:10-12:

• May it be known to you all... that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth... There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that is given among men, by which we must be saved!

The only trick is we must take God at His word and accept this wonderful gift, then live more holy (moral) and obedient lives as evidence of our choice (Matthew 7:21, 1 Samuel 15:22-23).

Good & Bad

Let's be clear on the parallel here between moral and immoral to good and evil. Because God said to Isaiah "woe to those who call evil good, and good evil" in Isaiah 5:20. God taught a lot when He was incarnate, including: "out of the heart come evil thoughts - murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander" (Matthew 15:19, Mark 7:21-22). Does that list of "evils" sound familiar? I hope so:

• Murder: 6th commandment
• Adultery: 7th commandment
• Sexual immorality: 7th commandment plus all the other sexual choices God declared "wicked", "detestable", or "dishonorable" in Leviticus 18-20
• Theft: 8th commandment
• False testimony: 9th commandment
• Slander: expansion on the 9th commandment, possibly similar to how He raised the bar on murder and adultery in Matthew 5:21-32

Of course there are a ton of other evil and good claims in the Bible, both before and after Jesus's resurrection. And there was Malachi 2:17, where he lamented

• You have wearied Yahweh with your words. Yet you say, ‘How have we wearied Him?’ In that you say, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in Yahweh’s sight, and He delights in them.’

Instead of wearying God, let's call evil "evil" and good "good," using God's definition, encourage others to too, and prioritize voting for representatives who do.

Further, as important of a start as it is, it's not good enough to simply acknowledge good and evil, we should punish God-defined evil and reward good: AM 5:15, ROM 12:9 (and certainly not do the opposite PR 17:15, ISA 5:20). May it be said of us, we "believed the Lord, and He credited it to [us] as righteousness" (Genesis 15:6).

The only way to sleep in bed?

Any patent can relate to this. Mom and dad are in bed and junior is asleep in his or her bed. Next thing we know our kid is climbing in with us and gets right in the middle of the bed, between mom and dad. Ok, we think, as long as you're polite and just go to sleep, whatever, you can stay. But next thing we know, junior is laying sideways between you. One parent gets a skull bumping into them and the other is getting kicked by a pair of restless feet. A few moments later and junior rotates again and now he is head down at the bottom of the bed, feet kicking both parents in the head or torso.

This is when a parent, especially the dad, is going to be inspired to say "wait a minute, there's only one way to sleep in bed with mommy and daddy, and that's head up, feet down, still, and quiet."

If we were to write that down, someone could take our comment out of context and rip into us. "There's only one way!? You're such an antagonist, or fascist. You micromanager, why are you so narrow-minded?" The fun part is in this specific example of parent-child bed-sharing, the comment made by the hypothetical parent was perfectly right in context, and just appeared mean out of context.

The limitation imposed by the dad wasn't something the dad even wanted to give. When the dad was woken up from an otherwise good and well-deserved sleep by a little child who climbed over (on top of) him to lay between him and his wife, the first thing to come to mind wasn't "there's only one way," nor "how can I limit this person." It's cute when a kid comes in bed, and especially if they had a bad dream and just want to snuggle, most parents most of the time would be fine with that. It is after the child has rotated and bumped (with skull, shoulders, elbows, hands, and knees) and kicked countless times every couple minutes does the dad resign to giving a command he doesn't think any thinking person should need to hear.

An outside observer who saw nothing and heard only "there's only one way to lay in bed" could easily ask "considering we can choose between sleeping on our back, our side, and our stomach, are you saying most of those are wrong? The trick is those are higher levels of thinking that the dad was well aware of but not what the child needed to hear. Also, ironically, almost all (if not all) of us, even those who might object to the father saying there's only one way, would agree with the father that the child laying in those obstructive ways is unacceptable. When the child wants to be with the father, then the father has the right to make the command there's only one right way to sleep with me. Because what's easier to say (a) "there's only one right way to sleep with me, and that's head up," or (b) "don't lay sideways, don't bump me nor mommy with your head, don't hit us, don't kick us, neither in the side nor in our head." Option B is more technically accurate, but sounds more negative and picky. Don't don't don't. Option A is actually constructive, advising the child what they should do to bring mutual happiness.

The parents look forward to the day when the one way to sleep together is accepted by all, and then at that point, they may need to advance to discussing if it matters (contextually) whether they lay on their side, back, or stomach.

In the same way, God our Father has declared there's only one way to be with Him. Only after we accept this can we be accurate that one size doesn't fit all and there are many ways to please Him. Jesus's disciples were told this to their faces in Mark 9:38-41 (and Luke 9:49-50). But all the nonbelievers need to take more seriously John 14:6, Luke 9:35, Acts 4:11-12, and 1 Timothy 2:5 before they try to claim Mark or Luke 9.

He said it, he meant it, and he was right

In the 1978 original Superman movie, there was a scene where poor, accident-prone Lois Lane, happens to be in a helicopter that has an improper takeoff. At the dramatic pinnacle, she ends up dangling over the edge of a skyscraper by nothing other than her handhold on her seat belt. Clark Kent (Superman's alter ego) happens to be walking by underneath, he notices the emergency situation, and leaps into action. Here's the clip on YouTube (note, Lois does a lot of screaming, and the music is loud)

https://youtu.be/394jYH82s2o

When Superman swoops up and catches Lois, he says something huge. Did you catch it? It wasn't a huge theological sermon. It wasn't at face value, or out of context, a very interesting statement. And in a million other circumstances, his comment could even be laughed at. But when and where he said it, it was incredibly profound, especially for the person he said it to. He said, "easy miss, I've got you." The key is he volunteered to position himself to say it, he said it, he meant it, and he was right. Anyone else could have said two of the three, but not been helpful.

• If someone said and meant it, but wasn't right, she'd be dead.
• If someone said it and was right, but didn't mean it, she'd probably be dead.
• If someone could have said it but didn't, would have meant it if they had said it, and really had the power to be right, she'd be dead.

