Elizabeth Esther’s August Saturday Evening Blog Post

This evening I decided to participate in fellow Californian Elizabeth Esther’s blog list for The Saturday Evening Blog Post. Please take a moment to check out the others.

Old Testament Grace: Genesis 6:8

This is my contribution to Hillary McFarland’s Journey to Grace project. I’ll be looking verse-by-verse at “grace” in the Old Testament. Since the New Testament was written by those who were familiar with and constantly referring to the Greek Old Testament, that seemed to be the best place to begin a study about how charis was understood during the first century. The Septuagint’s first instance of the form charin, translated as “favor” or “grace” in the NT, appears at the end of in Genesis 6:5-8 (ESV):

The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

What was so special about Noah? The following verse, Genesis 6:9a (ESV) says:

Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.

Noah’s faithfulness to God, made evident by his righteous behavior (James 2:14-26) in the midst of deprived humanity, resulted in him receiving the saving grace of God (Hebrews 11:7, 2 Peter 2:5), setting him apart from the rest who were destroyed (1 Peter 3:18-20). Although the world might tempt us to turn from God, it is our responsibility to remain faithful, continually following His Word. Learning from Noah's example, we shall not be ashamed in our confession of Christ (Mark 8:38, Luke 9:26).

A Not-So-Weird Evening

Yesterday evening, I took an opportunity to view the Bowers Museum’s Weird and Wonderful: Celebrating 75 Years of Collecting that opens this weekend. The exhibit appeared to be just a hodge-podge of artifacts from their permanent collection. This was unfortunate since some of the pieces, like an old photograph of Orange County’s only known lynching,* obviously deserve their own time on the center stage.

Quilts: Two Centuries of American Traditions and Technique was also open, so I peeked into that for a few minutes. While gazing at the familiar patterns I’ve seen before on family members’ work, I chuckled to myself remembering my feeble attempt at quilting as a child. I wasn’t the only one. As I moved around the displays I overheard a number of older women comment similarly.

After taking a break from the museum to listen to a few blues numbers by 3rd Degree, I headed over to Gemstone Carvings: The Masterworks of Harold Van Pelt. Absolutely heaven! It’s fascinating how he’ll incorporate the stones’ veins, which I’d always seen as flaws, into his designs. My favorite piece was a jar made from petrified wood that was absolutely gorgeous. If I had my own house and an endless decorating budget, I’d definitely hire the man.

*My interest springs from having read Ken Gonzales-Day’s Lynching in the West: 1850–1935 and seen The Ox-Bow Incident starring Henry Fonda, which touch upon an often ignored part of American history: the lynching of white and Hispanics in the “Wild West.”