Ok – so bare with me on this one I promise I’m not going mad – but this idea has got my thought juices flowing, so thought I would post it here

I’ve been reading 1 Peter recently; a top book by all accounts. However, one part of it has really intrigued me and that is the passage in 1 Peter 3:18-22:

I was reading this passage in my NIV study bible and they had some interesting ideas about the interpretation of this passage. There are three viewpoints described here:

• This passage is meaning that the pre-incarnate Christ went and preached through Noah to the wiked generation of that time.
• This passage is meaning that Christ went to the place of the dead in the time between his death and resurrection and preached to spirits of Noah’s wiked contemporaries.
• This passgage is meaning that Christ went to the place where fallen angels are incarcerated in the time between his death and resurrection and preached to the angels who left their proper state and married human women in Genesis 6.

Hold the phone – angels can do that?

So I followed the trail into Genesis 6 to find the following verses:

The interesting phrase used here is ‘sons of God’ in verse 2. Some believe that this does indeed refer to angels as the same phrase is used in Job 1:6 and Job 2:1. However some people believe that the intermarriage is just impossible if it implies angels and this is backed up by the term ‘sons of God’ being used to refer to humans in other passages such as Deuteronomy 14:1 or 1 John 3:1-2. ‘Sons of God’ could simply imply godly men, i.e. not born from the wiked line of Cain.

To me, the most plausible explanation is that the godly men (and by this we probably mean decendants of Abel) started marrying ‘any of them’ and this proabably does not refer to angels. However, there is no way for us to really know this – especially as our huge God often does the last thing you expect. So I’m probably interpretting this in the most simple way possible and am open to correction… For now I am content with my limited understanding – does anyone else have any thoughts on the matter?

Jesus feed�s the four thousand

Surely one of the top 5 Sunday school bible stories, the feeding of the 5 thousand. So what�s this feeding of the four thousand about? A typo? Someone getting a few numbers and dates wrong? I found it interesting the other day when reading it in Mark 8, why it was there at all. Well firstly to clear up it apparently definitely happened, the two mass feeding frenzies are mentioned in more than one of the gospels with clear differences between the 5 and 4 thousand session.

I think it�s in there to show how dull the disciples of Jesus could be. Let�s first go back to the story we all know, feeding the 5 thousand. Imagine for a second that you or I were following Jesus around. We have a large crowd and we missed breakfast. Everyone is getting hungry. We have 5 thousand men plus their ladies and kids. If it was a 2.4 family (which it probably wasn�t, much more I expect) then you are looking at enough people to fill half of Fratton Park. Feeding that lot is a fairly large task with a catering team and plenty of food. Try and do it with a few fish and babs. An interesting miracle for Jesus, as he demonstrates that he is the boss of the physical world. Some how he produces enough food to feed everyone and have left overs. Now imagine again that you have just witnessed that with your own eyes and even been involved with handing the food out and collecting the leftovers. Not sure about you but that would stick in my mind.

So, sometime later, lets call it a year or so. You stumble upon a large hungry crowd again. You might think that you would be fairly relaxed. ââ?¬Å?Jesus, do that food thing again.ââ?¬Â But actually the disciples questioned Jesus. Verse 4: ââ?¬Å?But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?ââ?¬Â

Now, hereââ?¬â?¢s where I got challenged. Itââ?¬â?¢s easy to think I would have handled that situation differently; but in truth I do exactly the same thing every day. Jesus has sorted me out, pulled me through things and has never let me down. Yet when I have a situation that seems impossible, I question Him, all I can see is the problem. Even now I can hear my self asking God ââ?¬Å?But where can I get enough bread, how will I sort this out?ââ?¬Â I think Jesus wants me to look at these challenges through his eyes not ours. We can only see the mountain but Jesus has a much better view and looks at the bigger picture. He has come through for us before and He will do it again. Amazing how many times I need a reminder to trust Him.

We know that the Old Testament is relevant (at least we should). We know that it points to Christ in many ways. We know that whenever the New Testament talks about reading the scriptures it is actually talking about the Old Testament as this is, of course, all they had. Both Jesus and the Apostles put great emphasis on this. I once herd David Pawson say that the Old Testament is saturated with instructions for our salvation and righteousness (right living). But this little tip bit of information buried in this story still amazed me.

We find the account in Genesis 22. Abraham is well advanced in years and he has been given a son, Isaac, from whose seed God had promised Abraham would be the father of a great nation. Bearing this in mind the fact that God asked Abraham to kill his son, seed of a great nation, before he had fathered any children would have been a difficult thing for Abraham to swallow. But trust God he did, and off they went.

God sent him to the mountains in the Land of Moriah. And after three days travelling they came to the place where the sacrifice was to happen. Isaac, probably a little suspicious at this stage, questioned his father noting that they had brought wood and fire but no offering. Abraham responded by telling Isaac that The Lord would provide a Lamb.

The moment came and Abraham bound Isaac, placed him on the alter, and went to strike the knife into him when an angle called out to stop him. A ram was provided and everybody is ok in the end.

Here is what struck me for the first time. There are obvious similarities here between Abraham and Isaac, and God the Father and Jesus. Isaac was an only son (in the sense that Isaac was to seed a nation, Ishmael could not do this) who his father was to sacrifice. And the reference to the third day wetted my appetite for investigation.

What I found amazed me. Abraham was sent to the Land of Moriah. This is called the Land of Peace. Had a strong link with the idea of Zion. Was home to the High Priest Melchisedech and the future site of Jerusalem.

It was the third day on which Abraham spotted the mount on which the sacrifice was to take place.

As noted above Isaac was the only son who Abraham was to sacrifice. And more than that, like Jesus, Isaac had to be willing. Isaac would have been in his early thirties (remember Jesus was 33) and could easily have over powered his elderly father. Just as Jesus could have easily got down off of the cross.

The ram that God provided had its horns caught in a thicket. I would imagine that this looked a little like a crown of thorns!

Abraham renamed the site; “The Lord will provide” which was later the site of (or at least very close to) Calvary!

Now you may have already known all that but I had to share it because that blew me away. Right back in Genesis; at the beginning of the Jewish nation, God was laying out his plan for Jesus in striking detail.

The moral of this post? Ignore the Old Testament at your great cost. Wow!