Immediately after he said that to Lois, in disbelief she gives her famous reply, "You've got me! Who's got you!?" She neither understood nor believed the power he had to save her. But none-the-less, the proof was before her. His actions confirmed the truth of his words. A moment later the helicopter falls down from above, right on top of them, and Superman nonchalantly catches it. He keeps flying upward, peacefully calm, in dramatic contrast to the falling down Lois experienced moments before. As he lifts both her and the helicopter to safety, Superman looks at Lois with a whimsical expression of "no worries, I've got this, we're cool." After briefly meeting his gaze, Lois doesn't know what to do but look down in dumbstruck wonder at where she was sure she was going to have met her death only a moment ago.

Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. (Some would say it often is.) Jesus made a few comments a couple of millennia ago that still resonate today, and are significantly more profound than those in the movie clip above. The movie clip has a fun soundtrack and camera angles, but Jesus's words (and deeds) were far more important. Here are some quotes from the Bible:

• John 10:30 ​WEB: “I and the Father are one.”
• John 14:6b ​WEB: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
• Mark 10:33-34 ​WEB: “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes. They will condemn Him to death, and will deliver Him to the Gentiles. They will mock Him, spit on Him, scourge Him, and kill Him. On the third day He will rise again.”

Jesus volunteered to position Himself to say these things to us. He left heaven, which cannot be underestimated. Read a brief account of what He temporarily gave up in Revelation 4:2-11. Most of us wouldn't leave that for a second, let alone for multiple decades. And we wouldn't trade that setting for 5-star luxury, but Jesus traded it to live as a pauper. Long before Jerry Siegel dreamed up Superman and Joe Shuster drew him for the world in 1938, Jesus came to be the Savior of mankind. He volunteered to speak to us, He said some things, He meant them, and He was right.

• Matthew 28:5-6 ​WEB: The angel answered the women, “Don’t be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus, who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, just like He said. Come, see the place where the Lord was lying.”

Jesus said many other things that cause many of us to look away, dumbstruck. His actions, especially His rising from the dead, proved the truth of His words. He said it, He meant it, and He was right. I believe Him, I hope you do too.

My first shot in 25 years

I had a chance to use the shooting range today. It's my first time using live ammo since my dad took me when I was in high school, about 25 years ago. Not bad results, if I say so myself. Might be related to all those video games, not that I've played them in 15 years either, though.

Each hit is circled in red in the photo above, but the first hit is pointed at, too. Four to the chest, one to the head, and 6 to the shoulder. Eleven shots, seven yards, zero misses.

Since I'm moving to Kentucky next month and they allow anyone of age and in good standing to carry a firearm (link), I thought it good to try my hand again.

Leaving a Fortune 100 corporation for a Christian apologetic ministry

God is good. All the time. No matter what happens to me or my family. But it sure is cool when He chooses to bless me. Which happens all the time, but sometimes are more dramatic than others. Recently I had one of those times. Here's the story. (It's clearly not the short version, but it's not the long version either.)

Background

I worked at a Fortune 100 corporation for 19.5 years. I was hired by them right out of college. (My testimony about that experience, and how God was clearly involved, was documented on my website, here.) In the early years of our marriage, my wife and I heard about Ken Ham and his desire to build a $100 million museum dedicated to encouraging people the Bible is full of real history, especially Genesis 1-11. When construction was completed in 2007, we went as soon as we could. We rented an RV and made it part of a wonderful family vacation.

Creation Museum gardens

The way I describe to everyone what the museum is like is to compare it to the 1993 Steven Spielberg movie, Jurassic Park. In that movie, there was a scene when they first arrived on the island. There was a small caravan of Jeeps driving and they suddenly stop. The main characters abruptly stop talking and stare, mouths open. The camera shifts and pans to reveal a humongous dinosaur, eating from the trees.

A scene from Jurassic Park

The John Williams music starts, and the camera pans again across an entire field full of dinosaurs. The emotional set up is just awesome, brilliant even. And the visuals, which are still acceptable today (almost 30 years later) were beyond excellent for their time. That same level of awe and excellence is what the Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky inspires. Only in this case, the awe it inspires is in the Bible, or more specifically in how God has been at work in human and universal history.

That guy, Ken Ham, founded an organization named Answers in Genesis before he built the museum. They are responsible for the museum, which was an instant success. It was so popular, that within the first couple years after it opened they were already thinking about how to take their mission to the next level. Their answer was to build a life-sized replica of Noah's Ark. To do this they would need a lot more land. So they bought some about 45 minutes south of the museum. After raising more funds, they built another $100 million museum, which happens to be the largest wooden structure in the world. This museum is the centerpiece of a larger theme park that is intended to [eventually] deliver a similar experience as Disney World, only with a lot more purpose than simply entertaining.

My family and I were able to visit the Ark the fall after it opened, in 2016. While making the hotel reservations, I asked the receptionist how business was doing since the Ark opened. She said for a month and a half after the grand opening, there was not a room available in 30 miles. There are over 50 hotels in that area.

Ark Encounter opening season (top 2) Creation Museum main entrance (bottom)

Then this last summer (2019) my wife and I took our kids on our 8th visit to the museum and our 2nd visit to the Ark. While there, I found myself thinking "I could see myself moving here to work with these people." But I was thinking in like 10 or 20 years.

One of the top reasons I've always appreciated the Creation Museum, the Ark Encounter, and Answers in Genesis as a whole, is they aren't just a bunch of religious zealots who spout "believe what we believe because we believe it!" The organization is run by a bunch of level headed people who know how to engage PhDs and use science to confirm the Bible. They are very explicit that they start with the Bible because it is truly the recorded word of the living God, and then they discover how science confirms it. They don't start with man's ideas of science (which are always changing) and then fit the Bible on top of that. They start with the Bible and show that all observable reality fits, whether archaeology, astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, logic, math, physics, etc. And they do it in a way that a child can understand.

