Our Scripture Of The Week Is:

1 Corinthians 13:1 KJVS
[1] Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

Paul launches into one of the most loved and meaningful chapters in the Bible. It is brief, but it powerfully describes the very heart of what it means to live together as believers in Jesus. He begins by showing just how pointless even the most impressive spiritual gifts are without love.

Even the God-given, supernatural ability to speak in a language one doesn't know, even the language of angels, becomes as the sound of a noisy gong and clanging cymbal if it is not exercised with love. The specific word used here is agape, meaning a self-sacrificing and godly love.

The "tongues of men" are understood to be proper human languages. This is a gift given so that those who do not know the speaker's language can understand the message given by God. The language of angels may very well refer to the actual language spoken among heavenly beings, who apparently participated in some way in the worship gatherings of the early church (1 Corinthians 11:10).

Or, this might simply be a figure of speech Paul uses to make his larger point about the primacy of love. No matter how impressive such a display would be, it becomes nothing but repulsive noise when practiced without love for other believers.

Our topic today is:

NEW INSTRUCTIONS AND ARRANGEMENTS part 1 Discussion

Genesis 9 describes God's dealings with Noah and his sons in a world remade by the flood.
It can be divided into three sections.

First, God gives blessings and commands to Noah and his sons which very closely echo His words to Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:28), but with significant differences. God once again blesses mankind with both ability and responsibility to reproduce and fill the earth.

This time, however, God's instruction to subdue the earth includes the fact that all animals would be fearful of humanity. In Eden, God explicitly gave plants as a food source (Genesis 1:29–30).

Now, after the flood, in addition to plants, humanity is given overt permission to eat animals. However, they are not permitted to eat the blood of those animals. In addition, if a person kills another person—or an animal kills a person—God will now require the killer's life to be taken, as well, as a protection against the kind of violence that raged on the earth before the flood (Genesis 9:3–6).

Genesis 9 begins with God's blessing on, and charge to, the humans who remain alive on the earth. This blessing is similar to God's blessing on humankind in Genesis 1:28 and Genesis 5:2.
This is also the third instance so far in Scripture where God commands humanity to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth (Genesis 1:28; 8:17).

In a very real sense, this blessing shows that God is beginning again with Noah what He started with Adam. This time, however, there will be specific differences set out from the start of this reboot of God's relationship with humanity. Among these will be slightly different directions regarding food and the consequences of murder, for example.

The tendency of animals to fear and flee human beings will also be brought up in this passage.
Previously, God indicated that the animals of the ark were meant to repopulate the land devastated by the flood (Genesis 8:17). Now, God's command defines for Noah and his sons their greatest remaining purpose: reproduce.

These first verses of Genesis 9 repeat some of the language God used with Adam and Eve when He blessed them. After commanding Noah and his sons to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, God now speaks to them about subduing the animal kingdom, as He did with Adam (Genesis 1:28).
This command to rule over the animal kingdom is different from the original version given in Eden, however.

Instead of merely commanding Noah to subdue the earth, God tells Noah and sons that the animal kingdom will fear them. Every kind of non-human life will be fearful of humankind. Some interpret this to mean that, prior to the flood, animals did not fear man. Others suggest that this simply reinforces the hostile, difficult nature of survival in the post-flood world.

Now, however, God promises that humanity will triumph over the animal kingdom as if in a military battle. Humanity will reign supreme on the earth, even over the most fearsome of the animals. Whether or not animals feared man before the flood, and whether or not they had eaten them prior to flood, the relationship established upon leaving the ark is certain.

This verse establishes a mostly adversarial relationship between man and animals, something else lost from the paradise of Eden as the result of man's sinfulness. In this man-dominated relationship, animal-kind would fear people and people will triumph (Genesis 9:2).

God had said to Adam that he could eat from every plant, except for a single forbidden tree. God again gives humanity specific permission to eat, saying to Noah and his sons that they can eat anything that moves, as well as any of the plants.

This, in part, might explain the reason why man's relationship with animals is characterized in this passage as hostile. At this point in God's relationship with humankind, no restriction is mentioned about defining certain animals as edible or inedible: clean or unclean.

This may have been understood, in the sense that Noah would have considered those animals not previously defined as "clean" as inappropriate to eat (Genesis 7). The other possibility is that humans may have been free to eat animals categorized as "unclean" until God made them off-limits for His people in the Law (Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14).

The permission to eat anything that moves may have included an implied restriction against eating animals which had died of natural causes. In other words, only animals "moving" when man decided to eat them were acceptable. These first few verses of Genesis 9 include God's blessings and commands to Noah and his sons.

These instructions are also meant for the generations that will follow from them. God made clear that humanity was free to eat any kind of creature that moved. This would include birds, fish, beasts, and creeping things. Whether or not mankind was specifically allowed to eat animals prior to flood, they are given specific permission now to do just that.

However, while God does allow man the ability to eat animal flesh, He includes a restriction: Humans are not to eat the blood of these animals along with their flesh. The verse describes the blood as the animal's life. Later, under the Law of Moses, Israelites will be required to very carefully drain the blood from animals before consuming them.

This deep respect for blood is the first step in a long process, establishing the symbolism of Christ's sacrifice for human sin on the cross.

This is one of the first moments in Scripture where blood, specifically, is tied to life.
Later, through moments such as the first Passover (Exodus 12:1–7), and the sacrifices in the temple (Exodus 29:19–21; Leviticus 4:1–21), this reverence for blood will be magnified.
As mentioned before, the ultimate meaning of this symbol will be fulfilled in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross (John 1:29; 1 Corinthians 5:7).
The verse pivots from an animal's lifeblood to the shedding of the blood of humans.
This is a new command for the way human communities should conduct themselves; it is a change from God's requirements for mankind before the flood.
Specifically, God will require a reckoning—a dire accountability—when the lifeblood of a person is shed.

God will require that reckoning whether the one who kills a person is a man or an animal.
The next verse will reveal that reckoning to be the death of the one who kills any human being.
Following the first recorded murder in Scripture, God allowed Cain to live and, in fact, to thrive on the earth.

With this new beginning after the flood, however, God will require death for the intentional, unjustified killing of another person. God declared that, from this point forward in the post-flood world, He would require an account or reckoning whenever a human life was ended by man or animal.

The person or animal who killed another person was to be killed. The poetic language of the shedding of blood refers to death. The institution of the death penalty by God differs drastically from His response to Cain's murder of his brother Abel.

Then God allowed Cain to live and even to thrive on the earth (Genesis 4:15–16). However, the violence on the earth was part of God's reason for wiping out mankind with the flood (Genesis 6:5). God gives a specific reason for this new command to kill those who kill others: Humans are made in God's image (Genesis 1:26–27).

God values human life and will not allow the taking of life to stand without the killer giving an account. This command also shows that human life is valued above animal life in God's eyes. Men were allowed to kill and eat animals, but men or animals who killed a person would themselves be killed.

This specific reference to capital punishment—an offense worthy of physical death—is also important in that it predates the Law of Moses. Christians are often divided over the concept of the death penalty. As part of that debate, Genesis 9:6 reminds us that capital punishment did not ....