Revision as of 14:20, 14 December 2021

Before God created anything, there was just God.

He looked for a place to put a universe. But he could not find any place outside of him. There was nothing larger than God, and so there was no space outside of him to create.

He opened a hole or pocket within himself, then spoke into the hole to create all things.

It was time to create his friends.

Imagine I want to make a friend, I have to reach into my pocket and pull him out. "Hi Adam, I'm Bob".

That's silly. But what do you think Adam would say? He doesn't know his name. He is looking at me and he thinks he must be just like me.

"Hi. I am Bob too!"

As silly as this sounds, it is exactly what Adam did with God.

"Hi Adam, I am God." "Hi God, I am God too."

God's name tells us this. His name is Elohim. 'El' means 'God'. 'Im' means water as a picture of his people. The 'H' sound means they don't understand. God is separated from his people because they don't understand.

Everything... absolutely everything after this is to teach us who God is.

1

God chose some people to teach everyone else about him. The problem was that they didn't know him very well themselves.

He wrote a play that they would be actors in. He gave them some commandments, a tabernacle, and some feasts to live by. These things were the script for the play that they would live. Everyone else would see what they did and learn about God from it.

While they were following the script; and often they did not, God was using their lives to write another story. When they did wjhat he asked, and when they didn't, God used their lives to write his story. He wrote about himself, Jesus and the cross using their history.

This is hard to understand. Imagine if you played hopscotch, and every jump you took, I used to tell the story of Jesus. As the people lived their lives, God used every jump to tell his story.

In this book, we will look at the rules God gave them about things they could eat and see the story about Jesus that God hid in it.

He had already said that they could eat anything. But if they wanted to teach about God, they would live in and around the script God gave them.

2

In order to hide a second story in the history of his people, God had to use symbols.

When you look at a picture of an apple, you know that it isn't an apple but just a symbol of an apple. It is something to make you think about apples.

Words are also symbols. The word 'dog' is not a dog. It is just a symbol to make you think of dogs. Words can be used to be symbols of other words.

When you are told to 'hop in the car', do you really hop all the way to the car and jump in? I don't think you do that. The word 'hop' is used as s symbol to mean 'get in'. Why would we use 'hop' instead of 'get in'?

"Get in" sounds bossy. Parents really don't like to boss you around. So to be just a little playful, they would say 'hop in'. We also use symbols in jokes and riddles.

I will tell you a secret riddle: Why did the chicken cross the road? The real answer is not "To get to the other side" but "To get to the other side". "The other side" is a symbol for going to heaven. If you saw a dead chicken in the road, you would ask the riddle.

3

The dietary law is filled with riddles. We have clues for the riddles from the names that Adam gave the animals. The names of the animals describe what the animals do. We sometimes have nicknames like this.

"Smiley" might be what we call a friend who is happy all the time.

Adam named the animals by watching them, then saying something about what they do.

The name 'camel' means to reward or punish. In the Bible, a camel is always a symbol of a judge. The symbol gets it's meaning from the word. What behavior did Adam see that made him name the camel this?

Camels can be very 'rewarding' by allowing you to ride them, and very friendly, like a dog, or they can be vicious and bite and spit. They can reward or punish you. I am just guessing what Adam saw, but whatever it was, we should still be able to see in the camel.

Pigs do not care what they eat. Eating is a symbol for learning. So the pig doesn't care what it learns. His name means 'discern a new revelation'. When the pig finds a new thing, he just eats it. He doesn't care if it is good for him or not, it's 'new'.

4

The dietary law was written for Israel. 'Israel' means 'man joined to God by revelation'. Jacob was called 'Israel' because God made a covenant with him in his dream and again as they wrestled. When the Hebrews were called Israel, God made the covenant at the mountain. You are called Israel because God has made a covenant with you through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

When the law was practiced by the Hebrews, they did not understand the riddles. They were just told to act them out. Now we know of Jesus and the cross, we can see what they acted out and understand the message that God hid in the play. The law is really for us, telling us about God. We don't need to act it out too.

In Tic-Tac-Toe you learned that you never have to lose. You could always force the game to a draw. Now when someone asks you to play you can say "Thanks. Draw" without having to play the game.

As we sit down to breakfast, we can eat the tasty bacon and be reminded that we should not learn (eat) from people who learn just anything without knowing if it is good or bad.

5

Since eating is a symbol for learning, each animal is a symbol of someone who would teach. Some people we should learn from, and some we should not learn from. Benjamin Franklin said, "He who lies down with dogs, gets up with fleas." He used dogs as a symbol for people who behave poorly, and fleas as bad behaviors we might learn from them.

The clean animals of the Bible are deceived as having two toes, like the cow and the deer. They also 'chew the cud'. The actual word means to pass through again. The cow will eat something and maybe regurgitate it up to three times to chew it again and again.

The cow has several stomachs, but you have only one. Please chew your food well before swallowing so that you only have to swallow once.

The split hoof, or two toes represent a separated walk or life. 'Walk' is as symbol for 'life'. If you have a separated life, you are living a life for God. If you are a clean animal, you learn from God's word, then you 'chew the cud', you think about it over and over again.

By learning this way, you learn to walk with God.

6

The camel, as a judge could reward or punish you. We hope our judges are good people we could learn from. But God's ways are not our ways. He is telling us a story about him, not about judges.

Jesus said he didn't come to judge us, but then he did.

Imagine that you sneaked some of the candy. When caught you said, "I could not help it. I had to have a piece". Then your brother says, "I wanted one, but I didn't take."

Your brother judged you by removing your excuse. When Jesus lived perfectly, he removed our excuse.

Jesus said that if we judge others, we will be judged. He judged us, so he was judged. Now here is the real mystery. We might think that when he was judged he was judged to be perfect.

He was guilty. The letter of the law killed him. The law said not to lie, yet Jesus taught in parables. Though the parable is true, it is not literally true. In the language of riddle, he lied.

Jesus broke every law but did not break even one.

We should not learn from judges, because if we judge, we will be judged.

7

When Adam named the coney he must have seen the coney take a treasure into his den, then return to the opening to defend it with bared teeth. His name means 'hide the treasure' but it also means 'mystery of the biting teeth'.

God is Holy and he is also Love. Holiness is expressed by separation, the law, and judgement. His love is expressed by patience, long-suffering, and self-sacrifice.

he judgement he gave in the Old Testament was required to teach us that he is holy. But now that we can see the play, given by his people, we can understand his holiness without him judging us.

Consider when Elisha removed an ax head from the stream. With an ax as a symbol of judgement, and the water a symbol of his word, he removed judgement from the Word.

The same story is told when Jesus turned water (the word) into wine (grace).

The coney hides the treasure, or message of love, and only presents the teeth; the law. They use the Bible to make themselves big by making everyone else small.

The law is to teach us about God. if you hide the love of God, then you are an enemy of God.

8

Hare

9

Swine

10

Not joined

11

Fish

12

Choosing our teachers

13

Appendix