One of the exhibits inside the Ark

Change of plans

The day before Thanksgiving, I got an unexpected email. My company leadership was planning ahead. Our customers, through no fault of ours, were going to have a hard year. Another hard year. This meant our company was going to have a hard year. And the fastest way to deal with such difficulty is to lower the salary overhead. But this is a great company, and people weren't fired. As a precaution they offered a program. Anyone who got the invitation to leave would be given a generous incentive package if they permanently left. I got the invitation. I had no desire to leave, and was not compelled to. But I did realize this was a very unique opportunity. I thought to myself, "there's only one place in the world for which I would give up this sweet deal of a job I have here." Of course, I was thinking of Answers in Genesis, builders of the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter. But I wasn't going to take company time to look into it, and filed the email away. After Thanksgiving was done (Sunday evening) I mentioned the invitation to my wife. I didn't tell her what I was thinking about it, I just mentioned it to get her honest response. The only thing she said was "Answers in Genesis?" so we prayed about it (together and out loud).

This wasn't the first time we'd prayed something like this. On numerous occasions in the last decade we've asked God if He wanted to use us in another part of the country by transferring us inside the same company. A good six to twelve months of this same prayer had preceded an offer a little over a decade ago to transfer from one of our factories (where my career had begun) to the corporate office. Since then on numerous occasions we've prayed a similar prayer, and God's response was always "no, you are right where I want you." So, we once again prayed "God, if you want us to go [to Kentucky], then make it easy. If you don't want us to go, then make it not easy." Then I went to the AiG website, browsed their open positions, and applied for the one that looked the most aligned to my experience and skill, which was a project manager position in one of their IT departments.

Exactly 9.9 years earlier, I had my only quasi-professional experience with AiG. I went on a mission trip with them to the Vancouver Olympics. (It was my wife's idea that she would stay home and watch the 3 kids by herself while I go off and do this cool thing with a bunch of cool people.)

Vancouver Olympics mission trip, Jan 2010

The point is, I met a guy there. Not just any guy, but he happened to work in the same town, in the same building, and for that same Fortune 100 corporation as me! We'd never met each other before then, but God used this mission trip to connect us. He runs a local creation science apologetics ministry and has invited to town guest speakers from AiG numerous times in the last decade. I have attended them with one of my kids a few times.

So after applying online, I immediately told this same friend. I told him I was willing to leave the company, had just applied at AiG, and asked if he had any contacts there then I'd appreciate him putting in a good word for me. I knew he must know someone there, because he's invited guest speakers over. Little did I know, he knew their president. He sent a brief, positive recommendation email, and the president forwarded it on with a simple comment to make sure my application was noticed.

By the third or fourth phone call with the hiring manager for that project manager position, he said to me "you're not really a project manager, are you?" Then he asked "have you ever heard of a Business Analyst?" It's been 19 years since I needed a resume. So I rebooted mine that same night after my wife and I prayed about the voluntary separation invitation. In my haste, I'd listed the detail that I earned a Master's degree, but had left out my area of study. I informed him "yes, that's what my Master's degree emphasis was." He said "good, we've been needing that kind of skill for a long time," and he was interested in creating a new position on his team for me to fill.

What?? We all know (hopefully) that God is given credit as being able to work miracles, and otherwise just have an amazing way of timing things. But I don't think we all appreciate how that's not just an academic or theologic ethereal concept. It's real. God isn't in the business of paint by numbers. (If we do this then He's not obligated to do that.) He's much more relational. He cares about each of us individually and wants to be accepted as part of our lives. And even when we acknowledge that God is good all the time, we all hear "no" and "later" a lot, so it's sure fun when He says "yes." Especially on something big.

So the next step was to tell the kids. Before I accepted a career change, I wanted the kids to feel as if they had at least a little say. We had a family meeting and brought the kids up to speed on what was happening and what looked like was about to happen. In short, they were on board. The next day I had to tell my boss I was leaving. I scheduled an informal talk in the café (not in use at the time) and told him there. He took it well, as I suspect he (and all managers) was coached to. In all the stress and hustle of what was going on, I had forgotten that a decade prior, when we both lived in the previous town, we served on the same tech team at the same church (it was a big team at a big church and we never really saw each other). Small world. He of course was sad to see me go, but excited for such a leap of faith I was proposing. The term "bitter sweat" came up, and would be used countless times in the next couple days, weeks, and months.

But there were a lot of details to iron out. Was I for real, applying out of the blue, offering to give up a six-figure salary in a multinational corporation with 60,000 employees with factories in 10 countries to work for a ministry with 600 employees with brick and mortar in only 1 state? Were they for real wanting my specific skills and experiences? I flew out on New Year's day to talk with the hiring manager. I wish I'd gotten a better photo than this:

Interviewing on site

We spent the whole day together and we ended it with dinner with his boss. All went great, we both concluded that we were both for real, and God was clearly at work in both of our lives. That weekend he submitted the paperwork to HR to create the new position for me.

Wrapping up one chapter

I'm not the only business analyst in the world. It's such a common thing that I was able to find a Master's program in it. But yet, it's still not that common. Further, it's actually more rare for an organization to prioritize having a business analyst than it is to find a business analyst. But finding the right person who's the right fit for the organization can be deceptively tricky. While God chose to "bless our socks off" with the upcoming transition, don't think everything in our lives is fairytale worthy. This blessing only came after a lot of brokenness, and that brokenness emphasizes God's involvement in this whole transition.

In 2013, my wife and our oldest daughter flew with me to China to adopt a little boy.

The lobby of the Garden Hotel in Guangzhou, China 

He turned out to have more challenges than anyone knew. He is non-verbal and didn't cope well with how he spent the first 3 years of his life. (He was raised in an orphanage.)  By early 2020, he has been with us for almost 7 years, and is about 9 and a half years old. But in many ways (certainly not all, and not all the time) he still has the maturity of a 3-year-old. In case you're wondering, it's more difficult than it sounds to raise a human who has the self-discipline of a 3-year-old yet the physical and intellectual skill (resourcefulness) of a 9-year-old. Yes, my wife is a saint.

