Tag: homeschool

Friday Factoid Week 6

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Alaska Moon

We were in Alaska recently and the moon there was noticeably different from the moon we see down south. At 60 degrees North the full moon was tilted almost 90 degrees clockwise from what we see at about 38 degrees. Above is a picture I took of the moon in Alaska and below is one I took in California.  We always only see one side of the moon but we can see different angles of it (Titus, 14).

hartlandmoon

While flying over some clouds on our trip to Alaska I looked down and saw the shadow of our plane pass through a full circle rainbow. I took a picture of it with my GoPro. The scientist sitting in front of us got an even better picture with his camera and thought what we were seeing was very unusual.  All rainbows are actually full circles but we only see half of it from the ground because of the angle (Joel, 13).

DCIM106GOPRO
DCIM106GOPRO

The sun’s light contains every color of the rainbow. The sun’s light is white which is every color combined. When light hits an object it absorbs every color but the one it is. That’s what bounces back at our eye. A rainbow is when water droplets act like prisms and bounce all the colors back. Here is a picture of me and a rainbow I saw in Alaska (Nate, 11).

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Devo 6

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“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.  And on the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done.  So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation.”                                            Genesis 2:1-3

Welcome back to the study everyone!  Hope you all enjoyed your break and were able to get caught up a bit.  Having just returned from two weeks immersed in the jaw-dropping autumnal wonders of Alaska, I am more convinced than ever that God indeed makes Himself known through the things that have been made so that men are without excuse” (Romans 1:19,20).  And even more, the purpose of it all is to bring glory to His Son.  All of creation is but a shadow. The waters, the light, the plant life, the animals, the people, the days, the Sabbath— it’s all meant to point to the substance of everything, Jesus Christ!

Paul says in Colossians 2:16,17 “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.  These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”  Jesus is the Living Water, the Light of the World, The Root of Jesse and the True Vine, the Bright Morning Star, the Lion of Judah and the Lamb of God, The Last Adam, the Beginning and the End.  And He IS our Sabbath Rest! 

That’s what makes passages like John 9 so shocking.  Jesus tells this blind man in verse 5, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”  Then He spit on the ground, made some mud and anointed the blind man’s eyes.  The blind man went and washed the mud out and was healed!  He could see!  As he points out in verse 32, “Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind.” 

But do you know what the Pharisees had the audacity to say?  Verse 14 says that “it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.”   So the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for He does not keep the Sabbath.”  In fact, they even went so far as calling Jesus a sinner!  Can you believe it?  They were calling the very One who created the Sabbath, the very Substance of the Sabbath Himself, a sinner for failing to keep it!  

Acts 13, gives us another account of an amazing Sabbath day miracle.  And it starts with another blind man.  Only this man was spiritually blind, so blind that he was trying to turn others away from the faith.  So verses 9-11 say, 

“Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, ‘You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?  And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.”

When the proconsul saw what happened to that man, verse 12 says he believed because “he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.”  After that, Paul was in a synagogue on the Sabbath and preached an incredible sermon saying that Jesus was the fulfillment of the scriptures that were read every Sabbath.  This was such good news that the people begged to be told more on the next Sabbath.  Sure enough a week later the whole city had gathered “to hear the word of the Lord.”  

But then the Jews got jealous of all the Gentiles that had come and turned against Paul.  Remember how Jesus told the blind man that while He was in the world, He was the light of the World?  Well, when Jesus ascended back into heaven, He didn’t leave the world lightless.  So in verse 46, Paul tells all the angry Jews even though it was necessary that the word of God be spoken to them first, because they rejected it, the apostles were now turning to the Gentiles.  

“For so the Lord has commanded us saying, ‘I have made YOU a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’ And when the Gentiles heard this they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.  And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region.”

And it is still spreading to this day!  That Sabbath day miracle is happening in the hearts of worshippers all over the world.  And some day Isaiah 66:23 says that God will be worshipped by everyone all the time.  The shadow of new moon celebrations and Sabbath day worship will finally be fulfilled.  

“From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the Lord.” 

Devo 5

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“And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars.  And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.  And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.”  Genesis 1:16-19

Everyone knows there are lots of stars but do you know how many different kinds of stars there are?  Scientists use several categories to classify stars including Hot, Cold, Bright, Dim Big, and Small.  Our sun is a G-2V star meaning it is a medium temperature, fairly bright, average sized main sequence star.  Sounds pretty ordinary, right?  But that’s exactly what it had to be to support life on earth!  Of the hundreds of different  known star types, most are too hot, too cold, too bright, too dim, too big, too small or too variable to support life.  But our sun is JUST RIGHT.  

But the sun and stars aren’t the only things in the sky.  The earth has another light that is also essential to life here on earth.  Did you know that if it weren’t for the moon’s gravity creating tides on earth that our oceans would stagnate and die?  The moon may not be as bright as the sun, but not only is it beautiful to look at and helpful in telling time, our moon is essential to maintaining balance in earth’s ecosystems. 

King Solomon was thinking of these different variations of brilliance and beauty when he wrote in his Songs 6:10, “Who is this who looks down like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as an army with banners?”  Solomon’s father David also recognized the differing glories between the sun and moon.  Psalm 104:19 and 136:1-9 remind us of the distinct roles between these two great lights.  “He made the moon to mark the seasons, the sun knows its time for setting” and,  “Give thanks to the Lord… to Him who made the great lights… the sun to rule over the day, the moon and stars to rule over the night, for His steadfast love endures forever.”

When God created the heavens and the earth, He went absolutely, over-the-top, overboard with “kinds.”  But He wasn’t just testing His own creative abilities.  According to Romans 1:18-23, it was through creation that God made Himself known to mankind by putting on display His invisible attributes, “His eternal power and divine nature.”  Every detail of the creative world is there to declare the glory and power of the One who made it.  

In 1 Corinthians 15:35-48 Paul answers questions about the resurrection of the dead by pointing to every single part of creation and specifically the varying kinds found within the created order.  “How are the dead raised?  What kind of body will they have?”  The Corinthian church asked.  Look at the plants, Paul says, A kernel of wheat has to die and go into the ground before it can be raised to new life, and when it is raised it will be raised the same kind of grain that went into the ground.  You don’t sow one kind of seed and have another kind of plant spring up from it.  The same goes for humans, animals, birds and fishes.  They only reproduce after their own kind.  Even among the heavenly bodies there are all different kinds.  “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.”

“So it is with the resurrection of the dead,” Paul explains, “What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.”  The natural body sown in dishonor and weakness is raised a spiritual body in glory and in power.  The first Adam, the man of the dust is raised in the heavenly image of the last Adam, Jesus Christ. 

Just as the sun and moon and stars differ from one another in glory, our heavenly body will differ from our earthly body in glory.  BUT we will still be of the same kind, for God gives to each kind of seed “a body as He has chosen.”  And according to the kind of seed we are, so we will be raised, either to glorified life everlasting or to judgement.  

What kind of seed are you?  Are you a ransomed seed bought with the blood of Christ, ready to be sown perishable but raised to glory, just as Christ was raised?  Or do you remain dead in your trespasses and sins, destined to go into the ground and raised only to judgement?  Dear friend, that could be today!  Unless you repent, whatever kind of seed you are now is the kind of seed you will die, be buried and raised as!  There is no changing after death.  

But God, in His great mercy can change you right now!  He can make you alive and change you from the inside out so that when your body goes into the ground it will be destined for a glorious resurrection in Christ Jesus, our Lord!  You need only trust the One who has already beaten death and conquered the grave, Jesus-The First Fruits, Jesus-The Last Adam, Jesus-The Bright Morning Star.