Saturday, September 04, 2010

Cosmic Billboard

“The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. 
Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is hidden from its heat.”
(Psalm 19:1-6)


Reread that passage again, this time out loud.



The circuit David describes here is the rotation of the Earth from the viewpoint of a man on Earth and is not teaching that the sun revolves around the Earth. By comparison, we use works like “sunrise” and “sunset” to describe the Earth’s rotation, when technically the sun does neither.[i]


“There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet


What does the universe communicate to us about God?





Reread Psalm 19:1-6 a couple times throughout today.
Meditate on what is being said.




The Moon is one-quarter of a million miles from Earth. It took astronauts three days to reach it back in 1969. If we could ride a bicycle nonstop to the Moon (i.e., 24 hours a day), it would take us three years!

And then on February 5, 1970, a microfilm packet containing Genesis 1:1 in sixteen languages and a complete RSV Bible were deposited on the Moon by Apollo 14 LEM Commander Edgar Mitchell.[ii]


[i] Spirit Filled Life Bible, , Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1991, 768.
[ii] Tan, P. L. 1996, c1979. Encyclopedia of 7700 illustrations : [a treasury of illustrations, anecdotes, facts and quotations for pastors, teachers and Christian workers]. Bible Communications: Garland TX.

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