After he'd been with us for two years (and he was 5) we tried sending him to preschool. While we'd sent all three of our girls to preschool, since my wife homeschooled all four of the kids then, our primary motivation for sending the boy to preschool was to give him reinforcement from other adults how he should behave. Unfortunately, that intention backfired. Perhaps I'll write a blog article going into the detail some time, but it's not the point now. I'll save you the time reading if you trust me that we were very frustrated by not just one school, but three. Each of these three schools had their positives. I'm not a mean brute. In their own way, they were fine. But their arrogance of skill for my special needs son was completely ridiculous, their ability to help was wholly inadequate, and their results were often disaster that my wife and I were stuck doing the damage control on. The insight was we were working with perfectly good people with adequate skill and intelligence to deliver on what we needed, but they had a critical flaw that was too embarrassing to admit. That flaw was they were broke. Organizations that are broke have a difficult time handling people who don't fit the one size fits all paradigm. It's especially offensive to call organizations with multiple million-dollar budgets in the richest nation on earth, "broke." But that was more the problem than the individual teachers and administrators who worked with my son. Their financial situation dictated how much resources they could spend on him, and when that wasn't enough their choice was to admit inadequacy or blame him for being too difficult. Sadly, they always chose the latter, and this conscious choice was the source of our annoyance as much as anything else.

Besides school, my son didn't fit in well at church, either. To make a long story short and avoid criticizing people who have more good than bad, the Sunday before Thanksgiving of 2019 was the first Sunday in 9 years that I'd chosen to try another church. And that same week (3 days later) I got the invitation email to take a voluntary separation. Is that God's timing or what?

The other point is, life is not all peaches and roses, even when wonderful blessings from God are poured out. God often breaks things before He blesses them, and it's in this brokenness that it's most important that we remember God is good all the time, no matter what happens to us. My family's lives were in significant turmoil, so when we prayed that Sunday night after I told my wife about the voluntary separation invitation, it was not just some academic prayer of "God, if you want us to go, then make it easy, and if you don't want us to go, then make it not easy." We were very serious. If God wanted us to stay in this deeply frustrating town longer, then we would. But if it was within His will to let us go try somewhere different, we'd love that.

Great timing

Not all our reasons for leaving were frustrations. There were at least a couple that were just plain great.  For one, all 3 of my girls have been taking Tae Kwon Do for over two years. They've been working hard to earn their black belts. They passed the final test and successfully earned these honors during the window in which I was able to accept the voluntary separation. It took them 27 months to earn their black belts. I had no idea I was going to get the invitation, and the invitation had a limited window of only 3 weeks. By completing this milestone training here (all in one town) makes a very clean break for them.  Praise God for His good timing.

Similarly, my oldest daughter is planning to go to college this fall. There are 3 colleges in the community in which we live. We looked at all 3, hoping one of them would suit her. We also looked at a couple farther away. In November, she decided she liked the one farthest away. We were a little sad she didn't pick one more conveniently closer to home. Then all this happened and we decided we're moving to Kentucky, 6.5 hours away. The university she had chosen (before I even got the voluntary separation invitation) is almost halfway between our old home and our new home. Whoa!

If our son's school situation wasn't clearly headed south (for the third time in three tries), or our daughter had chosen to attend any of the colleges in town, or our church was able to meet my family where we are, then any of these may have caused us to just pass on the invitation. But God has His way of pointing us in new directions we otherwise might think are crazy.

Goodwill

As I've made clear, I wasn't planning to leave my company, nor my many friends whom I'd made over 19.5 years, nor the legacy I'd been building up over that time. I'm the kind of guy that my leadership and my colleagues told me countless times they wished they could clone me. I was the only one who knew how to do certain things. Not a safe scenario to allow in a global corporation. I'd asked my bosses every year for the last 10 years (I've had 4 over that time) to have a contingent or a student who could be my understudy. But the answer was always a flat no, we can't afford that. The party line was "this isn't quantum physics. If you leave we'll hire someone and limp along for a few months, but we'll manage." Unfortunately, the terms of the voluntary separation I accepted specifically denied my department the ability to backfill me. This wasn't my problem, but none-the-less, I worked 80 hours that week between New Year's and my last day of work. (The last day of work was dictated by the terms of the voluntary separation, and not my choice.) I've put in a lot of unpaid overtime over the last few years, but haven't worked an 80 hour week in over a decade (when I was helping my factory upgrade ERPs in 2006). But I did a few weeks ago, because I didn't want to leave my friends stranded without me. I got zero overtime pay for those extra 40 hours I put in (and I knew that before I did it.) This translated to five 12 hour days, plus 10 hours on Saturday and 10 more hours on Sunday. Even in those 80 hours I still didn't get everything done, but my friends, and my legacy, were left in better shape than if I had just up and left. There are plenty of smart, talented people I worked with, and between those left after the volsep, they'll cover just fine. This was a wonderful opportunity for me to get out of their way (as much as they appreciated and relied on me) so leadership can see the other talent in our department. All large organizations have their issues, but as corporations go, the one I left is a great one. I wish them success in their professional mission and in their private endeavors.

A final photo as I left my office on my last day of work

Then there's the salary. My wife and I had committed to giving a full tithe before I'd started my job at this corporation in the spring of 2000. Early on, she was working too, and we tithed both our gross incomes the full 10%. Then when the first kid came, she stopped working, we were down to one income, and we still tithed the full amount, trusting God would make it work. A pastor at church said he and his wife challenged themselves to give another 1% every year. So over the next 5 years, we upped our tithe 1% per year until it got to 15%. It's been over a decade like that now. Within a week of it hitting the bank, I had already given a full 15% of my severance package away to various explicit Christian ministries and missionaries whom we already know and trust, and we will continue to tithe at least 10% with the new job at AiG, even though I will be bringing home less than half as much as I did when I worked for the corporation. Because 90% (or less) with God's blessing is better than 100% without it and, like 15 years ago, we still trust God will make it work. Because God is good, all the time, no matter what happens to me and my family.

