Sunday night recap

Tonight I'll begin and end this recap with a picture, and put one in the middle for good measure.

First, here are the kids after their visit yesterday with a face painter at Fred Meyer's:

Now for a rundown on the day. I had a full load today, filling in for Ron for Sunday School in addition to preaching in the morning and evening. The Sunday School lesson was on Noah and the flood. I've preached through Genesis before, but in my studies I didn't pay much attention to the chiastic that is present in various parts of the book, and which modern commentaries often discuss. Chiasms just never interested me much, but I was impressed with what appears to be a definite chiastic structure to the entire flood narrative (Genesis 6:9-9:19). It certainly supports the view (which I hold) that Genesis was substantially written by one author (Moses) and is not just a patchwork of various strands of oral tradition clumsily thrown together by a later redactor, as higher critical scholars have maintained.

While chiasm was on my brain, I also realized our children have a chiastic structure!:

A   Girl

B      Girl

C         Boy

B'      Girl

A'   Girl

In any case, it was good to look at the account of Noah and the flood from this different perspective.

In the morning I preached from Matthew 21:23-32, which includes the parable of two sons who are both commanded by their father to go and work in his vineyard. The first one says he won't, but later changes his mind and goes. And the second says he will, but doesn't go. The point is, notorious sinners such as tax collectors and prostitutes (the first son) were entering into the kingdom before the religious leaders of Israel (the second son). One application I made from this parable was for those growing up in the church. Being a member of the church does not save a person. But, I said, you are saved in the same way that drunkards, and drug addicts, and the promiscuous, and the adulterous, and cheaters and liars, and every other great sinner is saved, by the blood of Christ shed upon the cross. In other words, all who enter the kingdom of God, come in the same way - by God's grace and the work of Christ.

Here is Monica and Moriah at the morning service:

It's not the most flattering shot of Monica we've taken!

At the evening service, I preached from Romans 8:5-11. In a nutshell, we have the hope and promise of resurrection in the face of death since the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us and will also give life to our mortal bodies.

Finally, the night ended with some serious excitement: SNOW! Even though this will be our third Alaska winter, the kids were thrilled to discover there was snow on the ground outside. Here the kids are checking it out.