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First, many Christians claim to believe in the supernatural but think (and live) like skeptics.
Traditional Christian teaching has for centuries kept the unseen world at arm’s length. We believe in the Godhead because there’s no point to Christianity without it. The rest of the unseen world is handled with a whisper or a chuckle.
There are many other passages whose content is curious or “doesn’t make sense” and so are abandoned or glossed over. Here’s a sampling of them: •Gen 1:26 •Gen 3:5, 22 •Gen 6:1–4 •Gen 10–11 •Gen 15:1 •Gen 48:15–16 •Exod 3:1–14 •Exod 23:20–23 •Num 13:32–33 •Deut 32:8–92 •Deut 32:17 •Judg 6 •1 Sam 3 •1 Sam 23:1–14 •1 Kgs 22:1–23 •2 Kgs 5:17–19 •Job 1–2 •Pss 82, 68, 89 •Isa 14:12–15 •Ezek 28:11–19 •Dan 7 •Matt 16:13–23 •John 1:1–14 •John 10:34–35 •Rom 8:18–24 •Rom 15:24, 28 •1 Cor 2:6–13 •1 Cor 5:4–5 •1 Cor 6:3 •1 Cor 10:18–22 •Gal 3:19 •Eph 6:10–12 •Heb 1–2 •1 Pet 3:18–22 •2 Pet 1:3–4 •2 Pet
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Morning stars are the stars one sees over the horizon just before the sun appears in the morning. They signal new life—a new day. The label works. It conveys the right thought. The original morning stars, the sons of God, saw the beginning of life as we know it—the creation of earth.
This notion derives from the traditional rendering of Genesis 2:7 in the King James Version (“and the man became a living soul”). The Hebrew word translated “soul” is nephesh. According to the Bible, animals also possess the nephesh. For example, in Genesis 1:20, when we read that God made swarms of “living creatures,” the Hebrew text underlying “creatures” is nephesh. Genesis 1:30 tells us the “living nephesh” is in animals.
The logic of idolatry we talked about earlier takes on new irony. Humans after the fall will resort to making objects of wood and stone that they must ceremonially animate to draw the deity into the artifact. But from the beginning, God created his own imagers—humankind, male and female. His desire was to live among them, and for them to rule and reign with him.