Maybe I'll write another post about God's involvement in our housing and other aspects of the transition, later. There's plenty more good stuff to share...

Daddy's newest toy

Photo: Motorola

It's been over 17 months since I last upgraded phones (link).  That's a pretty good stretch for me.  Last summer I told the salesman at the Verizon store if he could get the price tag of this Z4 down to under $500 (including activation fee), I'd buy it.  But he couldn't.  This weekend I was in the area of Best Buy and I felt the urge to check out the store.  I had long since forgotten/given up on this phone.

While at the store, I looked at the laptop that I plan to get when I start my job at the Creation Museum next month, and then expected to leave.  My daughter was looking at the phones, and we walked by the Z4 for some reason and I noticed the price tag was only $400.  That's well under what I was hoping last summer.  When I got to talking with the salesman, it turned out with a two year no interest contract it was only $240.  Sold.

The feel of the back of this phone is amazing.  It doesn't feel like glass, but it is.  It's got kind of a ceramic feel to it.  Good job Motorola, this phone feels fantastic in the hand.

The embedded fingerprint sensor (behind/inside the screen) works good.  I've read complaints about it, and sure it doesn't work 100% of the time on the first try.  But remember there's no physical button to put your finger on, just an illuminated icon, so aligning your thumb or finger on the sensor is easier said than done.  Even when I know exactly how to do it, sometimes I don't get it right and I remember my thumb needs to be a quarter-inch higher.  No worries.

I love love love the dark themed phone app.  As dumb and petty as such an appreciation sounds, the primary blue background of the phone app in the Z3 was just insultingly childish.  Thanks for fixing it Motorola!

The Motorola Display (their version of the always on display) works a little more consistently than the Z3, so that's a welcome improvement.  Though really, I've never seen a better example of an idea that was not taken far enough.  The lack of customization on that feature is stupifying.  They should really be running with this feature, instead, it still works the same as it did in 2015 and the software is still on version 1.01.  When will there be a version 2, or even just 1.5?  The larger display is nice.  They squeezed two more lines of text in, compared to the Z3.

After a few days, I'm very happy with it. The camera images are adequate, though the saturation is lower than I'd prefer and the camera app is surprisingly slow, even though it appears to be the same app as they've been using forever.  It's as if when the camera is activated the CPU goes into overdrive and is taxed to take any photos.

Photo: Motorola

Global Warming, a brief Biblical Worldview perspective on

Last year I added some themes relating to global warming to my web article, Genesis is Scientifically Superior (http://rock.jayden12.com/superior.php).  These themes are interspersed in a larger FAQ-style, so this blog post is a copy of that information spliced together in a more cohesive article.  Note, much of the information summarized here was brought to my attention by this article.  We'll start with glaciers, which are often one of people's favorite manifestations of the dangers of global warming.

Glaciers

Glaciers are reasonably agreed to have come from the ice age. What we believe about the ice age influences our interpretation of why they are melting now. To form glaciers we'd require massive snowfall for a long time (so buildup exceeds melt and gargantuan ice sheets can form). To have massive snowfall we'd require massive volumes of moisture in the atmosphere. The landmasses don't have that level of water, and no extraterrestrial sources of water have been determined, so we're talking ocean water, specifically. We require massive, unprecedented evaporation from the oceans. Evaporation occurs fastest with hot water. If glaciers are going to form on the poles of the earth then we need a lot of hot water at the poles. There's no good evolutionary explanation for what might cause that, but to a creationist it's really easy. Genesis 7:11 and 8:2 describe that water came up from deep underground. The deeper underground we go, the warmer the water is. And the flood is the Biblical explanation of how Rodinia broke up to Pangea and then the continents we now know. The process of breaking up the planet's crust involved, for all practical purposes, unimaginably massive volcanic activity. Since most of the tectonic plate edges are in the ocean, when the magma came up and hit the oceans it would have had a huge geothermal effect. The volcanic activity on the surface would've created massive atmospheric contaminants that would have cooled the surface, further supporting glacial growth conditions. So here we have forensically (and by process of elimination) determined the origin of the glaciers. Remember, if you don't like where the facts lead doesn't mean a scientist may dismiss them. Making up stories (sorry, "models") of how it may have happened just because you don't like the current evidence is fine, more power to you, but don't call that better science, it's wishful thinking.

Many evolutionists today attribute the recession of the glaciers to global warming. They are less concerned about the glaciers themselves, as novel as they are, and fear global flooding. But more to the point, they fear (claim) the glacial melt is caused by us evil people burning fossil fuels. (Ironically, these are often the same people who might claim that people are inherently good and therefore don't need a savior, like Jesus.) But the glaciers are almost as old as the flood. They would have formed within that first century after the flood, beginning with Genesis 8:1-5, and perhaps peaking about the time of Abraham. That was the peak, and they've been shrinking ever since (so for about 4000 years). Evolutionists believe the glaciers are significantly older than that. The global trend of using fossil fuels at scale has only been since the combustion engine became popular (namely in cars, boats, and planes) about a hundred years ago. A study published in 2008 found 1200 years ago Europe was slightly warmer than it is today, and 400 years ago it was slightly cooler.

If glaciers have been around (and melting) for at least four millennia, and fossil fuels have only been used at large scale for a century, why on earth would we claim that glacial melt is caused by burning fossil fuels? Because it allows politicians to use large amounts of taxpayer money to fund pet projects of their own invention. There's no better problem to be the hero of, than one that's just in your head. So much for man being inherently good (Genesis 8:21). And don't forget Genesis 8:22, 9:11, and Jeremiah 5:21-25 (local floods and tsunamis notwithstanding, due to their temporary nature).

