God the Historian

The Bible is a uniquely multi-layered document. Its layers are at once legal, mystical, psychological, spiritual, and ethical. At one of its layers it is also historical, and its historical frame-of-reference is particularly panoramic - the Bible is the history of the world from God’s perspective. It is history in its most seminal and universal sense. It is the history of man’s struggle to come to terms with the reality and implications of his createdness. In truth, throughout all of human history, there is only one story to be told, one story that has ultimate, absolute, and objective value. This is the story about how a created being - a being who like all other creations is utterly dependent, contingent, and ephemeral - the human being, was given the freedom to choose whether or not to confront the deeply unsettling fact of his being created, and how he used that freedom to either delude himself into a false sense of being or to achieve actual being by forging a bond with his Creator.

God the author

God is a best-selling author and the people of His book have had a remarkable impact on mankind; the question is, What is God’s book all about? And the answer, it seems, is that it depends who you ask. Some find in His book the roots and principles of morality and human ethics, some find poetry and drama, some find the keys to love and faith, while others see a great legal code or a map for archeologists with an interest in the ancient Near East. All of these answers are reflective of how different people with different perspectives, backgrounds, and interests relate to the Bible. But what about God? After all, He is the author. What is the Bible from God’s perspective?

Absolute Being

God's existence is absolute. The notion that God's being is absolute includes the following: He is fully complete in and of Himself. The nature of His completeness is such that he lacks nothing and needs nothing. God also has no restrictions or limitations and as such, nothing can exist "outside" of Him because if anything were able to exist in a way that was separate from His existence, then there would be some sort of a dividing line between these two existences. And all dividing lines indicate a boundary or limitation of sorts. God, the absolute being, has no bounds or limitations. Additionally, absolute being means that His existence is unchanging. God never becomes "more" or "less" in any way; He is never different.

Lastly, absolute being means that His existence is self-sufficient. Hang on to your hats for this one: To say that God has always existed and required nothing to initiate His existence, and to further say that He will always exist and needs nothing to maintain His existence is true, though somewhat inaccurate. The inaccuracy has to do with the issue of time. Since God's being exists even when time does not exist, this means that concepts like always, before, and after have no relevance to His being. So it's not that He always existed and always will exist, it's just that He is. Get it?

Can we do less?

When people around the world were worshiping thunder and wind, the Jews had but one word to say - God. When people were lionizing the Spartan and the gladiator, the Jews had but one word to say - God. When life and history called on people to revel in their basest nature, to dehumanize themselves and others, the Jews had but one word to say - God. And when, in every age, people searched for meaning, sanctity, and spirituality, the Jews had but one word to say - God.

First things first

In biblical times, the first portion of every crop was considered to be intrinsically holy and set apart for God. In fact, until the first crops were offered to God, the whole field was considered to be holy and none of it could be eaten. (Leviticus 23:14) The idea that the crops of the land are holy until an offering is made is still even practised today among traditional Africans in Uganda and Sudan. In these agrarian cultures, the fertility of animals and ability to grow crops is essential to survival, and assumed to be due to God's favour.

In biblical times the same thing applied to animals - the first male born of the mother was set apart to be given to God, out of thankfulness that He gave the ability to produce, trusting that He would bless with more later. The first products of animal and land, therefore, were considered to be great blessings, the most special offerings to give back to God. That is why in Proverbs it says,

"Honour the LORD with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine. " (Proverbs 3:9-10)

If we want to apply that to our own lives, that means that we should assume that the first and best of everything that we have is a special blessing from God and something we should offer back to Him. He gave us our relationships, our family, our time, our job, and our money. Do we offer the best back to Him, or do we give him the "last fruits" of our time, our effort and our money?