Consider with me for a moment, about where our concepts of time come from -- the day, for instance. From whence did it arise? To give you a slight clue, imagine that as I ask this question I am standing in front of you, slowly rotating my index finger around in a circle. The obvious answer, along with the clue from the twirling index finger will quickly produce the answer; it comes from the rotation of the earth on its axis.
Well then, where does our idea of the year come from? Again the obvious answer, supported by the slowly rotating finger, will bring forth the answer; from the rotation of the earth around the sun!
Great! Now getting slightly harder; where does the month come from? Ahh! That comes from the rotation of the moon around the earth. (Ok. Not precisely, but close enough that it is called the Lunar month)
So now, with my finger still spinning in space, comes the last and hardest question. Where does the week come from?
Don't be embarrassed to stand there scratching your chin! Everyone else I ask this question of in America does exactly that. My rotating finger has gotten them searching their scientific knowledge to figure out what else happens in the astrological world on a seven day periodicity. Inevitably, the answer will come, "I really don't know!"
Which is part of my point here. I said "America" above, because if I do this exact same questioning with the spinning finger in China, the answer is always a very quick and ready, "It comes from the Bible! From the first chapter of Genesis!" And I can state this authoritatively because I have done this many times over in both countries. Even with Chinese "atheists".
How is it that the Chinese are aware of something that we, here in America, so steeped in the Bible, seem to miss? How could we possibly miss that one of the most precious creations coming out of the Genesis 1 was the week? Nothing else in the universe operates on a 7 day cycle. If God wanted to build into the heart of man the idea of a way of ordering life such that we would work for 6 days and then rest on the seventh, He had to do it with a good story. A great story! The story of creation. The whole world orders its life according to the week. And those societies that have tried to use other periods for a "week" have gone back to it.
So how is it that the West, can so universally miss this central theme of the first chapter of Genesis? After all, the idea of the Sabbath was one of the most pervasive themes throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament. Violation of it was one of the "high crimes" that Jesus was accused of by the Jewish authorities. He was never accused of promoting the heresy that the birds and the fish did not appear on the planet until the fifth, 24 hour day, 4000 years before he was standing there in the temple. His ministry was not to validate some "scientific" understanding of how God created the world, but to share his insights, as co-creator, about why God did it. The West has so often hijacked that story to be some highly detailed scientific account of how God made the world, rather than why God made the world, that we miss this point.
Put yourself back into those primitive "hunter-gatherer" days when all tribes on earth knew that their very existence was predicated upon spending every day seeking food to survive. And now, suddenly, you become aware that the neighboring tribe sits and does nothing on every seventh day! Well, not exactly nothing. They spend the day thinking about why they are here in the first place and in contemplating the One who created them! What an odd bunch of people. But it was exactly this penchant for obeying this God-given rhythm of life that became one of the most lasting, civilizing gifts of the Jews to mankind. A gift, rooted in a divinely inspired story. The West, having spent hundreds of years overlaying this story with scientific inquiry, miss, what the Eastern mind can clearly see in an instant.
So how is it that the West, can so universally miss this central theme of the first chapter of Genesis? After all, the idea of the Sabbath was one of the most pervasive themes throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament. Violation of it was one of the "high crimes" that Jesus was accused of by the Jewish authorities. He was never accused of promoting the heresy that the birds and the fish did not appear on the planet until the fifth, 24 hour day, 4000 years before he was standing there in the temple. His ministry was not to validate some "scientific" understanding of how God created the world, but to share his insights, as co-creator, about why God did it. The West has so often hijacked that story to be some highly detailed scientific account of how God made the world, rather than why God made the world, that we miss this point.
Put yourself back into those primitive "hunter-gatherer" days when all tribes on earth knew that their very existence was predicated upon spending every day seeking food to survive. And now, suddenly, you become aware that the neighboring tribe sits and does nothing on every seventh day! Well, not exactly nothing. They spend the day thinking about why they are here in the first place and in contemplating the One who created them! What an odd bunch of people. But it was exactly this penchant for obeying this God-given rhythm of life that became one of the most lasting, civilizing gifts of the Jews to mankind. A gift, rooted in a divinely inspired story. The West, having spent hundreds of years overlaying this story with scientific inquiry, miss, what the Eastern mind can clearly see in an instant.
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