Deserts

Arguably, the opposite end of the geographic spectrum as glaciers are deserts.

Evolutionists are quick to claim people cause global warming and that's what causes the Sahara to expand, ruining conventionally usable land. The Biblical perspective also involves man's fault, but in a completely different way. Man's rebellion against his Creator grieved God (Genesis 3:6-7, 6:5-6) and eventually He decided to send a worldwide flood (Genesis 6:7). After the flood (and certainly because of it) we had radical climate change, including most notably the ice age. The ice age was (as described in more detail above) caused by the large scale evaporation of unusually warm oceans. The same high level of atmospheric moisture that fueled the glaciers could have supported the rain forests, including those of Africa. The Earth's oceans have since cooled, causing less oceanic evaporation, glacial recession, and desert expansion. While this disaster was caused by man, it wasn't the cars we drive nor how much stuff we ship across the oceans, it's our rebellion against our Maker (Jeremiah 9:12-14). Ironically, the problems espoused by global warming advocates are actually caused by global cooling.

Carbon Dioxide

And surely the number one favorite cause that people spout for global warming is Carbon Dioxide (CO₂).

Many of the states in the USA have passed laws relating to the levels of CO₂ our engines should emit. The story goes that too much is harmful to both humans and the climate.

• Miners know the safety limit in an underground mine is 5,000ppm. Between 1960 and 2010 the ppm in our atmosphere rose by about 25%. Scary stuff, right? But it was only at about 400ppm in 2010 (beginning in 1960 it rose less than 2ppm per year for the next 50 years). Theoretically, if we keep adding another 2ppm per year, we could get to that 5,000ppm safety concern in 2,300 years. Except we don't have 2,000 years of fossil fuel left. And that limit is less than half what it was a century ago. So the concern is completely misplaced.
• Anyone who took biology 101 knows plants need CO₂ to survive, and we need plants to survive (for multiple reasons). Plants and animals trade oxygen (O₂) and carbon dioxide back and forth forever through breathing and photosynthesis. People don't "make" CO₂ and plants don't "make" O₂, we're exchanging it.
• In hospitals we create oxygen-rich environments to help people recover/​heal/​grow. The same works for plants: when we immerse them in extra CO₂, they do better. Having more CO₂ in the atmosphere will help farmers and tree huggers.
• Burning fossil fuels is just burning old plant matter, returning the CO₂ that was locked up in the matter that couldn't escape because of its burial conditions.
• God made the atmosphere on or before day 3, which was when He made the plants (Genesis 1:6-11). When plants and animals were created they could live, so God made the atmosphere have the right amount of CO₂ and O₂ from the very beginning.
• The atmosphere is almost 80% nitrogen, over 20% oxygen, and less than half of one percent carbon dioxide.
• If anything is harmful to our air, it's smoke and other chemicals (such as those released by burning man-made materials), but not CO₂. Regulating man-made chemicals thrown into the air is being a good steward of the Earth. Regulating CO₂ is both a distraction and a waste of time.
• Atheists have a concern for CO₂ fueled by their evolutionary worldview. Christians have an appreciation for CO₂ inspired by our Biblical worldview.  There is no compromise position to be held, and I suggest you be careful to be on the right side of the fence that aligns with your fundamental beliefs about how and why we exist at all.

Conclusion

As usual, a person's presuppositions about the nature of the world influence how they interpret the times.  This isn't a new concept, it was present in the Bible, as exemplified by Judges 17:6 and 21:25 (and a couple places in between).  And Jesus made a related comment in Matthew 16:1-3.  But remember, the period of the judges was not Israel's finest (to put it nicely).  Like them, we need to take our Creator and His word more seriously.  It's not honoring God to talk and talk about what could happen in the future because of what may have happened in the past if we ignore or dismiss what He has already told us what happened and what will come.  There is nothing to fear about climate change except

• the sin nature of humanity that caused the greatest catalyst of climate change ever, about 4,000 years ago, and is still present today, and
• the spiritual forces who are hard at work to lie that the flood never happened and distract us with another lie that there is more danger from burning gasoline in our vehicles than danger of our souls burning in hell (Luke 12:4-5).

Healthy families in the digital age

Got a healthy family? Then you need to share a common cloud-based calendar so the family has one version of the truth (I mean, the schedule).  Use whatever tool you want, but here's how with Google:

As far as I know, this onetime setup only works on a laptop, not a phone.  After it's setup, the calendar can be viewed on a variety of apps.  Click the settings icon in the upper right corner, then click "settings" again (click any of these photos to zoom in):

Then click your name on the far left, and click on "share with specific people" beneath that:

Click the "add people" button and type the email or name (from your Google Contacts) and specify whether they should have read-only or read-and-write access.  Once you finish this step, they should have access immediately.

Similarly, it's important for modern families that are constantly on the run to know where each other are without the burden of having to call and ask.  Use whatever tool you want, but here's how with Google:

Open Google Maps on your phone.  This onetime setup only works on a phone, not a laptop.  Touch the settings icon in the upper left corner, then touch "location sharing."

Then touch the icon to add a person to share with.  You can see in this screenshot I share my location with my wife and my mom.

The default is to only share for an hour.  Touch the option "until you turn this off" then choose the person you want to share with.  (Drag the list of contacts left to scroll through it.)

The only drawback of Google Maps is it's hit or miss if the location it displays of your spouse or kid or whoever is recent.  It'll tell you how recent/stale their location info is, and at least half the time I use it, it tells my wife's location within the last 2 minutes.  But more often than never it'll say her location is 30 minutes or 2 hours or something else pretty old.  Most of the time this is fine, this is all I used for many years.

For the last couple months I've been using an app called Life360 (life360.com) that 90% of the time or more provides real time location, even showing my wife moving on the map as shes driving.  This isn't stalking, it's a time saver.  If we agree to meet somewhere and she's delayed, I can see that without calling her and wasting her attention while she's driving stressed to ask her to explain to me where she is.  I can know without asking her, and she knows it.  And vice versa is true.  When I'm working late in the office, she knows that's what I'm doing (where I am).  The Life360 app & account are free with limited tracking features, and offers a paid version with more.  So far I've been impressed with just the free version.

The above instructions have to be completed twice (once for each person who's sharing their location).  It should be obvious, you can only give out your location, no one can take it from you (without advanced hacking skills).

Enjoy!

Noah and the flood

Following are highlights from Genesis 5:28 - 9:29 from the World English Bible (WEB) translation for the purpose of clarifying how long the flood was and its relation to Noah's life.

Genesis 5:28-29 Lamech... became the father of a son. He named him Noah, saying, “This one will comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, caused by the ground which Yahweh has cursed.”

Genesis 5:32 Noah was five hundred years old, then Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Genesis 6:3 Yahweh said, “My Spirit will not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; so his days will be one hundred twenty years.”

Genesis 6:18 I will establish my covenant with you. You shall come into the ship, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.

Genesis 7:11-12 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the sky’s windows opened. It rained on the earth forty days and forty nights.

If we interpret 5:32 to mean Noah began having children at the age of 500, and 7:11 says the flood came when he was 600 years old, that means the ark took just shy of a century to construct and otherwise prepare for the flood.  Further, we could estimate that it took perhaps 25 years from when he had his first son to when his youngest son got married, which only leaves about 75 years for the ark (considerably less than a century).  Back in 6:3, if God had spoken that 120 years bit to Noah, it might be more compelling to believe it related to the ark, but it's just a random comment in the midst of 6:1-12, which was more generic backstory to what began when God first spoke to Noah in 6:13.

Genesis 7:17 The flood was forty days on the earth. The waters increased, and lifted up the ship, and it was lifted up above the earth.

Genesis 7:24 The waters flooded the earth one hundred fifty days.

Genesis 8:3-7 The waters continually receded from the earth. After the end of one hundred fifty days the waters receded. The ship rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on Ararat’s mountains. The waters receded continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible. At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ship which he had made, and he sent out a raven. It went back and forth, until the waters were dried up from the earth.

Notice in 7:11, the "fountains of the great deep burst open" "on the 17th day of the second month" [of the year].  In 7:12 and 7:17 it says it rained for 40 days and nights.  In 7:24 and 8:3 the flooding was claimed to last 150 days.  If an average month lasted 30 days, that's exactly 5 months.  In 8:4 the ark landed on the 17th day of the seventh month, which is again exactly 5 months to the day from when the great deep burst open.  The alignment of all these numbers is reason to think someone cared about (bothered to) accurately recording a real event.

Genesis 8:10-14 He waited yet another seven days; and again he sent the dove out of the ship. The dove came back to him at evening and, behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from the earth. He waited yet another seven days, and sent out the dove; and she didn’t return to him any more. In the six hundred first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ship, and looked. He saw that the surface of the ground was dry. In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.

In 7:11 the "fountains of the great deep burst open" when Noah was 600 years, 2 months, 17 days old.  In 8:12 the waters were all dried up when Noah was 601 years, 1 month, 1 day old.  With a typical 30 day month and 12 months in a year, that makes a duration from flood to effective dryness 10 months and 13 days (or 313 days).  Or between 7:11 and 8:14, the duration from begin to the very end was 1 year and 10 days.

Genesis 9:28-29 Noah lived three hundred fifty years after the flood. All the days of Noah were nine hundred fifty years, and then he died.

Short Summary of Biblical Perspective on SOGI

My feature article, Biblical Gender Identity, is both succinct and exhaustive.  But printed with Arial size 10 point font with 1-inch margins it's 50 pages, which is more than most people want to read.  So here's a shorter, simpler summary of verses directly relating to the modern hot topic of sexual orientation and gender identity. As with the feature article, this is not about sharing my opinion. This is about knowing what our Creator's opinion is as revealed in His word, and taking Him seriously.

In the second chapter of the Bible, in Genesis 2:18 God points out that man was designed to be with woman, and vice versa.  Three times God tells people "be fruitful" (Genesis 1:28, 9:1, 9:7).  This was actually the first thing God was recorded as saying directly to us.  So now we have the tension.  We've been commanded to make babies, or at least make an attempt, but there are parameters.  In Genesis 2:24-25​, we were given the only model for marriage in the entire Bible.  Not the only example (either good or bad) but the only model.

In the 10 Commandments, God gives us the "minimum system requirements" to be moral.  In the 7th Commandment, He declared any attempt at baby-making should be limited to the context of marriage (Exodus 20:14, Deuteronomy 5:18).  The point was repeated numerous times:

• Leviticus 18:20
• Leviticus 20:10
• Deuteronomy 22:22-27
• 2 Samuel 12:10
• Proverbs 6:26-35
• Jeremiah 7:9-10
• Ezekiel 18:5-6
• Matthew 5:27-30
• Matthew 15:19 & Mark 7:21-23
• Matthew 19:18
• Mark 10:11-12 & Luke 16:18
• Romans 13:9
• 1 Timothy 3:2
• 1 Timothy 3:12
• Titus 1:6
• Hebrews 13:4

The Bible is very clear the answer is an emphatical "no" outside of marriage, but it's also emphatically "yes" inside.

• Exodus 21:10
• Deuteronomy 24:5
• Proverbs 5:18-19
• Malachi 2:15
• 1 Corinthians 7:1-5
• 1 Corinthians 7:8-9

The commitment of marriage is meant to be taken very seriously.  Regardless of how many good and bad examples have shown themselves in your life, it was designed by God as a oneway highway, with very few exit ramps.

• Malachi 2:13-16
• Matthew 5:31-32
• Matthew 19:3-12 & Mark 10:2-12
• Luke 16:18
• 1 Corinthians 7:10-17

If the commitment is too much then that's ok, skip it.  But then you are forbidden to engage in the one activity that results in babies.  As a general rule, everything involving sex outside of marriage has one label: sexual immorality.  The term is mentioned 30 times in the New Testament.  Here are highlights, and note these first two and last three were spoken by Jesus.

• Matthew 15:19
• Mark 7:21-23
• Romans 1:24-25
• Romans 13:13
• 1 Corinthians 6:18-20
• 1 Corinthians 10:8
• 2 Corinthians 12:21
• Galatians 5:19-21
• Ephesians 5:3
• Colossians 3:5-6
• 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7
• Titus 1:6
• Hebrews 12:16
• Revelation 2:14
• Revelation 2:20-22
• Revelation 9:21

If you desire sex that does not make you special.  There's a reason you want it.  You want it for the same reason everyone wants it: because God said so.  He commanded us to "be fruitful" in Genesis 1:28.  But since it's so tempting for everyone to take this out of proportion, and being outside of time (because He invented it) God knew we would get legalistic and ask what it means to be "sexually immoral," He defined it for us.  As the Inventor of biology itself, He defines sexual immorality, not us.  Here are the most obvious groupings, established in the Old Testament and often reinforced in the New.  We must always remember God's expectations were always supposed to be easy (Deuteronomy 30:11-14, Isaiah 45:19).  If we are confused, it's society's fault, not God's.

Going through the motions and living together so you can have the benefits of marriage without the overhead (commitment) of marriage is not cool.

• Exodus 22:16-17
• Leviticus 21:13
• Deuteronomy 22:28-29
• Hebrews 13:4

Even worse than living together is promiscuity, and even worse than that is prostitution.

• Leviticus 19:29
• Leviticus 21:9
• Deuteronomy 23:17-18
• 1 Corinthians 6:12-17

The Bible makes it clear that families have a special role in society, and of course life.  The theme is repeated many ways that people are not free to decide for themselves how sex fits into life.  (At least, not without negative consequences: Galatians 6:7.)

First example of the theme is blurring the lines that establish family roles.  A man was forbidden from making babies (or even going through the motions) with his mother, aunt, sister, niece, daughter, granddaughter, or his step- or his -in-law.

• Leviticus 18:6-18
• Leviticus 20:11-12
• Leviticus 20:17
• Leviticus 20:19-21
• Deuteronomy 22:30
• Deuteronomy 27:20
• Deuteronomy 27:22-23
• Ezekiel 22:11
• Amos 2:7
• 1 Corinthians 5:1-5

Similarly, people should not pretend (go through the motion) to make a family with any non-human.

• Exodus 22:19
• Leviticus 18:23
• Leviticus 20:15-16
• Deuteronomy 27:21

God had an opinion on anyone deviating from straightforward, heteronormative practices.

• Leviticus 18:22
• Leviticus 20:13
• Romans 1:26-27
• 1 Corinthians 6:9-10
• 1 Timothy 1:9-10

To help keep lines of distinction clear, there were commands to avoid behavior that would confuse or deceive in ways that would damage the integrity of the family, and God's plan and purpose for it.

• Deuteronomy 22:5
• Deuteronomy 23:1

Since we are all descendants of Adam and Eve, no matter what we look like, where we're from, how wealthy we are, or what we believe, all humans are clearly the same race.  Therefore miscegenation (so-called interracial marriage) is not a sin.

Last but not least, when a baby is conceived, it is to be honored as a person created "in the image of God."  We have been commanded not to consciously end the life of our offspring, and God is personally offended when we disregard this.

• Leviticus 18:21
• Leviticus 20:1-5
• Deuteronomy 12:31
• Deuteronomy 18:10-12
• 2 Kings 17:17
• 2 Kings 21:6
• Psalm 106:37-38
• Isaiah 57:5
• Jeremiah 32:35
• Ezekiel 16:20
• Ezekiel 23:37-39

Even though the womb is essentially inaccessible by normal standards, God is well aware of what happens there.

• Exodus 21:22-25
• Psalm 22:9-10
• Psalm 139:13-16
• Isaiah 49:1
• Isaiah 49:5
• Jeremiah 1:5
• Zechariah 12:1

And we are commanded to defend the fatherless.

• Exodus 22:22-24
• Psalm 82:3-4
• Isaiah 1:16-17
• Jeremiah 7:5-7
• Jeremiah 22:3
• Zechariah 7:8-10
• Malachi 3:5
• James 1:27

Why does God care about this level of detail in our lives?  Because He made us, and even though He gave us freewill, we were put here to do His will.  We are supposed to be His ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20).  He has a right to have an opinion on our behavior.  This is not about conservative or liberal values.  God doesn't take sides, He takes over, and He'll do it with or without you.  This is about us caring about what our Creator cares about and doing what He asks to minimize the chance we'll hear Matthew 7:21-23 and maximize our chances of hearing Matthew 25:21 or 23.

Remember, at the end of time in Revelation 21:8 and 22:15, "sexually immoral" will not be how we want to be characterized, because even the end of time won't be the end of our existence.  Since we don't get to define how God labels us, we have a responsibility to ourselves to pay attention and give respect.  At the same time, we must remember we are not alone.  We have an enemy (2 Corinthians 4:4, 2 Corinthians 11:14-15, 1 Peter 5:8) but he can't make us do anything, he can only suggest.  We need to demonstrate discernment: James 4:7, for we will all be judged by our actions: Hebrews 9:27, Revelation 20:12-13.  We were created to be holy for our God:

• Leviticus 19:2
• 1 Corinthians 6:20
• 1 Corinthians 10:31
• Ephesians 5:3
• Hebrews 12:14

This is the short, short version of the story, with only the direct verse references.  For indirect Bible references and on-topic Bible stories, plus worldview extrapolations and more in-depth looks into why some of these references are there, check out my feature article on Biblical Gender Identity, here, or my other related feature article on Family in the Bible, here.